[whatwg] Processing the zoom level - MS extensions to window.screen

[Charles Pritchard]

On 11/24/2010 10:56 AM, Boris Zbarsky wrote:
> On 11/24/10 1:26 PM, Charles Pritchard wrote:
>>> But the upshot is that people make mistakes. If you don't assume they
>>> will, you come to grief.
>> Assuming they'll make mistakes is different than having zero faith in
>> their competence.
>
> I have zero faith in across-the-board competence.
>
> That is, given a possible mistake it _will_ be made.  By a lot of 
> people (though possibly a small fraction of the total number of people 
> involved).  If the mistake is subtle, it'll be made by a large 
> fraction of people.
>
> The majority won't make any given mistake unless the situation is 
> really egregious.
>
> A fairly small minority of web authors making a mistake still 
> translates to tens of millions of users or more being affected by it.

I agree thousands of web authors do reach millions of users. Unlike window.open/pop up exploits, they won't DOS other sites/the browser.
I understand your decisions have an impact on hundreds of millions of people.

Politically, I'm more of a free market, free speech person than a centralized authority, safety over insecurity administrator.

The minority of people making mistakes will find that of the millions their mistakes harm, some will rise up to confront the issue.

My passion in engaging the whatwg mailing list stems from the concept that code is a form of speech: my ability to present a web app to users is an extension of personal expression. This is why I went head to head with Ian about the use case of rich text editing: language processes should not be limited to standard scripts and dialects.

I greatly appreciate the value of standards, but I am at the same time, very sensitive to the effects that centrally planned restrictions have on groups. The aggregate effect is one where tens of millions are harmed by the decisions of a few people in authority. I'd rather see the masses harmed by themselves than by authority.

I'm a fan of both Hayek and Keynes. I believe in the availability of information and choice, as well as the importance of leadership and structure.

In this instance, I agree that zoom is UA level and should be restricted on setting properties, to the UA and privileged extensions. I also believe that the information about zoom should be accessible, so the market may use it, so that emergent properties develop.

I've only asked that information be made available. The response from your group seems to be "you can't handle the truth!"


-Charles