NoOOXML

thanks for the criticism.

It makes a lot of sense to relax and take the whole process less serious. The whole process is mad because the specification was not ready as a standard early this year. open XML via fast-track was just a joke. It got far too political when the technical argument was lost.

The best thing that can happen when you deal with Microsoft is that they violate the rules as they always do. It is like the Tobacco lobby. They play evil, they are nasty but in the end the result is that regulators discriminate us smokers. Despite or because of the lobbying?
How can we take the OOXML ISO process serious?

We know that they will invest even more in lobbying! Who is the next P member? San Marino? Fidji? Do we need to post more "The evil X does it again" stories? I don't know. It's now that we post more and more content. The campaign site is partially informational but always had these WARNING!! articles with languages that was informal.

The current stage of the debate is: "But I will have to go through with the procession" as the technical debate is won.

Pieter in NYT: "“I think they are going to stick to their strategy, which is to try to simply get companies to turn their ‘no’ votes into ‘yes’ votes,” he said. “But I don’t think it is going to work.”"

"In what way do you think this rather incoherent (but fun, I'll give you that) rant fits in with the otherwise largely formal and informational content on this site?"

I considered the article informative and rantish. And I found it appropriate or exactly what I wanted. It points out the annoying fact that bad standard promotion does pay off for some clowns.

Formality is a problem! It is getting too formal and dry for a campaign site. Pieter asked me to improve the headlines and descriptions, make it more popular and he was right.

Don't forget the style of our "informative" content and the the overall communication strategy. For instance Rice Pudding. Stupid?! Right. but you will remember it and the 6000 site. Same on Open Standards. Here some rather weird jokes are found.

so we have two aspects
a) entertainment and campaign style, nerd humour, caricatures ecc.
b) link to factual stuff, and "sources", ie the original ECMA spec, the technical comments, rules of procedure, the patent models texts.

A conservative strategy does not fit into the style of the campaign and the character of Benjamin's personality etc. That would be the right thing for press.ffii.org or usual press work. After all we are not IBM proxies as Microsoft claims.

Here: b) is the quote of the original ISO press release.

Literature:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get-rich-quick_scheme

OK, good point, I can change my mind. I like fun. Fun is good in itself and does not need any further justification. Your post is still incoherent, though, it could have been made a lot more clear while still poking fun at the dirty process. Right now, it is more of an "insiders only" post, preaching to the choir, and that is not necessarily any better for the site than formal, dry stuff. Good shot, fun to read for a change, but with some more work you could also reach a wider audience. Perhaps the site should be split into an information section for the dry and serious stuff, and a discussion section with a less strict style? Right now it has grown out of its costume, with a huge number of threads and lots of comments back and forth, and as we just learned we need the site to serve us until February.

How can we take the OOXML ISO process serious?

Jokes are a healthy way of dealing with a difficult and overwhelming task, I often take that approach myself (believe it or not, but I am not really a very serious person IRL). However, at the end of the day we should always take this task seriously, with some fun thrown in for good measure when things get too serious. Serious does not necessarily mean boring, I think we have been forgetting about that for a while. Life is really too short to be bored, particularly if you don't get paid a lot of money. Thanks for reminding me.

Having said that, resorting to general derogatory comments concerning the opposition or their actions, whether justified or not, could be quoted out of context to make us look like the bully and MS the underdog. That is obviously wrong, so don't play their game, try to stay out of it. The implications if OOXML should somehow manage to pass as an ISO standard are dead serious, as it would kill the credibility of ISO and encourage Microsoft to keep using its dirty tactics to buy standards.

But I agree, we should definitely stir up some emotion to find more supporters. Good point, good job, good luck!

Imagine you are winning a chess game and then your opponent starts a fire alarm or kicks the board or knocks you out with physical force. They break the rules of the game they cannot win.

The debate was won in the US and changed with political interference.

… but I won the game.

Hmm!?

"Having said that, resorting to general derogatory comments concerning the opposition or their actions, whether justified or not, could be quoted out of context to make us look like the bully and MS the underdog."

They tried it with the Kayak award. <no>OOXML is a campaign and we need to keep the negative emotions out and turn it into something positive. When they break the rules it is "fun", you can complain, you can report that they broke the rules and spread it. The no-chairs in Portugal story is great. The OOXML ISO process is real good entertainment. When they quote us it is a sort of interaction.

The play underdog? Let's start a "A heart for OOXML" campaign…

A Hugo cannot be beaten with "arguments". He is a punchbag and getting paid to spread certain stories. Politicians don't take these guys serious. So why should you do?

And a very good point from you too, podmokle. Perhaps the best option right now is to actually cry "foul" at the top of our voices. If the emperor keeps denying that he is naked and the relevant people also refuse to see it, we can always get back to the grinding diplomacy. Although I'd rather not, mockery is so much more fun if we can set things straight that way.

I seriously doubt that MS will ever admit to being naked, but perhaps we can at least make some relevant people see it. Like the SC34 of ISO, they will soon have a say in whether to cancel the DIS 29500 project.

Hmm. Loudmouth diplomacy. That's a new tactic. Perhaps we should send a printout of that list of 42,000+ names to SC34 and attach a scournful statement to their incompetence and blindness in failing to see how silly and stupid this whole process is? (Preferably phrased politely, but with a very clear subtext.)

Cuba was a clear no. We don't know how it went Yes(?).

IBM supports the debate with "technical arguments" and expertise. It's out, everyone can read it. It doesn't matter if its from IBM or someone else.

But of course SUN and IBM are competitors.

Feel free to get us invited. Of course a "campaign style" is not the right voice for talking to a standard body or an audience about the issue.

No OOXML is a very simple campaign. Benjamin joked it was 12 Euro. For the Domain name.

Our campaign is named no OOXML and beats the drum but I am very much interested in how the standard can be improved. And it will be improved thanks to the vote. It won't be an easy task to debug it. Now ECMA and Microsoft need to move. But maybe they just want to do it politically, do-a-Kenya and the Ballot Resolution Process just as a recount vote.

I like this thread but…. I moved it back to "All stories" because it seems too evil for the front page and I'm too tired to edit it. We need to be thinking how to ensure that at the BRM, it's not 55% that vote against, but 80%. The real news should be the heros who turned around entire governments with the force of their arguments, and the national boards that did their job even when no-one expected it. Hey, Trinidad and Tobago, you did good! Reading about Hugo "expressing public sympathy for the client lets you charge more" Lueders right now just seems wrong.

Lastly, guaranteed, many people will read the thread and not understand that it's a joke. So it has to come off the front page.

many people will read the thread and not understand that it's a joke

That was exactly my problem, but I didn't see it. Thanks, I was wondering why I was being a total bore (that's not really me) and still thought this post was out of place, despite the fact that I actually agree with podmokle on everything he wrote.

We could easily flag jokes as such for any readers who might otherwise take it too literally. I think I might have been taking myself a bit too seriously lately, I was dangerously close to getting stuck-up and losing my sense of fun in doing this. I feel I really needed this thread.

There is both a time and a place for kicking around. The time is "now and then" and the place is "here and there", I think. I like the fact that this website is run by real people and not faceless spokespersons who are always trying to be politically correct. Being people is one of the things that make you different from the opposition. That, and being good. And being right.