See also: IRC log
<DanC> minutes 19 July
<DanC> (maha is Marcin Hanclik of Access)
<DanC> (oedipus is Gregory Rosmiata)
<scribe> Scribe: MikeSmith
<scribe> ScribeNick: MikeSmith
DanC: I was hoping Chris W would pick the next meeting time; I don't have a good idea of his schedule right now ...
<DanC> any advice on a Seattle/OZ/Asia time, Lachy?
DanC: Gregory, Marcin, this time
seems to be good for you (because you've made it more than
once) ...
... [considering 16 August]
... FYI, I'm going to "An Event Apart" in Chicago late in
August
<DanC> PROPOSED: to meet 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month at 11am Boston time; next meeting 16 Aug
<MikeSmith_> [currently 02:10am in Japan]
DanC: Any reason not to schedule
next call for 16 August?
... Hopefully, we will get an update from Chris Wilson, but
lacking that, I will chair on the 16th
RESOLUTION: to meet 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month at 11am Boston time; next meeting 16 Aug
<DanC> ACTION: ChrisW to try to find a Seattle/OZ/Asia time [CONTINUES] [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action01]
<DanC> note Lachy suggests a time 6 hours earlier for Seattle/OZ/Asia. I trust Chris W will read the record of this meeting
DanC: My strategy has been to
reward the sort of e-mail I like, and ignore the rest ...
... but that has not proven satisfactory to a lot of people
<dsinger> I do wonder if we should have a separate low-volume list for organizational and other 'formal' emails
DanC: I have heard from lots of
people, that yeah, the HTML working group [mailing list] is no
fun to work with
... I will go around the table, as it were, [to ask for
thoughts]
<DanC> poll is any thoughs on this agendum, # Email traffic shaping, working style
Gregory: Getting people to conciously put things up on the e-mail-thread part of the Wiki ...
DanC: yes, indexing things in the wiki can be a work-around to make up for some poor choices of subject lines
Gregory: We are all talking around each other [still] instead of talking to each other ...
<oedipus> working towards a common HTML WG vocabulary: http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/CommonVocabularyAndDefinitions
DanC: Let's discuss definitions
further in a separate item.
... I think lots of people usefully followed up [on the "formal
complaint" thread]
Julian: I think it was good that
the topic has been raised ...
... although commenting on discussions that have taken place on
IRC is [perhaps going off a bit?]
Marcin comments
<Lachy> personally, I think the formal complaint went too far, but I think it needs to be pointed out that there are people on both sides of the issues at fault (I took up the issue off list with some), each influencing the replies of the other and causing things to escalate
<oedipus> underlying problem is that there are 2 tracks of discussion -- W3C and WHAT WG; now that HTML5 been accepted into W3C process, shouldn't formal (on-list) conversations be conducted on public-html so as to avoid bifurcation of efforts and cowpaths; WHAT WG has every right to exist and conduct conversations, but when the development path of HTML is concerned, the normative discussion forum should be public-html
MikeSmith: I think we should put
boundaries on the discussion on the list ...
... for example, decide to limit the list discussion to just
discussion of the interoperable behavior for existing elements
...
... and not discuss new elements nor discuss which elements
should be conformant and which not
dsinger: I think it would not be
out of line for the chairs to call people out if they are
intemperate
... in their comments on the list
... and I think it would be useful to have a separate list [for
certain kinds of messages] ...
... because it's hard to tell [which messages to read] ...
chaals: I think it would be good
for the chairs to be more active on the list ...
... [good to] reduce the overall volume of messages on the list
...
... [encourage people to] treat each other with the kind of
politeness and respect [that encourages further discussion on
the list] ...
... people are terrified by the [current] volume of mail on the
list ...
... opportunity for the chairs ...
... people need to realize -- that large parts of the community
won't participate if they perceive the list environment as
unfriendly ...
... and that will be our loss [because we want them to
participate] ...
... [discussing value of having a separate list for
announcements]
... having that separate list and using it to make periodic
(fortnight or monthly) announcements of a draft with some
collected change notice would make it more reasonable way for
people to follow the work of the group ...
<oedipus> plus one on announcement list
Gregory: Anything that is
normative should occur on public-html ...
... because no everybody is subscribed to the whatwg list
...
DanC: I assume our official
mechanism is public-html ...
... on the other hand, there is actually HTML discussion taking
place all over the place
... An announcement list [might] be a good idea ...
... I read a much as I would expect a normal working-group
member would read, i.e. a minority of the e-mail
<Lachy> I manage to read less than half of the volume on public-html
DanC: when long threads that go
off into the weeds, I tune out, which means I'm likely to not
notice some of the more unpleasant exchanges
... I expect other people to read those ...
... As far as taking people to task, Karl has been doing that
...
... e-mailing them directly, Cc'ing Chris and me
<dsinger> indicate that you are willing to admonish if asked PRIVATELY
<dsinger> ?
DanC: keep in mind that Karl is our staff contact on an interim basis; W3C is supposed to be hiring somebody
<DanC> http://www.w3.org/2007/01/HTML-WebAPI-position.html
DanC: Any ideas about the announcements mailing list?
<DanC> ACTION: DanC to set up an announcement mailing list, noodling with chaals [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action02]
<dsinger> the announcement list should be moderated, by the way (if possible)
<dsinger> and though I hate reply-to headers, if there is one, reply-to public-html
chaals: Would also be useful to
send out info about resolutions on the "announcements" list
...
... [case of people reading on the announcements list in order
to figure out what's happened on the list during a particular
period of time]
<Zakim> DanC, you wanted to respond to MikeSmith's suggestion of more focus and to respond to announcement of drafts, and noodle on summaries of cvs/svn logs
DanC: Summaries of changes is something I think others can help Hixie with; is anybody already reading the commit logs?
<MikeSmith_> DanC, I do
MikeSmith: There were no commits
to the spec during July
... since June 28
DanC: [as far as shaping discussion], When you [explicitly] tell people to not think about elephants, they tend to think about elephants
chaals: Saying, what exists in
HTML 4, what exists in HTML5 [as limits for the current
discussions] ...
... saying, otherwise, identify the problem [that you are
trying to address in your message]
... saying, we are really trying to spec out HTML5 [and not
digress into discussions about what is not implemented or not
likely to be implemented any time soon] ...
DanC: it's good suggestion to
talk about limiting discussion ...
... but hasn't figured out how best to do it yet
Julian: Helpful to have a statement of things that are clearly out of scope for the group ...
DanC: Anything that is not in the
charter is out of scope.
... for example, transport protocols are clearly not in
scope
<DanC> (hmm... did I start a FAQ? I was thinking about putting some advice in http://esw.w3.org/topic/MailingLists ... )
DanC: there's a wiki topic on mailing lists; if folks want to add stuff about community norms (RFCs on etiquitte, ...) that would be helpful.
<DanC> http://esw.w3.org/topic/MailingLists
<DanC> updates to http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SpecReviews are most welcome, everybody
<scribe> ACTION: MikeSmith to write up a summary of changes for last [period of time], description of where changes go [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action03]
<DanC> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/il16
<DanC> http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SpecReviews
DanC: Spot checking ...
... anybody know if Lee has reviewed the Introduction?
... looks like Debi Orton has ...
... about Document Object Model ...
... Peter seems to have reviewed that ...
... has Lee reviewed it? ...
<DanC> Detailed review of Section 1. Introduction. (Thursday, 26 July) Lee Kowalkowski
DanC: As long as people put
"detailed review" (as people seem to have done), [it's helpful]
...
... [discussing <canvas> within scope of charter]
<DanC> http://www.w3.org/2007/03/HTML-WG-charter.html#scope
<DanC> "following items in scope"
chaals: 3 existing web browsers grok canvas, so it falls under...
<DanC> "A serialized form of such a language using a defined, non-XML syntax compatible with the 'classic HTML' parsers of existing Web browsers."
DanC: arguing the scope
boundaries of the charter is rarely fun, but sometimes
worthwhile.
... Who's signed up to review the canvas spec?
... Ben Boyle and Sander ...
... doesn't seem that Ben has reviewed it yet (though he has
reviewed other parts) ...
<Sander> I'm still working on it, too
DanC: Chris Wilson says that MS will complete their detailed reviews by end of August
<dsinger> no comments from me on detailed spec. reviews
Gregory: Detailed review has been one of the most fruitful [uses of the list]
Mike: definitely useful
chaals: been trying to do areview of accessibility features
DanC: speaking of schedule, my
goal for first public working draft of the HTML5 spec ...
... is that each part of the spec be read [carefully] by a
member of the group ...
... [and that we can document that] ...
... that we have read, not [necessarily] that we like it
...
... first public working draft [FPWD] by September
... yeah
... Summary of CVS commits is a good thing to do.
... I'll try to get regular summaries of spec commits; Mike has
agreed to do it once
<DanC> . ACTION: ChrisW to ping mjs re pending comments on design principles
DanC: I still have not synced up with Maciej, and last telcon, Chris said he would take this up; he did make some progress
<DanC> . ACTION: Gavin_Sharp to review design principles in the next two weeks
DanC: But I have not heard back
from Maciej myself
... Does anybody know if Gavin has completed that
action?
<DanC> ACTION: Gavin_Sharp to review design principles in the next two weeks [CONTINUES] [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action04]
DanC: Does that survey seem like a worthwhile exercise for the group? I didn't open it because of difficulty syncing with mjs, but let's have a look. Can you get to it?
<DanC> http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/dprv/
<MikeSmith_> wfm
<dsinger> works for me
<oedipus> even i can get to the survey
<chaals> [Yes, issue...]
Singer: Surveys get lost in the volume of mail
DanC: I send little enough mail that I expect everybody to read anything I send.
chaals: Yes, but should be clear [that it is to a draft of the design principles].
DanC: Looking at diffs since April 30th
<dsinger> universalaccess is a conflation of two defined terms: accessibility and universality
dsinger: perhaps not a good choice of words for a design-principles document
DanC: question about design
principle related to accessibility
... I could just issue that survey in its current untidy
state.
... Question 6 is sort of about the end-game ...
... Anne is sufficiently available for my purposes.
... but I have been struggling to sync up with Maciej ...
[discussion about Maciej's availability; appears that Maciej may be in a period of time where he's working on other things and may not be available much for a while]
DanC: If we can't do a first working draft of the Design Principles doc in August [that is going to be a problem]
<DanC> ACTION: DanC to take input on the survey http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/dprv/ for a few days and issue it [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action05]
DanC: I think I can add a survey question: Do you want to play an editor role?
<DanC> http://esw.w3.org/topic/HtmlTestMaterials
<dsinger> maciej should be on the call in a few minutes
DanC: We have dozens of people who have volunteered to help with work on test suites
<oedipus> UAAG Test Suite: http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/TS/html401/
oedipus: [mentions user-agent accessibility guidelines]
<oedipus> UAAG WG: http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA
oedipus: I'm an active member of that group
<oedipus> UAAG 1.0: http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10
<chaals> [team contact: Jan Richards (actually works for U of Toronto), Chair: Jim Allan]
<DanC> EARL is cool; see http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/grddl-wg/td/test_results
DanC: I think EARL is really
cool
... we used it in the GRDDL WG ...
<oedipus> common working group vocabulary wiki page: http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/CommonVocabularyAndDefinitions
<oedipus> reference document - accessibility dependencies and resources listed on the wiki at: http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AccessibilityDependencies
DanC: I will start by talking
about a observed pattern I see ...
... agreeing on definitions is the whole job ...
... of working on standards ...
... if anybody thinks, We'll just take a couple of weeks to
work on agreement about definitions, well [it's not reasonable
to expect that to get done quickly]
Gregory: purpose of that page is to [achieve consensus about terms]
<mjs> all righty
Gregory: a lot of us talk around each others using the same terms [but not using them in the same way]
DanC: What about actual
content?
... I think "fallback" is used in the spec some place.
... can others help me find that?
<DanC> "fallback content: content that is to be used when the external resource cannot be used (e.g. because it is of an unsupported format)." -- http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/
DanC: "fallback content" is
bolded in the spec
... ah; mjs joins us... back to design principles..
DanC: [talking with Maciej]
mjs: I've been very busy, but I expect to be more available soon.
<scribe> ACTION: ChrisW to ping mjs re pending comments on design principles [DONE] [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action06]
<scribe> ACTION: Maciej to send out wrap-up about design principles by Thursday next week. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/08/02-html-wg-minutes.html#action07]
<DanC> ADJOURN.