Publishing Working Group Telco — Minutes
Date: 2019-07-29
See also the Agenda and the IRC Log
Attendees
Present: Ivan Herman, Wendy Reid, Simon Collinson, Deborah Kaplan, Joshua Pyle, Rachel Comerford, Jun Gamou, Franco Alvarado, Gregorio Pellegrino, Nick Ruffilo, Ric Wright, Laurent Le Meur, Avneesh Singh, George Kerscher, Matt Garrish, Charles LaPierre, kenneth dougherty, Brady Duga, Benjamin Young, Bill Kasdorf, Tim Cole, David Stroup
Regrets: Tzviya Siegman, Romain Deltour, Marisa DeMeglio, Luc Audrain, Nellie McKesson, Garth Conboy
Guests:
Chair: Wendy Reid
Scribe(s): Nick Ruffilo, Rachel Comerford
Content:
Wendy Reid: https://www.w3.org/publishing/groups/publ-wg/Meetings/Minutes/2019/2019-07-08-pwg
Wendy Reid: I hope everyone enjoyed their break. First point - minutes approval.
Resolution #1: last minutes (07-08) approved
1. strategy meeting report
Wendy Reid: The first item on the agenda today - the chairs and steering committee got together for a strategy meeting to realign on some points. The discussion about putting web publications aside to focus on audiobooks caused a stir. We got together with various groups…
… to discuss the future of publishing at the W3C. We wanted to be on the same page going forward. It was a very productive conversation. The way to proceed forward is with audiobooks. One task all groups have is to create a roadmap.
… We will use that information to form our re-charter. We have more discussions to have, but this helped us refocus and determine who we’re doing this and what we want to focus. Our short-term future is epub. Web publications still has a place.
… One solution was to make web publications a note - and let it be explored and incubated so it could be brought back, but further discussion is needed.
Avneesh Singh: I would like highlight that for the PWG group, what we discussed was that we have to make the plan in the short term - in the next year. What do we want to achieve in the charter. Then how to move ahead.
… that requires lots of planning - how they will be incubated. We should be working on 2 channels - how to make the charter forward, then how to get to the stakeholders and form the future of web publications.
Wendy Reid: Short term - get to the end of the charter, long term is what is next…
Ivan Herman: One more thing to clarify - there is a question about the exact future of epub (if there is a need/possibilty/request of 3.3…) Planning that, outliing those issues is not something to be done by this group.
… Work will be done in the epub CG to see what are the possibly ways and evolutions for epub 3. If something is clear, there will be a question of where that work happens - in the CG or a Working Group at some point. Those are open issues.
… that work should happen in parallel.
Ivan Herman: -> https://w3c.github.io/publ-bg/Steering_Committee/Meetings/2019/2019-07-23-pbgsc minutes of the strategy call
Wendy Reid: if anyone wants to see the minutes, they are pasted above.
2. Next steps for WP
Wendy Reid: The next topic: “what should the working group’s next steps be in regards to audiobooks” The main item that came out is that what we’re doing for audiobooks is the right direction.
… just last week I sat down with the UK’s book industry (BIC) which is similar to BISG - and they gave valuable feedback for the next draft. The main gist is that there are some minor points and questions.
… the next steps would be - what do we need to do to publish web publications as a note so it could be picked up, and what do we need to do to get Audiobooks to Candidate recommendation then through to the end of the rec track.
… And what work do we have in the coming weeks to get there.
… I think the main work is figuring out what needs to be moved to the web publications core, and what needs to be added to the audiobooks to make it a standalone document.
Ivan Herman: For the note, we would publish essentially what we have here. Probably would need to write an introductory note to give history. For the audiobooks, I think that there will be editorial things, but the whole part on the manifest entries - the canonical manifest… should move into the audiobooks
… then we have to think about how we would do that because there might be several ways. Anything which is on the processing which is in the web publication work and references to origins - they should definitely be out.
… it’s only the manifest that would move over to the audiobooks. Once we get to the audiobook spec the question is how we structure that. One way is that we make it totally and exclusively audio specific, so the few entries that the audiobook spec includes on audio-specific term should move to manifest part…
… and maybe, but i don’t think so, there may be some entries in the manifest part that aren’t relevant to the audiobooks, so those could be removed. That’s one way of doing it - make it purely audio specific.
… I would think that we would then move whatever Laurent produced in the document with the packaging… At least conceptually this is what would happen. The lightweight packaging already has terms on the manifest. But that should happen there.
… If we do that, we do something purely audio. The downside is that if we want to later produce a document similar to audio, but different, it becomes editorially difficult. Such as the manga work in the future…
… one could imagine to keep the manifest - and only the manifest - as a separate document (the JSON LD specification) as a reduced version of the web publication which defines only the manifest.
… these are the two options I see.
Nick Ruffilo: when Ivan said that we could pull the manifest by itself…
… that could go nowhere or be great for the web
… having a generic manifest that could define a natural progression could have a huge benefit
… there is a big additional value to having this as an additional separate note
Wendy Reid: I kinda agree with you - there is a space where we could define the manifest structure we’ve defined. I think it’s very valuable. When we started this discussion - we were ahead of the curve. It’s powerful and valuable but it needs a home that isn’t publication (which is why I wanted to put it in a note).
… the audio is important beyond the media object as it’s more specific. But I don’t think that should be the only.
… There are a lot of very small matters we’ve yet to decide. The way forward is to publish the manifest as a note, then the publication of audiobooks should be in the audiobook spec.
Ivan Herman: We have to be careful of terms as to not shoot ourselves in the foot. At least for me - the term “Web Publication” is a whole lot. The manifest as well as a bunch of other things in the document. The way this is used on the web, etc, etc, etc. That one goes to a note - and that also means that when it’s done, we shouldn’t talk about it…
… then we talk about a “Web publication manifest”; the audiobook specification would refer to ‘web publication manifest’ and not ‘web publication’ so we need to be precise about reference. When we said the manifest would be a note - no. The manifest should be a recommendation by itself. It’s only a recommendation that defines a vocabulary, nothing more and nothing less.
… I agree with what Nick says, but it’s just vocabulary, but it’s not a note, otherwise we cannot refer to it in the audiobooks spec - but the question is that is this part of the audiobook specification or a separate document.
Wendy Reid: The only difficulty of the web publication manifest going through rec is that it would have to go through testing.
Ivan Herman: No - since we were only talking about vocabulary, so the testing/terms there are used or in use and we need to show they are valuable. We have other vocabulary recommendations in W3C land. It will be used by the audiobooks.
… we are fine in this sense. But, we don’t have to do testing in terms of real life programs that use this thing on the Web. It’s only vocabulary, and audiobooks use it, so they leverage the testing.
Wendy Reid: so we could produce a Web Publication Manifest and an Audiobook spec that relies on it. And everything that relates to processing and canonical needs to live in the Audiobook spec.
Ivan Herman: the processing, yes.
Nick Ruffilo: (overwhelming support via silence)
Ivan Herman: When and how will this be done…
3. agenda for TPAC
Wendy Reid: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q8PUjzMY04peuYZdTkA6A0BBoFea_BSK4ygJlphkzh8/edit#
Wendy Reid: which leads into … the Agenda for TPAC
… TPAC is about a month and a half away. We need to - in light of all changes - we need to decide what we’re going to talk about. We don’t need to decide today but we need to start the conversation.
… I will not be in Japan unfortunately. Garth will be there, Tzviya will not (for great reasons)
… I will be online, some of the other chairs and business group will be there. The agenda for TPAC might be a bit different to accommodate odd schedules and things to discuss.
… I think the next couple weeks should be us putting together a plan. We also need to do the ping survey for audiobooks. We need to make sure that we have the testing an implementation plans.
Ivan Herman: +1 to Avneesh
Avneesh Singh: Avneesh Singh: I’m a little concerned about delaying editorial changes. These sort of changes that Ivan mentioned should be done within August. We should not be waiting for after TPAC. It may look exciting, but not everyone will be traveling to TPAC.
… it might be good for brainstorming for future of web publications, but not all stakeholders will be there. We may not be able to have a thorough discussion with all stake holders and make firm decision.
Wendy Reid: Who will be going to TPAC (+1s)
Ivan Herman: I will
Brady Duga: I will
Benjamin Young: I will
Rachel Comerford: I will
Laurent Le Meur: I will
Nick Ruffilo: (or I will…)
Avneesh Singh: I will
Jun Gamou: I will
Gregorio Pellegrino: +1
Deborah Kaplan: -1 :(
David Stroup: -1
Ivan Herman: the CSS working group meeting is the same time as ours…
Wendy Reid: I’ll call in and be 90% awake
George Kerscher: I plan to dial in.
Wendy Reid: I’m hoping we can split the meeting up amongst a few different topics. I will handle some revisions to the documents, I’m hoping Matt will help me take care of some things.
Charles LaPierre: TPAC is a great time to meet up with other groups. Are there other groups we want to see and do joint meetings? Web-apps asked for folks to have F2F by Friday so they can set their agenda.
… I know we have a meeting with the APA on Thursday with the accessibility folks in the publishing group. We may also want to set up some meetings… I’ll be there but there may also be Lisa from COGA and we want to have a meeting to discuss personalization…
Avneesh Singh: Just for info meeting with APA is scheduled on Thursday, at 13:00 hrs
Ivan Herman: One outcome of our changes - the meeting with the web-app working group isn’t necessary. If I look at the audiobook - my understanding is that the audiobook is created out of the web, possibly put on the web unpacked, but that’s not the central issue…
… it is a typical case with the difference of web publication and not…
… I think accessibility is necessary. Yes, the chairs will have to look at these
George Kerscher: pronunciationTask Force of APA will meet., which is important to publishing.
Ivan Herman: web packaging is less important as we have a lightweight packaging format…
Wendy Reid: I just mean for the future…
Avneesh Singh: PCG people may meet with web packaging
Charles LaPierre: I was wondering about the plenary day - maybe the audiobooks or even the new manifest we’re discussion.
Ivan Herman: the one that comes to my mind is the work of Marisa. I think that is something that should be brought to the attention of a larger audience - if Marissa and the others are ready to do that
Avneesh Singh: We can consider it.
Wendy Reid: we will get together and figure out what changes need to happen for the specification. I’ll sit down with Matt and Ivan.
4. planning
Ivan Herman: I like milenotes which we don’t really have yet. I think by the time we go, we should have the manifest and audiobooks - both of them - in a status that they are almost publishable so we can spend time on the meeting and hammer out the last details.
… that should be a goal, so those documents should be aimed for those documents to be ready for this type of discussions
… The other item about publishing the notes, UCR, and web publishing notes should be published quickly so we can get them out of the way - can we do that within 2 weeks?
Wendy Reid: Publication for UCR was approved 2 weeks ago. We reached out to Ralph but you can check in with them.
Ivan Herman: We can publish without him, we don’t need his authorization.
Wendy Reid: We were asking while you were gone…
… The UCR is taken care of, we have to publish the remaining notes…
Ivan Herman: the web publication note - that’s the really important one.
Wendy Reid: Yes. Next week we’ll discuss the timeline and what needs to be done.
Avneesh Singh: +1 to having milestones. For future of WP - lets also talk about breakout sessions. Lets use TPAC for target group #3 - maybe there are people within the W3C right now that want to use SOME features of Web Publications, like a way to bind web pages together - so detach manifest from audio or the web publication and present it in a neutral way to check if it captures interest - just a suggestion to keep in mind.
… so while we’re working on the first channel, work can continue in parallel on 2nd channel of figuring out the future.
Wendy Reid: Any other thoughts - or should we gather next week with a plan in mind?
Ivan Herman: On Wednesday we’ll try to get together with plans
Wendy Reid: Thank you everyone for coming - we will talk next week, i’ll send out the agenda on thursday. Talk next week
5. Resolutions
- Resolution #1: last minutes (07-08) approved