Re: feedback requested on WAI CG Consensus Resolutions on Text alternatives in HTML 5 document

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Aug 2009, Sam Ruby wrote:
>> Steven Faulkner posted a resolution.  I will note the following responses:
>>
>> 1) Ian Hickson[1][2]: "I don't understand"
>> 2) Maciej Stachowiak [3][4][5]: "The material differences ... are"
>> 3) Henri Sivonen [6]: "the following procedure should be followed"
>>
>> Between the three of you, nobody has provided any feedback on the 
>> resolution itself.
> 
> I am unable to evaluate proposals without knowing what problems the 
> proposals are trying to solve. I would *love* to be able to review this 
> feedback.
> 
> Here is my feedback in the absence of knowing what the point of the 
> proposal is:
> 
>   I intend to merge ARIA in as soon as it is possible to do so in a well- 
>   defined manner.

I believe that we are at that point.

>   The rest of the proposal appears to be a subset of what HTML5 says, so 
>   as far as I can tell, it's already done.
> 
> However, without being able to evaluate it in the context of what problems 
> it is trying to solve, this feedback is rather worthless.
> 
> I can't fix the spec if I don't know what the problems are. 

If you can't and nobody else does, then we will go with your spec text.

> Just telling 
> me what the spec should say without telling me why doesn't work, because I 
> have no way of knowing whether what such a proposal says is intentionally 
> in conflict with previous feedback that result in what the spec says, or 
> if it is trying to solve some other problem and merely accidentally 
> changed other things, or any number of other possibilities.
> 
> So yes: I don't understand. Could someone help me understand? Sam, do 
> _you_ understand? Could you explain it?

To suggest that providing spec text without telling why doesn't work is 
a disingenuous position for a person who doesn't "have time to document 
the rationale... because I spend all of my time answering different 
questions and editing the spec"[1] and yet intends to be ready for last 
call in approximately two months[2].

At this point, asking you to document the rationale for everything in 
the draft is a bit much to ask, but I do believe that asking you to 
document the rationale for sections of the spec that have open issues 
associated with them is a reasonable request.  In this case, we are 
talking about issue 31[3].

- Sam Ruby

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Aug/0054.html
[2] 
http://www.webstandards.org/2009/05/13/interview-with-ian-hickson-editor-of-the-html-5-specification/
[3] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/31

Received on Sunday, 16 August 2009 22:42:23 UTC