Notes: General meeting September 10

Meeting was recorded:
https://benetech.zoom.us/recording/play/z_Dw_nEtxK8fm61FPHuqdv1hSUjB5aDbhY01N7F9sANnkjxbfWqTwdx_a8_-Aa1X?continueMode=true

The notes are rather superficial due to the interesting discussion making
it hard to take notes. Listen to the recording to hear the full discussion.
Attendees:

Neil Soiffer

Murray Sargent

Steve Noble

David Farmer

Charles LaPierre

Sam Dooley

Continue discussion -- adding some semantic info to presentation MathML (#64
<https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml/issues/64>, #68
<https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml/issues/68>, #79
<https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml/issues/79>, #80
<https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml/issues/80>, #84
<https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml/issues/84>, #93
<https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml/issues/93>, ???)

NS:  Want to allow MathML to be semantic, but not require it

DF: Authors may have to do because of university accessibility requirements

NS: I don’t think exact words should be used

MS: Yes, multiple language

NS: Braille

MS: Nemeth braille tends to be semantic agnostic, e.g.,
superscript/subscript notation doesn’t specify whether power or index

NS: we could do this with a module-prefix "role" attr or something similar.

NS: e.g, role="math:power"
NS: Or we could point off to a URL (maybe URI) such as wikidata.

CP: I prefer using names vs URL

NS: Content MathML added a base URL to shorten URL. Can’t remember the
reasons other than shortening the names

MS: Security issues with following URLs

NS: Don’t need to follow the URLS to know the meaning.
NS: Another idea for adding semantics is to add a subject area to the math
element. This could be in addition to a role attr.

NS: I like having both subject area and role. It gives more flexibility to
authors/authoring software.

NS: Need uniform subject names.  Maybe plain human readable text is
adequate because there are not too many truly distinct topics?

NS: Would using the AMS classification system or some other system make
sense?

DF: AMS system is aimed at very high level math topics; not really
appropriate for textbooks, etc.

MS: https://mathscinet.ams.org/msc/msc2010.html is too detailed for a list

?: Possible subject areas -- Calculus, trigonometry, statistics, algebra
(basic), algebra (abstract), combinatorics,...

CL: This will be reviewed after we have a specific proposal.

MS: https://mathscinet.ams.org/msc/msc2010.html is too detailed for a list

NS: We need to move beyond discussion to actual action. Let's come up with
some lists.
SD: I did some work and came up with many hundreds, maybe thousands, of
semantic roles for the Pearson editor. These basically extended content
MathML.
NS: I or Volker might be able to get a list together from the notations we
recognize.

NS: Where should we put the proposal?

SD: Need it to be machine readable because we will run scripts on it.

NS: Seems like a Google sheet would work.

SD: I can start one and link from a GitHub issue.

NS: I will also start a list of subjects and then hand off to DF.


ACTION: Sam to link issue to a spreadsheet roles he developed

ACTION: Neil to link issue to a spreadsheet for subject area


The next meeting will be October 8 at the normal time.