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Comments on: Comic Update: The WHATWG Legion of Doom? http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/ opinions and news on web design Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:22:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Kyle Weems http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27192 Kyle Weems Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:05:38 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27192 @Henri - The primary purpose of the Super Friends announcement was HTML5 advocacy to web designers. That's not odd. These are the people who need to buy into using HTML5, otherwise it'll be unused features sitting inside the browsers. That purpose was best served by being put in a location that the target audience regularly visits. Zeldman's blog alone probably gets more designers visiting it than the whatwg mailing list. Combined with the other blogs of the remaining Super Friends, it's a certainty that they hit a larger group. It's worth noting, though, that even Jeremy Keith stated that the concerns section would be put to the whatwg's mailing list in short order, so it was known the requests would become visible to the whatwg. This statement was quoted and commented on in the irc, so there shouldn't have been doubt or resentment at whether it would occur. That said, I don't think the whatwg requires total information awareness to find those particular posts on those particular popular blogs in which they were located, as opposed to more obscure rantings like my own. Enough of the whatwg community overlaps with the Super Friends' peer group to ensure that the information would trickle to the proper destination. (As made evident by the discussion about them in the irc.) @Henri – The primary purpose of the Super Friends announcement was HTML5 advocacy to web designers. That’s not odd. These are the people who need to buy into using HTML5, otherwise it’ll be unused features sitting inside the browsers.

That purpose was best served by being put in a location that the target audience regularly visits. Zeldman’s blog alone probably gets more designers visiting it than the whatwg mailing list. Combined with the other blogs of the remaining Super Friends, it’s a certainty that they hit a larger group.

It’s worth noting, though, that even Jeremy Keith stated that the concerns section would be put to the whatwg’s mailing list in short order, so it was known the requests would become visible to the whatwg. This statement was quoted and commented on in the irc, so there shouldn’t have been doubt or resentment at whether it would occur.

That said, I don’t think the whatwg requires total information awareness to find those particular posts on those particular popular blogs in which they were located, as opposed to more obscure rantings like my own. Enough of the whatwg community overlaps with the Super Friends’ peer group to ensure that the information would trickle to the proper destination. (As made evident by the discussion about them in the irc.)

]]> By: Henri Sivonen http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27189 Henri Sivonen Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:02:56 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27189 “In this case, it was your apparent upset at not having a recommendation posted first to the mailing list, rather than to the community it was targeting.” Do you mean requests for changing aspects of HTML5 were meant for a community other than the WHATWG or the HTML WG? That’s … odd. Anyway, #whatwg has total information awareness systems that lets us locate blog posts, too. “In this case, it was your apparent upset at not having a recommendation posted first to the mailing list, rather than to the community it was targeting.”

Do you mean requests for changing aspects of HTML5 were meant for a community other than the WHATWG or the HTML WG? That’s … odd.

Anyway, #whatwg has total information awareness systems that lets us locate blog posts, too.

]]> By: Kyle Weems http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27164 Kyle Weems Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:25:16 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27164 I want to reiterate that I believe, Ian, that you are doing important, valuable work for the future of the web as editor on HTML5. I just disagree (sometimes too strongly, admittedly) with some of your opinions or decisions. In this case, it was your apparent upset at not having a recommendation posted first to the mailing list, rather than to the community it was targeting. To that effect, Tantek, I agree that the "Legion of Doom" characterization for WHATWG is over-the-top. However, I chose it as a comedic contrast to the Super Friends. I'm not sure if exaggeration for the sake of comedy is always a good choice, but it usually produces the results I'm looking for (namely, making people laugh). Also, you got to admit, Mike(TM) looks great in the Riddler outfit. I want to reiterate that I believe, Ian, that you are doing important, valuable work for the future of the web as editor on HTML5. I just disagree (sometimes too strongly, admittedly) with some of your opinions or decisions. In this case, it was your apparent upset at not having a recommendation posted first to the mailing list, rather than to the community it was targeting.

To that effect, Tantek, I agree that the “Legion of Doom” characterization for WHATWG is over-the-top. However, I chose it as a comedic contrast to the Super Friends. I’m not sure if exaggeration for the sake of comedy is always a good choice, but it usually produces the results I’m looking for (namely, making people laugh).

Also, you got to admit, Mike(TM) looks great in the Riddler outfit.

]]> By: Stéphane Deschamps (notabene) 's status on Wednesday, 16-Sep-09 11:45:37 UTC - Identi.ca http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27156 Stéphane Deschamps (notabene) 's status on Wednesday, 16-Sep-09 11:45:37 UTC - Identi.ca Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:45:47 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27156 [...] "have fun with the ML if you’re a masochist" heh, too true http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/ [...] [...] "have fun with the ML if you’re a masochist" heh, too true http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/ [...]

]]> By: Ian Hickson http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27151 Ian Hickson Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:47:54 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27151 Yeah, my comment was out of line. Yeah, my comment was out of line.

]]> By: Tantek http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27140 Tantek Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:39:35 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27140 To be fair, I think Ian and the rest of the WHATWG members have been doing incredibly *constructive* work for many years (since the Great Web Semantics Schism of June 2004), and thus characterizing them as individuals or as a group as the "Legion of Doom" is fairly inaccurate. If you think "web designers (aka: authors) have been largely skeptical about how well HTML5 is going to meet our needs", you should have seen (perhaps you have) the other side of the Great Web Semantics Schism, a mishmash of needlessly complex namespaced XHTML2+XForms+SVG+MathML+RDFa - so foreign to web designers needs that the web design/development/publishing community never took it seriously (after the the second "xmlns:..." most authors tend to glaze over). We should appreciate the hard persistent work the WHATWG has done to push forward practical/pragmatic approaches to evolving the web in contrast to efforts driven more by academia and a few large corporations (some mobile-related) that quickly lost touch with the day to day professional web author. That being said, your comic comparison does make for good comedy (even if a stretch), and Ian's assertion (in the linked IRC log) that the WHATWG is the "the original community" when it comes to evolving HTML and good uses thereof is indeed laughable - the modern web design community has been doing this since the early 2000s, long before WHATWG was created, as anyone reading Zeldman's, Meyer's, Bowman's, Cederholm's blogs (and perhaps occasionally mine) since then knows. Thus it's no big surprise that such individuals (including myself) continue to have discussions and post feedback on the web, where the longest standing audience interested in "semantic HTML and XHTML" happens to be. Besides, anyone else see the irony of insisting on using email instead of the web to evolve a *web* technology? To be fair, I think Ian and the rest of the WHATWG members have been doing incredibly *constructive* work for many years (since the Great Web Semantics Schism of June 2004), and thus characterizing them as individuals or as a group as the “Legion of Doom” is fairly inaccurate.

If you think “web designers (aka: authors) have been largely skeptical about how well HTML5 is going to meet our needs”, you should have seen (perhaps you have) the other side of the Great Web Semantics Schism, a mishmash of needlessly complex namespaced XHTML2+XForms+SVG+MathML+RDFa – so foreign to web designers needs that the web design/development/publishing community never took it seriously (after the the second “xmlns:…” most authors tend to glaze over).

We should appreciate the hard persistent work the WHATWG has done to push forward practical/pragmatic approaches to evolving the web in contrast to efforts driven more by academia and a few large corporations (some mobile-related) that quickly lost touch with the day to day professional web author.

That being said, your comic comparison does make for good comedy (even if a stretch), and Ian’s assertion (in the linked IRC log) that the WHATWG is the “the original community” when it comes to evolving HTML and good uses thereof is indeed laughable – the modern web design community has been doing this since the early 2000s, long before WHATWG was created, as anyone reading Zeldman’s, Meyer’s, Bowman’s, Cederholm’s blogs (and perhaps occasionally mine) since then knows. Thus it’s no big surprise that such individuals (including myself) continue to have discussions and post feedback on the web, where the longest standing audience interested in “semantic HTML and XHTML” happens to be.

Besides, anyone else see the irony of insisting on using email instead of the web to evolve a *web* technology?

]]> By: Anne van Kesteren http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27108 Anne van Kesteren Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:00:41 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27108 Wow, I'd love your sources for that assertion. I've seen Ian state repeatedly that he takes feedback into account from all kinds of sources, e.g.: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/1241.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Jan/0204.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Jul/0156.html He might encourage people to participate on the list, which makes sense as it is a good forum for people with different opinions to come together, but it is certainly not your only means of giving feedback. Wow, I’d love your sources for that assertion. I’ve seen Ian state repeatedly that he takes feedback into account from all kinds of sources, e.g.:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/1241.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Jan/0204.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Jul/0156.html

He might encourage people to participate on the list, which makes sense as it is a good forum for people with different opinions to come together, but it is certainly not your only means of giving feedback.

]]> By: Gonzalo González Mora http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27107 Gonzalo González Mora Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:38:41 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27107 Well, I'm really interested in the outcome of the HTML5 spec, but I'm not subscribed to the mailing list, so these "out-of-place" discussions (i.e., blogs, forums, etc.) are my main source of the current status of it. I know it may not be the best thing to do, but honestly I don't have the time to read the huge amount of content in it (plus, I hate mailing lists). I'm pretty sure there must be a lot of people like me... Regarding the comic, I LOVED it hahah. It was the funniest for me :D Can't wait for the next one! Well, I’m really interested in the outcome of the HTML5 spec, but I’m not subscribed to the mailing list, so these “out-of-place” discussions (i.e., blogs, forums, etc.) are my main source of the current status of it. I know it may not be the best thing to do, but honestly I don’t have the time to read the huge amount of content in it (plus, I hate mailing lists). I’m pretty sure there must be a lot of people like me…

Regarding the comic, I LOVED it hahah. It was the funniest for me :D Can’t wait for the next one!

]]> By: Kyle Weems http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27103 Kyle Weems Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:00:58 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27103 @Anne - Ian makes enough sour commentary about the discussion of HTML5 in other groups and communities that I believe his opinion on such things doesn't qualify as off-hand. There's enough data present to give a strong case that it is his actual opinion on the topic. By all outward appearances (which, in the case of a large project spread across many organizations that will impact billions of people, matters) he strongly dislikes any extended discussions or suggestions about the HTML5 spec that aren't through the whatwg mailing list. Which is, at its core, a bit silly. Re: Fuss. You don't get to be the sole editor of such an important project without having the burden of being more circumspect in your conversation without it being parroted about by bored cartoonists. Regarding the capital V. Yes, it's the text-transform: capitalize getting in the way. I instigated it initially out of distaste of people using lowercase first letters on their normal names, I failed to take into account names such as 'van' which lack that capital first letter. I might need to drop the styling as a result. Thanks for bringing that to my attention! @Anne – Ian makes enough sour commentary about the discussion of HTML5 in other groups and communities that I believe his opinion on such things doesn’t qualify as off-hand. There’s enough data present to give a strong case that it is his actual opinion on the topic. By all outward appearances (which, in the case of a large project spread across many organizations that will impact billions of people, matters) he strongly dislikes any extended discussions or suggestions about the HTML5 spec that aren’t through the whatwg mailing list. Which is, at its core, a bit silly.

Re: Fuss. You don’t get to be the sole editor of such an important project without having the burden of being more circumspect in your conversation without it being parroted about by bored cartoonists.

Regarding the capital V. Yes, it’s the text-transform: capitalize getting in the way. I instigated it initially out of distaste of people using lowercase first letters on their normal names, I failed to take into account names such as ‘van’ which lack that capital first letter. I might need to drop the styling as a result. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

]]> By: Anne van Kesteren http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2009/09/14/comic-update-the-whatwg-legion-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-27102 Anne van Kesteren Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:39:24 +0000 http://www.cssquirrel.com/?p=427#comment-27102 (Your style sheet seems to mess up the (lowercase) "v" in my name as far as visual appearance goes by the way. Feel free to delete this.) (Your style sheet seems to mess up the (lowercase) “v” in my name as far as visual appearance goes by the way. Feel free to delete this.)

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