- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:26:48 -0500
- To: "Al Gilman" <Alfred.S.Gilman@ieee.org>, wai-liaison@w3.org, www-archive <www-archive@w3.org>, "Michael(tm) Smith" <mike@w3.org>, "Chris Wilson" <Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com>, "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch>
- Cc: "Steven Faulkner" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, "Joshue O Connor" <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>, "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>
The following is a related message from Jason White relayed here with Jason's permission: On 6/13/08, Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote: > On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 11:28:16AM +0200, Robert J Burns wrote: >> I'm all in favor of us clearing up the process surrounding the WG, but >> I don't want to endorse Mike Smith's unreasonable position regarding >> the issue tracker. The issues Gregory added on my behalf are perfectly >> within established norms for adding issues to the issue tracker. If >> their are substantive objections to those issues, then the discussion >> should focus on the substantive objections (i.e., what problems would >> solving these issues cause for users, what confusion could solving >> these issues cause for authors, what difficulties would implementors >> face in implementing solutions to these issues, etc.). > > I agree this is where the priorities should lie. It is more important to fix > the HTML working group's issue tracking practices than to discuss, on this > list, ways of working around their inadequacies. > > While it is possible for a working group not to track all issues raised > during > the early stages of the development of a spec, this practice needs to be put > in place in later stages of the W3C process so that the group can formally > respond to all issues raised in comments submitted. However, with a large > and > complex specification such as HTML 5, I would be concerned that unless > issues > are tracked carefully from an early stage, there is a very real risk that > important problems could easily be lost. After all, the purpose of an issue > tracker is to ensure that this doesn't happen and that decisions are > documented sufficiently; and as the number of issues grows, this becomes > increasingly necessary. > > If issue tracking isn't carried out properly from the start, then problems > which are discussed but, for one reason or another, not addressed, are > likely > to emerge again later in the process, where dealing with them can be much > more > painful. No reasonable working group participant wants a large number of > difficult issues to arise at Last Call or later that could have been more > adequately dealt with earlier. Last Call, Candidate Recommendation and > Proposed Recommendation are challenging enough as it is, without a host of > issues that have previously been raised but then overlooked or > disregarded. > > Also, having significant, dissatisfied constituencies among those who will > implement or otherwise use a spec, is just asking for formal objections or > negative votes as the W3C process proceeds; so this, too, is precisely a > situation which it is rational for working group participants who are > committed to the success of the process to ensure is avoided. > > Of course, HTML is a large spec, and tracking the issues adequately is a > correspondingly difficult job. However, the working group is also a large > one, > which should make it possible to divide up the problem among participants so > as to reduce the over-all burden. -- Laura L. Carlson
Received on Saturday, 14 June 2008 03:29:20 UTC