Re: References Re: What are the requirements/problems? Re: Working on New Styles for W3C Specifications

On 2011/12/14 1:05, Marcos Caceres wrote:

> No, I was deliberately being pushy for the sake of generating discussion. But my intention is just to gather as much feedback as possible: we have an opportunity (first in years, in my experience) to really reflect on the specification template and how we do specs here at the W3C; so I'm trying to make sure we turn every stone over… sometimes even twice. The last time the W3C tried to change the spec template was when they did the last redesign of the W3C front page… that caused a pretty massive outcry and the spec template was promptly changed back to the old one. I think that occurred because the designers did not speak to enough of us here on the ground (and hence all that work went to waste, even if there were good ideas in there).

So just for the record, and chiming in with many others, when it comes 
to references, I think any new design should make sure that all the 
traditional bibliographical information is still provided.

In addition to that, we should make sure that spec editors who want to 
take some shortcuts get kindly told to fix things and provide all the 
information.

One more point that I haven't mentioned yet: When looking at a spec or a 
paper, I often look at things like TOC and references first, because 
they are easy to find and give a lot of "bang for the buck". Looking at 
the reference section also gives a good impression of how careful the 
editors or authors are with respect to details. And I wouldn't want W3C 
specs to exude the impression that they haven't been written with 
careful attention to details.

Regards,    Martin.

Received on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 01:09:48 UTC