W3C Most Important Priorities TF Teleconference -- 14 Nov 2014

Overview of project

<scribe> scribe: timeless

jeff: glazou wanted to be here
... he is speaking [elsewhere] at this time
... he requested the meeting minutes be available promptly
... i sent the draft agenda last night, i hope people received it
... first, i want to overview what we're trying to achieve in this project
... the AB at the beginning of its term has tried to identify work to do
... this year, it selected what are the most important things to do for the year
... i put ideas into the Wiki
... but it doesn't depend on me/AB, it depends on all of us
... what we put in/what we make out of it
... i'd like to share w/ you the relationships w/ other efforts
... another is a dialogue i started at extensible-web summit
... and then team, and TPAC
... the details of that are in the email i sent yesterday
... that's one perspective of how to think of core web technologies for the future
... i view that as an input to this effort
... i'd be honored if this TF said it was a useful starting point
... and enhanced/changed it
... another thing i'd like to call out, is another AB project, called Multilingual W3C
... one of the other things i noted was for W3C to have a global-slate of stakeholders
... we might deprecate that, concluding that a different AB TF chartered 2 weeks ago, being led by key participants from Korea+Japan
... it might be that that TF can manage that
... and thus, it may no longer need to be a focus of our work here
... another thing, is... our capacity to take on work is somewhat finite
... only so many people in our community/team
... a companion effort that Mike_Champion is leading
... is identifying work
... that isn't properly matching stakeholders
... and stop that work early

[ pause ]

<jeff> https://www.w3.org/wiki/AB/2014-2015_Priorities/w3c_most_important

Discussion of how many sub-efforts to take on

jeff: to identify priorities
... it might make sense to identify stakeholders
... for browser vendors, they might ask what will be next generation technologies for the core
... for companies in important vertical industries
... digPub, digEntertain, digMarket
... they might ask a different question about bringing the total web to its full potential
... a different category is making the web more friendly for developers
... a fourth category is making the web more friendly for end users
... a fifth category is geographic needs/emerging areas
... next i'd like to get input of those attending
... people should say if things are valuable/waste of time
... if people want to brainstorm, ...

[ pause ]

wseltzer: thanks jeff
... perhaps i can help kick off conversations
... Wendy Seltzer
... i work on the Technology+Privacy domain
... one of the things i see as a priority is increasing privacy+security features of the web
... while i see it as a component of core
... sometimes it's a horizontal
... should we fit it in Core, or set up a different category

jeff: from my perspective, Security+Privacy is definitely core

Pdanet: Pierre Danet
... as you know, the DigPub WG is working on EduPub
... education globally
... which is much more than text books, including accessibility
... this is more than the WG, and should be a priority for the Web/W3C

jeff: i think that's a great idea, and thanks for your email
... if we adopt something like education, we'd need to shape that, what problems should we work on

marcosc: from the browser vendors' perspective
... we're interested in what is the platform missing
... things that come out of the education discussions
... if we get too focussed on a specific domain
... we risk going down -- standardizing formats
... which might be ok
... or look at it as a software platform

jeff: i see that as a fair summary

brucel: Bruce Lawson with Opera
... i agree w/ marcosc
... looking at where the web can't compete w/ native
... wondering about the fourth category, making the web more friendly for end users
... for me, the web being user-friendly or not is UI
... in browsers/web clients
... i don't think we should look at product differentiators

jeff: i'd agree that UI is a big piece of the end user experience
... one could take the perspective that w/ 7 billion people
... struggling to figure out browser sniffing/security exceptions
... one could argue that to lead the web to its full potential
... it would be good to not leave that to companies
... i'm not pushing hard for it

brucel: i think we agree
... "is the web private", "can i do conferencing on the web"
... are firmly in W3C

jeff: back to wseltzer's point, we can put all the tech we want into the core of the web
... if at the end of the data what's surfaced to end users
... obscures what they need, or doesn't help them in edge cases
... then we won't have a secure web
... 10-20% of security, a lot of the way security gets broken is human-engineering
... sloppy usage/maintenance of passwords

brucel: i think we agree

jeff: in the write-up, i kind of differentiated
... between the core web and developers
... it could be in making the APIs usable
... training sites
... caniuse
... developer training, validation service
... w3c doesn't do much in that area, just as UI is vendor specific today
... we've done a bit, the browser vendors asked us to make webplatform.org
... question to browser folks,
... would it be useful to look at what we can do for devs
... or focus on our core areas

Pdanet: do we receive questions/complaints from dev community?

jeff: there's a whole industry training web developers
... i have two children who went through boot camp to be web developers
... there's no certification to be web developers
... there appears to be work needed
... we recently had pressure to make Webizens, the name will probably be changed

marcosc: we need to evaluate whether webplatform.org was successful/not
... for developers to find the info they need
... the value of certification, i'm not sure
... i saw 3-4 developing for web mobile
... people learned a lot
... i still think competitively, other institutions are doing/can do it much better
... it's there core focus
... i think we did a fantastic job
... you can look at the feedback
... but other organizations are doing it just as good as w3c

jeff: strong interest for core
... some interest from Pdanet for verticals
... insufficient interest for devs/users/geographic
... next, i'd like to organize subefforts
... if TF would allow it, i'd suggest breaking into subefforts
... 1. most important efforts for core
... 2. Pdanet, i, looking into verticals
... should we enhance education on the web
... in the era of MOOC
... education is transformative

Pdanet: education for developers, is also a way to use MOOCs

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

jeff: for core, we should use [core] on the ML
... for verticals, we should use [verticals] on the ML
... +1's/-1's to that proposal?

marcosc: my concern is looking at MOOCs
... is the wrong focus
... how to improve education vs. platform

jeff: "what are the enhancements to the web platform which are sufficiently general that it would be useful for multiple applications
... but in particular are vital for applications for education on the web"
... k12 education on web, textbooks
... creative activity on the web, more than traditional textbooks can do
... all the way to MOOCs

<brucel> [btw, if I disappear abruptly, it's because I have to get the front door for my kids coming back from school. Not sulking or fallen out with you all.]

marcosc: concerned about too much focus on one domain

<jeff> +1 to bruce for supporting education

marcosc: but that sounds good

Pdanet: MOOCs are only an example
... a way to educate
... we should think about what w3c should do to give to the education community
... exercising, videos, tests, assessments, adaptive learning
... adults, kids, teachers

marcosc: that's exactly what i'm interested in
... 1. what doesn't the web provide today that enables the things you described
... creating exercises, ... doing all that stuff is particularly interested to me
... the burden of proof that the web doesn't do something
... that's on you guys
... "the web is deficient in this area"
... "this is too slow -- it doesn't matter what we do"

jeff: it's quite likely that what can be done
... it's often a case of connecting authors of materials for education
... to existing technologies
... it's possible we'll find unique requirements, in education...
... people have domain specific needs
... complex Math notation in college course
... Music notation
... it's an interesting exercise
... if we come up with nothing new, at least we've organized things
... and can share with the education community

marcosc: as an ex-academic, i'm excited
... i'll help in any way i can

jeff: so far education focus doesn't have a technology focus in it

How do we want to organize sub-efforts

jeff: My proposal is that each sub-effort should have a leader and some number of people on the team.
... i'm happy to chair, or have someone else chair
... volunteers to chair either efforts?

marcosc: i could volunteer to chair core, but i'll be limited capacity for four months

jeff: i'm not necessarily an expert, but i can drive a schedule
... marcosc, i'd be happy to welcome you as a cochair
... you can be a cochair for technology

RESOLUTION: jeff + marcosc will cochair Core subeffort, jeff on administrative, and marcosc on technology

jeff: chairing for education vertical?

Pdanet: i could do it, but i'm very shy
... i'd need training/education for cochairing

RESOLUTION: jeff + Pdanet will cochair Education subeffort, jeff on administrative, and Pdanet on domain expertise

jeff: i'd further propose
... we should have two 1 hour calls
... i can send out doodle polls
... education call will probably talk about what's already been discussed in DigPub IG
... core, i'll probably push for people to comment on App Foundation discussion
... shred / embrace / modify
... how do people feel about using weekly calls + wiki for communication?
... two votes for biweekly

Pdanet: i think we should schedule now

jeff: we'll need to do a doodle poll
... glazou and others weren't available for today's call
... i'd like to use most-important ML to let people sign up
... we'll set the times w/in the next week

Overall schedule

jeff: probably schedule calls through May
... nominal completion date is AC meeting in Paris
... there's a AC meeting in Tokyo along the way
... we've been talking about structure
... we could do AOB or Content

Content

marcosc: it'd be interesting to get people's perspective about Core perspective

jeff: with bringing HTML5 to REC
... it was an important point w/in W3C to take a step back, look at where we are
... we're at an inflection point, what are the important priorities for the web
... for a long time we've talked about the Gap between Native and the Web
... too many developers are writing apps for native platforms
... because there's something missing from the Web
... we talked internally, and then externally at extensible-web summit
... if you put yourself in the shoes of a developer
... and your platform is Web
... it's very disorganized
... there's a lot you want, some including usability/performance tuning/lifecycle
... we in W3C have an inside out perspective
... we focus on core tech, how to make things available to users
... but we don't put them into the terms of how users look for them
... from that discussion, it would be refreshing to use outside in terminology
... "how do i get security"
... "how do i get performance"
... "how do i get device interaction"
... we're doing work on Crypto APIs
... on Service Workers for offline/application lifecycle
... we're working on streaming media/realtime communication
... but maybe look at the needs of devs
... are we addressing them, are there additional gaps
... "app foundations" is a taxonomy to speak about core
... it allows us to sweep up existing work that's underway in Web Standards community
... but frame it in language useful to developer
... at a TPAC breakout
... glazou pushed for User Interaction
... an example of using framework to test ideas

marcosc: sounds good in principle
... particularly w/ the proposal of rebranding the domain areas W3C focuses on
... your blog post
... let's refocus how we communicate
... using more developer language
... i think we need to go through the exercise
... "what does education need"
... the language used in Pedagogical setting is different
... than used in Software Development settings
... -- grouping various specs wrt the columns you've defined
... that'd be a good step forward, we don't have that

jeff: a good question is are the 8 items in the taxonomy right
... should we reframe/add/remove?
... then inventory
... gaps
... +1000 to core subTF looking at all apps on the web
... i like the idea of one project looking at needs for everyone
... but sometimes trying to address all problems simultaneously
... it's nice to drill down and test assumptions, while recognizing it's one vertical

Attracting experts to TF

marcosc: Q for education subTF
... what access do we have?
... how would that work
... what software would we look at?

jeff: our ability to succeed in that area will depend on bringing in subject-matter-experts
... Pdanet if you're aware of stakeholders anywhere in the world
... not necessarily in W3C, it's an open TF
... principally Authors, but also publishers
... we need that perspectives

Pdanet: of course
... but the first i'm thinking is Pearson publishing
... there's W3C members

jeff: there are probably individual authors somewhere in the world
... but hitting problems faster than big publishers
... i think we're at a good stopping point
... i'll probably put out a summary of what we decided (including the minutes) to the ML, and the doodle polls for the meetings
... i think having fewer than 10 people on the call is under-representation
... if you have friends/neighbors who'd be helpful, please invite them to the call
... thanks for your participation

<brucel> hugs all xxx

[ Adjourned ]

<Pdanet> Bye ! Tnx

- DRAFT -

W3C Most Important Priorities TF Teleconference

14 Nov 2014

Attendees

Contents