Re: Bug 7034

On Mar 23, 2010, at 6:39 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:

> On 03/23/2010 05:14 PM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>>
>> Another downside is that many people who want to "opt in to best
>> practices" would not agree that including the string
>> 'xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/"' in a text/html document is
>> itself a best practice. If you want to propose multiple validator  
>> modes
>> triggered by something in the document itself, I would suggest using
>> something less potentially polarizing as the trigger. That would also
>> address the downside that you stated.
>
> I'll give my normal response to such assertions: to ask somebody to  
> come forward and state that such an approach is not acceptable to  
> them personally (i.e., I'm not looking for somebody to argue on  
> behalf of unnamed others), and to propose an alternative.

[chair hat off]

To give a specific example, I would like to consistently avoid  
presentational markup on the webkit.org, but I do not want to add an  
xmlns declaration to every page.

>
> I'm still trying to gather rationale for the current criteria.  I've  
> heard rationale of "appeasing standardistas/super friends", but that  
> might be me misinterpreting (I certainly don't want to be accused of  
> misrepresenting anyone <grin>).  I figured this was something that  
> would appease rather than alienate that particular crowd.

I don't believe that was the only rationale given, and I don't believe  
it was given as a rationale for anything besides banning  
presentational markup. (I am also not sure it is a very good rationale  
for anything.)


> In any case, this is all premature.  For the moment, I will argue  
> for bumping the priority of bug 7034 is the right next step as I  
> continue to assert that is is on the critical path for resolving a  
> number of issues.  Even a WONTFIX is an acceptable answer at this  
> point as that will enable us to solicit proper change proposals,  
> complete with rationale.


[chair hat on]

I recently asked Ian to give expedited consideration to a few bugs  
(mostly ones that impact ISSUE-79 and ISSUE-31, since the former was  
decided by the Working Group, and the latter has a call for counter- 
proposals about to close). I didn't ask him to do so for bug 7034,  
since the topic is actively under discussion and I'd like to give him  
a chance to consider the mailing list discussion before entering a  
resolution. However, you are free to make your own request to him.

Regards,
Maciej

P.S. I also think your proposal above, to make some conformance  
criteria apply only if the root element has 'xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/' 
, would be a reasonable bug and probably more productive than bug 7034.

Received on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 02:09:21 UTC