Re: w3process-ISSUE-80: Publishing Note to end unfinished REC should only be SHOULD

On Dec 13, 2013, at 9:58 AM, Charles McCathie Nevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 19:11:36 +0400, Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org> wrote:

[snip]

>> By that rationale, the requirement would be: The WG should do it. But if they don't, or if there is no WG, the Team MUST do it."
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> Even if making Team responsible adds some degree of enforceability, it is not clear to me that republication as a NOTE is critical.
>> It's a good practice. But unfortunately it does not happen all the time. And it does not seem to create big issues when it does not
>> happen. I guess that's why I am not yet convinced it should be a MUST.
> 
> I do see it create issues in communities who are fairly disconnected from W3C (often by language as well as what they do), and who pick up a latest working draft that is waaay out of date and assume it is a real requirement. This is essentially the same argument that others have advanced in favour of scrapping TR for "living documents" (which I don't think is the right solution), and they have apparently seen it in different places.
> 
> If you propose to maintain an archive of globally-relevant technical work for decades (and you apparently do) I think it does behoove you to provide a slightly higher level of care than "oh, we just abandoned that stuff and left it lying in the corner as is - hopefully not many people will find it unless they understand the complete context of what happened in the 14 years since".
> 
> Republishing something as a Note isn't a big deal (I hope - otherwise what needs to be fixed is the publication process, because that is one of the most central parts of what W3C does). Change the status, date, stylesheet and you're done. It could probably even be automated.
> 
> I think it would be well worth the small cost if W3C took this seriously as a responsibility instead of regarding it as an optional bit of niceness.


We'll want to be sure W3M is aware of this request since it imposes a resource allocation commitment (however small).

Ian

--
Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>      http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                       +1 718 260 9447

Received on Friday, 13 December 2013 18:26:22 UTC