RE: [Bug 10083] Remove references to Microdata from within the document

We can deal with this under the Other Business agenda item.

/paulc

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329


-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:julian.reschke@gmx.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 10:53 AM
To: Paul Cotton; Maciej Stachowiak
Cc: 'public-html-wg-announce@w3.org'
Subject: Re: [Bug 10083] Remove references to Microdata from within the document

Hi,

maybe we can add this discussion to the telco agenda?

Best regards, Julian

On 07.07.2010 16:09, bugzilla@jessica.w3.org wrote:
> http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10083
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Comment #10 from Shelley Powers<shelleyp@burningbird.net>   2010-07-07 14:09:31 ---
> (In reply to comment #9)
>> (In reply to comment #8)
>>> If you're redefining the scope of this document, you should discuss it in the
>>> group, first.
>>
>> I'm not redefining the scope of the document. The scope of the document has not
>> changed. Before I made the recent addition to the Abstract, the scope was not
>> explicitly limited to only providing information strictly about the HTML5 spec.
>> The text I added in response to your comment does not change the scope -- it
>> simply adds some words to the Abstract in an attempt to provide more clarity
>> about what the scope actually is.
>
> In other words, you redefined the scope of the document.
>
>>
>>> The whole point for this document was to supposedly strip away much of the
>>> information about the APIs and other peripheral information that has made its
>>> way into HTML5 and focus purely on the syntax.
>>
>> That is a big part of the point of this document, for sure. But it is not the
>> whole point nor has it ever been the whole point -- the document is not meant
>> to focus purely on just the syntax.
>>
>>> Microdata is not part of the syntax.
>>>
>>> To reference it is to begin the process in your document that has happened
>>> within the HTML5 document--bloat it by introducing irrelevant material.
>>
>> I think it should go without saying that judgments about what amounts to bloat
>> and introduction of irrelevant material are always subjective. I will say that
>> I'm sensitive to the bloat argument, because one of my design goals for this
>> document has always been too keep it minimal. (And I guess what amounts to
>> being minimal is also subjective.) But that said, I think the particular
>> addition of this Microdata property-value info is, relatively, a very small
>> addition, and not bloat. It amounts to being a single sentence in each element
>> page.
>>
>> About whether what it's introducing is irrelevant, that seems to me to be
>> something that reasonable people can disagree about. I don't personally find it
>> irrelevant and I believe there are users of the document who will find it
>> highly relevant.
>>
>>  From the very beginning when I wrote the first editor's draft of this doc and
>> announced it, people were requesting that I add things to it. One thing that
>> several people requested early on was that I add the DOM IDLs to it -- because
>> they wanted them at point of use in the same document. So I added those -- even
>> though it was not information that was necessary for determining document
>> conformance. I also figured it would be useful to have some info in the same
>> doc that provided details about UA rendering behavior. So I added the 'Typical
>> default display properties" section -- again, even though that was necessary
>> for determining document conformance.
>>
>>> Your
>>> introducing this material seems more of a political decision than a technical
>>> one: trying to re-introduce Microdata as a part of HTML5, when the group has
>>> made a decision that it is _not_ part of HTML5.
>>
>> My decision to add it was not a political one. I hope you can take my word on
>> that and we won't need to spend time discussing it further.
>>
>>> And why Microdata? Why not RDFa, too?
>>
>> Because I don't know what content I could add to that doc as a per-element
>> section that would provide similar information about RDFa. If you have specific
>> suggestions about what I could add, please let me know.
>>
>>> After all, it's also a document of the
>>> HTML WG. Again, singling out one and not the other is a political decision, not
>>> a technical one
>>
>> My decision to add it was not a political one. Now that I have said that
>> clearly, I hope I won't need to repeat it again and we can move on. To be very
>> clear: My intent for the change was simply to add some information that some
>> users of the document might find useful, and might be glad to have at point of
>> use in this doc. That's it.
>
> It is not helpful -- if one looks at the HTML5 spec, and then looks at your
> document, the references to Microdata come from out of nowhere. Even now, I
> can't figure out why you felt you had to include this information. Separate
> from the context of Microdata, and what it is, and how it should be used, the
> information is confusing, at best.
>
>
>>
>>> --and again, one that is significant enough to have been
>>> discussed in the group before making such a unilateral change.
>>
>> I don't think it's any more of a unilateral change than the change I made that
>> added the DOM IDLs, or the change I made that added the "Typical default
>> display properties".
>>
>>> If you refuse to remove references to Microdata, this item will need to be
>>> escalated to an issue. Your "fix" is not a fix.
>>
>> I'm not refusing. I'm responding to one request you made as a spec comment by
>> providing, in good faith, an initial disposition (per the HTML WG decision
>> policy) that I personally believe is the correct disposition for the comment.
>>
>> I'm not at all claiming that it has been "fixed" to your satisfaction. Clearly
>> it has not been. The "fixed" state is just what we are limited to in bugzilla
>> for representing that particular condition I just describe. I don't know what
>> other state to put it in at this point other than that -- because I don't think
>> the description of the intended scope that you provided in your initial comment
>> is accurate, and I think it would be a mistake for me to make a change based on
>> a rationale drawn from something that I don't think is accurate, and that I
>> cannot agree with.
>>
>> If there is some part of your request that I have missed or ignored, or if you
>> have more to add as rationale for the change you requested, than the right
>> thing to do is to re-open it here, rather than prematurely escalating it.
>
> I do not believe you have provided an adequate rationale for making this
> change.
>
> You've said that you changed the abstract, so that makes the change OK. You've
> said that this is supposedly to help people, yet these oddly bizarre references
> to Microdata, separate from the Microdata spec, make no sense at all.
>
> So your rationale is, in my opinion, inadequate.
>
> My response has been that you have changed the scope of the document, as
> witness your change in the abstract. In addition, you're attempting to
> integrate Microdata back into HTML5, when the group has already made a decision
> that the two are separate. And your rationale for making this choice is, in my
> opinion, weak.
>
> Yes, this needs to be escalated to an issue.
>

Received on Thursday, 8 July 2010 01:11:19 UTC