Re: [chairs] your input on OASIS functionality enhancements

["Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>]

Norm:

Thanks, that's exactly what we wanted to hear.

Solving the doc mgmt/persistent URL problem is at the top of our list. I 
hope to have some preliminary design ideas to share with all of the 
chairs in a few weeks.

We'll also look at your other concerns about Kavi and come up with a 
solution for that. What, specifically, do you need to be able to edit on 
the TC pages that you can't today?

-Karl



Norman Walsh wrote:
> / "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-catalogs-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
> 


-- 
=================================================================
Karl F. Best
Vice President, OASIS
office  +1 978.667.5115 x206     mobile +1 978.761.1648
karl.best@oasis-open.org      http://www.oasis-open.org