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

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Received on Sunday, 23 January 2011 17:33:58 UTC