Process

From WCAG WG

DRAFT

This document defines the manner in which the WCAG WG conducts its regular work, including responding to public comments, proposing and reviewing changes to WCAG documents, and …

The WCAG Charter provides details regarding the formal definitions around participation, communication, decision policy, and more. This document provides additional information to help participants understand the actual current practices.

Participation and Communication

The WCAG WG's formal Participation and Communication models are documented in the Participation and Communication sections of its Charter, respectively.

The Working Group allows participation in various ways:

  • Attending scheduled teleconferences and face to face meetings
  • Participating in discussions on the WG's mail list
  • Contributing draft techniques
  • Contributing draft responses to identified issues

Participation on the mail list and teleconferences is ordinarily limited to Working Group members. However, the mailing list archives and meeting minutes are publicly viewable. In addition, members of the public can submit comments via the public comments mailing list, engage in general discussion about the WCAG documents on the WAI Interest Group mailing list, and can submit issues and pull requests via GitHub.

Comment response process

The Working Group receives many comments and questions from the public. Processing the comments will occur in the following manner:

  1. Comment is received via email or directly as a GitHub issue.
  2. If the comment is received via email, it will be added as a new GitHub issue unless the editors determine that it is editorial, in which case the editors may elect to address the issue immediately.
  3. Issues within GitHub will either be identified as editorial (and handled directly by the chairs) or will be handled as non-editorial issues.
  4. Non-editorial issues require that a Working Group member propose a resolution to the issue.
    1. Discussion on the issue should take place within the GitHub issue comment area (WCAG mailing list?).
    2. The goal of the discussion should be to either identify the consensus position of the group or to identify the main issues that need to be discussed on a Working Group call.
    3. If a consensus position can be identified, the chairs need to be alerted to an issue being regarded as ready, and the chairs will issue a Call for Consensus.
    4. If a consensus position cannot be identified, or the Call for Consensus fails, then the issue will be discussed on a scheduled teleconference in order to reach consensus.
  5. If deemed necessary, the Chairs may create a survey to help guide discussion of an issue on a teleconference.
  6. Once a resolution is agreed on and the appropriate edits made to the source documents, the GitHub issue will be closed and a note will be sent to the WCAG WG mailing list to indicate the outcome.

Calls for Consensus

Consensus is a very important part of the W3C process and is formally codified in the Process Document as follows:

Consensus is a core value of the W3C. To promote consensus, the W3C process requires Chairs to ensure that groups consider all legitimate views and objections, and endeavor to resolve them, whether these views and objections are expressed by the active participants of the group or by others (e.g., another W3C group, a group in another organization, or the general public). Significant portions of the WG's work is done outside of formal meetings so the group uses a Call for Consensus (CfC) mechanism via email to formally gather input on a specific question. When a CfC is requested, an explicit response from WG members is preferred – note that the lack of a response will be considered to indicate agreement with the proposal.

CfCs are conducted on the WCAG WG mail list (W3C-WAI-GL) and the comment period is usually one week.

Mailing List Discussion

The WCAG mailing list is another primary communication mechanism for the group. The mailing list provides a forum for Working Group members to discuss issues of importance to the group.

Mailing list discussion is expected to adhere to the guidelines for mailing list use (http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/#Lists).

When discussion addresses a GitHub issue it is preferable to conduct that discussion (or at least include a link to the archived version of it) within the specific GitHub issue being discussed.

It is expected that the mailing list will be used frequently for discussion of any technique that a WG member is working on as well as other discussion that may or may not result in the creation of an issue on GitHub that the WG will take on and track.

Techniques

Working group members interested in submitting a new technique should review the Technique Instructions (https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Technique_Instructions) prior to starting. Techniques should be discussed on the mailing list, and if determined ready for a Call for Consensus, may be approved via the email CfC or on a WG teleconference.

IRC

The WCAG group uses the #wai-wcag IRC channel during meetings and optionally for discussion of specific topics.

Git Repository

WCAG Git Respository: https://www.github.com/w3c/wcag

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