Re: Group merge?

On Monday, November 7, 2011 at 7:02 AM, Dave Pawson wrote:

> On 7 November 2011 05:34, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com (mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com)> wrote:
> > On Monday, October 10, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Dave Pawson wrote:
> > >  
> > > Marcos has stated that another group, 'Data driven standards' have
> > > goals very similar to ours.
> >  
>  
>  
>  
> My view is that this group is more focussed on usage?
> Colloquial? Whether we are arguing over terminology is
> another matter, since usage results in data!


I don't have an opinion, but Manu is proposing to bring in valuable people and tools.  

> > >  
> > > Anyone have any thoughts on this idea? Pro or con?
> >  
> > Hi Dave, Marcos and the rest of the CWCG... :)
> >  
> > A little background on why we'd like to see the two groups merge:
> >  
> > The RDFa WG has just recently butted heads with Google on something
> > related to RDFa 1.1. The conversation[1][2] went something like this:
> >  
> > Google: People are using RDFa incorrectly.
> > RDFa WG: Do you have data to prove that?
> > Google: Yes we do.
> > RDFa WG: Can we see it to verify it?
> > Google: No, do the Web crawl yourself.
>  
>  
>  
> Think how this might have been interpreted had it come from
> a man in the street?
> Troll, dismiss.

Right, but Google is not just some man on the street - and I think their intentions to support RDFa where pure. I think it would be pretty easy to replicate what google found in a usability study (or by crawling known sites)… the same issues have been found with RSS and XHTML.   
  
> >  
> > These sorts of conversations put W3C WGs in incredibly awkward
> > positions. We can choose to ignore the input, but at the peril of Google
> > not supporting the technology - no group can afford to say no to Google.
>  
>  
>  
> Big -1. They are a big internet player. No more.
> I prefer democracy. Otherwise we start to see the Hixie effect.

I'm not sure what the "Hixie effect" is. However, if you are talking about the HTML5 process, yeah, it's a little out of the ordinary: but the fact that we now have a fairly complete spec, implemented and widely deployed, is a testament to the process. After all, the point of making standards is getting them implemented in an interoperable manner above all else.      
> > I've noticed these types of conversations a number of times in different
> > groups over the past several months/years and the truth of the matter is
> > that most language designers are flying blind when it comes to knowing
> > how languages like HTML, CSS, RDFa, Microdata and a variety of other
> > author-facing technologies are being used in the field.
>  
>  
>  
> Agreed.
>  
Agreed.   
>  
> >  
> > This is a problem for the RDFa WG because we have now put the RDFa 1.1
> > Last Call on hold /indefinitely/ until somebody can dig up some data to
> > prove or disprove Google's claim.
>  
>  
>  
> Is theirs a one off view, or supported by others in the WG?
  
I think this was the right thing to do.  
>  
> >  
> > I'm going to publicize this post tomorrow at 10am, launching the Data
> > Driven Standards Community Group:
> >  
> > http://manu.sporny.org/2011/data-driven-standards/
> >  
> > I'd like to see this group merge into the Data-Driven Standards group.
> > The only reason for the migration from this group to the Data-Driven
> > Standards Group is the name (I did a quick poll among a number of people
> > and asked them to describe what the "Colloquial Web" group did vs. the
> > Data Driven Standards group). A number of people (non-native English
> > speakers) didn't understand the nuances of what "Colloquial" meant and
> > the ones that did, thought that "Data Driven Standards" was a better name.
>  
> English is a funny language like that. When the message sent is not
> the message received, there will be problems.

Can we see the data?… sorry, could not resist ;)  
>  
> > Everything else on how this group operates would stay the same - Dave
> > would continue to chair. We just need to get the group setup and
> > launched quickly... we have a definite set of work that needs to be done
> > and a fairly short timeframe to accomplish it in.
>  
> I don't understand that statement.
> Which 'we'
> What 'set of work'?
> Will you be expanding on that tomorrow (today?)
>  
> >  
> > So, we're going to be launching the Data Driven Standards group tomorrow
> > - please join us over there if you'd like to take part in this
> > Google/RDFa work. The two groups are really doing very similar work - we
> > really should merge them (and use the CG name that is more descriptive).
> >  
> > Thoughts? Is there anyone that feels strongly against merging into the
> > "Data Driven Standards" CG?
>  
>  
>  
> My primary concern is the mimimal input on this group, based on
> which a merger would make sense.

I agree. The merger makes sense (even if it means disbanding this group and moving our bodies over to the other group). It's not big deal to do that as we have not started any work formally here.

Received on Wednesday, 9 November 2011 15:09:01 UTC