I don’t know how it happened, but people in the proposals world have to use a lot of acronyms that begin with the letters “RF.” But one “RF” acronym isn’t strictly a proposal acronym, and that’s the acronym “RFC,” or “Request for Comments.”
In one sense, RFC has a very limited meaning. It is often used specifically to refer to documents provided by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
A Request for Comments (RFC) is a numbered document, which includes appraisals, descriptions and definitions of online protocols, concepts, methods and programmes. RFCs are administered by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). A large part of the standards used online are published in RFCs.
But the IETF doesn’t hold an exclusive trademark on the RFC acronym. As I noted in a post on my personal blog, the National Institute of Standards and Technology recently requested comments on a draft document, NISTIR 8334 (Draft), Mobile Device Biometrics for Authenticating First Responders | CSRC.
While a Request for Comments differs in some respects from a Request for Proposal or a Request for Information, all of the “RFs” require the respondents to follow some set of rules. Comments, proposals, and information need to be provided in the format specified by the appropriate “RF” document. In the case of NIST’s RFC, all comments needed to include some specific information:
- The commenter’s name.
- The commenter’s email address.
- The line number(s) to which the comment applied.
- The page number(s) to which the comment applied.
- The comment.
Comments could be supplied in one of two ways (via email and via web form submission). I chose the former.
On the other hand, NIST’s RFC didn’t impose some of the requirements found in other “RF” documents.
- Unlike a recent RFI to which I responded, I could submit as many pages as I liked, and use any font size that I wished. (Both are important for those respondents who choose to meet a 20-page limit by submitting 8-point text.)
- Unlike a recent RFP to which I responded, I was not required to state all prices in US dollars, exclusive of taxes. (In fact, I didn’t state any prices at all.)
- I did not have to provide any hard copies of my response. (Believe it or not, some government agencies STILL require printed responses to RFPs. Thankfully, they’re not requiring 12 copies of said responses these days like they used to.)
- I did not have to state whether or not I was a small business, provide three years of audited financials, or state whether any of the principal officers of my company had been convicted of financial crimes. (I am a small business; my company doesn’t have three years of financials, audited or not; and I am not a crook.)
So RFC responses aren’t quite as involved as RFP/RFI responses.
But they do have a due date and time.
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