CFC Via WBS re Bug 9673 Remove WEBSRT

At the regular Media Subteam teleconference on Wednesday 5 May,
http://www.w3.org/2010/05/05-html-a11y-minutes.html

And also at our regular HTML-A11Y Teleconference on Thursday 6 May:
http://www.w3.org/2010/05/06-html-a11y-minutes.html

I was requested to draft and circulate resolution language expressing
our concern and desire to have WEBSRT removed from HTML 5 specification
documents at this time. As Bug 9673, "Remove any reference to a specific
Time Stamp format for  video captioning from the specification at this
time,"  has now been filed expressing this same conclusion, I have
drafted our candidate resolution in support of this bug:
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9673

This email provides this draft resolution and serves as our Call for Consensus on
this question. 

Please vote on this resolution via WBS at:
http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/44061/20100513_cfc-websrt/

Comments and objections may also be logged via WBS when you vote.

Candidate Resolution

<begin resolution>

We are deeply concerned that specification language is being introduced
regarding media support in HTML 5 documents
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/video.html#websrt
without consensed HTML-A11Y Task Force input while we're in the midst of
a series of focused deliberations to address exactly this issue.

We also want to note the misunderstanding introduced into the record in
the following posting to public-html (but not to public-html-a11y):
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Apr/1128.html
where this approach was described as: "the Task Force's proposal;"
though the referenced bug reports indicate that this was not yet a
proposal of the Task Force.

We believe input from all concerned WG members and Task Forces is
critical to expeditious and responsive specifications development, and
until we have that, we don't have consensus.  It may be that we would
adopt WEBSRT as our recommendation, or as a component in our
recommendation. However, we have needed to go back to check requirements
after it became evident that these were both incomplete, and
incompletely vetted. Meanwhile, while we appreciate and solicit
proposals, a publicly accessible specification incorporated directly
into the draft HTML 5 specification documents gives the inaccurate
impression that a consensus direction has been reached when this is not
the case.

 Certainly, the WG is aware of our work in this area.  We are
endeavoring to cooperate with the desire to bring HTML 5 to Last Call
this year.  For unconsensed specifications to be published without our
input only exacerbates our ability to contribute critical accessibility
requirements and technology recommendations as team players in a timely
and orderly manner.

We respectfully request the HTML-WG Chairs' assistance in unrolling
premature specification language in HTML5 document drafts. In particular
we strongly urge the WEBSRT section NOT be present in the next heartbeat
release of HTML 5.

</end resolution draft>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
		sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net

Chair, Open Accessibility	janina@a11y.org	
Linux Foundation		http://a11y.org

Chair, Protocols & Formats
Web Accessibility Initiative	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Received on Monday, 10 May 2010 17:14:52 UTC