Comic Update: Redefining Resolved
Posted by Kyle Weems on October 06, 2009Today’s comic imagines a scenario where Ian “The Leviathan” Hickson, HTML5 editor, “resolves” an issue as a plumber.
I’ve used quotation marks on “resolves” because the English language lacks punctuation to indicate sarcasm. I can only imagine what such a strange mark would look like, the black sheep that was expelled from the childhood home of Exclamation Point and Question Mark after a dispute with his stern father, Period. What would life on the streets do to such a symbol?
I considered using italics, but I didn’t want to look too sassy.
The @summary attribute has been the source of no little discomfort during the gestation process of HTML5, a token of sorts that is lauded, derided, despised and fought over in what seems like an endless battle. I discuss, in my own rambling fashion, my view of the civility of the issue here, which in turn references Bruce Lawson’s post on the topic, Alternate text in HTML5. It’s been the source of no small amount of contention, which I think John Foliot describes nicely over here.
Despite this, for some reason I’d (perhaps foolishly) thought that some sort of accord had occurred with @summary, allowing it to exist in HTML5 as a non-obsolete, conforming part of the spec (albeit with a great deal of snark involved).
I’d recently learned that not only was peace not occurring, but that @summary had found itself into the middle of another fracas. It seems that in an attempt to get HTML5 to reach Last Call status on schedule, Ian is marking unresolved issues in the bug tracker as “WONTFIX”, insisting that people with problems talk to the chairs, and moving on.
One such example of this in action is available for your reading pleasure in this W3C bug report. For those of you in a hurry, I’ll sum it up: People (such as the PFWG) have issue with @summary being marked in the HTML5 validator as “obsolete but conforming” along with a warning message. Ian Hickson, man of action, disagrees with the PFWG’s opinion, won’t change the (inaccurate) flag, and has decided that the issue (among others) is resolved and simply marking it “WONTFIX.” Apparently it will keep this status, despite the large amount of opposition to this stance.
This is, as John Foliot puts it (in the same report) “An affront to the web accessibility community that existing accessibility solutions that the current editor disagrees with have the status of WONTFIX simply because the editor disagrees.”
I’m not sure, in the end, if @summary does or does not deserves the bad rap Ian’s trying to attach to it. But I do know, though, that I’m tired of seeing one “benevolent dictator” being capable of deciding the future of the open web single-handedly by sidestepping all the prior discussions and opposing views regarding HTML5 with a simple “WONTFIX” status.
My favorite is claiming “it’s not obsolete” when it appears under “Warnings for obsolete but conforming features” features.
I saw that, and marveled at that claim. Either it is obsolete, or it is not. It’s an attribute, not a subatomic particle in some sort of quantum flux.
[...] http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/10/06/comic-update-redefining-resolved/ [...]
This type of thing has happen previously. A year and a half ago the editor closed an HTML tracker issue without it being resolved.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Apr/0222.html
To be very clear, at http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7633#c1 Ian Hixson states “The attribute, even though conforming, is strongly discouraged, which is why there’s no example.”
Discouraged by whom? Certainly not the W3C (find me proof of that assertion), nor, more importantly, W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative, where, in WCAG 2 one of the specifically stated means of achieving Success Criteria is to use the summary attribute on tables (http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/H73)
*NONE* of the other suggestions within the Draft HTML5 spec deliver the same functionality that @summary delivers, despite Hixie’s personal interpretation.
Currently Cynthia Shelley (Microsoft) is working on behalf of the WAI Protocols and Formats Working Group to craft an appropriate ‘message’ to attach to the @summary attribute, including a useful and accurate example (provided by Wendy Chisholm). Cynthia reported to the HTML WG on Sept 14th with a useful interim update (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Sep/0553.html), so if Ian “WONTFIX” he should step aside and let others “FIX” – wishful thinking on his behalf is not how Standards should be written.
Stay tuned for more…
I don’t want to “diss” HTML5. There’s plenty to like. But when it comes down to actually writing whole sites in it, there are little details I disagree with. I know of only a few right now (some were fixed), but I anticipate that I will run into a couple more once I start really using it.
There’s been too much bias and lack of rigor in the process. It’s not so much that I think my opinions definitely right. It’s that I’m not actually very difficult to persuade. There are decisions in the HTML5 spec that I don’t agree with and the reason behind which (where known) I don’t find persuasive.
Since I refuse to subject myself to the hostility of the mailing list (it’s no great loss — I’m no genius and most of my thoughts have been previously expressed by others), what else am I to do? I could stick with XHTML 1 or HTML 4 for the next 10 years until another spec comes along. But I imagine I’ll be using HTML5 at least some of the time.
With that thought in mind I’ve formed a tentative plan. For many years I’ve made a point to ensure that my websites validate. With HTML5 I suspect I’ll use validation as I did in my early days… to catch typos. I’ll ignore the spec where I disagree with it.
It’s a weird and guilty feeling. There are so many good reasons to follow standards, even when they aren’t entirely satisfactory. But I’m not going to adhere to any rule that, in my considered opinion, is genuinely silly.
Actually that’s good that native-english people explain their views on that much better than us foreigners can. Thanks Kyle. And thanks John Foliot for explicitly restating stuff.
Me? I love @summary. I don’t mind if it’s not mandatory, but it’s useful when needed.
The “irony mark”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_mark
Update:
A new HTML5 Working Group Decision Policy [1] in WG discussion [2].
[1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Oct/0189.html