Conformance Degrees

(Note.  Since I am writing to clarify one of our issue resolutions -- i.e., 
further instructions to the SpecGL Editor from the QAWG -- I think this is 
appropriate for www-qa-wg.  Agree?)

The SpecGL editor needs a little more guidance on one aspect of this issue 
resolution.  Please vote.

At 09:54 AM 8/8/02 +0200, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux wrote:
>[...]
>GL 10: Discussion about terminology about "conformance level"
>DH and LH suggests using "degrees" and referring to the historical use
>of the word "level" for this pattern. DM notes that this affects our own
>conformance clause since we're copying the WAI usage of "Level A"
>conformance.
>LH indicates that agreement on this topic means changing our conformance
>clause to "Degree A conformance". MS suggests "1st degree" instead. LH
>notes that there is a risk of a push back from WAI because of the
>ambiguity that level A is the minimal whereas 1st degree looks like the
>best. DM doesn't find any conflicting usage of the word degree doing a
>search on W3C site, except "degree of confidentiality". MS agrees that
>moving that way seems clearly justified
>
>Resolved: Moving to 1st/2nd/3rd degree in our conformance clause and
>adapting the verbiage of the relevant CP but reminding the example of
>usage of the word "level" by WAI and not discouraging it/

I haven't tackled the verbiage of the CK11.1 yet.  But I decided to edit 
our conformance clause to "try it out".  I realized that there are really 
two separate aspects:

1.) the verbiage we use to describe conformance (degrees, categories, 
designations, [NOT] levels);
2.) the actual conformance labels.

E.g., we could say:

"SpecGL defines three degrees of conformance, whose labels are:  1st 
degree, 2nd ..."

or we could say:

"SpecGL defines three degrees of conformance, whose labels are:  "A 
Conforming", "AA Con..."

Please read the attached, and reply with your preference.  (Altho' I prefer 
the second, the first does allow us to say, "let's give 'em the Third 
Degree".  Okay, bad pun.)

-Lofton.