RE: Closing out old and "bogus" issues

On Tue, 27 May 2008, Chris Wilson wrote:
> >
> >I haven't done as good a job for public-html mail as for whatwg mail 
> >(where I guarantee to reply to every actionable e-mail).
> 
> Why?

Because replying to every single e-mail on this mailing list would at 
least double the volume of e-mail (in fact it would probably increase it 
even more, since people would also reply to my replies), and I'm pretty 
sure nobody wants that. Long ago you, Dan, and myself, amongst others, 
came up with an issue tracking system for this group, and it has been my 
understanding that that is the feedback tracking mechanism hyatt and I (as 
editors) are supposed to use to determine what issues are open issues.

If we want to switch to a WHATWG-like model where I reply to every e-mail, 
then either the chairs need to do a better job of shaping the discussion 
to be more productive, or I need to be given the authority to enforce 
productive discussions. As several people have privately told me, the 
signal:noise ratio in public-html@w3.org is orders of magnitude lower than 
in whatwg@whatwg.org. This is not just chance -- the WHATWG community has 
been cultivated to actively discourage sending e-mails with no substance 
(e.g. just agreeing or disagreeing without reasoning), using hostile tone, 
repeating previously stated points, and so forth, while solid arguments, 
reasoning, research, reading everyone else's e-mails before posting, and 
concrete proposals have been actively encouraged. Such an environment is a 
prerequisite to replying to every e-mail.

Now even given that, I still try to keep track of all feedback sent to 
public-html. I just haven't done as good a job as with the WHATWG list, 
due to the aforementioned situation.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 19:35:28 UTC