RE: WCAG WG must clarify hierarchy of submissions

Hi Joe,

Which submissions are more important?   
None that I know of.

Which ones get acted on more quickly?  
Ones that have suggested solutions.  Especially if the solutions also
address other issues in the bug list and don't create any new ones.

Are comments in one location referenced and handled more than in other
locations?  Eg. Bugzilla?
Confounded question.   We put all comments from public list, and from
meetings, and from the maillist (where we can pull a question or suggestion
out) into Bugzilla.  Then, when we are working on a guideline, we review all
of the submissions for that guideline and try to address as many as we can.

Thus if you post a comment to a guideline today that we start working on
tomorrow - you may see your comment acted on immediately.   

If you post a comment to a guideline that we don't work on for awhile, then
that comment will sit there until we do.

Once we work on a guideline, we clear all the comments we can.  Some hard
ones though, where we don't have a good solution, stay open while easy ones
get closed.   The easy ones aren't more important - and we close the hard
ones as soon as we can too.   We close them as soon as we can find a
solution.  Sometimes hard ones take us awhile to solve.   Often there are
many more issues involved than a submitter raises.  We have to find
solutions that address them all. 

Any other perceived priority is either an artifact or just part of life.
(e.g. people who make a comment in a meeting are heard by everyone in the
meeting but comments made to the list are not always remembered in the
meeting.)   But most work is done offline with bugzilla as the reference
point.

Your comments get lots of attention.  Sometimes we waste time digging
through long posts to get to the issues. In very long posts, issues get lost
if not summarized at the top.  We recommend this.    Sometimes the issues
are tough and we don't have a solution that doesn't create a different
problem.  Then they sit til we do.   If you can provide short succinct
statements of the issue along solutions that address your issue - as well as
the other issues posted to bugzilla, it makes it a lot easier.   But just
posting issues is still valuable and we will address them as fast as we can.

Thank you for your question.
 
Gregg

 -- ------------------------------ 
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 


-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Joe Clark
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 11:37 AM
To: WAI-GL
Subject: WCAG WG must clarify hierarchy of submissions


I petition the Working Group to *definitively clarify* which submissions 
regarding WCAG 2.0 are more important than others; which are automatically 
taken seriously and elicit comments or changes from the group; and which 
will, in practice, be ignored.

>From what I can tell:

* Anything anybody says at a face-to-face meeting is given priority in 
that meeting. If I'm the one who says it, however, it gets ignored once 
everybody goes home.
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2003JulSep/0530.html>

* Anything a Participant in Good Standing (PiGS), W3C Member, or W3C 
employee says is given highest priority everywhere, notwithstanding the 
foregoing.

* Submissions to WAI Bugzilla-- nearly incomprehensible, in violation of 
WCAG guidelines, and nearly unknown to anyone who does not read the IG or 
GL mailing lists-- have next priority.

* Submissions to the public-comments mailing list are allegedly read and 
considered. I view these submissions as next in priority.

* Submissions to the GL list (and some to the IG list) are routinely 
ignored if they are not authored by a Participant in Good Standing (PiGS), 
W3C Member, or W3C employee. Otherwise, they are next in priority.

* Any statement by any claimed activist for learning disability, dyslexia, 
or cognitive or mental impairment trumps all of the above and is 
immediately taken seriously and pushed to implementation.


I ask for clarification because it seems, as in John Slatin's review of 
issues in a certain guideline,

<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004OctDec/0211.html>

that Bugzilla entries have suddenly been given higher priority.

Further, as we get down to the wire here and face the day when WCAG WG 
must fish or cut bait, I believe there has been no resolution at all of my 
previous complaints about being routinely ignored while certain other 
contributors have their proposals immediately rushed through has been 
resolved.

-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Expect criticism if you top-post

Received on Thursday, 28 October 2004 23:08:35 UTC