civility ruling, please RE: (fonts) MTX skepticism

Here is the situation in which I find myself:

1. One seeming authority has asked the font 
   discussion to cease on this mailing as being
   inappropriate.  

2. I have posted far less than many in that 
   discussion though I staked out a novel,
   defensible compromise that would create
   new value for users of the web.

3. The authority calling for a cessation of the
   discussion singled *me* out as an example
   of the problem.

4. The people whose positions I argued against,
   including some other authorities within W3C,
   have continued the discussion here.   Their
   continuation of the discussion includes some
   proposed rebuttals of my arguments.

5. I can not both honor the request to move the 
   discussion from this list AND defend myself
   against these rebuttals, which I find to be 
   flawed.

The resulting appearance is of a parliamentary
maneuver to suppress the introduction of a new 
compromise proposal.  I do not presume that that
is the intent, yet it is the undeniable effect.

Now I would like to know:

a) Where does authority to police this list 
officially reside?   Is the initial admonishment
I received authoritative or not?

b) If the admonishment is authoritative, then
on what basis does the discussion continue anyway,
including attacks on my position against which I am
told I may not defend myself?

c) Will Håkon, Vladimir, and other principles
in this effort agree to establish a forum for the
airing of these issues in an orderly manner, a 
forum in which I may represent and defend my views?

I find it interesting that in my critique of the
competing proposals, here and partly off-list, I
pointed out to various principles flaws in their
proposals that raised sufficient concerns about 
web architecture generally that perhaps, if we could
not agree upon them, TAG should be consulted.
It would be striking and unprecedented for W3C
to Recommend a new format whose primary motivation
is to *break* interoperability with desktop applications.
It would be striking and unprecedented for W3C
to steamroll over the concerns of the font vendors 
and Microsoft or, for that matter, to let the disagreements
here sink a WG formation.  My counter-proposal (the
media-generic wrapper mechanism) demonstrates that
none of those outcomes are necessary and that a WG
could, by adopting that proposal, leave the Web in
better condition than they found it.

It is ironic that in response to elevating the issues
to that level I'm met with a suppression of discussion
about the counter-proposal.

-t

Received on Monday, 29 June 2009 17:58:53 UTC