Re: Review of the Reformatted Recommendations (was Re: New W3C Web Site Launched)

I have considered the change to presentation ofpublished RECs over the  
past few days. Speaking only for myself and not Apple or the HTML WG,  
I must admit I am not happy with the change. Thoughts on Robin's  
questions:

On Oct 15, 2009, at 7:32 AM, Robin Berjon wrote:

>
> Amongst the topics that I would like to see resolved as part of this  
> discussion are:
>
>  - Should this experimentation be performed on live Recommendations  
> at their canonical URLs?

No. Changing the appearance of specifications is a sensitive issue. It  
would be better to start with new Working Drafts, or with WG Notes, as  
a way to work out the kinks.

>  - Should old documents be updated at all? If yes, should the WGs in  
> charge handle them?

No. In my opinion, old RECs should not be updated at all without going  
through the appropriate formal Process to update a REC, even if the  
changes are only intended to be cosmetic.

>  - Do TRs need to have the site navigation included or are they  
> standalone?

No. I think TRs not only do not need the site navigation, they *should  
not* haveit It's true that Technical Reports of the W3C are published  
*on* the W3C site. But I think it is a mistake to present them as  
*part of* the W3C site. That seems inappropriate to me. Web Standards  
should stand alone. The practice of other standards bodies is that the  
standards documents stand alone; they are not presented as an  
intrinsic part of some organizations Web site.

>  - Is it okay to have the logos of commercial companies on TRs?

I'm ok with this on most of the W3C site, but it seems to be in bad  
taste as to TRs. We should be very careful to avoid even the slightest  
appearance that Web Standards documents are being used as an  
advertising platform. And the tradeoff, I feel, is not a good one.  
Most readers of the HTML4.01 specification, for instance, do not need  
an immediate affordance to search the whole W3C site, or to see what  
the W3C is up to on Twitter.

>  - Should the SotD and paraphernalia be pushed to the end?

No. Status of this Document sections often contain information that is  
critical to understanding the document. And these sections were  
written with the understanding that they would be at the very  
beginning of the document - otherwise some material in the SotD may  
have been put in the abstract or introduction. I think it's bad to  
change this retroactively for old documents, even if we wanted to  
change this for future documents.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 15 October 2009 16:16:35 UTC