# Shepherd Writeup for draft-wilde-service-link-rel-08
## 1. Summary
Mark Nottingham is the document shepherd; Alexey Melnikov is the responsible
Area Director.
Many resources provided on the Web are part of sets of resources that are
provided in a context that is managed by one particular service provider.
Often, these sets of resources are referred to as "Web Services" or "Web APIs".
This specification defines link relations for representing relationships from
those resources to ones that provide documentation, descriptions, or metadata
for these Web services. Documentation is primarily intended for human
consumers, whereas descriptions are primarily intended for automated consumers;
metadata is supposed to be information about a service's context. It also
defines a link relation to identify status resources that are used to represent
operational information about service status.
## 2. Review and Consensus
This document has not seen substantial discussion in IETF fora, but the HTTP
Working Group is aware of it. It has been reviewed by the various review teams
across the IETF.
## 3. Intellectual Property
The author confirms that to their direct, personal knowledge, all IPR related
to this document has already been disclosed, in conformance with BCPs 78 and 79.
## 4. Other Points
As Document Shepherd, I think Informational is appropriate for this document;
it's not likely to cause harm, and it may do some good, but it hasn't been
widely reviewed or implemented enough to make it standards-track.