BCP 14
E35652
BCP 14 is an IETF Best Current Practice document that standardizes the use of requirement-level keywords like “MUST,” “SHOULD,” and “MAY” in technical specifications.
All labels observed (2)
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T271054 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: BCP 14 Context triple: [Best Current Practice, hasExample, BCP 14]
-
A.
BCP 38
BCP 38 is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Best Current Practice that recommends network ingress filtering to prevent IP address spoofing and reduce the impact of denial-of-service attacks.
-
B.
RFC 9114
RFC 9114 is the Internet standard that specifies HTTP/3, the version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that runs over the QUIC transport protocol.
-
C.
RFC 5321
RFC 5321 is the Internet standard that specifies the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) used for email transmission across IP networks.
-
D.
RFC 1939
RFC 1939 is the Internet standard document that specifies the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) used for retrieving email from a mail server.
-
E.
RFC 9112
RFC 9112 is the IETF specification that standardizes the semantics and behavior of HTTP/1.1.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: BCP 14 Target entity description: BCP 14 is an IETF Best Current Practice document that standardizes the use of requirement-level keywords like “MUST,” “SHOULD,” and “MAY” in technical specifications.
-
A.
BCP 38
BCP 38 is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Best Current Practice that recommends network ingress filtering to prevent IP address spoofing and reduce the impact of denial-of-service attacks.
-
B.
RFC 9114
RFC 9114 is the Internet standard that specifies HTTP/3, the version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that runs over the QUIC transport protocol.
-
C.
RFC 5321
RFC 5321 is the Internet standard that specifies the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) used for email transmission across IP networks.
-
D.
RFC 1939
RFC 1939 is the Internet standard document that specifies the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) used for retrieving email from a mail server.
-
E.
RFC 9112
RFC 9112 is the IETF specification that standardizes the semantics and behavior of HTTP/1.1.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
IETF Best Current Practice document
ⓘ
requirements language specification ⓘ standards document ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
IETF technical specifications
ⓘ
Internet Standards Track documents ⓘ |
| category | Best Current Practice ⓘ |
| clarifies |
distinction between mandatory and optional behavior
ⓘ
when requirement keywords apply ⓘ |
| defines | requirement-level keywords ⓘ |
| definesConcept |
normative keywords
ⓘ
requirements levels ⓘ |
| definesTerm |
"MAY" as a truly optional feature
ⓘ
"MUST" as an absolute requirement ⓘ "SHOULD" as a strong recommendation ⓘ |
| domain |
Internet standards
ⓘ
computer networking ⓘ |
| encourages | consistent capitalization of requirement keywords ⓘ |
| governs | interpretation of capitalized requirement words ⓘ |
| hasAbbreviation | BCP 14 ⓘ |
| hasStatus | active Best Current Practice ⓘ |
| influences | requirements language in non-IETF standards ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
authors of IETF specifications
ⓘ
implementers of Internet protocols ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| objective | to reduce ambiguity in standards language ⓘ |
| partOf | IETF BCP series ⓘ |
| publishedBy | Internet Engineering Task Force ⓘ |
| purpose | to ensure consistent interpretation of requirement levels in specifications ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
RFC 2119
ⓘ
RFC 8174 ⓘ |
| requires | keywords to be in uppercase for normative meaning ⓘ |
| scope | normative language in RFCs ⓘ |
| standardizesUseOf |
"MAY"
ⓘ
"MUST NOT" ⓘ "MUST" ⓘ "OPTIONAL" ⓘ "RECOMMENDED" ⓘ "REQUIRED" ⓘ "SHALL NOT" ⓘ "SHALL" ⓘ "SHOULD NOT" ⓘ "SHOULD" ⓘ |
| usedFor |
expressing conformance requirements
ⓘ
writing protocol specifications ⓘ writing technical standards ⓘ |
| usedIn |
Internet protocol design
ⓘ
network architecture documents ⓘ security protocol specifications ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: BCP 14 Description of subject: BCP 14 is an IETF Best Current Practice document that standardizes the use of requirement-level keywords like “MUST,” “SHOULD,” and “MAY” in technical specifications.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.