- From: Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:36:51 -0700
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Cc: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>, public-html@w3.org
On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com> wrote: > > Hi Tab, > > On Jun 2, 2010, at 7:17 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: > >> On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote: >>> >>> I was going to wait a day or so before I mentioned it again, but you >>> recently authored two change proposals which I suggested that you might want >>> to augment. >>> >>> When it comes time for a poll in issues 89 and 92, what URLs should be used >>> to identify the change proposals that people are to register their >>> objections? >> >> I can rewrite them to include the additional information I've sent to >> the list. Ping me before the poll comes up if I forget about it. >> >> >>> As to your question in this email: the primary purpose of proposals is to >>> make a case FOR something, i.e., provide rationale. Clearly stated >>> objections contained within a proposal will be considered, but that isn't >>> the primary purpose of a proposal. >>> >>> This is true even for proposals made in response to other proposals (i.e., >>> counter-proposals). The chairs made a decision that uncontested content in >>> the spec does not need rationale, but contested material does, and that >>> responses to bug reports and proposals are the place to provide the >>> rationale. >> >> This doesn't answer my question. Allow me to make it more direct. Do >> I hurt my case by merely authoring a change proposal and then not >> repeating my objections in the poll? > > I have not yet discussed this with my co-Chairs, but here is my take. > > When the Chairs review survey responses on an issue, we also carefully study the Change Proposals submitted and most particularly the rationale sections. If you look at the Working Group Decision for ISSUE-76 (<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Jan/att-0218/issue-76-decision.html>), each point of rationale in each submitted Change Proposal was explicitly addressed. For the recent round of decisions, we also carefully reviewed Change Proposal rationales, but we commented on them in a somewhat more cursory way. > > Since we're telling WG participants that they do not need to restate objections that are redundant with a Change Proposal, then I think we need to be very clear that we are in fact treating arguments in the rationale sections as objections when appropriate, even if not explicitly worded as such. Therefore I will recommend that for future decisions, the Chairs explicitly address at least all the individual points of rationale from each Change Proposal in the written decision. > > Does this address your concerns at all? Possibly, but I still have reservations. The fact that only objections from the survey were explicitly referenced in the summary of decisions created a strong impression that they were the overriding concern. I had previously asked if they were present in the email solely for summarization purposes, and didn't get a response. Having all the arguments that were noteworthy enough to be considered in the decision would be helpful both for simple political reasons (better appearance) and for technical reasons (in the current decisions, I have no idea what arguments from the proposals were considered strong or weak). Further, if the text that Sam is quoting accurately describes the criteria you guys are using to make decisions, then it's not clear to me if you are using what I feel is the correct interpretation of "strong objection" (and it appears that, at the very least, it's similarly unclear to Adam Barth). "Strong objection" could be interpreted to mean "strongly-held objection" or "strongly-asserted objection". That doesn't appear to be the intended reading of that section, though - I believe the correct interpretation is an objection with strong reasoning backing it up. >From my vantage, it appears that the former interpretation is used at least somewhat in the arguments - if a group vociferously objects, their objection appears to be heavily weighted, even if their objection has little to no technical merit. More further, as Jonas brings up, I put arguments in the "Positive Effects" and "Negative Effects" sections as well. That appears to be the most appropriate place for some things, and it seems silly to repeat an argument in multiple places just so it shows up in the right place of the Change Proposal. If there is some implied preferred structure to the Change Proposals that can affect how they are read and interpreted, I'm not aware of it. More more further, though you have again repeated that arguments present in the change proposals don't need to be restated as objections during the poll, I continue to receive the impression that doing so would in fact help sway decisions in my favor, and have been privately encouraged to do so. This makes me continue to question why I write change proposals at all, when I could spend the same effort objecting during the survey for greater effect, perhaps after putting up just enough of a token objection to prevent an amicable resolution and force a survey. Finally, I feel the HTMLWG Chairs are not properly managing dissent in the first place. Taking all disagreements that someone feels strongly enough about to pursue into Issues and starting up a heavyweight Change Proposal/Counter Proposal/Survey/Continued Discussion After The Survey Has Been Concluded Without Any Resolution In Sight process, as specified by the current Process Document, goes against the quote from Sam. The recent spate of removal issues were somewhat mitigated by the chair's willingness to consider them in a group, but that merely reduced the amount of trivial busywork the group was forced to endure over a minor issue that should have been resolved via a quick Chair decision at most. This explosion of frivolity has forced me to temporarily route all HTMLWG email straight to archive. Doing so has certainly reduced my stress levels, though it doesn't do the group any good. I suspect that many other useful members of this group either do similar, or simply ignore such mail as it comes in without actually going to the effort of automating their disdain. ~TJ
Received on Tuesday, 15 June 2010 21:44:37 UTC