I was a bit glib with my answer, but I don’t think what they said is wrong. Just because something is a written standard doesn’t mean it is an observed standard. WaPo was clearly referring to the lack of an observed standard. I don’t think they were denying the existence of API specifications, nor do I think that’s a reasonable interpretation. They’re saying that nobody treated it the same way, which is true, and it’s also the reason why it was deprecated in the first place.