4 The kinds of document, and the ten words that decide them

4.1 Two fields decide everything

Every document of the meeting carries a type and a status. Learn those two columns and you can read a plenary's document list without opening a single file.

The type says what kind of paper it is. The status says what the room did with it. Neither is a summary of the content, and neither is negotiable — they are the words the meeting's own record carries.

Chapter How to follow a plenary yourself is about where to find those columns. This chapter is about what the words in them mean.

4.2 The kinds of document

20 different kinds turned up at SA#112 ^[1]. The register breaks out ten, and these are the five you meet constantly.

• CR — change request. A patch to an existing specification. Usually it travels inside a pack: only 14 stood alone ^[2] against 120 packs ^[3]. Chapter The change requests — 689 of them, in packs is entirely about these.

• WID — work item description. The paper that asks permission to write normative text. 53 arrived new at this meeting ^[4].

• SID — study item description. The same thing for a study, which produces a technical report rather than binding text. 10 arrived new ^[5] and 9 came back revised ^[6].

• LS — liaison statement. A letter to or from another standards body or another 3GPP group. 18 came in ^[7]. Chapter The post — who wrote to 3GPP, and who 3GPP wrote back to follows the traffic.

• Report and draft TR. 29 reports ^[8] and 28 draft technical reports ^[9] — the working groups' accounts of themselves, and technical reports brought for approval or for information.

Two more kinds fill the gaps. 20 discussion papers argue a position rather than propose text ^[10] — Qualcomm's case for markdown and git is one SP-260544. And 13 documents are typed only "other" ^[11], which at this meeting includes the Release 21 timeline SP-260595 and a paper from ten public bodies on 6G security SP-260584.

Beyond those, the meeting carries a handful of kinds that appear once or twice and are easy to miss. The agenda is itself a numbered document of the meeting SP-260361. So is the work plan review SP-260606, a working group's terms of reference SP-260470, a rapporteur's summary of a work item SP-260616, a study's own status report SP-260406 and an outgoing letter SP-260655.

4.3 The ten words

Every one of the meeting's 346 documents ended with one of these ten, and each one decides something different.

Word	Docs	One that got it	What it decides
approved	199	SP-260379	agreed, and it takes effect
noted	68	SP-260385	read and filed; no decision taken
revised	60	SP-260417	superseded by a new document number
postponed	5	SP-260411	held over to a later meeting
endorsed	4	SP-260679	supported, but not specification text
partially approved	4	SP-260387	part of the pack went through
merged	2	SP-260613	folded into another document
withdrawn	2	SP-260643	pulled before a decision
agreed	1	SP-260595	agreed in the joint session
replied to	1	SP-260363	answered by an outgoing letter

4.4 Approved

The plainest word, and the one most often over-read. It covers well over half the meeting, from the agenda itself SP-260361 through the largest change-request pack SP-260379 to the outgoing letter on 6G terminology SP-260697.

Approved means the plenary agreed it and it takes effect. It does not mean published, it does not mean implemented, and it does not tell you whether anybody argued.

4.5 Noted

Noted is the word people paraphrase into something it is not. It means read and filed: the plenary has seen the paper and is taking no decision on it.

Almost every incoming letter ends this way. NGMN's view on when 6G can realistically be deployed was noted SP-260385. So was SA WG2's status report on the 6G architecture study SP-260372, and the utilities' plea that gas and water meters not be forgotten SP-260382.

So were both halves of the specification-modernisation study — its own report SP-260406 and its draft technical report SP-260407 — and both of the papers arguing about how 3GPP should write, from Qualcomm SP-260544 and from Ericsson and Nokia SP-260600.

Noting a paper is not disagreeing with it. It is declining to decide.

4.6 Revised

Sixty documents ended revised, and this is the word that trips up anybody searching by title.

Revised means the document was replaced by a different document number during the meeting. The work item on an ultra low bitrate speech codec for satellite voice arrived as SP-260417 and was revised; the version that was approved is SP-260696. Same title, same work, two numbers, one decision — and the decision belongs to the second.

The work plan review went the same way SP-260606.

4.7 The words for a decision that did not quite happen

• Postponed — held over to a later meeting. The change to the change-request process for 3GPP Forge was postponed SP-260411, and the report's whole account of it is three words: "This was postponed." ^[13] So was SA WG1's terms of reference SP-260470, but for a stated reason: so that all six groups could be compared side by side ^[14].

• Withdrawn — pulled before a decision. The revision of the paper from ten public bodies on designing 6G to be secure from the start was withdrawn during the meeting SP-260643; the paper it revised was noted SP-260584.

• Merged — folded into another document. Nokia's draft reply about emergency services ended merged SP-260613 while the reply that went out was SP-260655.

• Partially approved — part of the pack went through SP-260387. The status word tells you the pack was split. It does not tell you where.

4.8 The words that are weaker or stranger than approval

Endorsed means supported, but what is endorsed is not specification text. The chair's guidance closing the modernisation argument was endorsed SP-260679, and the report says exactly that: "This was endorsed." ^[15] So was a rapporteur's summary of a work item SP-260616, and so was a slide template: "This Welcome slides Template was endorsed." ^[16]

Agreed appears once in the whole meeting, on the Release 21 timeline SP-260595, because it was agreed in the joint session with TSG RAN rather than by TSG SA alone ^[17].

Replied to also appears once, on the incoming letter from ETSI TC EMTEL about accessibility in emergency communications SP-260363. It is the only letter of the eighteen that got an answer.

4.9 Following one subject through the words

A subject rarely gets one document and one word. Three threads from this meeting show the usual shapes.

• T1. Revised, then approved. The satellite speech codec arrived as SP-260417 and left as SP-260696. The report's account of the outcome is "This new WID was approved." ^[18], and the question it did not settle went upwards, to the Project Co-ordination Group ^[19].

• T2. Noted, then withdrawn. The paper from ten public bodies on secure-by-design 6G was noted SP-260584 and its revision was pulled SP-260643. Two documents, no decision, and a subject that is plainly not finished.

• T3. In, merged, out. A letter arrived and was replied to SP-260363; two answers were drafted; one was merged SP-260613 and one went out SP-260655.

Read those threads and the status words stop being labels and start being a grammar. "Revised" points forward to another number. "Merged" points sideways to a document that absorbed it. "Replied to" points to an outgoing letter. "Withdrawn" points nowhere, which is itself the information.

4.10 Where this leads

Part 2 of this course walks the meeting's substance in the order the agenda groups it, starting with the calendar: Release planning — the timeline, the checkpoint and the names.