In the past couple days far more eloquent people have spoken about the current srcset “fiasco” with calmer voices, analyzing the situation with a maturity and fairness that frequently escapes my grasp when I’m hastily penning a post and drawing a comic.

If you haven’t read them already, I would ask that you take some time to read Jeremy Keith’s Secret Src and Jeffrey Zeldman’s The Unbearable Lightness of HTML5. I don’t think either pretends to be a neutral moderator in this debate between the WHATWG’s methodology as practiced versus the appeal of angry developers for the “users before authors before implementers” priority that the WHATWG preaches. But at the same time they clearly make an effort to understand the motivations of Ian Hickson and the browser makers, mention the merit of their position where it exists, and treat their intentions with some reasonable charity.

They also do a good job of explaining a complex situation in comprehensible, non-combative terms.

I personally don’t do well with the sensations of helplessness and the apparent disregard that Hixie and the browser makers seem to show towards developers by the WHATWG’s process. I don’t believe that ends justify means, and I personally believe that something as central to my career (and to something quite central to the Internet’s functionality) as HTML deserves stewards that are trustworthy and fair.

Idealistic, I know.

Middle Child

We, the developers, are the middle child of this whole standardization process. Unlike the users, who could care less about HOW a website works as long as it works, or the browser makers who have the power to decide how to implement the features of the Internet to meet their corporate goals and to fill their coffers, we developers (authors) are answerable to the ability of users about what they want (or need) in a website but have no power to guarantee that the browsers meet our needs as creators.

As antagonistic as our relationship can sometimes be with users, the fact is that we know we have to answer to them. If a site doesn’t meet their needs, they move on. They have that choice, that freedom to type in a new URL and get their news/lolcats/gossip/pictures from somewhere else. There are literally billions of web pages, and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of developers willing to replace us and to feed the users’ wants and needs.

When it comes to our needs and wants, however, we have a very limited set of vendors to turn towards. Although there are plenty of browsers in the sea, ultimately there is only a precious few that gobble up the majority of users. And although users get to pick what websites they visit, we don’t get to pick what browsers to work with. (Well, we can, and some do, but ultimately we have to go where the users are or we starve). And when it comes to our needs and wants, the browser makers know we have to deal with them. We’re making sites to work on their programs, and with that necessity means we start the lose the ability to be picky. They’ll make what they want, and we have to deal.

The Priority

The balm that is supposed to take the sting out of this awkward situation is the priority of constituencies that we allegedly follow when web standards are created. Users come first, as it’s their consumption of the web in the first place that provides any of us with a job. Informed by their desires and needs, we authors (developers) are then next in the food chain. We take their needs and wants and use that as the impetus to create apps and sites. If we ignore their needs, our work fails, creating a simple reinforcement of our service to them. Ostensibly, the next step is that the implementers (browser makers) then in turn serve us. We inform them of the features and techniques we need them to build their browsers for in order to make our jobs easier and then to get the users to visit our sites (on their browsers).

As good as this situation sounds on paper, in reality it’s something different in practice. The WHATWG never stops in reminding us that if the browser implementers don’t want to add a specific feature, there’s no way to compel them. Therefore, whenever a conflict of interest appears between a developer-crafted solution or a browser maker-crafted solution to a given use case, the browser maker’s option is chosen first by the WHATWG. Frequently it happens with far less scrutiny or careful examination.

It’s this exact sort of situation that has resulted in this week’s general outbreak of developer rage (mine included).

Ends and Means

I might be willing to consider an implementer first ideology (unlikely, admittedly, but it’s possible) if everyone involved was behaving in a fashion that appeared ethical and respectable. But this recent situation is one of many that shows that lack of respect at the minimum, and frequently a lack of ethical behavior as well (I’ll attempt to explain why I’m making this sort of claim further on).

Unlike big corporations, who exist to make a profit and historically do so at the expense of the common man, and justify their actions by the end result of “make more monies”, I don’t believe that the ends can, or should, justify the means by which those ends are achieved.

Everyone involved: Hixie, the WHATWG, browser makers, developers; all of us want a usable HTML standard that lets us make better websites/apps. That’s the end. I’m willing to say that’s a noble end that everyone wants. But where things break down are the means. And that’s where my charity in tolerating their methodology fails, causes me to start ranting and agitating the community for extreme responses.

The New HTML Standard

So we’re in this quagmire now. The people who respect developer input and with a process that is more inclusive reside at the W3C, which maintains the HTML5 Standard that functions as a static snapshot of our unversioned HTML at a given point in time. The person who makes decisions by arbitrary dictatorial fiat with inconsistently applied requirements that favor browser makers over developers is Ian Hickson over at WHATWG, responsible for the HTML Living Standard which the majority of the major browser vendors are using as the basis for their implementations of HTML.

That puts us developers in a very awkward position of petitioning the dictator with the strong likelihood of being ignored and actively mistreated, or collaborating with the inclusive organization that nonetheless doesn’t see nearly as much traction with the browser makers (although I do believe they have an impact I think that it’s a slower one).

What’s a developer to do? Why work at all on the <picture> elements of tomorrow if they’re only going to be ignored for a srcset that sees far less scrutiny before its adoption?

I’ve proposed “occupying” HTML. I’m not naive enough to believe that a purely democratic solution is the best one, and that the optimal solution is the one with the most voices. We need intelligent, scrutinizing people like Hixie to actively doubt the soundness of our proposals. We need input from the browser makers on the feasibility of implementing our solutions on their end, and to hear their views from the experience they have gained by actually building browsers.

In short, sometimes we need the WHATWG. Besides, it won’t go away just because we wish it to do so.

So I’m going to cool my rhetoric just a bit and make a proposal of a new HTML standard that all of us, browser makers and developers, standard organizations and bloggers, can all agree on and benefit from.

Don’t worry, this standard doesn’t require too complex of a specification document. In fact, I’m going to lay it out here and now.

The New HTML Standard:

1. (H)onesty

I might also term this one as “Integrity”. My major objection with the current srcset situation is that the “communication process”, as some have deemed it, has shown another instance of what I believe is a pattern of dishonest behavior on the part of the WHATWG, through omission at the least if not through direct fabrication.

Part of Tim’s WTFWG post focused around a situation where the developer group responsible for developing the <picture> proposal were (they thought) instructed to create a Community Group to develop the proposal as part of the WHATWG process. As Jeremy Keith later outlined in his Secret Src post (linked at the start of this article), that was in fact not the case. The person proposing the Community Group was not representing the WHATWG, and a CG isn’t part of any WHATWG process.

Ian and friends get a pass, then, on actively misdirecting the developers into this particular fruitless cul-de-sac of labor. But what I wonder at, and believe is a big part of this “communication issue” of theirs, is that Ian and the others in the WHATWG saw this community group be built and go about its business, yet never spoke a word to correct their misinformation.

In short, they knowingly allowed them to occupy themselves on a pointless endeavor without raising their voice to correct false information.

To me, I see only a modest amount of distinction between permitting this charade to go on and actively lying to the group themselves. If one man knows a vial is poison, and chooses to say nothing but smile and watch as a bystander is told by the person next to him that the poison is delicious punch, and then drinks that poison, are they not culpable?

Trust between developers and browser makers is at an all time low. We’re wasting energy and time fighting each other because we no longer can trust the motivations or process of the WHATWG and the browser makers due to actions (or inaction) exactly like this.

We need to be more honest. We need to act with integrity. This constant smoke and mirrors approach to distracting developers while the browser makers go behind their backs isn’t an acceptable way for adults to behave. If we believe we’re being approached honestly, and dealt with honestly, then we’re far more likely to be sympathetic to browser makers and their own counter-proposals.

2. (T)eamwork

I don’t believe a democracy will build HTML.

At the same time, ignoring the merit of collaboration for the sake of a standard built by dictatorial fiat is is a foolish, shortsighted measure that can only be summarized as egotistical. No matter how intelligent and hard-working Ian Hickson is (and I do believe he is both), he can’t see a given problem from all angles by himself, nor replicate the output of a dozen or a hundred developers working in concert towards a goal.

Whether or not Standards are a place that egos reside, they certainly shouldn’t be.

Perhaps HTML needs a sole gatekeeper. I don’t believe it does, but I’ll admit that the possibility exists. That doesn’t mean that HTML development doesn’t need cooperation among several (preferably many) individuals each bringing their own intellect, experience and creativity to solve problems.

Bear in mind that “experience” part. Ultimately some of HTML5′s greatest battles have been over issues like accessibility, a topic that Ian has little to no formal experience or body of knowledge about. Yet despite this he is infamous in the accessibility community for his pattern of making choices that directly impact the accessibility features of the language based on his own judgement and seemingly arbitrary solutions at the expense of decades of experience in the subject by dedicated, educated professionals who deal with accessibility challenges every day.

How does that make sense? How does that make for a better HTML standard?

Outside of accessibility, look at the recent adaptive image issue. There are merits and flaws to both <picture> and srcset. Yet when it comes to usability, the former is far more capable of being learned, adopted, and easily used in the day to day workflow of developers than the latter. Even Jeremy Keith, who is far more knowledgeable about HTML today than I will ever be, has a hard time understanding exactly how srcset works, and has very real, very legitimate concerns about how it will fit the methodologies developers currently have with dealing with responsive designs (such as how it doesn’t appear to play well with em- or percentage-based layouts).

This doesn’t mean that srcset couldn’t win out in the end as the better option with some further modification. And despite overall developer rage, there are people like Keith who are motivated to help improve proposals like srcset even if it wasn’t their first pick. But they didn’t get that chance to robustly shake out the bugs before it was adopted into the spec with none of the hoop-jumping that <picture> and other community proposals have been subjected towards.

There’s are many developers that want to help HTML become the best it can be. Let them actually, genuinely help. Don’t callously disregard their efforts while blindly accepting browser maker proposals that have seen less vetting and testing.

Take advantage of the team!

3. (M)odesty

It’s very evident that Ian Hickson is not a humble man. He has consistently engaged in a pattern of adding features to HTML that he has self-designed instead of using ones developed by communities of experienced professionals who know far more about the given use cases, challenges and situations involving the problems his solutions are allegedly addressing.

See anything involving HTML and accessibility as proof of this. Or consider the debacle that was centered around <time>.

Asking Ian Hickson to be humble is probably akin to asking a lion to become a vegetarian. But when it comes to something as vital to the central communication medium of the 21st century, it rapidly becomes clear that there’s no room for one single man’s opinion to be the dominating factor.

I understand that we owe WHATWG in general and Ian Hickson in particular a lot of thanks for the existence of HTML5 at all. When the W3C permanently stalled on moving the standard forward, it was the WHATWG’s methods that helped get the ball rolling again. But as vital as that start was, the methods that fueled it aren’t appropriate, nor desirable, for maintaining the standard now that it’s in motion.

There’s a lot riding on HTML standards being decided today, as they will be in use for quite some time to come. When we consider the large scale impacts that flawed accessibility implementations can cause, we need to stop valuing our own egos over the wisdom of experienced teams that can help ensure that the standard that ends up being crafted actually meets the need of the users.

Who are, again, of higher priority than us anyhow.

This should apply to the browser makers themselves as well.

Google and Apple and Opera make browsers. They work on making browsers every day. I’m not questioning that, nor am I suggesting that I know their job better than they do. I can say in all modesty that I cannot replicate their efforts.

But when it comes to making websites, they cannot hold a candle to the flame that is the experience of us developer dogs that are in the trenches every damn day. Websites are our bread and butter. Websites are the source of our paycheck.

I put meat on the table with websites. Do you understand me, son?

So no matter how much experience they have in making browsers, when a large and experienced team of professional developers designs a solution to a problem that represents a common use case that we have to deal with, the browser makers need to get a little more modest and actually listen to us.

I’m just saying that I’m sure browser makers really thought <blink> and <marquee> were good ideas at the time.

We know our job, guys. Just lend us your ears and let down your walls of ego. Even if you decide not to adopt proposals we make (for browser-related reasons that we don’t understand) you just might learn enough of our problems to modify your own solutions to better fit our needs.

4. (L)iability

By which I mean accountability.

I’m accountable to the users (and of course, my clients). Every day they (hopefully) use the websites I make. It doesn’t matter how I code a site, or what my personal preferences on feature selections are. If they can’t use the site, if they can’t use the site, then I’m doing a disservice to my clients and frustrating the users.

I don’t like flash video players. I prefer <video>. But I also know that at present sometimes I need to make use of the former for certain use cases, and use the best tool for the job to meet the user’s needs.

By the same token, the browser makers are accountable to us. I don’t care how hot, fast, and feature-rich your browser is. If I don’t have a good way to take those features and add the implementation of them to my work flow, they’re not going to end up in the final product and the users will never see them in my websites.

Srcset may be a good tool. But it’s not presently one that seems very easy for me to grok, or use. I’m furthermore worried about how to adopt it into a percentage-based responsive design. <picture>, by contrast, is easier to use, easier to understand, and for the most part it does what I want it to do (and more importantly behaves the way I expect it to behave). It uses syntax that is familiar to me and lowers the barrier for me to adopt it into my workflow.

The priority of constituencies isn’t supposed to be lip service. It’s a formalized way to express something that is common sense. I need to build sites that fit the needs of users. Browser makers need to build tools that I can actually use.

It’s true that without browser maker buy-in, a feature can be in a standard surrounded by glowing letters and angels and it will still never actually end up in a browser. I get that. But there’s also no point in building solutions that don’t see wide adoption because they’re an awkward fit, don’t fit our use cases, or don’t fit our workflow.

You are ultimately accountable to us, reliant upon our willingness to champion your features and encourage their adoption by our peers in the community.

Am I Being Unreasonable?

I don’t think I am. I’m asking people to be more honest, work together, check their egos at the door and remember that ultimately our livelihoods all come from the bottom up. We developers rely on the users, and in turn the browser makers rely on us.

That’s an HTML Standard that I think we can all agree to. That’s the sort of reactionary activism I’m asking from everyone in the community: developers and browser makers.

Work with us. Communicate with us. Learn from us. Respect us. I guarantee that in return we will treat you in kind.

In his post that I linked at the top of this article, Jeffrey Zeldman said something that I believe is both very humble for admitting his own potential faults, and suggests an experiment for Hixie to consider.

In theory, if we are frustrated with Mr Hickson’s arbitrary dictates or feel that they are wrong, we can take our ideas and our grievances to the W3C, who work on HTML5 in parallel with the WHATWG. We should probably try that, although I tend to think things will continue to work as they do now. The only other way things could change is if Hixie wakes up one morning and decides benevolent dictator is no longer a role he wishes to play. If I were in charge of the future of the web’s markup language, with not just final cut but every cut, I’m not sure I’d have the courage to rethink my role or give some of my power away. But perhaps I underestimate myself. And perhaps Hixie will consider the experiment.

Ian, I’ve said very little about you that is kind. I know that. But if you took Zeldman up on his experiment, and took me up on being part of this HTML Standard I propose, you would prove me utterly wrong about every unkind word I’ve ever spoken.

That’s some crow I would gladly eat.

In a way I should be grateful to Ian “Hixie” Hickson for being an egotistical tyrant. Without his inability to acknowledge that a consensus-driven, well-crafted and usable solution built by a group of well-meaning, hard-working people could actually somehow be better than his own personal opinion, he’s pulled me out of my long-hiatus and back to to the drawing board.

Today’s comic is in fact three comics. No single idea could encompass everything. In all three Hixie gets top billing as the editor-for-life of HTML’s “living spec”. The first comic features Naepalm, chinchilla alter ego of fellow Mindflier Janae Wiedmaier. The second one includes the irreplaceable Justin McDowell. Lastly we see Matt May, Dylan Wilbanks and Ethan Marcotte joining forces with the Squirrel in a bid to take down the HTML king.

(Today’s comics as per usual aren’t meant to imply that the people represented therein endorse my views. I’m saying it outright today because I’m feeling particularly vitriolic and don’t want my words to reflect on them.)

The Situation

For those of you just tuning in, today’s outrage focuses around Hixie’s decision to adopt a problematic, late-arriving, Apple-proposed attribute of the <img> tag into the HTML standard as the solution to the adaptive images issue. In the process he again reinforces his inability to heed the creed of HTML’s priority of constituencies (end users over authors over implementers) while also tossing away the hard work of a community group of developers that built a very functional, very usable solution to that problem in the form of the <picture> element.

If you’d like a summary, you can check out the aptly titled WTFWG by Tim Kadlec, or take a look at Zeldman’s take on the situation over here, which links into an A List Apart article by Mat Marquis on the topic.

I wish this was a new situation. Or that it was surprising. Or that I didn’t feel like I was repeating myself each time I mention Hixie in blog or comic form. The fact is that as the Editor of HTML, Ian keeps doing this. And we keep letting him.

The Puppet

At one point I attributed this issue solely to his gigantic ego and clearly overwhelming case of not invented here syndrome. Now I’m frankly convinced that although these qualities contribute to the problem, the real issue is that he’s the puppet of the browser vendors, namely the three most involved in WHATWG: Apple, Opera, and Google. Although the priority of constituencies dictates that implementers (aka, browser vendors) should be lower priority than developers (who are in turn answerable to end users), it seems that without fail Hixie will bow to the vendors before considering any work on the part of developers at a solution, no matter how reasonable, well-built and documented that solution is.

That’s not a kind accusation, that a man is a puppet. But clearly every attempt to work with the WHATWG has always resulted in developers being treated as second-class citizens to the browser makers. And let’s make it clear: this is our job. We make websites for a living, and the tom-foolery that Ian is engaged in is directly impacting our present and future workflow. We work on making websites every damn day. We know what works for us, and what doesn’t.

And he doesn’t care in the slightest.

“Work With Us”

At this point, Hixie and his backers are relying on the same smoke and mirrors to distract people. Present use cases. Keep engaged with the WHATWG and let them know your technical objections. Get involved in their IRC. But the fact is we as developers have done this over and over and over. Yet at the end of the day, regardless of the hard work put in and all the proof jammed into the pudding, it all amounts to naught. Hixie spends twelve seconds coming up with his own solution or takes what the browser makers gives him and uses that instead.

It happened with metadata. It happened with the <time> element. It’s happening now with responsive images.

The fact is that Ian doesn’t give a shit.

He’s going to do it his way, or failing that he will do what Google and the other browser makers in the WHATWG tell him to do. He’s not going to look at what the developers have built and give that solution a thumbs-up. As John Foliot said: “Dev community, if you continue to author to the WHAT WG doc, you lend your tacit support to heir hixie. Look where that gets you.”

Enough Is Enough

Being part of their process is being part of the problem. I’ve never seen things resolved by following the WHATWG’s “process”, as it amounts to little more than distracting developers while he goes off and implements a less functional, more complex solution to the problem.

Don’t deal with Hixie. Don’t deal with the WHATWG. Directly object to the browser vendors. “Occupy” HTML by making use of the consensus-built techniques that already have functional polyfills. Do what makes sense, and what works for you.Sooner or later, the browser vendors will be tired of the grief sent their way and tell Hixie to roll over.

<time> wasn’t fixed because we followed the WHATWG’s process.

I’m going to say it: I don’t believe that WHATWG is part of the solution anymore. As I’ve been told by others, democracy isn’t always the best approach. Sure, ok. But so far when it comes to the community-build, consensus-driven approach and Hixie’s brain, the community’s solution has proven more effective more often.

I’m going with the community, not the puppet.

My grandmother did her best to correct his language. One word she’d like to encourage him to use instead was “hooey.”

Today’s comic features hooey. It also features Ian “the Leviathan” Hickson, Google employee and HTML5 editor-for-life (nowadays, he’s more of a generic HTML editor-for-life, which is likely a much sweeter gig) as well as Larry Masinter, Principle Scientist at Adobe.

The hooey in the comic is hyperbole for the effect of comedy; Ian has not outed Larry as a cannibal.

However, Ian did perform some character assassination last Friday when he fired off this blog post accusing Adobe of “blocking” HTML5. He also took the opportunity to simultaneously claim he couldn’t reveal the author of a post for it being in a private list (he chose to use the word “secret”, likely for dramatic effect) while immediately revealing the author’s identity in the very following paragraph (which in this case was Larry.)

There’s a few issues here that point at the continuing mire that is the political process of HTML5, and the resulting decrease in public confidence in the resulting product. First, we’ll look at Ian’s charge: that somehow Adobe is blocking HTML5. This is an absurd statement from Hixie, who’s made it clear that the WHATWG controls HTML5 (in his view) and not the W3C. So for him to claim that a W3C action is impacting the adoption of a spec he adamantly states is in WHATWG’s hand is like saying that the mayor of Osaka, Japan is blocking the Washington state budget from being passed. It’s an act of dishonesty at worst, or emotional manipulation of his readership at best.

(I am not saying the W3C doesn’t have a leadership role in the HTML5 effort. Rather, I’m saying that according to many prior statements by Ian, it doesn’t.)

Regardless, several people caught this “story” and ran with it. Perhaps it’s the Apple/Adobe conflict spawning fanboys and lines drawn in the sand, but a lot of people are willing to demonize Adobe at the drop of a hat. So, rapidly, the word was tweeted throughout the digital realms: Adobe hates HTML. And kicks babies.

I wonder how many of those re-tweeters use Photoshop, Illustrator or Dreamweaver on a regular basis?

Fortunately, some non-partisan cowboys came riding into town and cleared the air with a thoughtful examination on the situation. In particular, I recommend reading Simon St. Laurent’s The Widening HTML5 Chasm and Thom Holwerda’s Teacup, Meet Storm, part IV. Please take the opportunity to peruse their posts for some perspective. Once you’ve received that enlightenment, continue.

Done? Ok. Onwards, then.

Ian Hickson is a Google employee. Which means he’s a smart man. His track record of work speaks to that effect, and it’s worth saying that despite my disagreements with his process, much of HTML5′s good parts have appeared thanks to his efforts as the spec’s editor.

Ian Hickson has a methodology for handling people. It’s documented at his website here. One section on discrediting has some lovely gems that seem to apply to the situation: “Discredit the man who produced the report, off the record.” and “Say that he is harbouring a grudge against your group.”

Also, I’m going to propose that our dear Leviathan has been working on HTML5 for quite some time, and as such has been up to his eyeballs in the process for years. He knows how the process works, clearly, and has historically shown his willingness to ignore said process if that gave him the opportunity to do what he preferred over what the majority desired. (That’s also in his book on handling people: If you don’t agree with a rule you are told to follow, announce your agreement to it in a statement, and in that statement, assert that you intend to follow it in a manner consistent with some other set of rules; or that you will consider certain passages as merely being “advisory”.)

So he’s smart, follows a personal methodology of handling people that involves discrediting them, and he’s familiar with the W3C process. Right?

Very well then. Let me say it: Ian’s insinuations about Adobe were, as my grandmother would say, hooey. Intentional hooey. My grandfather would have used a stronger term. Ian deliberately publicized the identity of someone who posted in a private mailing list (immediately after claiming he could not). He used words like “secret” to provide a sense of conspiracy. He used Adobe as a scape-goat so that we’d all see that HTML5 was being blocked by W3C processes (despite his insistence that the W3C has nothing to do with the actual invention and progression of HTML5).

This is the man who doesn’t like HTML5 politics? This is the man who will be controlling HTML5 all versions of HTML for the remainder of his life?

Well, that’s just splendid.

That was a phrase in my Refresh presentation in December, when I was speaking of the dueling organizations jockeying for control of the spec.

At the time of my writing, I did not know how clean it was by comparison to its status today.

Today’s comic features Hixie the Leviathan interrupting a Muppet-show like meeting of the W3C HTML5 group. Blame the parody of Henson’s creations on the commentary of one Mr. Jeremy Keith. Tweets like this are candy for people like me. The comic also features Sam Ruby, John Foliot, Manu Sporny, Jeremy Keith and Bruce Lawson as Muppet parodies.

The fact is that it seems that Ian “Hixie” Hickson, the HTML5 editor, has taken his ball and gone home. He’s started splitting out the HTML5 spec on the W3C side of things into a shredded mess, by his own words with the hope that if the W3C spec becomes a giant mess, people will drift to the WHATWG spec by default. He’s petulantly insisted that microdata (his own creation) is part of HTML despite the recent W3C work that resulted in it being moved out of the spec. He states that the WHATWG spec trumps the W3C spec, so the latter organization has to get over itself and get back with the program. He’s implied that he’d prefer authors (that’s web designers/developers) stop using HTML5 features as much as they have because it’s causing problems. (This further reinforces my belief that Hixie is following an Implementer > Author > User mentality instead of the User > Author > Implementer mentality that HTML was built upon.) He’s made HTML versionless, insisting that HTML5 is a snapshot that he’s already gone past, and is sitting as monarch for life on the continuing evolution of the spec.

All this from a guy who’s catch phrase seems to be “I don’t understand.” Which is, to me, a dangerous trait in a person empowered with absolute rule over the spec.

In short, like Jeremy, I’m frustrated with a lot of the recent HTML-related issues from the front of advocacy. I’ve tried to sell HTML5 (and it’s grab-bag of toys) to co-workers, peers in web design, total strangers, and friends who didn’t escape a conversation early enough. I want to see it used more, so the browsers speed up implementation of juicy features, so I can use it even more excessively, and so on.

But if people don’t even know if HTML5 exists anymore, or the status of the organizations working on it seem to be out of whack, why would they bother using the <video> tag or exploring <canvas>? We need to give people something to work with. Which means we need to not have insane grandstanding by a single individual.

But hey, this is just one squirrel’s view: HTML5 is a mess.

Nonetheless, by the time this weekend had rolled about, I had been exposed to some commentary about the announcement and concerns the Super Friends had produced, given by one Mr. Ian Hickson, esquire. I largely have told myself that I poke fun at Hixie far too often in proportion to what any man deserves. After all, he is putting a lot of large effort into HTML5, which clearly wouldn’t exist in any usable state yet without that effort. Yet, his commentary seemed so deliciously full of hubris and petulance that I was physically incapable of not dressing him in Lex Luthor’s strange purple jumpsuit and assembling around him a legion of foes for today’s comic (which also features Anne van Kesteren and Michael(TM) Smith).

Here is the deal: By and large, web designers (aka: authors) have been largely skeptical about how well HTML5 is going to meet our needs. This isn’t entirely surprising, as our major exposure to HTML5 has been watching browser vendors and accessibility and/or microformat specialists duke it out over any number of seemingly arbitrary issues. Taken at a distance, or even up close when swallowed whole (have fun with the mailing list if you’re a masochist), it could create the impression that HTML5 is some sort of dark Endorian jungle, filled with hostile ewoks lying in wait for well-meaning designers to walk past, oblivious of their gruesome fate.

What the HTML5 Super Friends did, with a very public, non-mailing list announcement about their perusal and acceptance of HTML5, is create a sense that all will be well for designers as HTML5 slips closer to the (possibly too soon) date for Last Call. When Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, and every other notable name on their list, said “Hey, HTML5 is cool, come on in the water,” they started a large ripple through the design-o-sphere that is bound to be felt very sharply in the dwindling days remaining in this year. What helped that ripple wasn’t just a blanket statement of “It’s all good,” because that would be a lie, and most of us are smart enough to know it.

Rather, they exposed their concerns, in plain language. They then said, despite these differences, which we hope are addressed, we still like what we see.

Call me a sheep if it helps you feel better about yourself, but that sort of critical support for HTML5 has greatly increased my own comfort with the spec as it solidifies.

So, when Ian Hickson, HTML5 editor, gets his knickers bunched up in a fit because the Super Friends decided to do a posting on their various sites/blogs/whatevers about the topic first, then in due process submit their concerns “formally” to the WHATWG mailing list… I can’t help but find the words “petty” or “egotistical” floating to the front of my mind.

To answer your questions, Ian: Yes, the WHATWG’s public mailing list is in fact public. However, it is not nearly as public to the target audience of the Super Friends’ efforts (aka: web designers) as their very blogs/feeds/etc. They are engaging in the process of getting buy-in from designers, which HTML5 has been slow on, rather than the WHATWG, which I will wager is already really well sold on this whole HTML5 doohicky. There is no shame delivered, nor insult intended, by their actions in publicly (and in their own preferred fashion) declaring that HTML5 is good, but could use some tweaking.

So, good sir, I recommend you calm down, take a deep breath, and stop being snippy about the spec every time there’s a public or private discussion of HTML5 that did not directly involve yourself. We’re all painfully aware at this point that the spec won’t change without our power-invested Leviathan’s approval.

I’m usually in sync with the web-related posts written by Jeremy Keith over at his personal site, Adactio. He’s usually saying something I’m thinking (albeit with more eloquence than I could muster), or spouts some gem of wisdom that I wish I’d thought of first. As such, it is safe to say that I respect him and, normally, his opinion.

This weekend, however, he wrote firmly on the topic of HTML5 and its process, in The HTML5 Equilibrium. In doing so, he made a sort of sandwich. The opening and closing of his post were two delicious, carefully toasted buns of high quality. But firmly settled in between them was a rank egg salad segment where he detailed his view on the W3C/WHAT WG “split personality”, ruining my appetite for his creation.

I’ve never been able to stomach egg salad sandwiches.

My reaction was spawned by his discussion of the status of Ian “Hixie” Hickson as the dictator-for-life of HTML5, sitting astride a position of absolute power in how the spec is edited. As readers probably know by now, there’s been plenty of friction lately between the HTML5 efforts and every other W3C group known to man as Ian’s been refuting their expert advice in exchange for his own pseudo-expert opinion on a wide range of topics.

Keith comes to Hixie’s defense by stating that although an unelected autocrat is horrible, it can work quite well. He evokes the power of dictatorship by referencing Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and quoting Shakespeare’s Henry V. Specifically, he states that by doing so we transfer “moral responsibility” from the populace to the dictator, then goes on to say that Ian has taken this mantle and used it evenhandedly and fairly.

In short, Jeremy uncouples the means from the ends. Leviathan, written in the 17th century, is a text that firmly opposes Separation of Powers and refutes the Right of Rebellion, claims the sovereign’s acts are incapable of being considered unjust, and makes it unjust for the populace to attempt to unseat the sovereign.

In short, do what you’d like, Hixie. It won’t be our fault, because we’ve given you all the power, and from here on out we’re blameless. But at the same time, should we disagree with you, tough for us. It’s all your show now.

And really, that’s what it’s become. The Hixie Show. The amount of “not invented here” mentality that evades the modern HTML5 spec is odious. Accessibility in HTML5 isn’t being decided by experts. Process, when challenged through W3C guidelines, is defended as being “not like the old ways”, in essence slapping the W3C in the face. Ian’s made it clear he won’t play by the rules. When well-meaning experts carefully announce their opposing positions and desire for some form of closing the gaps, Ian and the inner circle constantly express how they don’t understand. This understanding issue has reached a comedic point. When Sam Ruby pressed them on the subject during an objection by John Foliot (as noted here), Ian’s response is a glib “I don’t understand John’s concerns. He hasn’t explained them. He has just made unsubstantiated demands.”

This phrase (“I don’t understand”) is used by Ian so frequently that I’m genuinely concerned. He’s ostensibly a bright man. The usual objections and positions by other parties in the HTML5 dialogue are incredibly well documented at this point, in staggering detail. To claim the inability to understand exhibits one of two traits: Either Ian is a simpleton, or he is deliberately “misunderstanding”.

I don’t think it’s the former. Ian has clearly demonstrated his phenomenal intelligence. Yet, the latter option is part of Ian’s well documented deny, delay, too late methodology for handling people. Engaging in this sort of behavior is disrespectful of his community of peers, and more than discouraging when its coming from our empowered Leviathan.

We must accept this, though. Because it’s the results that matter, right? If we get a HTML5 spec, any HTML5 spec, we should be happy about it. Despite all the assurances to the contrary, I can’t really believe that it’s acceptable to consider a product’s method of construction to be independent from its quality. If so, I should be paying far less for my garments, right?

There’s a thought process here that is so far removed from the 21st century as to be terrifying.

In today’s comic, Jeremy Keith reveals the Leviathan to the Squirrel. Things go badly. But remember, it’s only the Leviathan’s fault, because we’ve absolved ourselves of both power and responsibility.

Right?