Acknowledgements html52

[chaals]

Reset the acknowledgements to name people who specifically contributed to this version - HTML 5.2.

UPDATE Who specifically contributed to HTML 5.2, as opposed to other versions. See #247

[iamstarkov]

why is this happening?

[stevefaulkner]

While personally not effected by this change, it appears to be one that is only editorial in nature, but likely to inflame people, for example https://twitter.com/sil/status/742821276134281216
If the desire is to differentiate between people who have actively contributed to a particular iteration of HTML5 why not structure acknowledgements to reflect this, but leave existing names in place, just provide a descriptive heading to distinguish?

[marcoscaceres]

This is absolutely not ok. Way to kick the hornets nest @chaals. You just basically killed the last bit of credibility this effort had. Please close this and just delete this whole repo entirely.

[yatil]

I'm voting to not merge this Pull Request as is but add more context to the ack section, including links to previous versions.

(Edited to clarify.)

[chaals]

Sorry for a short commit comment without enough context.

The rationale is that while many many people have contributed to what is in HTML, a sense of who contributed to the current specification - in a world where we continue to make such a thing, which is how W3C work - instead of trying to name everyone, or ignoring everything before some random point in history, and then starting to collect names, tracking acknowledgements by version gives a sense of who has done stuff recently - and each other spec includes acknowledgements already.

See also issue #247. Which as you may note is still open - feel free to comment there, as always.

[stevefaulkner]

Ok, so after commenting on the wrong PR, will comment here. I object to this PR (editors hat on) as is. Its an unecessary change that does nothing improve to improve the spec for implementers or users, but does raise the ire of people. I am sure we can acheive the desired differentiation between current iteration contributors and previous ones without having to remove names.

[LJWatson]

This was not meant to upset or offend anyone. It clearly has, I'm sorry.

The aim was to make the acknowledgements section more manageable. Also to differentiate people who have made recent contributions, as opposed to those who have made contributions in the past. It was not meant to erase anyone from the record, or to devalue anyone's contributions (past or present).

The suggestion from @stevefaulkner to break the acknowledgements section into sub-sections (current version acknowledgements, previous version acknowledgements etc.) is one way we can approach this. A variation that would keep the content simpler, would be to link directly to the acknowledgements sections in earlier versions of the spec.

In both cases people would be accorded recognition for the contributions they have made, the difference would be in presentation. FWIW I would be happy with either approach, but as a current contributor it wouldn't affect me either way. People who have made more substantial contributions in the past may prefer to be name checked directly, rather than indirectly though?

[yackermann]

There might be a need for Current version contributors special section in documentation(for feedback, questions and generally), but deleting all previous contributors is just pathetic.

As @stevefaulkner mentioned there are better ways to manage this 'issue'.

Voting down. FTS.

[travisleithead]

The suggestion from @stevefaulkner to break the acknowledgements section into sub-sections (current version acknowledgements, previous version acknowledgements etc.) is one way we can approach this.

+1 from me.