Call for Input: Add "status" tag in Citation

[poojaranjan]

Call for Input

Decision	The "Citation" includes a status tag for every EIP, except when the EIP status is `Final` or `Living`.
If Affirmed	Merge ethereum/EIPs/pull/11198
If Rejected	Update PR to reflect the status tag for every EIP **only when** the EIP status is `Final` or `Living`.
Method	Rough Consensus
Deadline	March 17, 2026

Background

PR ethereum/EIPs/pull/11198 has been created to address a bug identified in ethereum/EIPs/issues/11140.

One proposed solution is to include a status tag in the “Citation” section for every EIP, except when the status is Final or Living. An alternative suggestion is to do the reverse and include the status tag only for Final or Living EIPs. Ref: Comment.

This call for input is to gather feedback and reach a decision on whether to merge the PR as proposed or update it accordingly.

Checklist

I, the opener of this Call for Input, have completed the following:

• Filled in a descriptive title.
• Filled in the "Decision" field.
• Filled in the "If Affirmed" field.
• Filled in the "If Rejected" field.
• Filled in the "Method" field.
• Filled in the "Deadline" field to be thirty days from creation.
• Added any relevant background information (or removed the section.)
• Published a notice in writing to the usual channels frequented by EIP Editors (likely Discord.)
• Commented on this Call for Input, clearly stating my opinion (or abstention.)

[SamWilsn]

I'd like to have "draft" on every status, except living/final.

[poojaranjan]

@SamWilsn

I'd like to have "draft" on every status, except living/final.

It may create confusion for new contributors if an EIP displays different statuses on the same page. Would you be open to aligning the status across:

• Page status
• Preamble status
• Citation status

We could exclude the citation status label when the Page and Preamble status is Living or Final .

[g11tech]

the reason I would want the other way around is draft status is not final, all EIP references are draft by default or reader checks the current status on the page

only living and final positvely indicates that this has been accepted and is unchanged and can stay published like that

[SamWilsn]

Perhaps a different word than "draft" then, but citations without a [label] are assumed to be citing completed works.

[SamWilsn]

Claude's thoughts

How do the most popular citation styles (IEEE, APA, Chicago, etc.) handle citing works in progress, drafts, or whatever?

Great question — this comes up more than you'd think, especially in fast-moving fields. Here's how the major styles approach it:

IEEE treats unpublished or in-progress works with a specific label. You cite them similarly to a normal reference but add "unpublished" or "to be published" where the publication info would go. For manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted, you'd use something like "submitted for publication." If it's a personal draft or internal document, IEEE generally discourages citing it at all unless absolutely necessary, in which case you'd label it as a private communication.

APA (7th edition) has a more structured approach. For manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted, you use the label "Manuscript submitted for publication" in place of the journal name and date. For accepted but not yet published works, you use "in press" in place of the year. Informally circulated drafts get cited as "Unpublished manuscript," optionally with the department and institution. APA also accommodates preprints (e.g., from arXiv or PsyArXiv) as their own category — you cite them with the preprint server name and DOI.

Chicago/Turabian is relatively flexible. In notes-bibliography style, you can cite unpublished manuscripts by describing what they are — "unpublished manuscript," "draft," "working paper," etc. — with as much identifying info as you have (author, title, date, institutional affiliation). The author-date style handles it similarly, using "forthcoming" for accepted works and "unpublished manuscript" for everything else.

MLA uses "Forthcoming" for accepted works in place of the publication date. For drafts or truly unpublished material, MLA treats them as unpublished sources — you provide the author, title, a description of the format (e.g., "Unpublished essay"), and the date if known.

Harvard (which varies by institution) generally follows a pattern similar to APA: "in press" for accepted works, "unpublished" for everything else, with as much metadata as you can provide.

A few cross-cutting principles worth noting: every style distinguishes between accepted but not yet published (which gets a stronger citation, often "in press" or "forthcoming") and submitted or still in draft (which is treated more cautiously). Most styles also recommend that if a preprint version exists on a public server with a DOI or stable URL, you cite that rather than calling it "unpublished" — it gives readers a way to actually find the thing. And across the board, purely private drafts that a reader can't access are discouraged as citations; if you must reference one, many styles suggest treating it like a personal communication rather than a formal bibliographic entry.

Given this example, how would you avoid overloading the word "draft":

Mengshi Zhang (@MengshiZhang), Zihao Chen (@zihaoccc), "ERC-7406: Multi-Namespace Onchain Registry [DRAFT]," Ethereum Improvement Proposals, no. 7406, July 2023. Available: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7406.

Drop it from the title entirely and move it to a note. The bracket tag isn't really part of the proposal's name — it's metadata about where it sits in the ERC process. So you'd cite the canonical title and then clarify status separately:

M. Zhang and Z. Chen, "ERC-7406: Multi-Namespace Onchain Registry," Ethereum Improvement Proposals, no. 7406, Jul. 2023. Status: Draft. [Online]. Available: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7406

Here's Claude's and my suggestion:

- Mengshi Zhang (@MengshiZhang), Zihao Chen (@zihaoccc), "ERC-7406: Multi-Namespace Onchain Registry [DRAFT]," Ethereum Improvement Proposals, no. 7406, July 2023. Available: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7406.
+ Mengshi Zhang (@MengshiZhang), Zihao Chen (@zihaoccc), "ERC-7406: Multi-Namespace Onchain Registry," Ethereum Improvement Proposals, no. 7406, July 2023. Status: Draft. Available: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7406.

For non-Final non-Living proposals, get rid of [DRAFT], and instead add Status: Foobar. after the date, where Foobar is replaced with the proposal's status.

[jochem-brouwer]

Hmm these citations they link to a non-permalink and thus the status can be different if you open such ref. What do we think about this? I actually think it would be more correct to permalink EIPs such that their reported status is also the correct one, and it is clear to what version of the EIP it links to. Especially for draft EIPs which can change a lot over time, such that the latest version might be super weird when compared to the document which cites it.

I'm really unsure here. The citations seem to be non-permalinks so these would update to a new status if the EIP would move from a drafty status to a final status? For completeness and also to help to view the perspective of the EIP back when it was written I feel that all citations should be permalinked if they ref to other EIPs, and therefore their status is also anchored.

[poojaranjan]

For non-Final non-Living proposals, get rid of [DRAFT], and instead add Status: Foobar. after the date, where Foobar is replaced with the proposal's status.

This PR is ready based on the decision discussed above.
Editors may review at their convenience and test it locally before merging.