Re: Call for a poll of the html wg on removal of hgroup was Re: review of hgroup element prior to last call.

If we have a poll on this topic, it will at best be advisory. We will follow the usual decision policy for hgroup. Since the bug on hgroup was not filed by the October 1st cutoff, it is not eligible to be treated as a pre-Last Call issue. Since hgroup has been in the draft for a long time with no significant changes, we are not going to treat this as a post-cutoff change that reduces consensus. I do not see anything about hgroup that requires inventing a special ad-hoc process.

Regards,
Maciej

On Feb 1, 2011, at 1:19 AM, Steve Faulkner wrote:

> hi all, 
> 
> Since the issue of hgroup may not be resolved for some time I would like to put the question to the working group about having the spec text relating to hgroup removed until such times that its status has been resolved.
> 
> hgroup has been around in the spec for approx 2 years and reviewed and found wanting.
> keeping it in the spec at this time does nobody any good, it has 0 implementations, keeping it in just courts confusion and wastes authors time.
> 
> if you agree or disagree with having a poll on this issue please speak up.
> 
> regards
> stevef
> 
> 
> 
> On 1 February 2011 00:34, Paul Cotton <Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com> wrote:
> The Chairs have discussed this matter and we want to make to clear to WG participants that if any of the bugs related to hgroup are escalated then the issue(s) created will be a Last Call issue(s) and NOT pre-Last Call Issue(s).  None of the referenced bugs were filed on time to be processed using the pre-Last Call timetable.
> 
> In addition the Chairs want to encourage WG members to commit their valuable resources to work on the existing pre-Last Call issues since the earlier we get to Last Call the earlier we will get to deal with the possible problems like those described in this thread.
> 
> /paulc
> 
> Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
> 17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
> Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sam Ruby [mailto:rubys@intertwingly.net]
> Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:33 PM
> To: Steve Faulkner
> Cc: Maciej Stachowiak; Paul Cotton; HTMLWG WG
> Subject: Re: review of hgroup element prior to last call.
> 
> On 01/23/2011 12:10 PM, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> > Dear chairs,
> > I want to raise the issue of hgroup.
> >
> > The element's inclusion in the HTML5 spec as is,  I believe is not
> > widely supported by HTML5 advocates and those involved in the HTML5
> > standard development.
> >
> > It is currently the subject of 3  bug reports, 2 of which call for its
> > removal hgroup, the other calls for a major change via the addition of
> > a new element to HTML5.
> >
> > lars gunther provided a good overview of the issue in his recent post
> > to the HTML list
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Jan/0256.html
> >
> > understanding that we have the html wg process marching on, I wanted
> > to know if there was any room to consider dealing with hgroup prior to
> > last call?
> >
> > I believe that if the W3C html working group were to review hgroup
> > prior to last call there is a very good probability that hgroup will
> > be substantially modified or removed from HTML5 altogether. If this is
> > a likely outcome then it would be best for all involved in web
> > development that this occurred sooner rather than later, rather than
> > people wasting their time using the element. we currently have an
> > opportunity to modify or remove the element while it has no real
> > implementation or authoring impact, we may not be able to say that down the track a while.
> >
> > Is there an opportunity for the feeling of the working group to gauged
> > on an issue such as this? via an informal poll for example.
> 
> Initial thoughts (without having checked with anybody):
> 
> 1) Anything that comes to amicable consensus and is incorporated into the document prior to Last Call will be included in Last Call.  Another question that could reasonably be asked is "would we be willing to hold up last call until there is consensus on this issue?".  The answer to that question is that it is rather doubtful at this point.
> 
> 2) I personally think polls are more effective when they are based on tangible and concrete proposals complete with rationale.  That being said, if somebody were to draft up a poll, and there is sufficient interest expressed in having such a poll (my personal rule of thumb remains "three independent people expressing support, and more people saying yes than no"), then it would likely happen.
> 
> Note: I tried to provide a full and complete answer, and in the process I may have answered questions that you did not ask or did not intend to ask.  If so, I did not mean to imply anything about your intentions in my answers.
> 
> > thanks for your consideration
> >
> > --
> > with regards
> >
> > Steve Faulkner
> > Technical Director - TPG
> 
> - Sam Ruby
> 
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> > www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner <http://www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner>
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> with regards
> 
> Steve Faulkner
> Technical Director - TPG
> 
> www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
> HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives - dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/
> Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html 
>