We're not going to change this.

The spec is literally *defining* something called (verbatim) "a simple colour". It's a term of art, marked up with <dfn> in the spec.

It's not defining something called "a notation of a simple color" or something.

I know you mean well by filing bugs like this one. But they're frankly just a nuisance.

If you ever happen to find substantive problems in the spec, please by all means do file bugs for them. But reports like this one are very much unwelcome. It consumes time and energy to respond to them that could much better be spent on other things.

I wonder, if it would have been sufficient to express your view on this without the words "nuisence" and "very much unwelcome".
Most bugs I filed with other specs I translated were most welcome by the editors and if there were some comments of mine, that were not a real bug, or expressed an opinion different from that of the editor, at least the editor found some decent words.
I appreciate the work that you put into cleaning the bugtracker, and that there are probably a lot of "bugs" that are none and that it might be a waste of time to remove all that and quite tiring.
Still I think it would be nice to use a language that shows some respect for everybody else too, who works on these matters.

For the words of art, yes, I got to know many of them in over 15 years of W3C translations, they are used in all different contexts, and sometimes to end discussions what probably needs to be done sometimes. I learnt to accept them as the last word of the editor in chief. 

To be of less nuisence I would like to know, if I should file a bug for every single typo I find, or if it is more convenient to collect a few and file them per chapter or so? There are some, but I haven't filed them yet.
Thanks for the help and don't worry I will keep filing bugs and hopefully mostly the once that are not a nuisence, but I can't promise that it will be always the case.

(In reply to Stefan Schumacher from comment #2)
> I wonder, if it would have been sufficient to express your view on this
> without the words "nuisence" and "very much unwelcome".

I'm regret my choice of language and I hope you'll accept my apology.

Along with that I like to ask you to also take some time to consider that every single bug you file incurs real costs on other people. Each bug requires somebody (and often multiple people) to take responsibility for it—even if it's just to evaluate whether it's a real bug that really needs to be fixed.

> Most bugs I filed with other specs I translated were most welcome by the
> editors and if there were some comments of mine, that were not a real bug,
> or expressed an opinion different from that of the editor, at least the
> editor found some decent words.

I hadn't meant to be rude and I should have stated myself differently, but the message really is: Please please don't waste other peoples' time. I'm not sure if there's a decent way to say that's not going to make somebody feel bad.

I feel bad about either of us needing to spend more time on something like that I see a very much a non-issue when in fact there are probably lots of others we could be discussing that actually merit our attention and time.

One thing you really need to understand is that the bulk of the spec as written by Hixie at least was very very carefully written—much more so than pretty much any other spec you may have ever translated. You can pretty much assume that if Hixie wrote something in a certain way, he meant to write it that, and it's not an oversight or sloppiness.

In this case, when Hixie defined the term "simple colour", he meant to use "simple colour" and not "notation of a simple colour." The first is not less precise than other parts of the spec (though I can understand it may seem so). It's intentional, and it really should be translated as-is.

> I appreciate the work that you put into cleaning the bugtracker, and that
> there are probably a lot of "bugs" that are none and that it might be a
> waste of time to remove all that and quite tiring.
> Still I think it would be nice to use a language that shows some respect for
> everybody else too, who works on these matters.

I'm honestly not trying to show disrespect. But at the same time as I alluded to above, I hope you can understand that bug reports like this one also don't come across as very respectful or considerate of the time and attention needed from other people to do the work of triaging them.

> For the words of art, yes, I got to know many of them in over 15 years of
> W3C translations, they are used in all different contexts, and sometimes to
> end discussions what probably needs to be done sometimes. I learnt to accept
> them as the last word of the editor in chief.

Well some (maybe most) editors don't choose their words very carefully, and I think in the case of most other specs it probably makes a lot of sense for translators to point out poor wording in the original. But in the case of this spec, I know from long experience with it that Hixie has chosen his words with exceptional care, and the default assumption of anybody reading the spec should be to assume that there's a reason it says what it says in the way it does, and it's not likely that somebody is going to come in and improve on is significantly in any cases that aren't just plain errors.

> To be of less nuisence I would like to know, if I should file a bug for
> every single typo I find, or if it is more convenient to collect a few and
> file them per chapter or so?

I think everybody would agree that bugs for typos/mistakes are very much welcome, and it's fine to either raise individual bugs for them or to collect them and file them per-chapter or whatever else works best for you.

> There are some, but I haven't filed them yet.
> Thanks for the help and don't worry I will keep filing bugs and hopefully
> mostly the once that are not a nuisence, but I can't promise that it will be
> always the case.

Well, your help is appreciated and please also accept my personal thanks for your time and effort and attention to detail. So please don't let me or anybody else ever discourage you from doing all you can to help make this spec and other specs the best they can be.

And I'll try to be more considerate and less dismissive in the future.

Mike, you are right, the language used in this spec is really mostly excellent and precise and no need to search in three other specs for clues to understand it. Also the HTML structure is quite consistent compared to others.

I will stick to filing typos and simple things like that, and might collect the questionable stuff and give it for discussion in other places first, if I really think, it could be handled or written differently. Until now there is really nothing substantial.

I guess we got our things sorted and can spend our time more productive now.

Happy workin'

(In reply to Stefan Schumacher from comment #4)

> I will stick to filing typos and simple things like that, and might collect
> the questionable stuff and give it for discussion in other places first, if
> I really think, it could be handled or written differently. Until now there
> is really nothing substantial.

OK, but like I said previously, do what you think is right and don't let me or anybody else discourage you from filing bugs on anything that you really think could be improved. As somebody who's reading through the whole spec, your insights are extremely valuable.

> I guess we got our things sorted and can spend our time more productive now.
> 
> Happy workin'

Cheers & thanks again