Status of ACTION-509: Communicate with RDFa WG regarding documenting the fragid / media type issue

http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/actions/509

I confess I'm not sure what to do here. If we provide no further
advice to the RDFWA WG, then the CR version will contain the words "at
present" (details below). That might or might not be OK. I don't know
their schedule for CR but I suspect that if anyone's unhappy with "at
present" (and I'm a bit uneasy) we should act pretty soon.

Editor's latest draft:
http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/sources/rdfa-core/Overview-src.html

Options:
  a. Do nothing - "at present"   -- this then sounds like a veiled
promise; but it's not actually a promise so everyone has plausible
deniability
  b. Ask them to remove "at present"  -- the reader then wonders why
the spec is telling them to do something at odds with other specs;
maybe OK
  c. Something else, such as clarifying text   -- but I am having a
very hard time figuring out what this would say
  d. Ask the WG to change their examples...  this would be very rude
since they've already had two last calls! ... and we already decided
not to do this.

My preference is c, but wording escapes me so I'm hoping a wiser
person will be able to come up with the requisite text.

Here's a summary of the history. I take responsibility for the
confusion - I only dip into this every month or two and am not as
careful or clear as I ought to be.

1. 31 March RDFa Core "second last call" draft used JAR's somewhat
   breezy text (I hadn't expected them to take it literally)

2. After TAG discussion, JAR in LC comment 21 April suggests:
   Unfortunately, this practice is not at present covered by
   the media type registrations that govern the meaning of
   fragment identifiers (see section 3.5 of the URI specification
   [RFC3986], [RFC3023], and [RFC2854]).

   But in the same message, JAR expresses uneasiness over "at present",
   giving further thoughts on the problem in the hope that
   the WG will work out a better way to say it. (They didn't.)

   Last call comment period closed 21 April.
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdfa-wg/2011Apr/0126.html

3. ?? dates unknown
   WG replaced LC text with JAR's 21 April text, then removed "at present"

4. May 12 TAG discussion observed that "at present" was removed.
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2011May/0035.html
   HT: "This is very weak"
   The discussion broadened to the general question of how fragids work and
   led to Jeni's current work.  No advice to JAR regarding RDFa Core
   is recorded in the minutes, action remains open.

5. The WG's response to the LC comment:
    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdfa-wg/2011May/0098.html

6. May 28, JAR, confused by the WG's response, asks for clarification
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdfa-wg/2011May/0099.html

7. The WG reinstates "at present"
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdfa-wg/2011May/0101.html
   thinking that this is what I was asking for.

8. ACTION-509 was not taken up at the June TAG F2F

Received on Monday, 20 June 2011 14:48:16 UTC