Re: use case focus - resending

I'm not going to disagree with anything said here, but I will try to add 
a bit of perspective based on timelines and locations

Shelley Powers wrote:
> I'm resending this as the email system seems to have eaten the first 
> message:
> 
> I'm concerned that the focus on semantic markup in HTML5 has turned from 
> a review of the many use cases that have been submitted (see 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Apr/0208.html), to a 
> focus on implementation details of Ian's Microdata proposal. This is the 
> unfortunate consequence of the HTML WG's CRT process.

I'll note that Ian's use cases were posted on 23 April, i.e., nearly 
three weeks ago.

> We may find that as Ian continues his review of the use cases, that the 
> Microdata proposal will change, or issues related to the overall 
> effectiveness of Microdata proposal will arise.
> 
> As it is, we've already discovered that Ian has made incorrect 
> assumptions in at least one use case, but when I pointed out the 
> incorrect assumption, Ian didn't respond with a correction to his use 
> case review.

I believe that you are referring to something that you posted on Sunday 
morning, i.e., less than three days ago?

> It doesn't help to have part of the discussion happening in the WhatWG 
> email lists, and part here.

Other parts are happening on your blog, mine, and on 
public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf.  Thankfully, everything has an URI, so people 
can put pointers here.  I'll start:

   http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/05/12/Microdata

> None of this, combined, will ensure that the document(s) produced out of 
> this effort are the best that can be. All of this, combined, only serves 
> to undermine the credibility of the effort, and hence, the effort's 
> resulting deliverables.

Given time, I'm confident that the quality issues will work out.  It 
does, however, require a bit of patience -- on everybody's part.  I also 
happen to believe that concrete proposals, such as Ian's, tend to both 
accelerate progress, and cause people to identify tangible issues; but I 
accept that others may differ on this.

Credibility, however, is a more difficult issue to address.  All I can 
say is that if issues are raised in the working group (and we have a 
formal issue tracker and bugzilla instance to help us), all such issues 
will be addressed before drafts advance; and furthermore I intend to 
give everybody sufficient time to adequately participate.

> Shelley

- Sam Ruby

Received on Tuesday, 12 May 2009 19:25:20 UTC