Re: [XHTML2] INS, DEL, and MOD

Greetings, this is a tricky subject. I would like us to develop a argument 
that examines the alternatives in therms of their pros and cons. I think 
that there are at least three alternatives using elements:

1.      INS and DEL
        Pro: This is the status quo and people are familiar with it.
        Con:

2.      MOD
        Pro:
        Con:

3.      INS, DEL and MOD
 
Another approach used in xmlspec is the use of @diff with values of add, 
chg, del

Authoring specs in xmlspec is my only experience of explicitly marking up 
changes. I did not like using @diff="chg", I preferred to use @diff="add" 
and @diff="del" so that I could be more explicit. So, personal opinion, I 
do not like, and do not feel the need for, MOD (or diff="chg").


Regards, Roland




From:
"Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>
To:
Tina Holmboe <tina@greytower.net>, public-xhtml2@w3.org
Cc:
Christophe Strobbe <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be>, rob@robburns.com
Date:
05/02/2009 22:09
Subject:
[XHTML2] INS, DEL, and MOD




aloha, tina!

i cannot find our exchange on INS, DEL and my proposal for MOD

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/xhtml2/wiki/ProposedElements/MOD

but i do remember your asking me, "INS and DEL are nicely binary. Either 
it is, or it isn't. What is MOD?", so here is an attempt to answer your 
question with an example of the type of ambiguity a strict binary change 
marker can cause...

the reason why i suggested MOD was to cover situations which frequently 
occur in online collaborative work, such as that contained in the 
following (brief) threads from wai-xtech:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2009Jan/thread.html#msg55

and

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2009Jan/thread.html#msg58

in this exchange, there was confusion and ambiguity between what was 
deleted and what had been inserted and what had been modified, when, 
by whom, and why

that's why i also considered reducing the change marking element to a 
single element, such as MOD or CHANGE, with defined types and/or roles, 
which can cover any and all conceivable cases...

gregory.
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