What's the meaning of standing value changes?

[ddbeck]

What does it mean when a spec's standing moves from "good" to "pending"?

Over in web-features, we validate specification URLs, requiring the "good" standing. One spec URL, https://w3c.github.io/web-share-target/, started failing validation with web-specs v3.33.0.

It's not clear to me what this means. Some questions I have:

• Why did the status change? I couldn't find an issue for this change.
• Is this a spec on the cusp of being "discontinued"?
• Am I misusing the data? For example, are some discontinued specs nevertheless the most-current spec for an implemented API?

Answers to some or all of these questions would help me decide whether to make an exception for this URL, to change handling pending specs, or to avoid standing altogether.

Possibly related to #1266 and #1181.

[tidoust]

The update is a consequence of fetching the info directly in the spec for WICG specs instead of relying on Specref (#1633). See also #1628 (comment) for a short discussion on the transition.

Specs such as the Web Share Target API that claim "I'm an unofficial draft" typically get a "pending" standing (as explained in the README). In this particular case, the info initially came from Specref, who does not have that logic and thus always considers that specs are in "good" standing. Standing switched to "pending" simply because browser-specs now looks into the spec directly.

I did not force a "good" standing on that one, because its status hasn't changed in the past 3 years, I'm not clear about the plan to transition the spec to the Web Apps WG either (pending PR since >1 year ago at w3c/web-share-target#112), and the IDL does not appear in Web Platform Tests either. That suggests a "pending" standing for the spec and the spec would have been added with that standing initially if its info hadn't been retrieved from Specref.

Now, the definition of "standing" remains fuzzy, I had forgotten that BCD and web-features rejected URLs of "pending" specs (even though I documented it in #1481 (comment), yet another issue that discusses what "standard" means ;)), and I had not realized that the Web Share Target API already appears on MDN. It's fine to rollback the change and force a good standing.

[tidoust]

Standing back to "good" in latest published version of web-specs.

And the takeaway from this is that we need to do a more thorough investigation when considering standing a transition from "good" to "pending"!

[ddbeck]

Thanks for the informative response and prompt resolution!