Notes from 25 Nov telecon

On the Thursday, November 25 conference call, Jason White, William Loughborough and I (Chuck Letourneau) discussed the draft charter.

1.0 Mission Statement

@@discuss government issues and impact??? the other documents we've been working on that weren't in our charter? or is this for the report that Gregg and Chuck are working on? if so, do we point to that report from the charter?

We felt that this information should not be in the charter. It is more appropriate for the end-of-charter (eoc) report, and indeed is already mentioned there. We did not discuss if the charter should point to the eoc.

2.0 Scope

• promoting implementation of accessibility improvements in technology of the Web;
• analyzing implementation and impact of guidelines and recommending next steps;

Concerns were expressed about the first two scope items that seemed to cross over into the domains of other WG's, specifically EO and maybe Web Characterization. This discussion sort of mirrored our discussion the day before about the possibility of leading GL in a more strictly technical direction.

3.0 Duration of work items

no comments.

4.0 Deliverables

4.1 Deliverables to be produced

1. Minutes from WCGWG meetings.
2. Revised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines:
   • Revision(s) must address issues raised since the publication of 1.0, and new issues that arise.
3. Revised and more comprehensive Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines:
4. Publish User Agent Support for Accessibility as a Note.
   • documents user agent support for accessibility features discussed in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
5. Publish Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Impact Matrix as a Note.
   • examines the impact of each checkpoint listed in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. For each checkpoint, we list the disabilities and technologies most affected.

Suggested changes to 4.1 are shown above. As with our previous discussion, it was felt that specifics of guidelines and techniques needing work should not be enshrined in the charter.

4.2 Criteria for success

* demonstration of usable materials by informal usability testing with a variety of potential readers

Something about this third bullet doesn't scan properly. No matter how many times I read it, I can't figure out what is being suggested. I suspect it just needs a rewording.

5.0 Dependencies and relations with other groups

No comments.

6.0 Intended degree of Confidentiality

No comments.

7.0 Milestones for work items & deliverables

William suggested a change from a June 2000 face-to-face to correspond to the May 15 WWW9 in Copenhagen.

8.0 Communication mechanisms & meeting schedules

9.0 Voting mechanisms

10.0 Level of involvement of Team

No comments.

11.0 Participation in Working Group

Jason and William had similar concerns to Gregg and mine about enshrining the following in the charter:

• must shepherd at least one open issue through to consensus by:
  • posting a summary of arguments about an open issue;
  • inviting appropriate experts to discuss the issue;
  • if needed, adding the issue to the agenda for a teleconference or face to face meeting;
  • ensuring that the Chairs call consensus on an issue;
  • working with the editors to make the appropriate additions or changes to deliverables.

Again, they felt that it might be a good working principle for the group, but not a requirement. Another suggestion was to clarify the status of membership in the charter. Perhaps the charter should say something like: Anyone is welcome to subscribe to the mailing list, but subscription does not necessarily imply membership on the Working Group. Working Group membership requires active participation as described in 11.1

11.2 IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) No comments.

Other topics

Jason and William got into an excellent discussion of what the WG may want to accomplish with respect to XML during the new charter period.