Re: HSL Troll...

>Eric A. Meyer writes:
> >    Does this strike anyone else as being particularly rude, or is
> > it just me?
>
>It may be just you. Comp.human-factors has in the past had discussions
>about the poor human-factors of RGB specifications, and what would be
>better. Recently members of the CSS working group have claimed that
>there was no user demand for anything outside of RGB. How do people
>get their opinions heard apart from sending the list?

   Well, here's what I would have done (but, again, this could be just me).
I would have posted to the newsgroup that I needed people's help in
advocating my point of view.  I would have asked them to respond either in
the newsgroup or to me personally, and would have discouraged them from
posting directly to the list, UNLESS they wanted to subscribe and join the
general discussion (which is always to be encouraged).
   Once I had a goodly number of responses, I would have chosen some of the
best lines/statements/arguments from those responses and put them into a
single message, along with the names of everyone who wrote or posted in
support.  Then I would send that single message to the list, with an
explanation of what my idea, why it was a good idea, and provided the names
and quotes as evidence of the amount of support for my idea.
   Thus, interested parties could either discuss the idea on the list, or
dip into the newsgroup, or both.  Those uninterested or unqualified to
discuss the issue could not only stay out of it, but not be inundated with
repetitive messages that rarely allow for followup.

>Besides, if you
>do a followup, it should also go to the person who sent it, and they
>*can* follow the discussion (as this thread has already shown).

   A copy only goes to the person who sent it if the headers are left
alone, I believe.  Personally, I make the assumption that messages to a
mailing list should either be responded to privately, or on the list, but
there is no reason to send a person the same message twice (one copy
directly, and one via the list).  So I almost always respond to list
messages by wiping out all of the cc: and To: addresses and inserting the
list address.
   This is, of course, getting pretty far off-topic.  In an attempt to
return the thread back to style sheets, let me say this:  despite the
recent "scattershot posts" incident, I still think the Working Group ought
to seriously consider the inclusion of a number of alternate color
specification schemes-- so far I've heard HSL, LAB, CMYK, Pantone, and
Crayola (apologies if I missed any).  If there are good technical reasons
not to include any of these, fine.  If there aren't any real barriers other
than "we are unaware of any demand" then why not add them to the
specification?  After all, just because we haven't heard about someone
wanting LAB color, that doesn't mean they aren't out there.

--
Eric A. Meyer  -  eam3@po.cwru.edu  -  http://www.cwru.edu/home/eam3.html
 Hypermedia Systems Manager
 Digital Media Services                http://www.cwru.edu/dms/dms.html
 Case Western Reserve University       http://www.cwru.edu/

Received on Wednesday, 3 December 1997 09:47:04 UTC