Re: Questions about the Questions

On Mon, 9 Sep 1996 14:34:50 -0400 Martin Bryan said:
>Before attempting to answer the questions asked in the forms
>associated with DD-1996-002.html it is necessary to raise some
>questions about the expectations of our user community. ...

>There are many other questions that need to be asked with respect to
>the other questions we are asked to vote on, but there is no general
>provision for us to attach qualifications or comments to our answers.
>I would suggest that a Comments textarea could usefully be added to
>each question to allow us to qualify our responses where appropriate.

As one of the culprits responsible for the form taken by the voting
booth, let me concur in the view that qualifications and comments on
the questions before us are clearly necessary and important.  Our
idea -- my idea, at least, and I think Tim Bray and Jon Bosak agree
-- was and remains that such comments are most usefully made on this
list, in order that they can contribute to the general discussion.

On the specific questions you raise, I will hazard some views, in
separate postings (as requested by Jon Bosak), as a way of getting some
discussion rolling.  I'm not sure whether I am disagreeing with you or
not; although your questions are phrased as if neutral, they seem to
reflect some strong, though unspoken, biases on your part for or against
particular answers.

The questions you raise seem eminently relevant to those raised in the
voting booth; I respectfully dissent, however, from your suggestion that
they are logically prior questions which must be answered *before* those
in DD-1996-0002.

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
 ACH / ACL / ALLC Text Encoding Initiative
 University of Illinois at Chicago
 tei@uic.edu

All opinions expressed in this note (except those I have quoted from
other authors) are mine.  They are not necessarily those of the Text
Encoding Initiative, its executive committee or other participants, its
sponsors, or its funders.  Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Received on Monday, 9 September 1996 17:03:22 UTC