URGENT: Preparing for next round of TAG Review of HTML 5

TAG members:

We are at our deadline date for readthroughs of assigned sections [1] of 
the HTML 5 draft, and we have approximately 3 weeks until the start of our 
September F2F.  This email sets out the steps I would like all TAG members 
to take now to prepare the input we will need for our discussions.


What I'm asking each TAG member to do:
======================================

Please send us >now< a list of specific issues with the HTML 5 drafts that 
you believe merit group consideration by the TAG, or else an explicit 
indication that you do not wish to suggest any.  Send at least an initial 
list of your most critical issues in time for the call on Thurs (3 Sept). 
(I believe I requested this last week, so you have had some notice.  If 
you can't make the date, then please suggest a date you can make;  late 
input will be considered.)

Please give priority to issues that significantly impact the integrity and 
health of the Web, those that have the most important architectural 
implications, and those that relate to consistency with other 
specifications.   The TAG may or may not decide to provide input on 
smaller issues as well, but we will do that on a time-available basis 
after dealing with any that clearly have TAG scope. 

For each issue you identify:

* Indicate whether you believe it to be a high priority for TAG 
consideration, and if so why (or why not).

* If possible, identify specific text or sections in the HTML 5 draft that 
is causing concern, or if many parts of the draft are pertinent, highlight 
one or two representative specifics.

* If possible, suggest a resolution.  History suggests that proposing 
revised text can be constructive in many cases.

Please do list any issues that the TAG has already discussed, such as 
version identifiers, if you continue to believe they are important, and 
indicate their priority relative to others.


What the TAG as a whole will do:
================================

I intend to gather this input and schedule very brief discussion of each 
issue that's proposed as being highest importance.  The initial goal will 
be go get TAG consensus on which issues to give priority, then to assign 
several TAG members to dive deeper on each, making sure the concern is 
valid, proposing positions that the TAG might take, etc. 

While this is going on, we will continue discussion of some of the issues 
that have already come up, including suggestions for explicit version 
indicators, concerns relating to content type sniffing, etc.

Much of the time at the Sept. F2F will be spent gathering and refining our 
analysis and preparing comments (if any).


A note to members of the HTML community
=======================================

I am suggest that the TAG do as much of this work in public as possible, 
send issues lists to this public mailing list, etc.  That has the 
advantage that everyone can follow our deliberations, but there's a real 
risk of people getting upset too early about things they see coming up. 
Please don't.  The point is to give the TAG a chance to discuss and 
deliberate before providing feedback to you.  Also:  don't assume that 
because we're doing a careful, detailed review that the TAG will ultimtely 
decide to make formal comments.  We may or may not, now or later.

By all means, if you have constructive suggestions or can clear up 
misunderstandings as our discussions proceed, dive in.  Beyond that, 
please give the TAG a chance to come to well reasoned decisions before you 
get too concerned about issues that may have been raised by individual TAG 
members. 

Thank you.

Noah

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/tag/2009Jul/0026.html

P.S. Tracker: this relates to TAG ISSUE-54

--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
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Received on Tuesday, 1 September 2009 15:24:35 UTC