Re: HTML5-warnings - motivations (was: HTML5-warnings - request to publish as next heartbeat WD)

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 8:22 AM, Manu Sporny<msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:

> I edited the HTML5-warnings draft because I believe that when the W3C
> publishes a document to the public that is Controversial, it should
> attempt to communicate which parts of that document are problematic. It
> should be done in a way that is not overly broad, but specific to key
> sections. I worry more about HTML5's success in the marketplace than I
> do about RDFa's success in the marketplace.

The concern I have with the HTML5-warnings draft is that it doesn't
appear to have defined the term "controversial" or what issues are
"controversial" using the consensus building approach that the W3C
values. So while I think it is a good start towards better
communication with the public it is inconsistent with the HTML WG's
own issue tracker, the [section status annotations][1] found in the
WHATWG's version of the spec, [see the <bb> element for one such
"controversial" flag][2], and the working group as a whole. As
jokingly noted on #whatwg's IRC we don't even enjoy consensus on the
method of styling section status indicators in the draft. It seems
like we would best served by getting our own house in order first
before attempting to communicate any message to a larger audience.

As background to all this, I'll note that one of the things we did at
the October 2008 f2f meeting in France was go through the WHATWG
edition of the spec at that time and use the section status annotation
feature to at least note an informal idea of where things were. For
various reasons, (mostly technical I believe) reasons the annotation
tool is not currently available on the HTML WG draft. I believe we
completed marking every section in the spec at that time but I don't
know how many of changed since then, whether there's an accurate
change history kept, etc. (many still note their last updated
timestamp as October 2008 via Mike Smith who was toggling the statuses
after discussion in the room.)

Shawn

[1]: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/interactive-elements.html#the-bb-element
[2]: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/status-documentation.html

Received on Monday, 10 August 2009 15:46:25 UTC