To promote a standard for HTML that will support the consistency
that Peter Sheerin asked for, so that content providers will be able to
provide data that will be rendered in a predictable, consistent manner
across platforms and browsers, without having to proof their content in
each possible combination.
I really don't think this has anything to do with user guides (which
are, of course, needed, as well). It has to do with tightening the
spec such that there is a core tag set and rendering model that works
in every compliant browser. This in no way precludes extensions, but
rather guarantees that some basic set of capabilities will work in a
predictable, stable way in every browser.
As we near the officialdom of HTML 2.0, I wonder if Dan Connoly's
notion of a compliance data set should be resurrected?
stu