Re: Errata and future versions

On Friday, June 27, 2003, at 02:48  PM, Joe Clark wrote:
> OK, for example, these two messages--
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2003AprJun/1132..html>
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2003AprJun/1135..html>
> -- discuss the errors in WCAG 1.0, and Phill mentioned the idea of 
> errata for WCAG 1.0, which someone else had brought up a while ago. 
> Kynn, I think.
>
> So: What are we gonna do here?
>
> 1. Divert mindshare and time to produce a WCAG 1.0 errata document, 
> [...]
> 2. Keep working on WCAG 2.0 such that 2.0 includes all the fixes for 
> the errata of 1.0.

Technically there is already an errata for WCAG 1.0, but I think that
a cohesive effort needs to be made in order to fold those problems,
and other issues, back into the original WCAG 1.0 and issue not an
errata, but a "second edition."

Many major W3C recommendations (such as XHTML 1.0) have published
"second editions" which don't increment the version number -- they
remain 1.0 -- but which clear up problems, confusion, or errors in
the original document.

This is the approach that should be taken with WCAG 1.0, in preparation
for WCAG 2.0 -- I think that by explicitly identifying and solving
the small changes in WCAG 1.0, it will actually help to produce a
cleaner, tighter, and more usable WCAG 2.0 eventually, somewhere
down the road.

As Tina said, we're going to be stuck with WCAG 1.0 for a while,
and it's important that the W3C be seen as properly managing that
document throughout its lifetime.  (This also involves giving
definitive, but date-specific, information on the "until user
agent" clauses in WCAG 1.0.)

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                     http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain                http://idyllmtn.com
Shock & Awe Blog                                http://shock-awe.info
Author, CSS in 24 Hours                       http://cssin24hours.com
Inland Anti-Empire Blog                   http://inlandantiempire.org

Received on Friday, 27 June 2003 20:37:39 UTC