[whatwg] Self-imposed RDFa cool-down period

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2008, Manu Sporny wrote:
> 
> There are a number of us that were pulled into the discussion by members 
> in this community and it is unfortunate that our explanations of the 
> semantic data expression requirements have been understood as "beat(ing) 
> everyone over the head"[1]. That was not our intention and we have 
> endeavored to keep our argumentation logical and civil.

I encourage you to take part in the writing of the wiki page, as per my 
most recent e-mail (sent at the same time as yours!).


As an aside to everyone here:

In general though I just want to remind everyone that because of the way 
the HTML5 spec is edited, there is rarely any need to say anything twice. 
When I eventually get around to reading the feedback, I always first go 
through and prune duplicate arguments or statements so that I only 
consider points based on their technical merits and on what supporting 
research they have, and not on the number of times they were made.

If somebody disagrees with a point, responding with the same counter 
argument as they initially were responding to will not actually have any 
effect. Instead, it is better to provide points that demonstrate ones 
opinion. For example, instead of:

  A: Nobody will publish metadata.
  B: There are big sites that already publish metadata.
  C: Nobody will publish metadata.

It's better to have a discussion like:

  A: Nobody will publish metadata, as demonstrated by this research that 
  shows that out of one billion random Web sites, only a thousand have a 
  <meta> element.
  B: There are big sites that already publish metadata, for instance 
  Facebook already does. However, they do not use <meta>, they use rel="".
  C: Even when looking at rel="", there are only four sites in the sample 
  sample that use that attribute.

Obviously the arguments actually put forward in this example are bogus, 
but I hope that my point is clear. :-)

Thanks,
-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'