Re: Charter Review

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:53 AM, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:
> On Mar 26, 2013, at 24:12 , Robert Sanderson <azaroth42@gmail.com> wrote:

>> * I share the concerns about scoping, even with the Digital Publishing
>> version rather than the eBooks version of the charter.
>> 1. That the scope covers only Born Digital and not Digitized Physical
>> or Born Digital Facsimile should be clarified, assuming that is the
>> intent.

> Great distinctions. But, though the "born digital" is the primary focus here, I am not sure we should completely preclude, say, an HTML transcription of a digitized image.

In another Open Annotation based project we've done a lot of work in
this area over the past 3 years, and there are significant issues that
require a very different approach to the simple text-over-image
intuition.  For example, please consider the first 15 or so slides of
issues in this presentation from late last year:

http://www.slideshare.net/azaroth42/transcending-silos-shared-canvas-data-model-for-digital-facsimiles

Which isn't to say that it should be out of scope, and we'd love to
contribute to such an effort, but it would expand the statement of
work into new areas.


> I think the best approach is look at the "Out of Scope" section. Based on some other discussions on the charter, we already planned to add:
> "This Interest Group is not chartered to work on issues and use cases that are only relevant to non-W3C Standards and Specifications (e.g., Unicode), although the evolution of those Specifications should be followed as they may influence the deliverables of the Group."

That looks like a good addition to me regardless of the resolution on
the facsimile issue.


> I wonder whether this would not be enough. For example, although PNG is actually a W3C standard but is not worked on, and JPG isn't, this means that issues around, say, facsimile formats and methods would pretty much be out of scope. As I said, however, if transcriptions of such digitized books do create problems (and there is enough interest and user cases for those, I might add) then the IG may very well choose to add use cases on that, too.
> What do you think?

Rather than trying to say what is out of scope, it might be simpler to
say what is definitely in scope and then allow for some creep during
the course of the IG?  Or would that not be possible with the charter
rules?


>> 2. Even the expanded "digital publishing" is still quite weak in terms
>> of its definition.  Some genres that are unclear as to whether they
>> are in or out of scope:
>> - Comics, and especially Manga with its layout issues
>> - Brochures or Pamphlets (at which point it's very close to just a web page)
>> - How much text is required, if any? It would seem none, but then a
>> photo album is in scope?
>> - Is the assumption only 2 dimensional? For example electronic popup
>> books with 3d pages? Or objects where consuming the work requires
>> manipulation in a 3d space: the digital equivalent of a stone tablet
>> or vase that carries text.
>> - Is the assumption linear reading? For example pick-a-path type books
>> where the reader decides on choices how to resolve the story
>> - Is the assumption that there are pages? A digital scroll would be
>> out of scope, but otherwise a poster might end up in scope.

> Note that the 3D example is ruled out by the previous 'out of scope' entry because W3C, at the moment, does not work on 3D issues... For all the others I do not see why they would be ruled out on a charter level.

True, good point!

> The borderline between a web page and a digital publication is indeed blurred. And I actually do not think this is a problem for an IG that does not develop specifications per se, but rather has, as a primary task, to collect use cases, requirements, etc. What the areas of those requirements will be should be defined, at the end of the day, by those who join that group.
>
> Do you think it is worth to add more of those examples in the charter? (Eg, in the intro section?)

It might even be worth adding a new section to describe the list of
initial use cases?


>> 3. I assume that creation and authorship is out of scope, but should
>> it be clearly stated so?
> You mean authorship in the sense of authoring tools? I am not sure it should be out of scope; working on authoring tool may very well reveal new issues (see Daniel's presentation in New York).

Authoring tools, but also the issues of multiple authorship of the
content.  For example, if there are multiple institutions contributing
and maintaining different aspects of the publication (Archive provides
images, University provides transcribed text, Company provides UI and
social aspects), the difference with the web in general is decreased
and the scope of discussions could be much broader.


>> Equally, the packaging side seems to be left
>> out of the scope, but that would mean that distributed maintenance of
>> the resources that make up the ebook is in scope?
>
> If packaging is an active work item at W3C, then packaging is very much in scope in my view. There is a discussion whether EPUB should be seen as a standard web site packaging format...

Yes...


>> * My final concern is the ability to gain traction in other WGs.  As
>> the IG would not develop specifications, it relies on the existing WGs
>> to take the IG seriously and make whatever allowances are needed.
>> This seems like it may require direct W3C intervention to clarify the
>> status of the IG as something to be engaged with and taken seriously,
>> otherwise I could see (as a very hypothetical example) the HTML5 work
>> simply ignoring any requirements the IG proposes.
>
> Yes. That will, at this moment, require the intervention of the W3C team, members, WG chairs, etc. For new charters, an explicit liaison to this new IG should also be added. Note that one of the success criteria in the charter is that members institutions of the IG should also join the relevant Working Groups; they can also influence, as member organizations, other Working Groups through AC votes, for example. The key here is to make the publishing industry more active at W3C which is, after all, the ultimate goal of this IG.


My concern was the second part -- that adding one more member to an
already large WG won't have much of a voice, and if the requirements
that they bring are seen as not relevant, then the IG would end up
doing a lot of work with no real result.

Would it be worth enumerating and contacting the chairs of the likely
affected WGs before hand as a sanity check on the extent to which the
IG would need to be engaged?  Maybe it's not necessary.


> I am not sure, however, what of this should be reflected in the charter, if anything. What do you think?

I don't think it needs to be reflected in the charter, it's more of a
process concern than a charter issue.  And it may not be a problem at
all.


> Thanks again Rob

No problem, thanks for the invitation to be involved at this early stage!

Rob

Received on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 15:54:34 UTC