Re: formal vs. prose and PR [was: Re: Final minutes QA WG Teleconference May 16]

[...changed to www-qa-wg...]

I need clarification.  What is in the current text (2005/05/23, [1]) does 
not reflect my memory of our decisions, nor the minutes of 9 May telecon, 
from which I excerpt this discussion and its resolution:

>[...] DH suggested that maybe some text should be added to the effect
>that, when there is such a discrepancy on formal vs. prose, the WG should
>publish
>an erratum, but that it would be good to have an interim "tie-breaker" for the
>reasons mentioned previously. KD stated that conflicts are not acceptable,
>and publishing errata to resolve conflicts should be encouraged. TB raised
>concern about conflict vs. error in this regard. LH likes the
>wording from Al Gilman on this matter as a base, and then
>add a sentence strongly recommending (in non-normative language) to publish
>errata when inconsistencies of this nature arise. KD also suggested pointing
>to the part of the W3C Process Document which addresses errata in this
>sentence.
>
>ACTION: DM to take Al Gilman wording and add erratum recommendation sentence
>(as described previously) by Wednesday.

Al's wording was the compromise that allowed the WG to include a 
tie-breaker rule when it thought such was appropriate, but did not 
*require* it.  Al reaffirms in his 1st message of today that such was 
okay:  "Asserting a precedence that the development group genuinely 
believes in is fine. Requiring a precedence in the absence of that 
collective opinion is counter-productive."

SUMMARY.  We agreed with Al's wording, we resolved to put it in the spec, 
but we didn't do it.

Am I missing something?

-Lofton.


At 06:15 PM 5/23/2005 +0200, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux wrote:
>Le lundi 23 mai 2005 à 12:03 -0400, Al Gilman a écrit :
> > "Formal vs prose language normativity"
> >
> > .. for which the QA Working Group has failed to do due diligence to
> > resolve the issue.
>
>I think it's unfair to say we have failed in this regard; my last post
>on this was sent on Friday, and I'm still waiting for a reply from Ian
>on the topic.
>
> > That is to say a phalanx of consistent comment from customers has been
> > ignored, and the Working Group has left an ill-considered requirement
> > in the document.
>
>Although I disagree the requirement is ill-considered, it seems pretty
>clear to me that there is a lack of consensus on the matter, and I think
>the WG should revisit its wording to allow for more flexibility on how
>to deal with the perceived problem. Typically, instead of saying
>"explain which takes precedence", we could simply say "there are often
>extensive overalap between prose and formal language, so beware of any
>discrepancies between them" or something like that.
>
>(I expect the QA WG will discuss this next week, although I won't attend
>that call)
>
>Dom
>--
>Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
>W3C/ERCIM
>mailto:dom@w3.org

Received on Monday, 23 May 2005 17:19:58 UTC