Re: Inadequate rationales (Was: Change Proposals and Counter-Proposals)

On Jan 18, 2010, at 4:32 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010, Sam Ruby wrote:
>> 
>> Shelley has observed a number of cases where the rationales that were 
>> supposed to be provided were not adequate (and, no, I don't believe that 
>> any response that amounts to "go dig in the email archives" is an 
>> adequate response).
> 
> This happens occasionally (especially on editorial issues) when I'm doing 
> a lot of bugs at once. Everyone should please feel free to reopen bugs for 
> which they feel my rationale was inadequate.

Thanks, Ian. Here's some feedback to consider when doing future bugs.

This bug has what I think is inadequate rationale: <http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8379>.

It cites the volume of objection to removing <details>, but does not provide or directly cite any technical arguments. In my opinion, it is sufficient to cite someone else's technical argument as long as the citation is specific, so for example things like "concurred with commenter" or "concurred with comment #2" which you sometimes enter are fine, because they cite some specific arguments. Citing a specific mailing list post that makes technical arguments would also be acceptable. I don't think that just citing the volume of objection constitutes a technical rationale.

This rationale is somewhat moot now, since this is already escalated to the issue tracker, so I'm not going to reopen the bug. You may wish to correct it if you choose, and I'd appreciate if you keep this in mind for future resolutions.

This bug's rationale is in my opinion somewhat borderline: <http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8401>

It cites the volume of author requests to explain how to do things. In this case, volume of requests is a little more of a justification in itself. Authors asking how to do something that is best done with combinations of existing features instead of a new feature somewhat more directly calls for a response than just bare unjustified feature requests. However, it would have been better to give a few more specifics (for example the fact that authors often ask how to mark up a dialog and are confused by some past apparent advice to use <dl>, but the new section seems to address their questions, would have been a possible specific supporting detail).


I'm not inclined to troll through the bugs for ones to reopen, but I hope this feedback is helpful in writing future rationales.


Regards,
Maciej

Received on Tuesday, 19 January 2010 00:45:45 UTC