What's the purpose of these meaningless issue resolution messages?

The past few days I've been receiving a number of similar messages dealing
with various issues I raised back on WD4 and WD5 of XHTML2.

They have all been of the form:

> Thanks for your comment. We addressed it some time ago, but did not
formally
> respond to your message. Your suggestions have been incorporated into
XHTML2. 
> For more information, you can look at the issue database at
> http://hades.mn.aptest.com/xhtml2-issues

This has been the same message received regardless of whether or not my
suggestion was adopted or rejected, despite the fact that wording above
makes
it sounds like my ideas were accepted.  I can understand wanting to close
out old
issues, especially with WD7 being just released, but quite frankly, the 
manner in
which it is being done is more insulting than if it were left alone.  This
is because
the impression these form e-mails give is as follows:
   The working group is not considering issues, but wants to look like it
is.

I don't think that impression is the case, but quite frankly, this looks to
be another
glaring example of  the WG concentrating so much on substance that it
ignores
style; a concentration that will impair the adoption of XHTML2 if it is not
corrected.

Now I have never been of the opinion that my ideas are the be all and end
all.
Indeed, many of the issues I raised, were of the sort that I could see
arguments
both for and against adopting the resolution I would have preferred, and
hence
were bound to be decided on the basis of a majority preference of the
working
group.  This is not a complaint about the resolution of any these issues,
purely
about the way that the resolution thereof is being communicated.

Received on Tuesday, 31 May 2005 00:51:06 UTC