omitting alt: closing an open issue with a bound action item in progress

How can an HTMLWG open issue be closed if it already has an action
item is bound to it and that action item is in progress?

The history:

On October 23, 2007 several members of the HTMLWG requested that PFWG
review Omitting alt Attribute for Critical Content [1].

On February 6, 2008 PFWG issued and official response [2] resulting in
issue 31 [3]

On February 21, 2008 at the HTML WG weekly Teleconference [4] Dan
issued action item 54, for "Gregory Rosmaita to work with SteveF to
draft text for HTML 5 spec to require producers/authors to include
@alt on img elements" [5].

I attended the HTMLWG teleconference tonight. It was a small group,
just Mike Smith, Anne van Kesteren, and me. Mike extended the alt
action item due date to April 17 [6] since we haven't heard back from
PFWG on Steve's request about normative language [7].

Few minutes later, ISSUE-31 (Omitting alt Attribute) was closed by the
editor [8]. But the associated action item 54 was not closed [5].

Just minutes after that, Dan sent a message to html-public that said:
"I'm inclined to let 'open' mean we have a clear plan or next step for
working on it, vs 'raised"' which means it's probably an issue but
nobody has volunteered to address it or move it forward." [9]

So I ask, how can issue 31 be closed if it already has an action item
54 bound to it and that action item is in progress and has volunteers?

Best Regards,
Laura

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007Oct/0044.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Feb/0082.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/31
[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-wg-announce/2008JanMar/0019.html
[5] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/actions/54
[6] http://www.w3.org/2008/04/10-html-wg-minutes.html#item03
[7] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Mar/0234.html
[8] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Apr/0220.html
[9] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2008Apr/0221.html
-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Friday, 11 April 2008 03:28:47 UTC