[whatwg] Re: [off-list] Status Update

[Jim Ley]

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:00:04 +0000 (UTC), Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Feb 2005, Jim Ley wrote:
> > As you're months behind by your own admission, maybe it would be a good
> > idea if some of the other members of the working group started actually
> > responding to issues too.
> 
> More people responding would not make things go faster. 

Of course it does, one of the continual problems on this is your
(comparitively) limited experience of script, therefore it takes
people a long time to explain to you why your "it's all solved with
script" is simply not true.  If the issue is addressed and resolved by
someone with lots of  script experience those delays simply would not
happen.

>The problem with
> many W3C committees that I'm directly familiar with is in fact that there
> are too many people responding to issues, not too few.

So you would say that 1 and just 1 person is the appropriate number
(no other member of the WHAT-WG has responded to an issue that you've
not also responded too)  I'm afraid I cannot agree with that, and
whilst I would agree that lots of people is bad the sweet spot is not
1.  What's the point of all the other members if they don't do
anything - I find it difficult to believe they're even reading the
list.

> > are the other members not really interested in contributing to this
> > work?
> 
> While it may not be in the form of heavy volume posting to the WHATWG
> list, I can assure you that the other members are doing their part.

Rather than "assure me" could you point to some concrete things that
they're doing?  They're not responding to issues, they're providing
text, they're not providing input, what exactly is their part?  Simply
trying to give this body some credibility by lending their names to
it?  If that is the case then yes, I guess they are "doing their part"
 but I'd like to see that made clear.

> I don't recall speed ever being an issue that was raised related to doing
> the WF2 and WA1 work in the WHATWG instead of the W3C. The W3C is not
> necessarily slow.

I certainly recall speed being one of the main motivators, and urls like
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4816  "many feel that
formal standards bodies move too slowly " reflect that.

> The WF2 spec is basically done. Implementation work has started.

What?  before a "call for implementation", that's scary, I understood
you'd previously argued that this was a bad thing?  The spec is
clearly not finished, there are big unresolved issues (particularly
the date fallback and icomplex type proposals)

Jim.