FW: Extending Deadline on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Review

Greetings all.

I applaud this difficult decision, but I wanted to reiterate the comment I made on the teleconference call.  For those of us working in large bureaucracies, five weeks plus three weeks is not nearly as useful as a straight eight weeks.  I had some ambition of vetting WCAG 2.0 through my own organization and approached our web master and the director of development services some four weeks back.  They both commented that there just was not sufficient time to get through the process, which was my understanding anyway, and things stopped there.  Getting four more weeks now is just frustrating.  I am hoping there may be some Feds on this list (Tim?  Norman?) who are more prescient than I and the WAI will benefit from some formal official public feedback from subject matter experts in the U.S. Government.

The subject of MathML came up on the conference call.  The one free product discussed is  MathPlayer from Design Science, the same folks who make the popular MathType.  As discussed, it currently works only on IE for Windows.
http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/download.htm

Finally, I wanted to ask about minutes?  In particular I volunteered for an action item related to baselines with a few other people.  I did not write down whom.

Thanks!


-----Original Message-----
From:	w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org on behalf of Judy Brewer
Sent:	Fri 5/26/2006 1:04 PM
To:	WAI Interest Group
Cc:	Gregg Vanderheiden; Wendy Chisholm; Ben Caldwell
Subject:	Extending Deadline on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Review

Dear WAI Interest Group Participants:

Please note that the deadline for comments on WCAG 2.0 has been extended by 
three weeks. The new deadline is now Thursday 22 June 2006 instead of 31 
May 2006, to allow more time due to the wider attention that this Last Call 
Working Draft is receiving. We thank early commenters for the numerous 
constructive comments that the Working Group has already received; the 
Working Group is already working on your comments. Please also note the 
following clarifications with regard to the review process.

1. The deadline for comments on the Last Call Working Draft only applies to 
the Guidelines document itself. The supporting documents ("Understanding 
WCAG 2.0" and "Techniques for WCAG 2.0") do not have a deadline for 
comments, though you may find them helpful in understanding or implementing 
the provisions in the guidelines. We welcome comments on the supporting 
documents in addition to comments on the guidelines, but we encourage you 
to focus your attention on the relatively short guidelines document itself 
during the review period.

2. While the Working Group has provided a form for comment submissions, you 
may also email comments directly to the comments list without the form. 
Some commenters have already done this; we've now made this more obvious in 
the commenting instructions [1]. However, if you do use the comments form, 
it will give the Working Group consistent and specific information that can 
help them better understand and address the issues that you raise.

3. Under W3C Process, a "Last Call Working Draft" is not the last step 
before the document is finished; neither is it the beginning of the review 
process. This Last Call Working Draft follows a series of Public Working 
Drafts that have been previously circulated for comment, and the Working 
Group has already incorporated extensive contributions from those reviews. 
Last Call Working Draft is one of the most important stages at which to 
comment; however it is followed by another stage, Candidate Recommendation, 
where reviewers can submit comments based on implementations of WCAG 2.0; 
then by Proposed Recommendation, when W3C Members review it for approval as 
a Recommendation. Please see the original call for review further down in 
this message, and the commenting instructions [1], which provide more 
information on these stages.

Review comments are extremely valuable to W3C/WAI. One of the strengths of 
W3C/WAI's process is that it encourages broad public review and 
participation from many different perspectives. We have received 
contributions throughout the course of developing WCAG 2.0 from individuals 
and organizations around the world, including disability organizations, 
industry, Web developers research, education, government, and other areas, 
as well as contributions throughout the process from the diverse membership 
of the WCAG Working Group itself.

If you haven't yet, I encourage you to read the guidelines while they are 
in Last Call Working Draft; evaluate them against your own needs and 
expectations; then share with the Working Group your comments on what you 
think needs to change in the document. As with any W3C group during Last 
Call, the WCAG Working Group will review and respond to all comments 
received on the Last Call Working Draft. Your comments help us to create 
the best and most usable document that we can.

Thank you in advance for your comments.

Regards,

- Judy

[1] How to comment on WCAG 2.0 http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/comments/