Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment

[Ryosuke Niwa]

> On Oct 25, 2019, at 10:34 AM, Chris Wilson  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:35 PM Maciej Stachowiak  wrote:
> 
>> So on the whole, I don’t think Chrome engineers do as good a job as they
>> could of actively soliciting signals. Members of the WebKit team at Apple
>> are usually happy to provide an opinion if asked, or at least point to
>> someone who can give an informed opinion. We also make sure to sync
>> internally on things like this, to be able to give relatively official
>> opinions.
>> 
> 
> Seconding Yoav's question - what would be the best way for us to write into
> the Blink process to do this?  I think "quote any member of the Webkit team
> you can get to make a statement in public" has multiple failure modes, so I
> want to make sure we're pointing to (as you put it) relatively official
> opinions.
> 
> 
>> It’s possible that this is a Blink process problem, and that maybe “no
>> signals” should be accompanied by a record of the lack of signal and/or
>> attempt to solicit one, to remind Blinkers to actively ask. Assuming that’s
>> the intention of the signals section.
>> 
> 
> We just had a conversation on precisely this topic, and I expressed the
> concern that embedding a record of our attempts to solicit opinions might
> also be taken as shaming, which isn't our intent either.
> 
> I think I'm hearing:
> 
>   1. Blink needs to be more explicit about asking for signals.  It would
>   be good to have those as repeatable channels at the various other platform
>   implementation organizations.
>   2. Blink needs to be more intentional about notifying when features are
>   tracking to land, to put appropriate pressure on getting those signals
>   (positive or negative).
> 
> It’s especially concerning that WICG does not require either multiple
>> implementation experience (like W3C WGs do) or multiple implementor support
>> (like WHATWG does). As a result, single-implementation specifications with
>> no track to multi-engine implementation look exactly the same as incubation
>> projects with multi-implementor support.
> 
> I have to disagree with your concern, at least as an entry point.  The
> whole point of starting incubations is that they may not have multiple
> implementers interested in prototyping -but an incubation is not the end
> point.  Certainly, as specs graduate from WICG incubations into an
> appropriate WG (or the WHATWG) - their exit point from incubation - I would
> expect multiple implementers to support and to be working on
> implementations.

What’s lacking here is the clear indication between the two. For example, how 
does one supposed to figure out this intent to ship email was based on a 
feature not being reviewed by Mozilla or Apple? There should have been a clear 
indication that this is a single vendor feature in the spec itself.

I get that there needs to be some avenue to share ideas. But that avenue can’t 
be simultaneously something browser vendors use to claim that it’s a well 
accepted standard API.

> "No track to multi-engine implementation" can be only a matter of time and
> priority, also.  I'm not against declaring more directly/publicly what
> implementers are "supporting" (in quotes because there's not a precise
> definition here) any given incubation, if we can come up with a way to do
> so; would that help?
> 
> sometimes we end up with specs using the WICG “Community Group Draft
>> Report” logo while in an individual’s personal repo rather than in WICG.
>> 
> 
> As Yoav said, I think this is a bug - much like putting the W3C editor
> draft logo on a spec in a personal repo.  Misleading, at best.
> 
> 
>> I think these are process problems with WICG.
> 
> 
> I am strongly against making a higher bar than "multiple independent
> parties are interested" in order to start an incubation - because a bar
> such as "must have multiple implementers supporting" would mean the vast
> majority of incubations would be done effectively outside the community, in
> personal or corporate repos, with no early contribution IP commitment or
> outside engagement.
> 
> That said, I'm happy to talk about process improvements we can do in the
> WICG - for example, I proposed above that we enable implementers to tag
> their support in WICG repos.  Would that help?  Is there something else we
> should change?
> 
> -Chris
> (WICG co-chair, among other roles)

Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment

[Chris Wilson]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:35 PM Maciej Stachowiak  wrote:

> So on the whole, I don’t think Chrome engineers do as good a job as they
> could of actively soliciting signals. Members of the WebKit team at Apple
> are usually happy to provide an opinion if asked, or at least point to
> someone who can give an informed opinion. We also make sure to sync
> internally on things like this, to be able to give relatively official
> opinions.
>

Seconding Yoav's question - what would be the best way for us to write into
the Blink process to do this?  I think "quote any member of the Webkit team
you can get to make a statement in public" has multiple failure modes, so I
want to make sure we're pointing to (as you put it) relatively official
opinions.


> It’s possible that this is a Blink process problem, and that maybe “no
> signals” should be accompanied by a record of the lack of signal and/or
> attempt to solicit one, to remind Blinkers to actively ask. Assuming that’s
> the intention of the signals section.
>

We just had a conversation on precisely this topic, and I expressed the
concern that embedding a record of our attempts to solicit opinions might
also be taken as shaming, which isn't our intent either.

I think I'm hearing:

   1. Blink needs to be more explicit about asking for signals.  It would
   be good to have those as repeatable channels at the various other platform
   implementation organizations.
   2. Blink needs to be more intentional about notifying when features are
   tracking to land, to put appropriate pressure on getting those signals
   (positive or negative).

It’s especially concerning that WICG does not require either multiple
> implementation experience (like W3C WGs do) or multiple implementor support
> (like WHATWG does). As a result, single-implementation specifications with
> no track to multi-engine implementation look exactly the same as incubation
> projects with multi-implementor support.


I have to disagree with your concern, at least as an entry point.  The
whole point of starting incubations is that they may not have multiple
implementers interested in prototyping -but an incubation is not the end
point.  Certainly, as specs graduate from WICG incubations into an
appropriate WG (or the WHATWG) - their exit point from incubation - I would
expect multiple implementers to support and to be working on
implementations.

"No track to multi-engine implementation" can be only a matter of time and
priority, also.  I'm not against declaring more directly/publicly what
implementers are "supporting" (in quotes because there's not a precise
definition here) any given incubation, if we can come up with a way to do
so; would that help?

sometimes we end up with specs using the WICG “Community Group Draft
> Report” logo while in an individual’s personal repo rather than in WICG.
>

As Yoav said, I think this is a bug - much like putting the W3C editor
draft logo on a spec in a personal repo.  Misleading, at best.


> I think these are process problems with WICG.


I am strongly against making a higher bar than "multiple independent
parties are interested" in order to start an incubation - because a bar
such as "must have multiple implementers supporting" would mean the vast
majority of incubations would be done effectively outside the community, in
personal or corporate repos, with no early contribution IP commitment or
outside engagement.

That said, I'm happy to talk about process improvements we can do in the
WICG - for example, I proposed above that we enable implementers to tag
their support in WICG repos.  Would that help?  Is there something else we
should change?

-Chris
(WICG co-chair, among other roles)

Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment

[Yoav Weiss]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 4:04 AM 'Maciej Stachowiak' via blink-dev <
blink-...@chromium.org> wrote:

>
>
> > On Oct 24, 2019, at 1:49 PM, fantasai 
> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/9/19 8:10 PM, Nick Burris wrote:
> >> Summary
> >> Scroll To Text allows URLs to link to a piece of text in a webpage
> rather than just linking to an existing element fragment. The motivating
> use cases are to enable user sharing of specific content and allow
> deep-linking references to information.
> >
> > So, like, this sounds conceptually like a great feature to have for the
> Web.
> > But this
> >
> >> Edge: No signals
> >> Firefox: No signals <
> https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/194>
> >> Safari: No signals
> >
> > makes it seem like you really haven't put much effort into figuring out
> where the other browser vendors stand on the issue. Given this is an Intent
> to Ship, I interpret not having figured out where the other vendors stand
> even at the coarse level of “excited to have spec, plan to implement”,
> “supportive but not prioritizing; will accept patches”, or “opposed to the
> feature in its current state” as not really caring what they think. You
> have contacts into these organizations; I am sure you could solicit such
> answers where there aren't any if you thought it was necessary.
> >
> > Google engineers keep asserting that, no, we really care about
> standardization and moving the Web forward together with the other browser
> vendors. Look at the processes we made to help us do that! But Web
> standardization efforts have always tried to move forward on the basis of
> consensus. Meanwhile the attitude here seems to be ”There was a template
> for the positions of other browsers, a blank answer could be provided in
> the template, nobody reviewing it cares that there was a blank answer, so
> let's just ship the thing we (Google) want.”
> >
> > If this was a blank code review in your template, I imagine you would
> try harder to get the reviewer's answer, and give a good explanation of
> your attempts and their failure if indeed you could not solicit a response,
> before asking for lgtm.
>
> I don’t think anyone at Apple was asked to provide a position. It’s true
> this spec has been out there for a while, but there’s so many specs these
> days that it’s hard to predict which will be up for an Intent to Ship next.
>
> I often see links to an Intent to Ship or Intent to Implement where Safari
> is noted as “no public signals” or “no signals” but no one actually asked
> us. Sometimes I even see this stated when we clearly said somewhere
> (perhaps in an issue comment) that we think the feature is a bad idea, at
> least as proposed.
>
> So on the whole, I don’t think Chrome engineers do as good a job as they
> could of actively soliciting signals. Members of the WebKit team at Apple
> are usually happy to provide an opinion if asked, or at least point to
> someone who can give an informed opinion. We also make sure to sync
> internally on things like this, to be able to give relatively official
> opinions.
>

What would be the best way to solicit such feedback in a scalable way? No
all engineers sending intents personally know someone on the WebKit team to
ask for their opinion.
Would opening an issue on WebKit's bugzilla be the right way to get such an
opinion?


>
> It’s possible that this is a Blink process problem, and that maybe “no
> signals” should be accompanied by a record of the lack of signal and/or
> attempt to solicit one, to remind Blinkers to actively ask. Assuming that’s
> the intention of the signals section.
>
> (This is not an opinion on the specific spec; it seems like a generally
> good feature, but the fragment directive syntax and requirement for UAs to
> strip it seems bound to cause interop problems with browsers that don’t
> implement this spec.)
>
>
> >
> > Yoav Weiss wrote:
> >
> >> When it comes to venue, the current spec's processing seems to be
> mostly monkey-patching the HTML and URL specs, indicating that WHATWG is
> probably the right venue for this to graduate to. At the same time, landing
> features in WHATWG specs require multi-engine commitment, and looking at
> Mozilla's 2.5-months-old standards position issue doesn't really indicate
> implementer commitment, or anything at all. From a practical standpoint,
> it's clearer and easier for the spec to live as a standalone document
> rather than a WHATWG PR, while we're waiting for multi-engine commitment.
> >> But, that in no means preclude collaboration. The spec is in WICG,
> which was built specifically to enable multi-vendor collaboration when
> incubating new ideas. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled to have your
> feedback directly there, to make sure we get this right.
> >
> > I would like to point out a couple things:
> >
> > 1. WICG is explicitly billing itself an incubation venue, not a
> standardization venue. At the point you're planning to ship a feature, I
> think that qualifies as beyond 

Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment

[Anne van Kesteren]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 10:59 AM 'David Bokan' via blink-dev
 wrote:
> The kind of feedback we received here would have been wonderful to have
> several weeks ago. What should we be doing to get to this step earlier?

For WHATWG, PRs against standards tend to help as they require review,
implementer commitments, and adequate test coverage. And editors will
provide guidance for all of those.

Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment

[Yoav Weiss]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 10:49 PM fantasai 
wrote:

> On 10/9/19 8:10 PM, Nick Burris wrote:
> >
> > Summary
> >
> > Scroll To Text allows URLs to link to a piece of text in a webpage
> rather than
> > just linking to an existing element fragment. The motivating use cases
> are to
> > enable user sharing of specific content and allow deep-linking
> references to
> > information.
>
> So, like, this sounds conceptually like a great feature to have for the
> Web.
> But this
>
> > Edge: No signals
> >
> > Firefox: No signals <
> https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/194>
> >
> > Safari: No signals
>
> makes it seem like you really haven't put much effort into figuring out
> where
> the other browser vendors stand on the issue. Given this is an Intent to
> Ship,
> I interpret not having figured out where the other vendors stand even at
> the
> coarse level of “excited to have spec, plan to implement”, “supportive but
> not
> prioritizing; will accept patches”, or “opposed to the feature in its
> current
> state” as not really caring what they think. You have contacts into these
> organizations; I am sure you could solicit such answers where there aren't
> any
> if you thought it was necessary.


> Google engineers keep asserting that, no, we really care about
> standardization
> and moving the Web forward together with the other browser vendors. Look
> at
> the processes we made to help us do that! But Web standardization efforts
> have
> always tried to move forward on the basis of consensus. Meanwhile the
> attitude
> here seems to be ”There was a template for the positions of other
> browsers, a
> blank answer could be provided in the template, nobody reviewing it cares
> that
> there was a blank answer, so let's just ship the thing we (Google) want.”
>
> If this was a blank code review in your template, I imagine you would try
> harder to get the reviewer's answer, and give a good explanation of your
> attempts and their failure if indeed you could not solicit a response,
> before
> asking for lgtm.
>

If you look at the linked TAG review issue
, you could see that
we have solicited and got opinions from various engineers working for said
browser vendors. (and addressed multiple concerns raised)
However, at least when it comes to Mozilla, my understanding is that
opinions of their engineers don't count for the purpose of stating
support, *unless
expressed on their standards positions repo alongside an official
commitment*.
An issue  was
opened on that repo almost three months ago, trying to solicit their
opinions and commitment. We have received zero replies on that issue.
If you have any suggestions as to what we could have better done on that
front, we'd definitely take them into consideration for next time.


>
> Yoav Weiss wrote:
>
> > When it comes to venue, the current spec's processing seems to be mostly
> > monkey-patching the HTML and URL specs, indicating that WHATWG is
> probably
> > the right venue for this to graduate to. At the same time, landing
> features
> > in WHATWG specs require multi-engine commitment, and looking at
> Mozilla's
> > 2.5-months-old standards position issue doesn't really indicate
> implementer
> > commitment, or anything at all. From a practical standpoint, it's
> clearer
> > and easier for the spec to live as a standalone document rather than a
> > WHATWG PR, while we're waiting for multi-engine commitment.
> >
> > But, that in no means preclude collaboration. The spec is in WICG, which
> > was built specifically to enable multi-vendor collaboration when
> incubating
> > new ideas. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled to have your feedback
> directly
> > there, to make sure we get this right.
>
> I would like to point out a couple things:
>
> 1. WICG is explicitly billing itself an incubation venue, not a
> standardization venue. At the point you're planning to ship a feature, I
> think
> that qualifies as beyond incubation, yes? So continuing work there at this
> point would be inappropriate.
>

The WICG is indeed not a standardization venue, and once we have support
from other vendors, we should definitely move the specification to one. But
as can be noted reading through the Blink interoperability principles
document
,
"being on a standards track" is not a shipping requirement for a feature.
We aren't always going to wait until Mozilla and/or Apple are officially in
favor of the feature before we ship it. At the same time, one lesson we can
take from this is that when other browsers haven't come to an official
position at all, we should do a better job of capturing the outreach we've
attempted.


>
> 2. If the WHATWG rules for incorporating something are too stringent to
> allow
> standardization in a timely manner, maybe you should 

Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment

[fantasai]

On 10/9/19 8:10 PM, Nick Burris wrote:


Summary

Scroll To Text allows URLs to link to a piece of text in a webpage rather than 
just linking to an existing element fragment. The motivating use cases are to 
enable user sharing of specific content and allow deep-linking references to 
information.


So, like, this sounds conceptually like a great feature to have for the Web.
But this


Edge: No signals

Firefox: No signals 

Safari: No signals


makes it seem like you really haven't put much effort into figuring out where 
the other browser vendors stand on the issue. Given this is an Intent to Ship, 
I interpret not having figured out where the other vendors stand even at the 
coarse level of “excited to have spec, plan to implement”, “supportive but not 
prioritizing; will accept patches”, or “opposed to the feature in its current 
state” as not really caring what they think. You have contacts into these 
organizations; I am sure you could solicit such answers where there aren't any 
if you thought it was necessary.


Google engineers keep asserting that, no, we really care about standardization 
and moving the Web forward together with the other browser vendors. Look at 
the processes we made to help us do that! But Web standardization efforts have 
always tried to move forward on the basis of consensus. Meanwhile the attitude 
here seems to be ”There was a template for the positions of other browsers, a 
blank answer could be provided in the template, nobody reviewing it cares that 
there was a blank answer, so let's just ship the thing we (Google) want.”


If this was a blank code review in your template, I imagine you would try 
harder to get the reviewer's answer, and give a good explanation of your 
attempts and their failure if indeed you could not solicit a response, before 
asking for lgtm.


Yoav Weiss wrote:

When it comes to venue, the current spec's processing seems to be mostly 
monkey-patching the HTML and URL specs, indicating that WHATWG is probably 
the right venue for this to graduate to. At the same time, landing features 
in WHATWG specs require multi-engine commitment, and looking at Mozilla's 
2.5-months-old standards position issue doesn't really indicate implementer 
commitment, or anything at all. From a practical standpoint, it's clearer 
and easier for the spec to live as a standalone document rather than a 
WHATWG PR, while we're waiting for multi-engine commitment.


But, that in no means preclude collaboration. The spec is in WICG, which 
was built specifically to enable multi-vendor collaboration when incubating 
new ideas. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled to have your feedback directly 
there, to make sure we get this right.


I would like to point out a couple things:

1. WICG is explicitly billing itself an incubation venue, not a 
standardization venue. At the point you're planning to ship a feature, I think 
that qualifies as beyond incubation, yes? So continuing work there at this 
point would be inappropriate.


2. If the WHATWG rules for incorporating something are too stringent to allow 
standardization in a timely manner, maybe you should consider changing them? 
It's not like Google has no say in the WHATWG process. Perhaps something like 
“two implementation commitments *or* implemented in one browser with other 
browsers at least in favor of the feature and willing to implement it at some 
point in the future even if they haven't committed to apply their own 
resources yet” could be enough for inclusion.


To paraphrase Sir Tim Berners-Lee, process is a tool to help you do good work: 
if your process is inhibiting you from doing said work, you should fix said 
process. Allowing Google to do standardization work in an appropriate 
multi-vendor standards forum, and using that process to seek positive 
consensus on its proposals prior to deciding to ship, would be better than the 
circumvention of the standardization processes *and spirit* being demonstrated 
here, I would think.


~fantasai