Would it instead be possible to exclude anyone with that attitude from a discussion about an open standard? I know this sounds toxic, but I would argue that approaching public design this way is ultimately more toxic wrt the outcome and those affected by it.
Or maybe I misunderstood that part since everyone seems to not be bothered by it at all here...
That attitude is rather critical and important to the discussion.
I don't think it's the browser, or the standards bodies, responsibility to have built-in support for every possible feature we can imagine. Instead, the standards need to be simple and extensible so that that libraries (Javascript or WASM) can do creative layouts. (IE, instead of waiting for Masonry layout in CSS, you should be able to grab a Masonry layout library and include it with your web site.)
Otherwise, we're building a system where the standards (CSS in this case) are so complicated that it's getting harder and harder to implement the standards; and are too inflexible to support what tomorrows' developers can imagine.
Otherwise your browser(standards) might become too complex.
I need masonry layouts a lot and tend to be on the "we don't need another display class" side in this debate. But that's unrelated to my "rant".
CSS is already very complicated. Adding more options needs proportionally strong justification.
So it seems there were some reasonably forces in the discussion that align with my stance without the unnecessarily antagonistic (and rhetoric) primer I should've probably left out.
Seems like a good approach to widen the discussion and improve the design.
That's a recipe for stagnation.
I'm not claiming this is the case with the Mansory layout; I just understand that adding unnecessary complexity for a small target user base is a valid concern.
How are potentially thousands of niche websites less of an argument than "instagram and co don't need it"?
This take is imho dangerously conflates personal taste and motivation with "should a heavily generalized and clearly purposed layout system be complicated with some magic keyuword options to serve your specific intents?", and misappropriates the assumption that people like and use this form layout as a reason to approve the latter.
This is a standard that affects billions of people and many implementations. It’s great to ask if something is really needed or if it’s just adding bloat.
We shouldn’t just grow the standard without first asking if the growth and added complexity carry their own weight. If someone proposing something can show that, then wonderful.
But yeah, just straight up trying to block these people from being able to ask these questions totally is toxic. As long as they’re asking and participating respectfully there’s no need to be a jerk toward them.
The blink tag was used by well-known website and it's universally recognized as a bad decision.
But what is not fine is trying to exclude people from the conversation and silence them just because you have a disagreement.