Re: [DRAFT] Heartbeat poll - update 2

On Sun, 2 Aug 2009, Sam Ruby wrote:
> 
> Please demonstrate that you do understand John's issue.  You may 
> disagree with it -- and that is fair, but please demonstrate that you 
> understand it.

I don't understand it. Can _you_ explain it to me? (I've read all of 
John's e-mails, and attempted to discuss this with him, but failed to 
understand the issue that way.)


On Mon, 3 Aug 2009, Sam Ruby wrote:
> 
> It appears that the process is: no matter how clear and complete the 
> proposal is, the response is the same: some variant of "I don't 
> understand".
> 
> That game is tiring.  Let's play a new game.

Let's not. I have asked you many questions and instead of replying, you 
keep sidestepping and ask something else instead. I'm never going to 
understand what you are saying if you don't answer me. It's your turn to 
actually answer my questions, starting with those in the e-mail that you 
just dismissed:

   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0094.html

...and continuing with the question I sent you privately (quoted at the 
top of this e-mail, since you apparently don't reply to private e-mails).

Please go through and give actual answers to each question there.


> Here is a description of the Scientific Method: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

The scientific method isn't relevant here, since we're not doing science, 
we're doing language design. I'm not a scientist; I'm an engineer.


> Put yourself in the perspective of the PF working group.  From that 
> perspective, can anybody tell me which part of the Scientific Method is 
> not being practiced here?
> 
> Answer: peer review.

That's what publishing the draft is for. As far as I can tell, you're the 
only person standing in the way of asking for peer review at this point.


> At this point in time, I would like to ask that you update your draft 
> accordingly: make summary fully and completely conforming and document 
> the issue being explored.

As soon as someone can explain to me _why_ we would do this, I'm happy to 
do it. So far the only reason I've seen is "because I said so" or "because 
they said so". I've asked this numerous times:

   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jun/0173.html
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jul/0778.html
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0056.html

I've explained in detail the reasoning behind the current text in the 
spec, all that I ask is that the data or reasoning contradicting this be 
explained to even a tenth of the level of detail:

   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jul/0148.html


> Do that and we can move on.  If you do the above, I would consider 
> John's objection to have been satisfied.  At that point, and after over 
> a week of review, there would be no open objections, so I would be 
> thrilled to instruct Mike to publish that draft forthwith.

I would object pretty much as soon as such text were to be added to the 
draft, so there would not be no open objections. My objection would be to 
adding text to the draft in contradiction with the reasoning and research 
brought to the working group so far.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 3 August 2009 22:17:54 UTC