Re: w3process-ISSUE-70 (Ch7-Eliminate-"Normative"): Usage of "normative" needs clarification [Document life cycle (ch 7)]

On Thu, 28 Nov 2013 06:06:04 +1100, Revising W3C Process Community Group  
Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:

> w3process-ISSUE-70 (Ch7-Eliminate-"Normative"): Usage of "normative"  
> needs clarification [Document life cycle (ch 7)]
>
> http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/70
>
> Raised by: Arthur Barstow
> On product: Document life cycle (ch 7)
>
> 1. To facilitate the reach and accessibility of this document  
> (especially for non-English speakers) I think the term `normative` -  
> when not used as a qualifier for "reference" i.e. "normative reference"  
> - should be eliminated (or if it really can't be eliminated then define  
> it).

Looking through the draft, I think we can relatively easily remove each  
use except the phrase "normative reference".

There isn't a "definitions" section in the current Process document, but I  
think it might be useful. The quick fix, in line with the way the rest of  
the document is written at the moment, would be to define the term where  
we use it.

I suggest that we do that for now, but in the next revision of the Process  
as a whole that we consider a definitions section.

Note that my current thinking, as previously explained to the AB, is to  
break the overall document into 3 sections (instead of the current 13  
chapters being sort-of standalone documents), with one of them being  
contents, references, etc. I think definitions would fit into that  
(although it might be that it makes more sense to keeping them in the  
document where the term is used).

I'll assign myself an action to implement the quick version, and raise an  
issue on making definitions in general easier to find.

Cheers

Chaals

> Examples:
>
> s/A W3C Recommendation is a specification or set of normative  
> guidelines/A W3C Recommendation is a specification or set of informative  
> guidelines/
>
> s/some document that is not intended to be a normative  
> specification/some document that is not intended to be a specification/
>
> s/or non-normative 'Good Practices" documents/or informative 'Good  
> Practices" documents/
>
> s/non-normative good practices/informative good practices/
>
> s/for making normative changes to a Recommendation/for making  
> substantive changes to a Recommendation/
>
> s/A correction becomes normative by the process described below./A  
> correction becomes normative by the process described below./
>
> (Perhaps it would be helpful to define "specification" (at least by  
> example)?)
>
> 2. Define "normative reference" and point to the new policy.
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Thursday, 28 November 2013 05:17:28 UTC