Cart
|
[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: ATTN: Please comment on XHTML (before it's too late)
 [Paul Tchistopolskii:] > PS. I guess if voting would become more popular procedure > than it is now we'l get more efficient movement, because > the nature of maling-list or any newsconference does not > provide enough statistics. Definately, namespaces are *so* > important that manking 'not perfect' desision in this area > would affect many ( if not all of) XML applications, so > I think that voting on issues like this is reasonable. Interesting idea. A straw poll of stakeholders and developers, regardless of whether they have a voice within the W3C process, might influence that process. To be effective, all voters would have to make their votes public, as well as the rationale behind each vote. As it happens, because of W3C procedures, the voting done *within* the W3C is just a straw poll, anyway. It can only be a good thing to have one more straw poll available, especially if it is a poll of knowledgable, passionate individuals, rather than vested business interests. Such a poll might even become additional input for the W3C's Director's decision-making process. (That would be completely up to him, of course. I gather that he is allowed to consider or ignore anything he likes.) The voting idea appeals to me for several other reasons. I find these discussions in xml-dev extremely valuable, but I'm often left wondering who convinced who about what, if anything. I sometimes need to know that somebody's point (which I may not have fully understood) was or was not answered to that person's satisfaction. In the play "Twelve Angry Men" (all of which takes place in a jury room), the characters repeatedly vote on whether to convict the defendant. They can't leave the room until they're all lined up on the same side of the issue. In the first vote, it's 11-1 in favor of conviction. This excellent and demanding play is about how each of eleven votes are changed, one by one. In any important deliberation, one can easily imagine people going for one side or the other just to get an issue decided, usually by voting with the majority. (One of the votes in "12 Angry Men" changes exactly when the majority changes, to the unanimous disgust of the other 11 voters, regardless of which side they were on.) One can easily imagine passionate and unresolvable disagreements on any given issue, resulting in the technical-committee equivalent of a "hung jury". My 13 years of service on various ISO committees tells me that, in such a case, *both* sides are invariably *right*, and the real problem is that we're attempting to resolve the wrong issue, or to resolve several issues in the wrong order. A "hung jury" situation is neither to be feared, nor to be swept under the rug by any sort of administrative fiat; it is to be learned from and acted upon. It's very worthwhile to sort things out carefully, and it can be done if everyone has the goal of making a good standard, rather than meeting some private goal. There are no substitutes for shared goals, honesty or tenacity. For example, one has to be obedient to the muse of good design, when necessary, and say, "You have destroyed my case. You are right. Congratulations! Let's move on." I have seen this kind of graciousness repeatedly on this xml-dev list. One also has to stick to one's guns, until one's point is understood and answered. Some would call this rude behavior; in standards deliberations, I call it "working". I see this less often on this list, and I think that voting would make it more commonplace, by identifying those who need to be convinced. Some readers might not like the passion, and some writers might run out of patience. That happens. *shrug* Who would pay for the voting and publication machinery? Maybe a voter should pay $10 for the privilege of voting on a given issue, and certify that it's his or her own personal money that is being spent in this way. That would tend to indicate that votes would not be made lightly, and keep the ballot box from being bought by any given business interest. It would also pay for supporting the publication of votes made by people who may need to change their minds, and to say why they changed their minds. -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc. srn@t... http://www.techno.com ftp.techno.com voice: +1 972 231 4098 fax +1 972 994 0087 pager (150 characters max): srn-page@t... 3615 Tanner Lane Richardson, Texas 75082-2618 USA xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...) 
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! 
Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|
|||||||||
