- From: Rafael Weinstein <rafaelw@chromium.org>
- Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 11:31:45 -0700
- To: Matthew Wilcox <mail@matthewwilcox.com>
- Cc: whatwg@whatwg.org
On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Matthew Wilcox <mail@matthewwilcox.com> wrote: > On 17 May 2012 18:49, Rafael Weinstein <rafaelw@chromium.org> wrote: >> It's easy to see how the experience you describe below would be >> frustrating. FWIW, I routinely feel frustration at seemingly wasted >> time. >> >> Unfortunately, it's inescapable that reaching consensus can be >> exhausting, especially via email -- and doing so always requires >> re-explaining the same thing multiple times in multiple ways. This is >> true for everyone. > > Agreed, there will always be an element of this - although in the case > of the CG this got to the point that we addressed it with a FAQ page. > That helped us and people visiting. It didn't seem to help the WG, for > whatever reason? > >> In fairness to Hixie -- being an editor is fairly thankless and he >> does a remarkable job of keeping up even just with whatwg, webapps and >> a few others (I gave up long ago). If you need someone to understand >> something, it's best to directly bring it to their attention. The >> internet is a big place =-). > > I can see both sides of this. When you're busy, you're busy, and Hixie > is busy. On the other hand, this was a long drawn out multi-month > problem that was talked about quite literally everywhere. It's the > fact that the scope of awareness everywhere else was so large that > makes it so surprising it was missed in the one group that it ought to > have been forefront of that subject. > >> I agree with both Jonas and Maciej's points above about lessons for the future. >> >> It seems like the basic problem is that a feature which needs lots of >> work collecting use cases and developer feedback requires a setting >> which isn't intimidating for developers -- but ultimately, if it wants >> to land in a spec, it needs the perspective and experience of >> implementors and editors. > > I think we all agree on that :) > >> A few humble thoughts >> >> -Have the CG recruit an experienced implementor or editor to >> participate more or less from the beginning. This may short-circuit >> time spent on solutions that won't work for esoteric reasons, and >> there will be at least one person with one foot in both worlds. > > This would be awesome. > >> -Cross-post significant outputs & decisions to whatwg, public-webapps, >> etc... E.g. collected use cases, strawman proposals, recommendations, >> etc... Even with the help of an implementors/editor, the ideas that >> survive are those that withstand the scrutiny of the entire community >> and getting that scrutiny early is nearly always better. > > Cross posting is always risky. If the items under discussion are still > maliable then what happens is two discussions break out between two > lots of un-related groups and things get messy. > > I'd be up for this route only if it was very clear of the role of each > party, and lines could be drawn that properly segment the discussions. > i.e., > > 1) CG: "We have collected enough use cases from a wide spread of > authors; we are now presenting this back to the WHATWG - if you wish > to follow along with possible solutions, please take part there" > 2) WG: discusses possible solutions and *whenever* there is doubt > about what an author would prefer to do or what they will understand, > it gets bounced back to the CG > 3) CG: present the WG's dilema in a succinct way that presumes no > prior knowledge, and solicit feedback from authors outside of the WG > list, which is then fed back to the WG. > 4) WG: makes decisions based on that feedback. > > That to me would work best for both communities. I think the sentiment behind these to good, but I'd caution against relying on process and specified roles. The goal here shouldn't be to slice up areas of responsibility -- that seems likely to contribute to -- not mitigate -- people digging in their heels. It's a good feature that anyone can wear whatever hat they like. My observation is that when good stuff happens, it's because a set of people dedicate themselves dispassionately to doing whatever required to pursue a good outcome -- not because of any formal process which is ultimately unenforceable.
Received on Thursday, 17 May 2012 18:32:18 UTC