Re: New poll for syndication

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

Dave Winer <dave@userland.com> wrote:

> Dan, this idea seems to have been rejected by the various communities.

I don't think so at all. Dan seems to be saying, "Let's work together." I
don't believe this is completely incompatible with your proposal, I just
think it's the next step.

> I just reviewed the survey/poll results from last week.
> 
> 1. On the RSS-DEV poll [1], 21 people said Yes, 16 people said Perhaps, 10
> said No, and 2 abstained.

Notice that more people disagreed with your proposal (Perhaps with changes
or No) than agreed with it.

> 2. On reallySimpleSyndication [2], 16 said Yes, 3 said No.
> 3. On UserLand [3], 22 said Yes, 9 said No.

On both of these sites, the poll question was worded in a biased way, with
choices such as (from UserLand -- reallySimpleSyndication's poll was
similar):

 - I approve of the roadmap. Let's eliminate the confusion and move on. 
 
 - I don't approve of the roadmap, I don't find it confusing and I think
   there's merit in having the term RSS mean different things. 

I find the currents state of affairs for RSS confusing, and don't think
there's merit in having the term RSS mean different things. However, I also
don't approve of the roadmap. Which do I choose?

> I really tried to do it Rael's way, or whoever's (I know no one is
> responsible, maybe that's the problem) -- we asked the communities, and they
> responded, in greater numbers than they ever have responded to a poll.

Perhaps, but not the community whose response is really interesting. I don't
want to know about the people who believe in RSS 1.0 vs. the people who
believe in RSS 0.93. Instead, I want to know what the wider syndication
community, who just wants to get their job done, thinks will be most
effective for moving the state of syndication on the Web forward.

> Anyway, I've got a sense that no matter what polls we run, no matter how the
> question is asked, the mess is never going to get sorted out. What's the
> point of continuing to put energy into this?

I'm sorry that you feel that way. I hope that many of us here _do_ want to
get things sorted out. I also think we're on the verge of a compromise that
will work well for everyone. I encourage everyone involved to respond to the
current syndication poll and from there we can move forward.

Please vote: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndication/surveys?id=690145

-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]