Re: HTML5-warnings - motivations (was: HTML5-warnings - request to publish as next heartbeat WD)

On Aug 10, 2009, at 18:22, Manu Sporny wrote:

>> Henri Sivonen wrote:
>> It seems to me the idea of the draft is to deliver
>> html5-warnings-diff.html#microdata
>
> Both of you are out of line.
>
> You are also flat out wrong. It is no surprise that the HTML5
> specification doesn't have more editors if even warnings about spec
> language is met with these types of accusations. You undermine the  
> HTML5
> effort by doing so.

It wasn't an accusation. It was an attempt to focus the thread on what  
seemed to me to be the crux of the matter, since it doesn't make sense  
to put a lot of effort into discussing side aspects. I understand that  
my conjecture about what the crux of the matter is may be wrong, and  
it would have been better not to formulate it like that.

So as positive suggestions:

I suggest striking the following text

"This section is controversial and does not enjoy broad consensus.

There will be a forthcoming HTML5+RDFa proposal that may either be  
published along-side the Microdata specification or in place of the  
Microdata specification. RDFa is a alternate technology that is  
currently published as a Recommendation via the W3C . An additional  
alternative that is being proposed is the removal of Microdata and  
RDFa from the HTML5 specification and the placement of each section  
into a separate specification that is implemented on top of the HTML5  
standard."

and replacing it with

"This section is on the level of first draft maturity. Implementation  
experience may result in changes."

The term "first draft" comes from the WHATWG spec annotation system. I  
suggest generating section maturity indicators from the WHATWG spec  
annotation system. The annotation system ranks sections on the axis of  
implementation status which implies spec stability in practice.  
Annotating sections according to the anticipated risk of change is,  
therefore, already a solved problem, so it doesn't make sense to re- 
solve it in a less systematic manner.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Tuesday, 11 August 2009 06:15:50 UTC