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Your cat analogy still sounds like an ultimatum to me: threatening someone with not being able to work with the cat unless they acquiesce to their demand to wor

by agwa 13y ago

Your cat analogy still sounds like an ultimatum to me: threatening someone with not being able to work with the cat unless they acquiesce to their demand to work with the cat on a very short timeframe. Here's how the email fits your definition of an ultimatum: Demand: that the working group suggest changes to the proposal "RIGHT NOW." Injury if they don't comply: Google will ship the API anyways and freeze it so the working group can't later change it without breaking compatibility with a major web browser.

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chc 13y ago
No, that is not the form of an ultimatum. In an ultimatum, the threat will only come to pass if the target does not comply with the demand — it's an either-or situation, with the threat used as leverage to get what you really want. Google isn't saying, "Either suggest some stuff or we will ship the Shadow DOM API. We don't want that to happen, right?" The message was of the form of an advisement rather than an ultimatum. It is similar to "Hey, everybody, I'm putting these cupcakes out. Get them fast because when they're gone, they're gone." I don't think anybody would hear that and say, "Hey, stop throwing around ultimatums." The "threat" is not a threat — it's a heads-up about something that is going to happen, so that people have a chance to respond adequately. You can still say that Google was not considerate enough in what they did, but there is definitely a reading of the message that is not an ultimatum.
- joyeuse6701 13y ago
  It reads as an advisement, but it really is an ultimatum. the analogy you provide about advisements is that something is going into effect which the adviser has no power over. However, Google does have the choice whether or not this goes through. It's not the weather, it's not a god, there are people that make decisions and they can be modified. That is where the ultimatum is, just disguised as an advisement.
  - chc 13y ago
    You criticized the analogy and ignored the entire rest of the text which made my point entirely clear. Why do people do this? OK, fine, here's another analogy: "I'm going to be leaving in 10 minutes, so if you have any questions, you'd better ask them now." The thing being "threatened" here is entirely in the speaker's control — he could opt not to leave. So is that an ultimatum? I don't think it would generally be viewed that way. Why? Because there is no threat being used as leverage to get something — the speaker (i.e. Google) isn't really making demands here, but rather stating what it's going to do. The thing being "threatened" will happen regardless; this is just an advisement that it will happen so that you can respond accordingly. Put another way, the "threat" component of an ultimatum can't be unconditional. It is conditioned on noncompliance. AFAIK that's the defining characteristic of an ultimatum. It is possible to read this as being a conditioned threat, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to read it more in the spirit of "I'm going to do something, so here's your chance to get ready." It's entirely possible that Google doesn't care if it receives any further input (which is theoretically the "demand" in this ultimatum).
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      What's being threatened is that something will be shipped and frozen without review, input, or comment, if comment isn't made immediately - not that something is going to be shipped.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >a heads-up about something that is going to happen, so that people have a chance to respond adequately. Using the passive voice here doesn't change the fact that the "something that is going to happen" is something that Google is going to do. "You should give me your wallet or something is going to happen to you. Just a heads-up."
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  - cwp 13y ago
    You're still confusing two constructions. There's no "or" in Google's message. They're doing to do what they're going to do, regardless of anyone else's actions. They're giving advance notice, but not an opportunity to change their plan. It's the same distinction as between these two sentences: "Give me your wallet or I'll drop this piano on you." "I'm going to drop a piano, you might want to get out of the way."
  - nostrademons 13y ago
    The big difference here is "something is going to happen" vs. "something is going to happen to you". A threat or an ultimatum implies that you're the specific target of the action. An advertisement or notification implies that someone is going to take some action that may possibly affect you, but isn't specifically directed at you. The boundaries get fuzzy when billion-dollar corporations get involved because they tend to wield a lot of power. However, most people would say that if you're a startup and a competing startup says "We're going to launch a new feature; better get ready", that's not an ultimatum. (As startups go, that's pretty damn polite.)
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badman_ting 13y ago
Yeah, it's just doing a little dance around the word "ultimatum". It's still the same thing.
rch 13y ago
> We've been working on Shadow DOM in the open for 2 years There are references in the thread to a f2f that happened a week ago, but this implementation has been evolving for a Long time now. The most vocal respondents only seem to be concerned about the phrasing, and haven't indicated publicly that they have anything technically substantive to add to the discussion anyway.
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  The technically substantive stuff is all in existing spec issues. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0152.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0152.h... has some links if you care.
  - jontro 13y ago
    Which is replied to here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0158.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0158.h... Personally the only thing that I think was done incorrectly here was the wording of the initial e-mail. The web needs to move forward
    - rch 13y ago
      Agreed - there was even a terminology explanation and apology message in there too. The first couple of messages from the original post on seem a little hyperbolic, but the fire sort of put itself out in short order.
    - bzbarsky 13y ago
      There are some fundamental disagreements here about whether certain cases are "edge cases", if you keep reading the threads.
  - rch 13y ago
    Thanks - I did continue to read and looked into the spec bugs. I guess I didn't consider Boris, Dimitri, or Tab as being all that outspoken about the so called 'freeze' - one acknowledged the poor word choice, but that's about it.
malandrew 13y ago
Exactly. Not shipping this feature hidden behind a flag is an ultimatum. If the feature is hidden behind a flag, then only developers experimenting with the feature will turn it on an use it, but they will never venture to make a production app since they can't expect their users to also have that flag turned on. If the flag is shipped in the on position, developers will take that as a sign to start shipping features using it to production.

by agwa 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

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chc 13y ago

No, that is not the form of an ultimatum. In an ultimatum, the threat will only come to pass if the target does not comply with the demand — it's an either-or situation, with the threat used as leverage to get what you really want. Google isn't saying, "Either suggest some stuff or we will ship the Shadow DOM API. We don't want that to happen, right?" The message was of the form of an advisement rather than an ultimatum. It is similar to "Hey, everybody, I'm putting these cupcakes out. Get them fast because when they're gone, they're gone." I don't think anybody would hear that and say, "Hey, stop throwing around ultimatums." The "threat" is not a threat — it's a heads-up about something that is going to happen, so that people have a chance to respond adequately. You can still say that Google was not considerate enough in what they did, but there is definitely a reading of the message that is not an ultimatum.

joyeuse6701 13y ago
It reads as an advisement, but it really is an ultimatum. the analogy you provide about advisements is that something is going into effect which the adviser has no power over. However, Google does have the choice whether or not this goes through. It's not the weather, it's not a god, there are people that make decisions and they can be modified. That is where the ultimatum is, just disguised as an advisement.
- chc 13y ago
  You criticized the analogy and ignored the entire rest of the text which made my point entirely clear. Why do people do this? OK, fine, here's another analogy: "I'm going to be leaving in 10 minutes, so if you have any questions, you'd better ask them now." The thing being "threatened" here is entirely in the speaker's control — he could opt not to leave. So is that an ultimatum? I don't think it would generally be viewed that way. Why? Because there is no threat being used as leverage to get something — the speaker (i.e. Google) isn't really making demands here, but rather stating what it's going to do. The thing being "threatened" will happen regardless; this is just an advisement that it will happen so that you can respond accordingly. Put another way, the "threat" component of an ultimatum can't be unconditional. It is conditioned on noncompliance. AFAIK that's the defining characteristic of an ultimatum. It is possible to read this as being a conditioned threat, but it seems entirely reasonable to me to read it more in the spirit of "I'm going to do something, so here's your chance to get ready." It's entirely possible that Google doesn't care if it receives any further input (which is theoretically the "demand" in this ultimatum).
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    What's being threatened is that something will be shipped and frozen without review, input, or comment, if comment isn't made immediately - not that something is going to be shipped.
pessimizer 13y ago
>a heads-up about something that is going to happen, so that people have a chance to respond adequately. Using the passive voice here doesn't change the fact that the "something that is going to happen" is something that Google is going to do. "You should give me your wallet or something is going to happen to you. Just a heads-up."
- deleted 13y ago
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- deleted 13y ago
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- cwp 13y ago
  You're still confusing two constructions. There's no "or" in Google's message. They're doing to do what they're going to do, regardless of anyone else's actions. They're giving advance notice, but not an opportunity to change their plan. It's the same distinction as between these two sentences: "Give me your wallet or I'll drop this piano on you." "I'm going to drop a piano, you might want to get out of the way."
- nostrademons 13y ago
  The big difference here is "something is going to happen" vs. "something is going to happen to you". A threat or an ultimatum implies that you're the specific target of the action. An advertisement or notification implies that someone is going to take some action that may possibly affect you, but isn't specifically directed at you. The boundaries get fuzzy when billion-dollar corporations get involved because they tend to wield a lot of power. However, most people would say that if you're a startup and a competing startup says "We're going to launch a new feature; better get ready", that's not an ultimatum. (As startups go, that's pretty damn polite.)
- deleted 13y ago
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badman_ting 13y ago

Yeah, it's just doing a little dance around the word "ultimatum". It's still the same thing.

rch 13y ago

> We've been working on Shadow DOM in the open for 2 years There are references in the thread to a f2f that happened a week ago, but this implementation has been evolving for a Long time now. The most vocal respondents only seem to be concerned about the phrasing, and haven't indicated publicly that they have anything technically substantive to add to the discussion anyway.

bzbarsky 13y ago
The technically substantive stuff is all in existing spec issues. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0152.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0152.h... has some links if you care.
- jontro 13y ago
  Which is replied to here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0158.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0158.h... Personally the only thing that I think was done incorrectly here was the wording of the initial e-mail. The web needs to move forward
  - rch 13y ago
    Agreed - there was even a terminology explanation and apology message in there too. The first couple of messages from the original post on seem a little hyperbolic, but the fire sort of put itself out in short order.
  - bzbarsky 13y ago
    There are some fundamental disagreements here about whether certain cases are "edge cases", if you keep reading the threads.
- rch 13y ago
  Thanks - I did continue to read and looked into the spec bugs. I guess I didn't consider Boris, Dimitri, or Tab as being all that outspoken about the so called 'freeze' - one acknowledged the poor word choice, but that's about it.

malandrew 13y ago

Exactly. Not shipping this feature hidden behind a flag is an ultimatum. If the feature is hidden behind a flag, then only developers experimenting with the feature will turn it on an use it, but they will never venture to make a production app since they can't expect their users to also have that flag turned on. If the flag is shipped in the on position, developers will take that as a sign to start shipping features using it to production.