Re: Process for proposals

Sam Ruby wrote:
> There seems to be an undue fascination with what is, and what is not, 
> included in Ian's draft at any particular moment in time.
>
> First, despite the name of the role that both the WHATWG and the W3C 
> has given to Ian, my observation is that Ian is first and foremost an 
> author, not an editor.  Editors supervise, assemble, correct, revise, 
> and adapt material from a number of sources.  The document that Ian 
> has been authoring is, instead, essentially an original work.
>
> Given that multiple people have participated in the development of 
> this work (through bug reports, suggestion of use cases, etc.) the 
> HTML WG has recognized this document as meeting the criteria to be a 
> Working Draft of this Working Group.  This status is not likely to 
> change.  This despite the fact that, at various points in times, this 
> document has contained a number of sections which were later split out.
>
I think that "participated" is open to interpretation. Several use cases 
were given for semantic metadata, but they were re-written by Ian, and 
then answered by Ian. Well, some of them were re-written by Ian, and 
interpreted by Ian. He's not addresses all the use cases yet.

So in effect, Ian has also acted as client rep, requirements gatherer, 
decision maker, etc. You call him "author", he calls himself "benevolent 
dictator". I would say his interpretation of his role is much closer to 
the truth than yours. I just happen to think that "benevolent dictator" 
is an oxymoron.

> If others do likewise, the documents they produce will also be so 
> recognized -- this is particularly true for any for documents with 
> little or no overlap with other WG documents, though documents with 
> overlap may also end up meeting the criteria for FPWD, it's just that 
> we will be more careful in how we assess consensus on such documents.
>
"If others do likewise, the documents they produce will also be so 
recognized.." I'm sorry, I'm new to this, but this isn't exactly 
accurate, is it? If another person or group produces a document, and Ian 
doesn't recognize it, or refuses to include it in the draft, that's it, 
isn't it?

In addition, isn't this a violation of what you say is the guiding 
principle behind this effort: commit, first, then review?

Perhaps you can provide more detail about exactly how other documents 
become part of this process. Do we raise an issue, and then attach a 
proposal to that issue? If the proposal is acceptable to the majority of 
the HTML WG, are you saying then that it will be added to the HTML5 
draft specification?

> If no other authors emerge, then there will be no need for a separate 
> "editor" to assemble, correct, revise, and adapt material from various 
> sources.  We specifically need people to put forward suggestions for 
> @profile and @summary.  If no such proposals are produced, such issues 
> will be summarily closed.
>
See above.
> As to what such a future would look like, here is a rough sketch:
>
> 1) The biggest outstanding issue on the document isn't consensus, but 
> agreement on a suitable license.
>
> 2) The content in the document that does not have unresolved overlap 
> and contradictions with existing specifications will likely be 
> recognized as having consensus.  This could very well include sections 
> on microdata and origin.  Those that feel otherwise would be served by 
> raising issues[1] well before Last Call.
>
Noted, and will act. Deadlines on any of this?
> 3) The issue about what the document itself is named (raised by Roy 
> Fielding[2]) is also something that needs to be resolved.  This issue 
> primarily affects the title page and little else.
>
> Ian's stated intent is to be ready for Last Call by October.  My 
> intent is to assess consensus within the working group and to make 
> every effort to "satisfy significant dependencies with other groups" 
> (e.g., deal with the accessibility of canvas) prior to Last Call.  At 
> the present time, I see no reason that all of the above can't be met 
> by this winter.
>
> - Sam Ruby
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/
> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Nov/0430.html
>
>


Shelley

Received on Wednesday, 20 May 2009 13:58:51 UTC