Thread · 7 tweets · 26 Apr 2021

Not so much planning as thinking. I've been thinking about how to make good principles for the Web Vision thing, and it's hard. I want to look at how others have established legitimacy not necessarily to copy the approach but at least to understand the mechanisms.

We need something that is legitimate both externally and for those of us who've been around forever. I've met with issues on both of these for things that seemed to me to be "self-evident", and so the question is "how do we make this work?"

Externally, the idea that browsers are the user's agent surprises people (good faith people; not just MOW). RFC 8890 helps, and the need to balance automation asymmetry could be a principle — but is that enough?

I've though about grounding it in legal principles (sneak peak very early draft papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…) but that does not translate to all legal traditions. (I see it as more useful to bridge to policy than to found principles.)

On the internal side, when I propose github.com/WebStandardsFu… it seemed to surprise @cwilso, which in turn surprised me. (Everyone gets a surprise!) It made me realise we probably have a lot riding on the idea that old farts will agree on Web principles — but what if we don't?

After Chris pushed back I went looking for historical evidence that this was, indeed, the expectation. I did find some clear indication, but people suck at documenting what they find self-evident (which is why contracts are so boring). And it made me wonder: does it matter?

What if some principle or other hadn't been an expectation in days of aulde, but is a good one — should we not take it? Anyway, lots of questions and doing my usual WWBD: hit the books before you go after the monsters :)