Re: Thoughts regarding Maciej's compromise and the heartbeat publication

Justin James wrote:
> Please forgive me if I'm not using proper "W3C terminology" here, I'm very
> much so an outsider to most of this process and such.
> 
> First and foremost, given some of the things that have been said here in the
> last few days, I find it extremely encouraging to see Maciej's compromise
> proposal, and John's response to it. Will it satisfy everyone? Of course
> not, but that is the nature of a compromise. Having read through the
> messages from the last few days, as someone with no positions to defend or
> personal preferences on the matter, I believe that it is a good compromise.
> I am not an accessibility expert by any means, but I think that both sides
> to this discussion have a good amount of merit, and as a result, I highly
> doubt that it will ever be conclusively resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
> All the same, the compromise that Maciej and John are working on definitely
> seems to be the best possible resolution *in order to move forwards with the
> heartbeat publication*. Is it the best solution moving forwards? No clue.
> But in terms of dealing with all of the remaining, stated objections to the
> current draft being published (namely, not contradicting WCAG), it seems
> that it will fit the bill, now that Maciej and John are working together on
> it.
> 
> Let's look back to a few days ago. Sam outlined 5 possible courses to take.
> Other than publishing John's draft in parallel to Ian's draft, to make sure
> that John's objections were taken seriously, all were retracted/rejected.
> Therefore, if John's objections can be satisfied with Maciej's proposal (and
> he says that they can be, with some changes, and they have agreed to work
> together on them), and Ian incorporates the proposal into his draft, then
> all paths other than "publish Ian's draft" have been eliminated, and there
> is no need for a poll/vote.
> 
> If I'm way off base here, I'd like to know. But from my perspective as a
> relative lurker here, I think that the discussion around this issue has
> grown beyond the scope of the original issue (whether or not to publish a
> heartbeat document, and which one(s) to publish), and that in reality, we
> are actually quite close to resolving this.

Your understanding is correct.  There are two issues here.  Ultimately, 
we need to resolve how to provide a summary of a table, e.g. for 
unsighted navigation.  This issue[1] was first raised in February, and 
Cynthia Shelly has been working on a proposal, and I can confirm that 
she is making progress.

John raised an objection on the publishing of Ian's Editors Draft as a 
Working Draft.  I have checked and been told that it is within my power 
to proceed over John's objections, but at the present time I have 
declined to do so based on the fact that I can count sufficient others 
who seem to share John's opinion to merit a poll.

As I see it Maciej's efforts are more likely to contribute to Cynthia's 
efforts to resolve issue 32 than they are to provide an immediate affect 
on John's objections, and on tomorrow's call I'll make a determination 
whether to proceed with Ian's draft, start a poll, or hold off for a few 
(emphasis on few) days.  Those that can't make that call are welcome to 
participate via IRC, and those that can't make that time slot at all are 
welcome to provide input here, on public-html.

If there is to be a poll, it will be open to all members and invited 
guests to the working group and will be open for a minimum of 72 hours.

> J.Ja

- Sam Ruby

[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/32

Received on Wednesday, 5 August 2009 14:16:03 UTC