Re: [css-variables] Custom properties using the 'var' prefix? (Issue 1, !important)

On Sep 9, 2012 12:52 PM, "François REMY" <fremycompany_pub@yahoo.fr> wrote:
>
> |  Of course polls can't be used as decision-making tools when they don't
> |  reach a representative amount of people. And to reach a representative
> |  amount of people you'll have to share the link via different (neutral)
> |  sources and let it run for some time.
>
> No matter how much people you can reach, if the global shape of the
surveyed group, the bias of the method you are using to reach this group
and the reasons of respondents engagement in the poll can't be determined
correctly, this is completely vain.
>
> I remember clearly having seen at high school the Literary Digest vs
George Gallup case. "In 1936, his new organization achieved national
recognition by correctly predicting, from the replies of only 50,000
respondents, that Franklin Roosevelt would defeat Alf Landon in the U.S.
Presidential election. This was in direct contradiction to the widely
respected Literary Digest magazine whose poll based on over 2,000,000
returned questionnaires predicted that Landon would be the winner." [1]
>
> I'm a strong believer in user surveying, but I believe we don't have
adequate tools at this time to make a poll really useful.
>
>
>
>
> |  So the mailing list obviously can't be used to reach
> |  enough people to make a decision.
>
> I agree with you. There are options to fix this, and I'm going to
consider them carefully.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gallup

Once again...

A) the poll that was mentioned reached a lot of people, got a lot of
comments by various mediums ...hacker news, twitter, etc.  However it is
essentially just a poll about whether using custom properties makes it more
understandable than using variables verbiage.  Given additional comments by
members, etc. I think that even Tab has conceded that one and bettered the
existing draft.  It isn't scientific and it also isn't precisely what we
were talking about here either.

B) what has happened is that there have been some broad statements
regarding prefix and function name and statements speculating as to what
the community will find intuitive or confusing.  Primarily it is a question
of var- / var()  vs something else and then there is lots of bikeshedding.
In questions of simple intuitiveness vs confusion, I merely suggested that
a poll could help provide _some_ kind of data, especially if everyone did
their best to promote eyeballs/responses which is better than speculation
about what people will prefer or find confusing by the tiny audience (by
comparison) of folks who follow this list.

So... the goal there was to avoid controversy, not create more.  It
wouldn't be the first time that the w3c had had some kind of campaign to
collect feedback.