[Bug 14363] Update the registration mechanisms

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=14363

--- Comment #9 from Jon Ribbens <jon-w3c@unequivocal.co.uk> 2011-10-21 23:37:25 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #8)
> > That's my whole point. Every "conformance checker" would do the scraping
> > slightly differently, because there's no defined "correct way" of doing it.
> 
> Well we should definitely have a defined way to determine what the registered
> types are, sure. I don't see why this is a problem.

The problem is that currently you *don't* have a defined way to determine what
the registered types are. If that's a known defect with the specification that
will be fixed before it's finalised then that's fine.

> Why would vandalism be an issue? It's not an issue because you say it is,
> either. :-)

Because it's trivially easy and could potentially cause significant problems
for people doing conformance checking (in that their tools will suddenly
indicate that most websites are invalid).

> > Have you checked the 'whois' for whatwg.org recently? Or, for that matter,
> > the whatwg.org web site?
> 
> Currently, I pay for it.
> 
> > The final HTML specification should not be fundamentally dependent on any
> > site other than w3.org, ietf.org, or similar.
> 
> I don't see why. Even if it was dependent on a site that went dark two months
> from now, it would just be updated to point to another site then.

Both of these replies tend to indicate that we have a different idea of what a
"standard" is. Generally speaking, one would expect a standard to be released
on a certain date and not to change after that, or at least, not to change on a
daily basis. They're something that are supposed to have some stability and
people are supposed to be able to have some trust in. Contracting out part of a
standard to a wiki would be, um, novel.

> > > The W3C hasn't fared well with having computer-readable data in the past.
> > > (DTDs have caused the W3C to essentially DDOS itself by having lots of
> > > badly authored software read it continuously.)
> > 
> > And this problem is somehow avoided by having the list hosted on a
> > less-well-funded web site instead?
> 
> The problem is apparently not made worse, at least.

Or rather, it's made a lot worse. Instead of the potential victim of the
accidental DDoS being a sizeable organisation with the funds and experience to
cope with the situation, it's just you. No criticism of you personally
intended, but most people have more limited means in terms of time and money
than most organisations, and it leaves HTML with a "bus factor" of 1, which is
somewhat unfortunate.

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Received on Friday, 21 October 2011 23:37:34 UTC