Re: Seeking earlier feedback from MS [Was: IE Team's Proposal for Cross Site Requests]

I agree very strongly that as far as discussions in general on
this list go, we don't want to get off to a bad start, and we
should all try to very hard to keep a civil tone no matter how
angry and frustrated we get.

And I can see that the tone of my own previous message to the list
was definitely less civil than it should have been. Looking back
at the discussion thread, I can see now that Jonas was a better
model than me of how to phrase replies that state things
emphatically while still remaining civil.

So in the interest of trying to reduce the combativeness of
discussions, I guess I would suggest that in this case people on
the list are probably better off following Jonas's example than
they are mine.

I also agree very strongly with the part of Doug's message that
alludes to everybody in general making a genuine effort to take
their commitments very seriously (making a real effort to honor
those commitments, come hell or high water) -- especially in
promptly providing feedback when expected. Both because I think we
all ought to be feeling a greater sense of urgency about getting
the work done that we have come together to do (and in general,
all work we're involved in at the W3C -- helping W3C work
everywhere we are involved to get done faster), and because by
meeting expectations on time, we help to avoid situations where
people get angry and frustrated and then turn that into venting or
posturing on the list.

  --Mike

Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org>, 2008-06-13 21:44 -0400:

> Hey, WebApps Fans-
>
> I'd like to take a step back here for a moment.
>
> I do understand that people are frustrated with the untimely response by  
> Microsoft; it has indeed been a long time coming, and further delay is  
> inevitably going to raise blood pressure.
>
> But I think that more important than the particular technical issue at  
> stake is the preservation of a positive and productive tone in WebApps  
> WG communications, including this list.  I'm concerned about this group  
> getting off to a bad start, and impairing its functionality.
>
> I think that this will require two things:
>
> 1) a more temperate tone in emails, with a minimum of hyperbole,  
> politics, exaggeration, polemic, and combative language;
>
> 2) a genuine commitment to honoring our commitments, such as promptly  
> providing feedback and closing out our actions, so that frustrations  
> don't build up and boil over; we are all busy, but we all know that if  
> this WG is going to accomplish its goals, we need to recognize that  
> anytime we put ourselves in the critical path for a task, not acting  
> promptly will result in considerable inconvenience for a large number of  
> people, or in a loss of our own credibility (in which case our feedback  
> or actions may not be effective).
>
> I suggest that we all take this transition to a new WebApps WG as a  
> chance to turn over a new leaf... to clear the slate of our  
> frustrations, and to adopt a friendlier atmosphere, and to reaffirm our  
> individual commitments to helping this group meet its deliverables.  For  
> my part, I owe this group some serious attention on the Element  
> Traversal spec and on DOM3 Events; now that WebApps is chartered and I  
> don't have to spend time on that anymore, I will be more actively  
> working on moving those specs forward.
>
> I trust the chairs to help preserve the peace by enforcing a civil tone  
> and by holding people accountable for their responsibilities, and I  
> don't want to step on their toes.  But I do hope that the participants  
> in this group will consider this.
>
> Best Regards-
> -Doug Schepers
> W3C Team Contact, WebApps, SVG, and CDF
>
> Michael(tm) Smith wrote (on 6/13/08 7:53 PM):
>> Sunava Dutta <sunavad@windows.microsoft.com>, 2008-06-13 14:36 -0700:
>>
>>> [Sunava Dutta] We're kind of heads down in our development cycle
>>> with IE8 and the F2F is the first opportunity to discuss this at
>>> length.  Personally, I have other urgent pending standards
>>> related items in HTML 5.0 and Web Apps that I'll be having to
>>> attend to.
>>
>> I don't find that acceptable. Everyone in the group has been
>> waiting for your long-delayed detailed comments with the
>> expectation that they would read them, evaluate them, and then
>> respond to them in the same way that they read and respond to any
>> other comments posted to the discussion.
>>
>> You've yet to actually even deliver the comments to the group in
>> a way that makes it possible for members of the group to even read
>> them at all. You've missed the deadline you agreed to initially
>> (June 6) and also have missed the adjusted date you committed to
>> providing them (Tuesday or Wednesday this week at the latest).
>>
>> When you do finally provide them to the group in the way that
>> you've been asked to (that is, without requiring members to agree
>> to a license in order just to read them, and in plain text or HTML
>> or short of that, as a PDF attachment), just dropping the comments
>> on the group and then saying that you have no plans to discuss
>> them at length during the next two weeks is not going to work.
>>
>>   --Mike
>>
>

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/
http://sideshowbarker.net/