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As discussed at our May 2013 F2F meeting, the TAG would like the HTML WG to consider the following preface language for "Status of This Document": This document summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML or HTML documents to validate on either HTML or XML parsers. This specification is intended to be used by web authors, particularly authors who want to serve receivers which may have either (but not both) XML or HTML parsers available. This commonly arises in legacy systems and content syndication. Polyglot is one of several transition mechanisms from legacy XML to HTML5 and this document serves to describe it accurately. No recommendation is made in this document or by the W3C regarding whether or not to publish polyglot content. In general, authors are encouraged to publish HTML content using HTML5 syntax and media types (either HTML syntax and text/html, or XHTML syntax andapplication/xhtml+xml This document is not a specification for user agents and creates no obligations on user agents. Note that this recommendation does not define how HTML5-conforming user agents should process HTML documents. Nor does it define the meaning of the Internet Media Type text/html. For user agent guidance and for these definitions, see [HTML5] and [RFC2854].
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Accepted Change Description: Changes made as requested. Thank you for the suggested text. new revision: 1.111; previous revision: 1.110 SOTD now reads: Status of This Document This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/. This document summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML or HTML documents to validate on either HTML or XML parsers. This specification is intended to be used by web authors, particularly authors who want to serve receivers which may have either (but not both) XML or HTML parsers available. This commonly arises in legacy systems and content syndication. Polyglot is one of several transition mechanisms from legacy XML to HTML5 and this document serves to describe it accurately. No recommendation is made in this document or by the W3C regarding whether or not to publish polyglot content. In general, authors are encouraged to publish HTML content using HTML5 syntax and media types (either HTML syntax and text/html, or XHTML syntax and application/xhtml+xml). This document is not a specification for user agents and creates no obligations on user agents. Note that this recommendation does not define how HTML5-conforming user agents should process HTML documents. Nor does it define the meaning of the Internet Media Type text/html. For user agent guidance and for these definitions, see [HTML5] and [RFC2854]. Please submit bugs for this document by using the W3C's public bug database ( http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/) with the product set to HTML WG and the component set to HTML/XHTML Compatibility Authoring Guide (ed: Eliot Graff). If you cannot access the bug database, submit comments by email to the mailing list noted below. This document was published by the HTML working group as an Editor's Draft. If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to public-html@w3.org (subscribe, archives). All comments are welcome. Publication as an Editor's Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress. This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
As I wrote at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2013Jun/0003.html, the first sentence should be changed from "This document summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML or HTML documents to validate on either HTML or XML parsers." to "This document summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML or HTML documents to validate on both HTML and XML parsers." A document that does not validate on both HTML and XML parsers by definition isn't polyglot. The second 'either', in "to serve receivers which may have either (but not both) XML or HTML parsers available", is fine. Senders and receivers here are in opposite roles, if the receivers have only one of two parsers, then the sender needs to send something that works on both kinds of parsers. But if the recivers have both parsers, then the sender can send something that works on either parser.
Thank you, Martin. I made this change in the editor's draft of 5 July. Apologies for missing this from the mail thread.
In the poll, Henri said: “I object to the characterization "This commonly arises in legacy systems and content syndication."”, see (https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/polyglot-status-preference-poll/results) In my own rationale in the poll, I agreed that the sentence ”should be improved”. The reason I think so is A) that it is unclear what the ”this” in that sentence actually refers to and B) that the unclarity of the ”this“ is due to to the fact that the preceding sentence IMO is complicated and unclear. C) It would also be good to soften the claim that (whatever the ”this”) it _commonly_ arises. Further more, paragraph vaguely contradicts the fact that the specification, in its November 2013 shape, has been sharpened as a *particular* profile of HTML polyglots, namely a well-rounded UTF-8 based profile of HTML polyglots. Add to that some repetitive and/or suboptimal word choices, I propose to change the entire paragraph as follows: ]] This specification summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML or HTML documents to be conforming whether parsed as HTML or as XML. The document is intended to be useful to web authors, in particular those who want to serve receivers without concern for whether they have XML or HTML parsers available. (2) Such concerns may for instance arise in content syndication or when receivers are on legacy systems. HTML polyglots 'facilitate migration to and from xhtml'[*], including transition from legacy XML to HTML5, and this document serves to accurately specify the requirements of a UTF-8 based profile for such documents. [*] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/document-metadata.html#charset-0 [[ If Henri or some of those who proposed the original text steps to “bless” or propose changes to the above text, then that would be appreciated. If we don’t hear anything within the next few days, I assume we will just use the above text rather verbatim.
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Accepted Change description and rationale: Barring any suggestions contrary to the recommended text, I've implemented the following in the SOTD section: This specification summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML or HTML documents to be conforming whether parsed as HTML or as XML. The document is intended to be useful to web authors, in particular those who want to serve receivers without concern for whether they have XML or HTML parsers available. Such concerns may, for instance, arise in content syndication or when receivers are on legacy systems. HTML polyglots "facilitate migration to and from XHTML" [[http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/document-metadata.html#charset-0]], including transition from legacy XML to HTML5, and this document serves to accurately specify the requirements of a UTF-8 based profile for such documents. commit 1.17