Proposed change to GL 3.1 L3 SC3

At the call today we discussed the proposal to combine L3 SC2 and L3 SC3 
of Guideline 3.1 into one single success criteria [1].   The proposal was 
to add  abbreviations to the L3 SC2 description.   While people still feel 
that this proposal has merit, we decided to propose only an amendment to 
L3 SC3 and leave it as a separate success criteria. Wendy summarized the 
reasoning in a posting to the list [2].  For more background see the 
survey from May about removing this SC [3] and the minutes from the 
Brussels Face to Face [4]


The current proposal is to remove the word acronym from the SC text since 
an acronym is a subset of abbreviation and to provide updated definitions 
of abbreviation, acronym and initialisms. 
<proposal for GL 3.1 L3 SC3>
A mechanism for finding the expanded form of abbreviations is available.
</proposal>

Based on the lengthy discussions on the list the following definitions are 
proposed.
<proposed definitions>
abbreviation -The shortened form of a word.  For example, "est." may be 
the abbreviation for the English words "established" or "estimate."  "Cie" 
is the abbreviation for the French word "compagnie" (company). 
Note: Acronyms and initialisms are types of abbreviations.

acronym -  An abbreviation made from the initial letters of a name that 
contains several words. Defined differently in different languages.  For 
example, NOAA is an abbreviation made from the initial letters of the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States.

initialism - an unpronounceable abbreviation made from the initial letters 
of a name that contains several words.  Not defined in all languages. SNCF 
is a French acronym that contains the initial letters of the Societe 
National des Chemins de Fer, the French national railroad. 
</proposed definitions>

The definition of abbreviation is not changed from my original proposal 
except for the addition of the note.  I did not know how to incorporate 
Christophe's two part definition from [5] since it did not seem 
appropriate to use the word "abbreviated" in the definition of 
"abbreviation".  The definition of acronym was  changed to state that it 
is defined differently in different languages and I replace the term 
"word" with abbreviation.   I added a definition for initialisms.

Does this capture the issues from the discussions on the list?  Please 
comment as soon as possible as I would like to pose this to the larger 
list for discussion at the Thursday, September 22,  working group meeting. 


thanks,
-becky

[1] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wcag-teamb/2005Sep/0089.html
[2] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wcag-teamb/2005Sep/0135.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/meaning0508/results
[4] http://www.w3.org/2005/06/14-wai-wcag-minutes.html#item01
[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005JulSep/0847.html

Becky Gibson
Web Accessibility Architect
                                                       
IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
5 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com

Received on Wednesday, 21 September 2005 17:21:48 UTC