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See Bug 6374, which has the language of the current draft: **** In this document, examples and material labeled as "Note" are provided for explanatory purposes and are not normative. **** But note that "exammple" occurs 100 times in this document, often as "for example" and isn't contained in a note. So the draft violates its own terms for presentation to the reader. For example: 2.3 Node Identity "No two distinct integers, for example, have the same value ; every instance of the value “5” as an integer is identical to every other instance of the value “5” as an integer.)" 2.6 Namespace Names "Namespace names, whatever form they take, are treated as character strings and compared for equality using codepoint-by-codepoint comparison, subject only to whitespace normalization if they appear in a context (for example, within an attribute value) where this is appropriate." (inside a definition) Still under 2.6 " For example, the namespace part of an expanded QName is defined to be a value of type xs:anyURI." (normative or non-normative?) I won't bore you with citing all the other "for example" cases. Examples should be separated and numbered (including sub-numbering if it has parts). How else are implementers going to refer to examples in the text?
The XML Query and XSLT WGs discussed this bug report on today's call. The first passage you quote explains that examples are not normative. The other passages you quote involve examples specifically identified as such. The WGs do not see any contradiction between a statement that examples are non-normative and the provision of examples. We are aware that some standards development organizations require that examples not only be identified as such but be formatted in a special way. Our rules for the styling and layout of our specifications do not require this, and on the whole, those WG members who expressed an opinion did not think that it would be an improvement, let alone enough of an improvement to justify the editorial effort involved. Our experience is that implementors and other readers have no trouble referring to examples by section and paragraph number. Accordingly, as instructed by the working groups, I am marking this issue WORKSFORME. Patrick, if you believe the arguments given above adequately address your concerns, or if despite your lack of any such belief you are willing to accept the WGs' disposition of your comment, please indicate as much by changing the status of the bug report from RESOLVED to CLOSED. If you are not satisfied with the WGs' handling of the issue, please indicate so by changing the status from RESOLVED to REOPENED, and explain why you do not find the arguments compelling. If we haven't heard from you in two weeks, we will take silence for consent. Thank you for your comments; I am sorry we were unable to resolve this in the way you would have wished.