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5. Media Type Registration Procedures

The media type registration procedure is not a formal standards process, but rather an administrative procedure intended to allow community comment and sanity checking without excessive time delay.

5.1 Preliminary Community Review​

Notice of a potential media type registration SHOULD be sent to the [email protected] mailing list for review. This mailing list has been established for the purpose of reviewing proposed media and access types. Registrations MAY be sent directly to IANA if the media type is being registered in the vendor or personal tree and the registrant wishes to forgo the review process; however, using the review process is strongly encouraged.

The intent of the public posting is to solicit comments and feedback on the choice of type/subtype name, the unambiguity of the references with respect to versions and external profiling information, and a review of any interoperability or security considerations.

5.2 Submit Request to IANA​

Registration proposals are submitted to IANA using the media type registration template described in Section 5.6.

5.2.1 Provisional Registrations​

With

the exception of registrations in the standards tree, media types MAY be registered in a "provisional" manner, prior to the development of a formal specification. This is useful for media types that are under active development but for which a complete specification has not yet been created.

5.3 Review and Approval​

Following the posting of a media type registration request, the designated expert(s) will review the proposed registration. As part of this review, the expert(s) may raise issues that need to be addressed before the registration can be approved.

For all registrations other than those in the standards tree, the expert(s) may approve the registration once any issues raised are satisfactorily addressed. For standards tree registrations, the expert(s) must check that the registration fulfills all the requirements specified in this document.

5.4 Comments on Media Type Registrations​

Comments on registered media types may be submitted by members of the community to IANA. Comments will be passed on to the "owner" of the media type if possible.

5.5 Change Procedures​

Once a media type has been published by the IANA, the owner may request a change to the specification. The change procedure depends on the registration tree involved.

Media types in the standards tree may be modified by the same processes used to create them.

Media types in the vendor and personal trees can be changed by the owner at any time.

5.6 Registration Template​

The following is the template for media type registration:

Type name:
Subtype name:
Required parameters:
Optional parameters:
Encoding considerations:
Security considerations:
Interoperability considerations:
Published specification:
Applications which use this media type:
Fragment identifier considerations:
Additional information:
  Magic number(s):
  File extension(s):
  Macintosh file type code(s):
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Intended usage:
Restrictions on usage:
Author:
Change controller:
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