Re: ISSUE-92 cleanuptable - Chairs Solicit Alternate Proposals or Counter-Proposals

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:
> At least one person was confused, or at least that is your assertion.
> Several possibilities exist.  I'll state the most unlikely first. Perhaps
> you believe that it is a good thing that specs promote confusion.

It gives book authors a bigger market!


>  Alternately, perhaps you believe that nobody else will be confused.  More
> realistically, perhaps you believe that merely relocating this text will
> address the confusion?  If so, state so.  Or is it that something additional
> is required, perhaps just a paragraph or even a sentence or even a few words
> that provides additional context to this paragraph?

The former.  I think that the spec adequately explains the purpose of
the section already, with the text starting with "For tables that
consist of more..." and ending just before "There are a variety of
ways...".  However, I am sympathetic to the argument that this section
is still slightly confusing with its current placement, as it is easy
to skip past that text and just look directly at the examples,
believing them to be examples of good table markup.  This is the
general pattern followed by most markup examples in the spec, after
all.  I think that moving the section will reduce the possibility of
confusion due to this.

In the course of moving it to a new section, it is likely to need a
sentence or two of reiterating explanation introducing it, in case
people come to it directly rather than through following the link in
the <table> element section.  I didn't state this explicitly in my CP,
but it's pretty trivial and doesn't add anything relevant to the case
I was presenting.


> Note: I am not trying to argue the case, I am trying to coach.  I believe
> that this change proposal focuses too narrowly on stating what is wrong with
> the original proposal.  It would make a stronger case if it balanced that
> with more of a rationale as to why the existing prose is useful.

Sure; don't worry, I understand your intention.  ^_^

~TJ

Received on Friday, 21 May 2010 17:43:53 UTC