[Bug 28883] HTML5 spec, 2.4.6 colors, (The notation of) a simple color consists of three 8-bit numbers

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=28883

--- Comment #3 from Michael[tm] Smith <mike@w3.org> ---
(In reply to Stefan Schumacher from comment #2)
> I wonder, if it would have been sufficient to express your view on this
> without the words "nuisence" and "very much unwelcome".

I'm regret my choice of language and I hope you'll accept my apology.

Along with that I like to ask you to also take some time to consider that every
single bug you file incurs real costs on other people. Each bug requires
somebody (and often multiple people) to take responsibility for it—even if it's
just to evaluate whether it's a real bug that really needs to be fixed.

> Most bugs I filed with other specs I translated were most welcome by the
> editors and if there were some comments of mine, that were not a real bug,
> or expressed an opinion different from that of the editor, at least the
> editor found some decent words.

I hadn't meant to be rude and I should have stated myself differently, but the
message really is: Please please don't waste other peoples' time. I'm not sure
if there's a decent way to say that's not going to make somebody feel bad.

I feel bad about either of us needing to spend more time on something like that
I see a very much a non-issue when in fact there are probably lots of others we
could be discussing that actually merit our attention and time.

One thing you really need to understand is that the bulk of the spec as written
by Hixie at least was very very carefully written—much more so than pretty much
any other spec you may have ever translated. You can pretty much assume that if
Hixie wrote something in a certain way, he meant to write it that, and it's not
an oversight or sloppiness.

In this case, when Hixie defined the term "simple colour", he meant to use
"simple colour" and not "notation of a simple colour." The first is not less
precise than other parts of the spec (though I can understand it may seem so).
It's intentional, and it really should be translated as-is.

> I appreciate the work that you put into cleaning the bugtracker, and that
> there are probably a lot of "bugs" that are none and that it might be a
> waste of time to remove all that and quite tiring.
> Still I think it would be nice to use a language that shows some respect for
> everybody else too, who works on these matters.

I'm honestly not trying to show disrespect. But at the same time as I alluded
to above, I hope you can understand that bug reports like this one also don't
come across as very respectful or considerate of the time and attention needed
from other people to do the work of triaging them.

> For the words of art, yes, I got to know many of them in over 15 years of
> W3C translations, they are used in all different contexts, and sometimes to
> end discussions what probably needs to be done sometimes. I learnt to accept
> them as the last word of the editor in chief.

Well some (maybe most) editors don't choose their words very carefully, and I
think in the case of most other specs it probably makes a lot of sense for
translators to point out poor wording in the original. But in the case of this
spec, I know from long experience with it that Hixie has chosen his words with
exceptional care, and the default assumption of anybody reading the spec should
be to assume that there's a reason it says what it says in the way it does, and
it's not likely that somebody is going to come in and improve on is
significantly in any cases that aren't just plain errors.

> To be of less nuisence I would like to know, if I should file a bug for
> every single typo I find, or if it is more convenient to collect a few and
> file them per chapter or so?

I think everybody would agree that bugs for typos/mistakes are very much
welcome, and it's fine to either raise individual bugs for them or to collect
them and file them per-chapter or whatever else works best for you.

> There are some, but I haven't filed them yet.
> Thanks for the help and don't worry I will keep filing bugs and hopefully
> mostly the once that are not a nuisence, but I can't promise that it will be
> always the case.

Well, your help is appreciated and please also accept my personal thanks for
your time and effort and attention to detail. So please don't let me or anybody
else ever discourage you from doing all you can to help make this spec and
other specs the best they can be.

And I'll try to be more considerate and less dismissive in the future.

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Received on Monday, 6 July 2015 11:28:27 UTC