Editorial Review Board
Charter
The editorial review board shepherds IFP specifications through their status lifecycle. The board exists to ensure that promoted specifications meet the quality bar the ecosystem depends on.
Responsibilities
- Review IFP drafts for technical soundness, clarity, consistency with IFP-1 principles, and readiness for status promotion.
- Shepherd the process – help authors improve their specifications, mediate when reviewers disagree, and maintain the quality and coherence of the IFP series.
- Maintain the repository – merge approved changes, keep the IFP table current, and ensure the repository remains navigable.
- Guard the principles – ensure that new specifications remain consistent with the foundational commitments in IFP-1: human legibility, progressive trust, decentralization, and high signal-to-noise.
What the Board Does Not Do
- The board does not dictate content. Authors own their specifications.
- The board does not have veto power over topics. Anyone can propose an IFP on any topic.
- The board does not control adoption. A specification becomes Active when at least two independent implementations interoperate, regardless of the board’s opinion.
Precedent
This role has a distinguished precedent. Jon Postel served as the IETF’s editorial function in the early internet days – as RFC Editor, he personally shepherded the specifications that became the foundation of the Internet. The Inter-Face editorial review board aspires to the same spirit of selfless stewardship. (See IFP-1, Dedication.)
Board members should combine sociological awareness (understanding how conventions spread and why people adopt them), deep technical judgment (evaluating protocol design trade-offs), and the right kind of energy for shepherding work that is collaborative rather than bureaucratic.
Current Members
| Member |
Role |
Since |
| Peter Kaminski |
Founding editor |
2026-03 |
The board is intentionally small at this stage. As the community grows, additional members will be added.
How to Join
The editorial review board grows by invitation from existing members, based on demonstrated engagement with the IFP process: writing specifications, reviewing proposals, building implementations, and contributing to discussions.
If you are interested in joining, the best path is to participate: propose an IFP, review someone else’s, build an implementation, or engage constructively in Issue discussions. The board will notice.
Process
Reviewing a Draft IFP
When a new IFP is submitted via pull request:
- A board member reads the specification and provides feedback within the PR.
- Feedback focuses on: Does it solve a real problem? Is it clear enough to implement? Is it consistent with IFP-1? Are there security considerations that need to be addressed?
- The author revises in response to feedback.
- When the board is satisfied, the PR is merged.
When an author requests promotion (Draft to Proposed, Proposed to Active):
- The author opens a PR updating the Status field.
- A board member reviews the specification for readiness.
- For Proposed: Is the specification stable and clear enough for experimental implementation?
- For Active: Are there at least two independent implementations that interoperate?
- The board approves or requests changes.
Disputes
If an author and the board disagree on a review outcome, the disagreement should be documented in the PR or Issue. The community can weigh in. Resolution is by rough consensus, not vote.