Re: My final attempt on explanation (was RE: [DRAFT] Heartbeat poll - update 2)

On Monday 2009-08-03 17:58 -0700, John Foliot wrote:
> Within the W3C, progress is made by reaching consensus.  There is no
> consensus surrounding @summary, and there is no consensus surrounding your
> current advisory text that tells authors to not use @summary.  Progress
> through consensus is made when we find a meeting point that all can agree
> to.

Requiring consensus is only a viable when the parties to be involved
in the consensus all have interests in the success of the standard.
Parties who want to see a standardization effort fail can't be
counted as part of the group among whom consensus is required.  They
should instead campaign from the outside against the standard, or in
favor of an alternative.

I think in this case there is no consensus because a small group of
people want to block consensus due to an emotional attachment to
@summary, and therefore refuse to discuss the evidence presented to
the group that it has completely failed in practice.  I think a
rational discussion of that evidence would lead to the conclusions
that Ian has already reached.  And I think the people involved don't
care whether the standard fails, and therefore have no incentive to
try to work with others towards reaching consensus.

-David

-- 
L. David Baron                                 http://dbaron.org/
Mozilla Corporation                       http://www.mozilla.com/

Received on Tuesday, 4 August 2009 02:19:52 UTC