On Saturday, February 5, 2005, at 11:20 AM, Bill de hÓra wrote:
Antone Roundy wrote:Sometimes I think the "Rationale" sections of Paces do more harm than good because we end up discussing the authors' stated reasons for what they propose, which aren't going to be in the spec, and don't discuss the proposed text, which is. Of course, the rationale is not irrelevant--its relationship to the spec is similar to the Federalist Papers' relationship to the U.S. Constitution[1]--if a question arises over what a part of the spec means, the rationale section of the pace that introduced the spec text is a useful guide. But its definitely secondary to the proposed text.-1 also. I think we'd do better to focus on the specification text for id - that will be much more effective than adding qualifying text. I think it falls under editorial work and requires no pace.I have no idea what you mean by this comment.
I mean this:
1. I believe the editors can and will fix the specification text to be more precise.
2. I believe 1 does not require a pace.
Part of the purpose of the Pace does seek to improve on the specification text for id (see the abstract, and compare the proposed text to the current draft) for the benefit of those who don't think it's perfectly clear if you don't refuse to keep reading after the first sentence. Do you think the proposed change doesn't help? If not, how about a counter suggestion or at least something more concrete than "...that will be much more effective than adding qualifying text. I think it falls under editorial work and requires no pace.">Do you not think that we need to specify whether or not multiple instances of a resource can appear in a single document (with the same atom:id)?
You don't know how far I've read into the pace, and asking me loaded or presumptive questions won't persuade me to change my mind.
That said, yes, some imperfections may be appropriately left to the editors to address without needing paces. In this case, I respectfully disagree about whether this is a simple editorial issue.
[1] The Federalist Papers is a series of of articles published under a pseudonym before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, discussing the rationale for various parts of the proposed constitution.
