RE: [chairs] your input on OASIS functionality enhancements

["William Z Pope" <zpope@pobox.com>]

+1 to Norm's comments.

Whatever the goals were for using Kavi I think the website provides
less now than before the changeover.  I admit that I avoided the
changeover longer than was wise delaying feedback and making the
transition more painful than other wise.

=bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Norman Walsh [mailto:ndw@nwalsh.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:44 PM
> To: karl.best@oasis-open.org
> Cc: Chairs OASIS; jamie.clark@oasis-open.org; jeff.lomas@oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [chairs] your input on OASIS functionality enhancements
>
>
> / "Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org> was heard to say:
> | Last spring we rolled out the new collaborative tools from Kavi,
> | including membership roster management, balloting, email lists,
> | document repository, action items, etc.
>
> I remain utterly unimpressed. I will not go so far as to say that I
> think the new system is an unmitigated disaster, but it is, IMHO, just
> barely usable.
>
> The system is awkward, the website is cumbersome, and I think it has
> made the OASIS site less useful not only to TC members but also to the
> general public.
>
>  * There are parts chairs can't edit
>  * The list of documents presented to the public is still a flat
>    list lacking the hierarchy created by the chair or secretary
>  * There's no provision for navigation within the pages of the
>    of a single TC.
>
> As I have said before, the most significant bug is that it is
> impossible to publish documents with predictable URIs. I consider the
> site unusable for publishing important documents until this bug is
> fixed. (It works fine for meeting minutes and other things, but I
> cannot reliably publish specifications, schemas, or other documents
> that have internal URI references.)
>
> For example, I just published a working draft of the XML Catalogs
> specification for the Entity Resolution TC. The HTML version of that
> specification includes URIs for the original XML sources and a PDF
> version of the document.
>
> While I can upload all three documents,I cannot make the links work
> because I cannot predict what the URI for the XML or PDF versions will
> be when I am generating the HTML.
>
> And while we're talking about URIs, the URIs that Kavi creates really
> suck:
>
>
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/4952/wd-entity-xml-catalog
s-1.0_2e.html

Granted, URIs are technically opaque, but that URI doesn't even give
me a hint about what committee created it.

I'd happily go back to the days when I could have published:


http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/specs/wd-entity-xml-catalogs-1.0
_2e.html

Nevermind functionality *enhancements*, the system still has an
absolutely critical flaws.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

--
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM / XML Standards Architect / Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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