Internet Standard
An Internet Standard is documented by a Request for Comments (RFC) or a set of RFCs. A specification that is to become a Standard or part of a Standard begins as an Internet Draft, and is later, usually after several revisions, accepted and published by the RFC Editor as an RFC and labeled a "Proposed Standard". Later, an RFC is elevated as "Internet Standard", with an additional sequence number, when maturity has reached an acceptable level. Collectively, these stages are known as the "Standards Track", and are defined in RFC 2026 and RFC 6410. The label "Historic" is applied to deprecated Standards Track documents or obsolete RFCs that were published before the Standards Track was established.