[csswg-drafts] css should define and use consistent terminology for words like "deprecated", "obsolete" (#5644)

frivoal has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts:

== css should define and use consistent terminology for words like "deprecated", "obsolete" ==
(moved from https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/pull/4087#issuecomment-686271513, which was a discussion about one particular usage of such terminology)

Discussed this offline with @sideshowbarker (a while back, only remembering it now): css should define and use consistent terminology for words like "deprecated", "obsolete", and other similar terms.

Here are some of the possible meanings for such words (non exhaustive list):
1. Using this is a bad idea (but if you do, here's how it works)
2. this is an old bad name/API for a useful thing which has a new good name/API. Use the new one if you can, be mindful of compat.
3. This is going away, don't count on it being there, or on continuing to do anything

I think, at present, CSS specs have some cases of 1 (https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#mf-deprecated), some cases of 2 (https://drafts.csswg.org/css-text-3/#valdef-word-break-break-word. I can't quite tell if https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-3/#css2-system is 1 or 3. We call all these "deprecated".

Should we clean up our terminology to account for this nuance? Is there some systematic (and formally defined) existing use of these words by other groups we could align to?

Note that this is about individual features, and is different from obsoleting / superseding / rescinding entire specifications. That's clearly defined [in the Process](https://www.w3.org/2020/Process-20200915/#tr-end).

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/5644 using your GitHub account


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Received on Wednesday, 21 October 2020 10:54:12 UTC