Re: the MathML comments

Hi Sam,

On Nov 9, 2009, at 4:25 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:

> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:05:44 +0100, Sam Ruby  
>> <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:
>>> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>>>> -public-html
>>>> +www-archive
>>>> On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:52:29 -0800, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net 
>>>> > wrote:
>>>>> So, on one hand, I have zero sympathy for any active participant  
>>>>> in the working group who chose to attend a session on MathML who  
>>>>> may claim to have been unaware of this work or making any  
>>>>> statement other than the fact that while they personally did not  
>>>>> have a chance to review it, sufficient others have for this to  
>>>>> have been sent on behalf of the working group.
>>>>
>>>> When the session was announced I got the impression it was about  
>>>> MathML integration (also based on a short discussion earlier with  
>>>> another Math WG member) and since I know something about that I  
>>>> attended. I had no idea MathML feedback would be discussed.
>>>
>>> Did I suggest that you shouldn't have attended?
>> I do not think the "zero sympathy" is fair given the situation.
>
> Whee!  This is fun.  Not.
>
> Let's start at the beginning.  Did you or did you not miss the  
> repeated and public statements that there would be a review going  
> on, statements that were made in October, made on public-html, the  
> low traffic public-html-wg-announce, and on the weekly telecon  
> itself and more than three weeks before TPAC?  I will note that  
> annevk2 was listed as a participant in the 15 October call.

Having been present in person in the HTML/MathML session I can say the  
following:

- A number of people seemed to be aware that there was review going on  
and comments being collected.
- Some people (including, I believe, Anne) were aware that comment  
were circulated and solicited two days before the session in question.
- Almost no one seemed to be aware that these comments had been  
submitted as official feedback from the HTML WG to the Math WG earlier  
that same day.
- A number of people seemed to feel uncomfortable with being put in  
the position of standing behind these comments as comments from the  
whole WG.

I believe the confusion here was almost entirely the fault of the  
chairs for not stating a clear process. I believe it is unfair to  
seemingly assign some blame to the attendees of the joint session  
("zero sympathy") for lack of attention, when many of them are among  
the most active and attentive participants in the working group. If  
many of those people were confused about what happened, then that's a  
clear indication that the chairs failed to set expectations properly.  
Similarly, it would be unfair to in any way blame Shelley for the  
confusing situation, and I was careful not to do so in my remarks.

One thing to keep in mind: typical W3C procedure is that official  
cross-WG comments are assumed to have consensus of the Working Group  
providing them unless stated otherwise. The chairs should have kept  
this in mind when developing the process for cross-WG comments. I for  
one am happy that Shelley was willing to beta test the process. Now we  
need to fix the bugs.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Monday, 9 November 2009 15:05:14 UTC