It has finally happened, the IETF is relieving the IESG Secretariat of one of her most recognized roles, the proccessing of new Internet Draft Documents. Very soon there will be an automated procedure for submitting new Internet Draft Documents to the IETF/IESG. For many years the standing procedure has been that an Internet Draft Document author would prepare their drafts and email them to the IESG Secretariat to make them publicly availible to the Internet as a whole, the first milestone on the road to becoming an RFC. The human element is very important to the heritage of the I-D system. Without human hands guiding these documents to their destination it is possible that a document will be submitted and no one will ever see it as it simply becomes part of the larger public repository. There is a level of anticipation that will no longer be present, as each draft is availible instantly. Years ago it was exciting to me to submit my I-D to the IESG a few weeks before an IETF meeting, watching and waiting for my document to appear with everyone elses in the list of new drafts to be considered.
The IESG secretariat will still recieve documents that have been determined to have errors, most documents will make their way to the draft repositories without ever beeing met by human eyes.
Announced in: RFC 4228