Input Document: RFC 8820 — URI Design and Ownership

[alficles]

This is an odd input document, but one I think we need to grapple with: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8820

   This document's guidelines and requirements target the authors of
   specifications that constrain the syntax or structure of URIs or
   parts of them.

This document is talking directly to us. Insofar as we disagree with it, we should do so intentionally and with thought given to its warnings.

Several of the concerns it brings up are concerns we should contemplate:

   *  Collisions - As more ad hoc conventions for URI structure become
      standardized, it becomes more likely that there will be collisions
      between them (especially considering that servers, applications,
      and individual deployments will have their own conventions).

   *  Dilution - When the information added to a URI is ephemeral, this
      dilutes its utility by reducing its stability (see [webarch],
      Section 3.5.1) and can cause several alternate forms of the URI to
      exist (see [webarch], Section 2.3.1).
[...]
   *  Client Assumptions - When conventions are standardized, some
      clients will inevitably assume that the standards are in use when
      those conventions are seen.  This can lead to interoperability
      problems; for example, if a specification documents that the "sig"
      URI query parameter indicates that its payload is a cryptographic
      signature for the URI, it can lead to undesirable behavior.