Meeting minutes
<tzviya> Date: 2022-11-11
tzviya: Continuing the conversation about the salon
… short agenda for today
… didn't include, but a round table about the going-ons of the groups
… any thoughts on the W3C changes
… last time we met, we talked about a joint meeting between the BG and CG
<Ralph> previous 28-Oct
tzviya: let Liisa and Wolfgang talk about where that is at
… I do have a call to action drafted for that
liisamk: No big updates, we did get the counterfeit taskforce set up
… doodle poll was sent out
… getting it off the ground
wolfgang: Liisa has presented the issue to the BG and CG
… both groups are informed, set that up as quickly as possible
<AvneeshSingh> is it counterfit TF or anti-conterfitting TF?
wolfgang: be optimistic
tzviya: How many people have volunteered?
liisamk: 2-3 people beyond the usual suspects
tzviya: Huge!
liisamk: Some interest from amazon
<Ralph> PBG/PCG Counterfeit TF
tzviya: We need buy-in from them, we need them
liisamk: Is Etsy a W3C member?
Ralph: They are not
… no participants that we know of, potentially some people in CGs
ivan: Who are they?
liisamk: Platform for selling crafts, but now its expanded to many other products, like furniture and such, lots of counterfeit goods
tzviya: They are a reseller, they don't authenticate products
<tzviya> https://
tzviya: Ivan probably is not looking for custom earrings or scarves
liisamk: Great supplier of gifts
tzviya: Goes beyond verification/authentication of content
… goes into VC world
… verifying the supplier has the right to sell something
ivan: I was wondering if the group should connect with the VC WG
tzviya: There are probably lighter weight solutions, but should be aware
Wendy: it would be great to have a contact in Etsy
… a first conversation of the TF could be "how big a scope do we want?"
… author verification?
… supplier verification?
… ...
… how much do we want to do?
tzviya: I would limit the scope to publishing, and even "I published this book and I don't want it copied"
… W3C had a CG for a while about the credible web
… credibility of authors, but that is a whole other world
… credibility claims are complex
ivan: If we try to get amazon, should we also get Alibaba?
… they likely also sell ebooks, face similar issues
tzviya: I haven't talked with them about this in a long time, but Zheng and I had a discussion with them a while ago about EPUB, but their approach to ebooks is very different
… and of course, Kobo, Apple, Google, etc
… miniapps as well
… Zheng is the person to talk to
… to the original topic, any other takeaways from the salon
… draft email, the anti-counterfeit TF, anything else
… writing use cases is not exciting
Bill_Kasdorf: Nebulous topic, issue of addressability
<Ralph> Credible Web Community Group
Wendy: the Locator TF specifically chose not to take up addressibility
… the TF is trying to do [locators] in EPUB
… how to fix page numbering in an automated fashion across platforms
… we need implementations of our test algorithm
GeorgeK: We've got Matt and co. maintaining the DAISY KB, but best practices in general on how to do things
… would be benefited by an organized approach
… maintain something like the KB in the general domain
tzviya: We haven't heard from Dan in a while about the mozilla docs, that project is more important
… there is a challenge in maintaining best practices
… EPUB vs reading systems
… and reading system best practices, need to be written by RSs
ivan: Dan is busy
tzviya: I'll try to reach out
… Wendy dropped a link to APLN - accessible publishing learning network, created by Laura Brady and eBOUND Canada
<tzviya> APLN https://
Wendy: the CG considered "what can we do about OPF?" and decided that we can't do anything because we don't want to break backwards compatibility
… there are things people want in digital publications
… we keep trying to do that in EPUB but we run into blocks due to backward compatibility
<wolfgang> +1 to Wendy
Wendy: and developers non-willingness to make changes
… there's unwillingness and lack of business cases
… it seems likely that the publishing industry will shortly be even more tightened in regards to technology changes
… if we can't do something in EPUB. we have to have honest conversations about what we want and how we're going to do it
… if we decide we need to write something new we have to acknowledge that this will take several years and there may not be energy to do that soon
tzviya: Honest assessment of where we are
… part of the reason I haven't sent this note is that making incremental tweaks is not going to get us where we want
… much of what we want is out there, it's just not in publishing space
… we haven't figured out how to explain it in a publishing context
… maybe the white paper is something we work on
… how do we make this community work, and what can we do to maintain this community
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to talk about addressability
Bill_Kasdorf: I want to make the point that its important to frame this in addition to EPUB
… we can't change it because it's embedded
… but other sectors, it's not, but we could address the gaps in other sectors
<wolfgang> don't we need an additional, web-based format for some areas of publishing?
Bill_Kasdorf: higher ed is a both/and case, they are beyond EPUB but also producing EPUB
liisamk: What Daihei and I have been seeing in the BG is that many people's focus is on the a11y stuff done for their backlist
… get to 2025 without fines
… people are stuck because they don't want to take responsibility for what to do
… chicken and egg thing, without the implementation fines, without the tooling, not sure how to get to that kind of accessiblity
… big focus on connecting people with how to think about it, how to approach it
… big focus on tooling, people working on it
… work to get to accessible epubs is to embed them further
… old books have low-res images, and reconvert the book, I don't want to think about that now
… don't want to do that without a clear path to the future
Wendy: I understand the struggle about tooling. I don't know that we can do anything without having tooling people in the group
… we have no influence on them
… the reality is that all we can do as a group that produces standards is to write the best standards we can so that someone who is a tool vendor knows what is expected
… "here is the structure, and here's what I can do for you as a publishing house"
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to speak about tooling
Wendy: all we can do is write good standards and communicate as best we can
tzviya: This isn't just about ebooks, when I do training about accessibility, the first question is "how do we automated this"
… there's lots of work within W3C to improve this
… this is not a publishing problem
… we need to work with the rest of the W3C on this
… ATAG and other standards are being absorbed into WCAG, nothing will be fully automated but there will be improvement
… this is where we can encourage our colleagues more
AvneeshSingh: ACT task force, Romain participates
GeorgeK: We've been given a grant to do work to introduce a tool for converting to epub3 in the daisy pipeline, now for users in general
… a vehicle for publishers to move their content from EPUB2 to EPUB3
… surely can be improved
… improve the quality of the upgrades
… tooling option for people
… robust and simple
… we're making the SMART tool, good for training, opening it up to be free to use, seeking sponsors for support for ACE, the KB
… throw DAISY pipeline into the tool mix
AvneeshSingh: These can be very useful
… mainly designed for non-profit world, but we'll need to see how publishing picks it up
… it's up to the publishers, if they like it, we're happy
ivan: I want to come back to AvneeshSingh's initial point, at this point, I could not create a viable charter for a WG for publishing
… none of the topics we have are at a level to be chartered
… we need to find the areas to form incubation
… which may end in a charter
… but it's 1-2 years away
… no chance to have a charter by the end of the EPUB WG
AvneeshSingh: I agree, we need to consider strategy
ivan: If we create a charter like the CSS charter, we can experiment, but it's completely unrealistic
… they are the exception, not the rule
… some of the TF tasks could be promising, but we can't create a whiteboard working group
Wendy: we need to have more talks with the industry
… maybe pair with DAISY and have webinars on the future of digital publishing
… they are doing amazing work
… and primarily at no cost
… publishing houses are going to start taking their work and profiting from it
… moving to EPUB did not serve as much as it could have; publishing companies need to start thinking of themselves as needing to build software too
… publishing companies have to invest in building the technology as well
… another piece we need to talk more about is the environmental impact of publishing on paper
… we need to start thinking about sustainability
… we could also start helping other WG charters that could help us
… e.g. there's CG work on text locators that could be useful to us
… that's what we want; we only need to fix it for books
… why can't we help them with that?
… we need to start thinking outside of ourselves
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to talk about next steps and recent changes
Wendy: we can help other work quite a bit
tzviya: What Wendy just described, expanding scope to think like technology companies, I do that at Wiley, including sustainability
… our industry is focusing on this, I also consider digital sustainability
… there's groups within W3C looking at this
… changes and updates within W3C
… shift to the legal entity is happening in a few weeks, Jeff is leaving, Ralph is interim CEO, Judy Brewer is leaving WAI
Ralph: W3C: the next generation
… the board of the new legal entity, has now chosen it's three officers, treasurer, secretary, interim president
… and interim CEO
… president/CEO is one job and is me
<tzviya> Jeff's email https://
Ralph: until we find someone
… all this as of december 31st
… we're doing everything necessary to ensure the work of the groups and committees can continue transparently
… should not impact the actual work we do
… those of you who work with your procurement departments to pay membership the fees, will see a change to W3C inc. in invoices
tzviya: Lots of good feedback from the salon, but we need to continue the work and support the community