User talk:Hsivonen

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[edit] Your HTML Working Group edits

The HTML article was subjected to quite a bit of editing in the past year or so, because a certain few contributors insisted on promulgating the "HTML is dead; XHTML is the new 'version'" evangelistic myth, which I railed against and for which I authored quite a bit of carefully cited statements intended to indicate that such sweeping conclusions were not supported by actual W3C publications and activity. It was stable for a while, until WHATWG came along.

Initially I and others felt WHATWG wasn't particularly notable, so we put the smack down on excessive mention of it in the article. Also, around 2000, I remember some company that wanted to market its proprietary audio compression as "MP4", so in 2006 I was pretty skeptical of this "HTML5". However, a while later (earlier this year), I did stumble across a mention of the HTML Working Group resuming activity under a new charter. This occurred independently of the WHATWG activity. I added it to the article, as it's a rather significant event in the history of HTML, not to mention proving me right re: XHTML not being HTML's "successor".

The history and version standards section otherwise comprise a pretty thorough chronology and it'd be a shame to eliminate all metnion of these important events in our excitement to elevate, in the reader's mind, the status of HTML5. I don't think you should have deleted this info just because the charters and working group are now obsolete – and I couldn't find a citation to fully support the notion that the HTML WG is disbanded and its charter no longer in effect; did I overlook one, or is it in any way an overstatement?

The point of mentioning the reformation of the HTML WG was to show that HTML development officially resumed in November 2006. It's also important to show that in March 2007, the WHATWG was acknowledged by the HTML WG with a promise to coordinate, and now in May 2007 there were the dramatic events you added (thanks for doing that). Please consider restoring mention of the November and March events. Thanks. —mjb 21:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)