ISSUE-116: Would a separate document work?

On 08/11/2010 08:53 AM, Steven Faulkner wrote:
>
> we have 2 documents currently published by the working group that have
> normative requirements on use of the alt attribute in HTML5
>
> Neither is authoritative or has the consensus of the working group.
> Until the situation is resolved it is in the best interests of all
> readers of either document to be made aware of the existence of the
> other document to ensure that nobody is under the assumption that
> neither document authoritatively defines the conformance requirements
> for use of alt in HTML5.

A few questions.  Short version:

Could this "index of relevant documents" be a separate document?

Longer version:

This is a probe to explore if there is a possibility of amicable 
consensus, obviating the need for proposals, counter proposals, surveys, 
etc.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that neither is required to have 
consensus at this point, nor the fact that neither will advance very far 
without consensus, the question concerning Issue 116 is much more 
narrowly scoped.  It is talking about a simple link and neutral information.

I'll note that this is not the only such document that the HTML WG is 
producing.  The current list can be found down the right hand side of 
the HTML WG page:

http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/rdfa/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/md/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/2dcontext/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/markup/
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/diff/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-xhtml-author-guide/html-xhtml-authoring-guide.html
http://dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/

I also note that the term "HTML 5" is often an umbrella term that people 
use to encompass other things including WebApps, Device APIs and 
Policies, CSS, ECMAScript-262, and potentially many other things.

So... the questions I would like to pose to the group is:

(1) Would there be benefit to the development and publishing of an 
overview document for HTML5?

(2) Is there somebody (or perhaps a group of people) willing to produce 
such a document?

(3) Would the existence of such a document satisfy everybody's needs, 
i.e., if it were to exist and get past FPWD could we then close 
ISSUE-166 by amicable resolution?

- Sam Ruby

Received on Wednesday, 25 August 2010 19:56:42 UTC