[Elfsea] Elfsea Roll of Precedence Online

[Sluggy!]

Anezka wrote:

 >> The Roll of Precedence pages I placed up have been taken
 >> down. Apparently, they cannot be viewed by people using
 >> browsers incapable of doing client-side xml translations.
 >> And until such a time as I feel it is worth my effort to
 >> recode for server side translations, they will remain down.

This is unfortunate, for it is a good resource and it's obvious that
you've done a lot of work on it.

My browswer, Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org (which I use both in Linux
and Windows), is indeed capable of doing client-side XML translations.
It does not, however, recognize Microsoft's *departures* from the
recommended standards for XML, at least not as recommended by the global
authority in such matters, the World Wide Web Consortium
(http://www.w3.org) and that can only be a good thing.

Microsoft's departures are a clever, though devious, business practice
that is intended to make users dependent on Microsoft products. If you
use Microsoft products to publish a web page, you may be forced to use a
Microsoft product to view it, though they *do* make sure that their
browser will view *standard* pages, as well.

Geek old timers may recall the days of the Packard Bell PC clones, early
Compaqs, ALRs and countless other proprietary computer designs. They all
used their own designs, generally trying to make sure that once you
bought their PC, you could only buy their expansion peripherals. That
doesn't happen much anymore because the market demands compatibility.
That is all I want, compatibility.

My own (private) suggestion that the pages be recoded according to
standards was not intended to upset anyone, but to foster an adherence
to standards that are bigger than the marketing boys in Redmond would
have people believe and to prevent the very thing that has happened, our
collective loss of a great resource and the loss of Anezka's time and
effort in compiling those lists.

Caelin wrote:

 >> She was not asked to do this. She saw the need for it, planned
 >> for it, did a lot of work to get the data, and put it in a form
 >> we could use.

The volume of the information is testament to the amount work she did.
But for a bit more work to comply with standards, putting it in a form
we *all* could use, the browser issue may never have even come about.

 >> Instead of complaining about anything you find missing, how
 >> about suggesting nicely some additions and stating why you
 >> think this would be useful.

There seems to have been a misunderstanding as to the scope of her
Elfsea OP, specifically that it was intended to mirror the members as
listed in the Domesday. This makes perfect sense to me; there is no
reason Elfsea's OP should list anyone who is not in Elfsea's Domesday.
In the absence of limitation of scope, anyone reading "Please let [us]
know if there are any corrections that need to be made" should have a
reasonable expectation that the omission of someone they know to reside
in Elfsea should justify a notice of correction. Likewise, anyone
*asking* for corrections to a published work should have a reasonable
expectation to *receive* corrections.

Sluggy!