Re: APA and COGA

Hi Lisa,

Respectfully, I believe you are making more of an issue out of this than is
necessary. The important work required to address the needs of users with
cognitive disabilities continues - stronger and better than ever before.

As I understood it, COGA was brought into the APA fold so that it could
work on a normative deliverable that was clearly out of scope for its
original parent WG (AG WG), so the two groups "worked together" towards the
creation of the Personalization TF. That work continues under APA and is
not in jeopardy under the new Charter for APA.

As a regular attendee of the APA calls however, I've never heard discussion
regarding wayfinding (or any spec related to that), nor web authentication
(although COGA has, I believe, been monitoring or in discussion with web
authentication efforts via the AG WG effort), nor VoiceXML (a spec that
remains unchanged for 16 years now...) - however APA is also the 'sponsor'
of the Pronunciation Task Force. Moreover, that is not what APA is there
for - it is not a "deep-dive" group, it's primary role is quite different.

Nonetheless, I don't believe that COGA, or the interests and activities
that those specialists at the W3C are actively working on, will lose out by
making the COGA TF a single-sponsored Task Force once again under AG WG,
and you've not really brought any material evidence to the contrary. COGA
is not being dismantled, it's simply not going to remain under the joint AG
/ APA umbrella, but remain solely under the AG WG umbrella instead.

> Personalization (and aria when it was a taskforce) did work related to
APA


OK, but a) ARIA is now its own fully-fledged Working Group that has nothing
to do with this decision and that has no direct affiliation to the APA, and
b) The Personalization TF will remain active and supported under the APA
umbrella. So I'm not clear what your concern is. The joint task force
effort was primarily a place to spin-up the Personalization work, and that
is and has happened. Members of the COGA TF at large are of course free to
come join that effort any time they wish.

>  If we leave APA they may become out of scope.

Again, with the utmost respect, I'll note today that neither [wayfinding &
cognition issues], [VoiceXML & cognition issues], nor [web authentication &
cognition issues] has been scoped to *any* WAI activity that I am aware of
(happy to be corrected), and with nobody working directly on those items
today, I personally don't foresee that happening in the next re-charter
period. Remember, as part of their charters, Working Groups have to
actually produce something, and we're simply not focused on those parts of
the stack at this time.

I'll conclude by also suggesting that in practice, the work of the COGA
folks, while important to the overall accessibility discussion, is not the
only aspect of accessibility that APA is primarily chartered for. That
primary task is to actually review other specifications - "cross domain" -
to ensure they do not frustrate or act counter to the needs of all users
with disabilities, so the primary focus of that Working Group is larger
than the specialized concerns of a single Task Force (with no disrespect
intended to any of those highly focused Task forces). So,

   - COGA is not going away.
   - The needs of users with cognitive disabilities are not being shoved to
   the back burner.
   - This is simply an org-chart change that better reflects the truth on
   the ground.

Respectfully,

JF

On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 4:54 PM Lisa Seeman <lisa1seeman@gmail.com> wrote:

> Originally, Janina participated in the COGA coordination calls. She would
> bring up any joint issues. In fact the gap analisis, user needs and
> examples of the current document were at her encouragement of what was
> needed from a w3c perspective. Our issue papers, which are the basis of
> content usable, are typically more APA then AG.  They look at technologies
> or horizontal issues, where they are and where they create problems,
> potential solutions etc. Examples include personalization, wayfinding,
> VoiceXML and the web authentication spec.  If we leave APA they may become
> out of scope.
>    We had understood that working on these papers and the gap analisis
> etc  counted as part of our APA contribution.
> Personalization (and aria when it was a taskforce) did work related to APA
> but not reviewing specification as part of APAs core work. That seems ok,
> and normal. A task force focuses on some tasks but not the full work of the
> group. Removing us because we are not doing enough reviews of
> specifications would be a new reason to remove a task force.
>
>   Admittedly , since Janina stopped joining our coordination calls we need
> to have coordination some other way. We thought  we would discuss and
> decide how to do this after content useable V1 is published but this
> communication seems to have been confused. However even if we do leave
> there would be a lot of issues to be worked out first.  If we leave APA,
> then the work from our gap analisis (scheduled for this year)  maybe should
> move? If so, where to, and what would be the impact of separating the group
> in two? Maybe COGA should become its own WG.  I certainly do not think it
> is a simple decision, it could brake things that are currently working  and
> I do not see a good enough reason for it.
>
> All the best
> lisa
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 10:03 PM Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net> wrote:
>
>> The APA timeline to finish its new Charter draft has been end of January
>> 2021 since we first started work last summer.
>>
>>
>> Also, I don't believe there's a W3C process by which task forces "join"
>> a Working Group. The usual course is that working groups spawn task
>> forces (or Community Groups / Interest Groups) to do some particular
>> thing. COGA has delivered on that expectation in the form of the
>> normative specification work emerging from the Personalization TF.
>>
>> The argument that other TF, like the AGWG Low-Vision TF should somehow
>> also come under APA's umbrella is a reasonable question, but it should
>> be raised at the Judy level, i.e. in the WAI CC. Were such a thing to
>> occur, I would have the same expectations I outlined in a related thread
>> today:
>>
>> *       Joint parent WG for any TF means the TF will address interests
>> *       of each of its parent TFs. It's a both/and proposition, not an
>> *       either/or.
>>
>> At a minimum I believe APA would expect regular participation in
>> horizontal review of W3C specifications and any resulting triage. To me
>> that's a baseline expectation of APA.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Janina
>>
>> Lisa Seeman writes:
>> > Hi John,
>> > I have no problem with the other task forces joining APA. Maybe they
>> should.
>> > The plan was for us to explore and discuss this after our publication. I
>> > would like to keep to that plan. If the time table is to long, we
>> should be
>> > told what the time table is etc.
>> > COGA and APA need to integrate our work better.
>> > For COGA, we sometimes spin off ideas - such as personalization. APA
>> > reviews and work also needs to incorporate the COGA perspective. How
>> this
>> > is done and how we work together is something we should explore in
>> detail
>> > and with consideration for  the good of accessibility.
>> >
>> > On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 7:12 PM John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Hi Lisa,
>> > >
>> > > COGA is (was?) a *joint* task force between APA and AG Working
>> Groups, and
>> > > I neither see nor hear a proposal to eliminate COGA, only to no
>> longer make
>> > > it a joint TF with APA.
>> > >
>> > > From my perspective, APA and AG WG will continue to coordinate and
>> work
>> > > together, and so I am wondering if you can articulate specific
>> reasons for
>> > > keeping the joint relationship active, versus allowing COGA to remain
>> a TF
>> > > of AG WG.
>> > >
>> > > I note that there are other Task Forces under AG WG that do not have a
>> > > joint partnership structure (Low Vision, "mobile"/touch interfaces,
>> XR) and
>> > > so I'd like to understand why you feel COGA should be treated
>> differently
>> > > than those other Task Forces? What advantages are gained by remaining
>> a
>> > > joint Task Force?
>> > >
>> > > Thanks
>> > >
>> > > JF
>> > >
>> > > On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 10:58 AM Lisa Seeman <lisa1seeman@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> I strongly feel that APA and COGA must have a formal relationship
>> and an
>> > >> improved process of working together that means ApA's work will
>> includ COGA
>> > >> concerns.
>> > >> I object to a charter that does not include this and removes coga as
>> a
>> > >> task force.
>> > >>
>> > >> As you know we have an important publication this month. It was on
>> COGAs
>> > >> time table (as agreed) as the first item after our publication to
>> work with
>> > >> the co-chairs to improve this process.
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >> All the best
>> > >>
>> > >> Lisa Seeman
>> > >>
>> > >
>>
>> --
>>
>> Janina Sajka
>> https://linkedin.com/in/jsajka
>>
>> Linux Foundation Fellow
>> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:       http://a11y.org
>>
>> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
>> Co-Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures     http://www.w3.org/wai/apa
>>
>>