objections to webmention

I've attempted to communicate for the last year, on irc and in aarons
github area, but its sometimes been not an optimal use of time.  So I'd
like to formulate my objections to webmention here, for further review,
with hopefully some possible solutions.

1. Universality

Axiom 0 of the web states that we should use URIs to name things.  Most
standards I know at the W3C adhere to this, webmention does not use URIs
for the source and target parameters.

URIs can be derived out of band by reading the spec and using a prefix, but
this is not ideal.


2. Using form encoded messaging for the social web

Views on this differ, but IMHO it's very clear that messaging over the
social web according to our charter should be in JSON.

Webmention doesnt do this.

To the extent that it's "just a signaling protocol" I suppose you could
"get away with it".  But I dont think webmention is by any means just a
signaling protocol.  It's an attempt to standardize messaging on the social
web.


Possible Solutions

1. Support JSON messaging -- the W3C has innovated in this area with some
success

2. If we want to pass around messages using forms we should make the
general case robust, scalable, extensible, interoperable and universal, and
have webmention be an instance of such a system.  That's possibly outside
the scope and timing of this WG, I dont know.


Im still being guided as to the difference between the REC and Note tracks,
but I'll put the suggestion out there to move webmention to a note, or move
it back from CR.  I'm not an expert on this aspect of W3C process, but I'd
like to raise these concerns to a wider audience, in particular, to folks
outside the indieweb community.