Suggested List Protocol

[Peter Murray-Rust]

XML-DEV has been going for less than a week and it already has ~100
subscribers and about the same number of postings.  Some of the
suscribers are very well known in/to the SGML community but I expect
there are some who are new to this whole venture and here a a few
thoughts that may be helpful:

The list is unmoderated and has no fixed agenda, so that you shouldn't
be afraid of bringing up your own ideas or questions, so long as they are
in some way related to how XML will be implemented.  The list has no formal
standing and no way of 'reaching decisions' (though it's possible that 
mechanisms might emerge).  Any voluntary offers for summarising threads 
will, I'm sure, be most valuable (e.g. 'We seem to agree X, but we differ
on Y - so there seems to be a role for software that is limited to X?  Is
this realistic?').

The discussions run alongside the WG discussions and there is a considerable
overlap in membership. XML-DEV is _not_ an informal arena for discussing 
matters still on the WG agenda.  If an issue is aired here ("do I _really_ 
have to do X and Y to achieve Z?") that might have a bearing on the draft(s) 
it won't go unnoticed :-).  Discussions are archived so that you can 
download and read them every 2 weeks.

SGML is mainly thought of as a document processing and (paper) rendering
tool, but XML has the potential for many completely new applications
(my own is molecular science).  Therefore if you think that XML might
help in flying planes, making money, sending digital odors or holography 
over the Internet (suggested by MIME) feel free to raise the topic.

Be considerate about the volume of a posting - some of us pay for incoming
mail :-).  Quote those parts of previous replies that relate to your message.
If you have large chunks of code, post them on http: or ftp: resources.  
Please also post everything in human-readable ASCII  as a lot of 
people may not be able to manage compressed or other transformed files.
Hopefully we shall move to other character sets (e.g. Unicode) in the future.

	P.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection
Virtual School of Molecular Sciences
http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/

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