Stephane Bortzmeyer stephane at sources.org
Fri Feb 26 10:41:45 GMT 2021
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 08:20:14PM -0500, John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org> wrote a message of 161 lines which said:
But it's still possible to write a client that interprets a line
beginning with "***" by rendering it in italics, and we can't stop
that, nor can we stop it from spreading to other clients, or authors
starting to use it. That's because of the extensibility of the
interpretation of plain-ish text.
The only way to avoid all this is a WHATWG-ish standard in which
everything a client can do is spelled out in excruciating detail,
and whatever is not permitted is forbidden. I think it is 100%
unlikely that we will ever go there.
There is another way, which is not 100%-foolprof (but, then, nothingis), it's to show users that we care about extensions requests and donot dismiss them automatically. If we clearly say why this extensionis a bad idea, it will be easier to exercice social pressure againstthose who use it. If, on the other hand, we are closed to everydiscussion, people will, as you notice, do it anyway, and badly.
It is also a matter of outreach: clearly documenting the "Gemini way"and making it wildly accessible (the FAQ already does a good job).