The IDPF Troll

Well. I made one simple innocent tweet  with a rhetorical statement that the ePub3 Index should use ordered list <ol> instead of unordered list <ul>. I wasn't actually expecting a response.

However there were a number of tweet exchanges with one Romain Deltour, spokesman d'jour for the IDPF it would seem, explaining the IDPF demonstrates that Index lists are not ordered because one day some reading system may mash them around and sort them differently. It ended with a last...

That little spanking really smarted. I didn't quite get the "super-villains" reference; some subliminal thing perhaps. I have certainly never used that phrase and certainly don't see the IDPF as villains. They are just not that cool!

This little tweetscapade taught me something new things:

1. Twitter is not the place to discuss the rational and details of specification details for any subject. Someone always gets irritated with detail.
2. It is easy to throw names like IDPF troll at any questioning critic. Certainly stops the wasted tweeting time anyway. I have  never used the term troll in any Internet conversation and have decided I never will.
3. I might actually be an IDPF troll and not recognize it! Oh my Gosh! A sort of genetic spec-bias thing. Introspection starts. Introspection over. Nope! I just care about digital content too much.
4. Trolls are interesting. This comment sparked deep memories of The Three Billy Goat's Gruff and that most  memorable line, "Who'se that walking on my bridge. Trit-trot, trit-trot on my bridge"...
5. Confusion! I was the one walking on the IDPF bridge...?

Tritic or Croll?

Of course I am an analyst and critic of the ePub3 specification (and the IDPF by implication of course) for all the reasons that have been laid out in numerous posts, tutorials and significant software products. (You can see a list of just some ePub3 practical, real resources Infogrid Pacific has created here. These are accessed from all over the world on a daily basis.) In fact I would say Infogrid Pacific is in a unique position to criticize the ePub3 specification for the following little list of reasons:

1. We released the first publicly available ePub3 reader AZARDI in December 2011. It is maintained and feature-up'ed almost monthly. It supports more of the ePub3 specification than any other ePub3 reading system available. 
2. IGP:Digital Publisher supported package creation of ePub3 and ePub3/2 in  December 2011.
3. IGP:Digital Publisher supported the ePub3 fixed layout spec IN FULL,just two weeks after the specification was put out.
4. We have a large collection of demonstration ePub3 reflowable, fixed layout, multi-language demonstration and test books available at no charge. Help yourself to the samples here, here and here.
5. We are promoting ePub3 for education over proprietary systems and packages. That includes giving publishers free interactive libraries for Interactive Widgets and Learning Objects so they go the ePub3 route.

So we know a bit about the strengths and weaknesses of the ePub format in a way specification theorists never can. We seriously care about the format. We see the potential of much of the specification... and we have spent two years, just like the IDPF wondering if any publisher will ever be really interested in ePub3.

We have found our own ePub3 vertical with highly interactive education content being delivered to students around the world. It happened because of the add-ons, not the core format.

You are a Troll because the Drivers of the IDPF Says Indexes are Not Ordered Lists and Have a Dare You Abstract Nonsense Argument to Defend That Statement. So There!

The Troll under the bridge stated that Indexes are not unordered lists. The goat replied they are unordered lists. Who owns the bridge? Who is actually the troll? When are ordered lists unordered?

Easy. Whenever the IDPF say they are (even if they aren't) of course.

We now delve into this mystery of the list universe (guarded by trolls).

Most what we call "Named Lists" in IGP:FoundationXHTML are ordered lists. That is the way they are created, intentionally, and have been for a very long time, like hundreds of years. Order lists include:

Table of Contents, List of Figures, List of Illustrations, List of Equations, List of Maps, References (Bibliography), Footnotes, Notes, Glossary, Abbreviations, many more and of course Indexes.

Some of these lists are ordered by their occurence in the book, some by alphabetic sorting, some by applied numbering systems. But they are all ordered. The fact that they can be processed for some other interactive use in a presentation environment is irrelevant.

 Now let us see the tweet conversation...

Of course the order of an Index impacts the meaning of an Index. The Index is PART of the document with a very specific ORDERED construction that if changed totally changes its meaning and more importantly its purpose. What the W3C definition is trying to say is if order is important use an ordered list.

What I want to understand is what is the meaning of an Index that is a random collection of links in any sequence? This is not a relative abstract argument it is an absolute argument. If an Index is not ordered alphabetically by terms, is it a random set of references a reader can wade through.

Gasp! Is that all they are. Terms/concepts. Then all those (human) Indexers working on term indexes, indexes of places, indexes of people and so many more could have just put them in any order because Index presentation is a UI atifact? Not the reason they were created?

This is a totally nonsense argument of course. They may become a UI artifact in the context of a reading system capable of changing the presentation modality, but in creation, digitizatation and long-term high-value content management they are strictly ordered lists.

This is the core problem with the IDPF. They don't consider, know or understand anything about the creation, production and management of content.

This is something we understand. All this 2013 visionary stuff about inserting index references into the text as popups with horizontal topic links, etc was done years ago. We did it in 2001 for 20,000 online Taylor and Francis academic books. It doesn't mean you have to screw the core content syntax to make some pretty reading interface toys.

Whoopee! So your cute little reading system is going to sort by different parameters. It's still sorted. Duh!

I absolutely love the idea of an Index sorted by appearance (the abstract  "believers" argument, sort of like floating on clouds).

I can hardly wait to see the first "Index of Term Lengths" and "Index of Appearance".

The reason these DEFINED structures exist is to eliminate ambiguity and give professional focus on relevance. Why not have readers just create their own indexes? Or replace them with the text find engine as publishers who have auto-generated indexes insist?

Hey! Why have the book in the author word sequence? Let's sort it by word length dynamically. Yes! that would be a lot faster to read.

Changing the ordering does not make it un-ordered. It makes it RE-ordered. Un-ordered means the sequence is unimportant in all circumstances and conditions.

This is in fact the core point of the argument. The lists are ordered and are useful. They may be able to be re-ordered (but not Indexes) by other criteria and exhibit alternative or additional usefulness. If they are unordered or randomly re-unordered they are probably of little use to anyone ( a thousand monkeys on typewriters sort of thing).

Therefore the "order" is not part of "the instrinsic semantics?" This has got to take the cake as one of those meaningless philosophical arguments that proves black is white and vice-versa. What is the usefulness of an Index if the order is changed? And changed to what?

So the order of Index terms is NOT part of the instrinsic semantics. I am desparately waiting for the random un-ordered Index to explore its' functionality and usefulness.

I asked a Question way back in 2012

However to be fair to Romain he is not alone in calling the IDPF abstract content interpretation party-line. It is obviously in the manual.

This is the thinking that goes on behind the specification of ePub3. Everyone has to subsume their criticality and regurgitate this stuff as if it is correct, valuable and intellectual. I guess that is what it means being a member of a specification organization.

This is the answer I got to a question on the IDPF Forum a year earlier than this exciting twitter exchange.

Isn't that script strangely familiar?

What does all that mean? Alphabetized presentation isn't the same as ordered presentation? The IDPF has redefined what ordered means. It means anything they want.

The first entry in a bibliography is not "numerically" important. It never has been! Ever! An ordered list doesn't have to have 1,2,3, or A, B, C in front of the items (that's called a note item). This is a banal argument. An un-order list doesn't have to have bullets, or squares or little pictures either.

Can You Believe This Stuff?

OK I get it that the IDPF is reinventing the universe of digital content in the ePub3 avatar and that ordered is actually un-ordered and vice-versa.

Most people don't actually care about this stuff and just nod their heads and say "OK".

Regretfully the new brigade of digital content experts are so focused on reading system and making an ePub2 work on a Nook AND an iPad AND a Kindle AND a Kobo AND a what ever else or comes next, core content value no longer matters.

My argument is that strange, qualified, abstract arguments  ordered content is not ordered need to be challenged. I have seen and had to repair some amazing structural, semantic and syntax screw-ups in 20 years in this business. This sort of abstract ego argument nonsense has cost publishers millions and millions over the years. This is not an island.

This justification of incorrect tagging because the reading system is more important than the content, is a repeat of the XML Schema is more important than the content approach that made content XML such a failure.

These "what if" abstract arguments in defence of ordered lists being un-ordered is certainly up there with the worst examples of mis-interpretation and mis-representation of content structure I have ever encountered. 

There are certainly no "super master villains mastering this work". Many, many words spring to mine to replace villain. "Mastering this work"? Move over Michaelangelo.

There. I have finished.

Trolls are Really Cool

I was so pleased to be inspired to research trolls (the real fictional ones). I feel a demo Troll ePub3 fixed layout demo coming on! It's brilliant the way they are used to capture and demonstrate negative human emotions. I am certainly the ordered lists are un-ordered lists specious dribble really annoyed troll.

I don't mind being called a troll. My mother taught me that "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt you"; and she was right. I do have negative emotions about certain issues. In this case to be called a troll is an honour, even if I am more probably the goat walking on the unordered IDPF bridge and am about to be eaten up.

So if rational, informed, experience based criticism, questions and observations of the ePub3 specification (and by implication the IDPF) results in being called a troll, so be it. Fortunately this little tweet dialogue didn't grind down to the level of Godwins Law.

The big lesson however. Twitter is for tweets. 140 character "conversations" about big concepts are probably doomed from Tweet No 1.

Trolls are sometimes on top of the bridge. Trolls are sometimes under the bridge. We now know trolls are a fictional synonym for blind negative emotions and the antithesis of what is positive and good.

Back to reading @rickygervais!

An opinion posted by Richard Pipe