What is an Erratum?

Hi,

<AD hat on, and trying to keep clear of my views on the details of the RFC 4872
erratum>

There seems to be some doubt about what to use an Erratum for.

http://www.rfc-editor.org/status_type_desc.html shows the two types of Erratum:

Technical: Error in the technical content (Note that changes in the usage of RFC
2119 keywords are considered technical.)

Editorial: A spelling, grammar, punctuation, or syntax error that does not
affect the technical meaning.

IMHO the issue for RFC 4872 does not fall into either category. You have some
proposed additional / revised text that you believe would make the document
easier to understand, but which (if captured correctly) would not change the
technical meaning. That is not an Editorial Erratum. We fix this type of error
by capturing the understanding on the mailing list, or by writing an
Informational RFC that adds an explanation.

OTOH, if the belief is that there is an error in the technical content of the
document such that the proposed change will change the technical consequences of
the document, then this also does not feel into either category since it is not
a documentation error, but a content error. We fix this type of error by writing
an Update or by rev'ing the RFC.

http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/errata-processing.html gives further
guidelines about how the IESG will treat errata that it receives.