[uf-discuss] Major change to microformat specs without prior discussion or notification

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <47AB4911.5020809 at digitalbazaar.com>, Manu Sporny 
<msporny at digitalbazaar.com> writes

>Thom Shannon wrote:
>> perhaps there was prior discussion and agreement that was just a long
>> time ago? Have you searched the archives or asked Tantek directly?
>
>Here's the IRC log regarding the change to the wiki:
>
>http://rbach.priv.at/Microformats/IRC/2008-02-07#T010220

I don't consider that to be adequate period of discussion; and I don't 
consider that forum alone to be an adequate forum for discussion of such 
a major issue.

What would happen if I implemented one of my outstanding - and nowhere 
near as harmful - proposals in that way?

Why has it not been reverted yet? If I had any faith that this was truly 
an open community, I would do so myself.

>I agree with the change

I agree with the general principle behind the change. I don't agree with 
the method of implementation, or with changing the spec in a way which 
has such wide- reaching implications, and backwards-compatibility 
issues, with out doing adequate research, and giving ample warning, 
first. I don't agree with making the change wholesale rather than 
examining the implications in each type of use, And I don't agree with 
changing the way several microformats work, by amending the 
parsing-rules page for one of them.

>- I don't agree with not running it past the
>microformats-new list.

It's not just about new microformats, but also existing microformats; it 
should be discussed here, too.

>It seems like a fairly far-reaching
>change/update. It invalidates the need for "mfo" in hcard, doesn't it?
>If it were applied to the rest of Microformats, it would invalidate the
>need for "mfo" entirely.

It also break some previously-valid implementations.

>There are logs - so it would be wrong to say the decision was made in
>private, it was done on IRC, without notification to microformats-new.

Who said it was made in private?

-- 
Andy Mabbett