Minutes of Math on the Web Community Group teleconference of 27 April 2016

Link to minutes in HTML:

https://www.w3.org/2016/04/27-mathonwebpages-minutes.html


Minutes in text format:

    [1]W3C

       [1] http://www.w3.org/

                                - DRAFT -

                            Math on the Web CG

27 Apr 2016

    See also: [2]IRC log

       [2] http://www.w3.org/2016/04/27-mathonwebpages-irc

Attendees

    Present
           Peter, Krautzberger, jeanne_spellman, Ivan,
           Eli_Weger__Pearson, Collin, Emily, Markus, Han,
           jpedersen

    Regrets
    Chair
           Peter Krautzberger

    Scribe
           jeanne


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    Peter: Welcome. We will start with introductions. Daniel is the
    Co-Chair. This can be changed.
    ... This is the first get-together.

    The idea behind the group that is focused on the tools to put
    mathematics on the web.

    scribe: from such a group, we could build from the bottom up to
    help build the tools to make it easier.
    ... people who are building the tools need to step up to make
    the tools
    ... it needs standards and developing the web forward
    ... it will be a learning experience for making standards for
    most of the group.

    Intros

    scribe: who are you
    ... what are you working on, or what is your interest in this
    group?
    ... what do you want to contribute to the group?

    <physikerwelt> +1

    <laughinghan> +1

    Peter: Consultant, work with MathJax
    ... interested in exposing more data, and put out more
    information, accessibility

    <laughinghan> pkra: we could go in order of IRC

    <laughinghan> where we all see the same order

    <pkra> jeanne: I'm on the a11y side.

    <pkra> ... web a11y engineer

    <pkra> ... worked on WCAG task forces

    <pkra> ... web content a11y guidelines,

    <pkra> ... often heard about problems of ppl with disabilities
    having problems with math on the web

    <pkra> ... no specific interest but interested in finding out.

    Collin: I am undergrad at UVa, studying math and computer
    science. Not familiar with standardization, but hope to help
    any way I can.
    ... interest and background in vulnerability side. Experience
    with development, but not with mathematics.

    Daniel: I work in @@, with a product called @@ Editor. I am the
    CEO. I am interested in putting mathematics in the web using an
    editing tool. I am interested in the interopability with Math
    on the Web and MathML. Interested in level of semantics.
    ... we should consider the level of semantics we want to
    provide.
    ... bottom up, I want a list of examples of how mathematics
    should be put on the web and create use cases.
    ... then address other fields, such as chemistry.

    Eli: I work for Pearson in Accessible Assessments group. I am
    looking for solution for braille input online. This is my first
    working group.

    <laughinghan> I believe @@ = WIRIS

    <laughinghan> [8]http://www.wiris.com/en/editor

       [8] http://www.wiris.com/en/editor

    Eli: accessible equation editor is our current focus.

    Emily: Kahm Academy doing Math rendering. I am one of the
    people who wrote @@@ and the CSS hacks to get things working
    reasonably on the web. I want to make the CSS hacks less hacky.
    I am new to the standards process.

    Han: I work on MathQuill which is a free open source math
    editor. I am interested in CSS techniques that others use,
    reducing the hacks in CSS.

    <xymostech> jeanne: @@@ = KaTeX

    <laughinghan> Volker = KaTeX

    Ivan: I am at W3C, I am the Digital Publishing Activity lead.
    Digital Publishing is crying out for an efficient solution for
    mathematics in digital publishing. I have no experience with
    publishing mathematics on the web, but will work to help Peter.

    Jason: I lead engineering for a graphing calculator. We are a
    large user of MathQuill. We want to get better font information
    from the browsers.
    ... we are working with MathQuill so it will work better with
    speech to text and braille output.
    ... want to work with others on getting information from DESMOS
    to other applications.

    Jean: Independent Freeland Digital publishing expert. I worked
    with MathML and MathJax. I am interested in making math
    accessible on the web, but first we have to get math on the
    web. Scholarly, higher ed, professional. It is across all
    digital publishing.

    Jos: Web Developer, new to W3C groups. I work on a math
    library, called MathJS. We tried to group it up with Majex
    editing. It is difficult to get them to interoperate and get
    maths interchangable, like JSON.
    ... I am strong in making things simpler and clearer.

    <jos> Majex -> MathJax

    <jos> [9]http://mathjs.org/

       [9] http://mathjs.org/

    Markus: I work with DAISY Consortium. I work with IDPF on ePub
    digital publishing standards. There is a crying out for
    solutions in digital publishing.
    ... the publishers require typographical fidelity as on a print
    page of math, but it needs to be accessible to people with
    print disabiltiies and there are no answers. It is a tragedy
    for humanity that we do not have math on the web.

    +1 tragedy for humanity

    @@: I am a researcher. My interested in math rendering for
    wikipedia. I have been working on a math extention for
    wikipedia. We suffer that MathML is not working on any browser.
    MathML therefore, doesn't work in practice.

    scribe: we need better math rendering for websites. Now we can
    only print images which is unacceptable. It should be part of
    the text.
    ... it needs to be transportable to other software. I am
    working on projects with students. One project with MathJax.
    Another is moving to Mathematica.

    <laughinghan> Moritz=Moritz

    Fergus: Reader at university in the UK with STEM accessibility
    mainly Chemistry. I have been working with MathJax creating an
    accessibility extension. I'm interested in Open Science, with
    getting data onto the web that is interoperable.
    ... I was on the SVG accessibility task force, but had to drop
    off when I didn't have time.

    <gjtorikian> bummed I can't be there and have to read these in
    chat ;_; many thanks jeanne for the scribing

    John: I work for Wiley for information modeling. We publish
    digitally and in print. Large commercial publisher. Our models
    have always incorporated MathML. I have the same problems that
    others have mentioned in getting math digitally and in print
    from a single source. I have experience in the past as a math
    professor.
    ... have a colleague, Tzviya, who would also agree with these
    comments.

    Peter: This is a diverse group, and I am very happy.
    ... Ivan, can you give an overview of Community Groups and how
    they fit into W3C structure?

    Ivan: Community Groups do what they want when they want it.
    They are satellite groups around W3C. Good that they have the
    flexibility to do what they want, Bad because their work is not
    considered and official W3C Standard.

    <pkra> 244 CGs

    Ivan: what I have seen that worked, is Community Group that
    follows a process that produces a Community Group Report. If
    the quality is good enough, then that work becomes the basis of
    W3C standard work. That may not be a goal of this group
    ... The Web Annotations Community Group produced a report that
    became the basis of the Web Annotations Working Group.
    ... this is a group that suffers the most from the status of
    MathML.
    ... it would be a huge success if this group could be the group
    that produces work that could help solve this problem.
    ... accessibility is still a problem, and it would be good if
    this group could help with that.
    ... Community Groups are autonomous, and the group can do what
    it wants.
    ... Working Groups are the only groups that can produce W3C
    standards, aka W3C REcommendations. Interest Groups do not
    produce W3C Recommendations.
    ... the Digital Publishing Interest Group worked with other W3C
    groups to improve the standards as needed by Digital
    Publishing.
    ... for this group, the differentiation between Interest Groups
    and Community Groups is not significant.

    Peter: I didn't realize that Community Groups are replacing
    Interest Groups.

    Ivan: Many of the Community Groups don't go anywhere. That is
    the way of it.

    Peter: Many of the people on this call have been thinking about
    Math since MathML working group was active. The MathML group is
    now closed.
    ... this group is not taking over from MathML.

    Ivan: I would expect the work done here to be oblivious to the
    syntax of math on the web. Millions of equations are described
    in MathML. Some people expect their work done in LaTex. We
    should have a way to build tools that take advantage of the
    work that browsers have used to optimize display in HTML and
    CSS.
    ... if some of the features of CSS are insufficient, and this
    group comes up with featueres that HTML, CSS or others should
    add to their specifications, then that is appropriate for this
    group to contribute ideas to those groups.
    ... there is a project in CSS -- Houdini -- that may be of
    interest to those who were interested in the font issue.

    Peter: Use q+ to join the queue if you wish to speak. Use q? to
    get a list of who is on the queue.
    ... I wouldn't expect this group to be oblivious to syntax, but
    I would expect this group to follow its interests.
    ... there are no limitations if you want to talk about MathML
    if you want, and LaTex syntax or asciimath syntax.
    ... I see an interest in layout, CSS layout in particular.
    There may be interest in SVG.
    ... There is interest in Houdini Task Force (the sexiest task
    force) between CSS and TAG (the highrollers of the standards
    world). They are looking for use cases from the mathematics
    world.
    ... there is a recent article in Smashing Magazine where they
    describe Houdini project.
    ... we may want to get tangible information to these groups.

    <jos>
    [10]https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/houdini-maybe-the-
    most-exciting-development-in-css-youve-never-heard-of/

      [10] https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/houdini-maybe-the-most-exciting-development-in-css-youve-never-heard-of/

    Peter: there is also interest in accessibility. There has been
    work on a digital publishing ARIA extension, with digital
    publishing use cases. Some discussion of ARIA use cases to make
    mathmatics more accessible.
    ... This is another area where this group could provide input
    and get traction.
    ... a third area is interoperability. No one will help the math
    community who isn't part of the math community.
    ... last week someone posted to the MathJax mailing list
    looking for a JSON-type for interoperability. Many tools
    produce very different data results based on the input.
    [example] Teacher who writes an equation, the markup changes to
    make it render properly. We could look for low-hanging fruit.
    ... Next meeting. I would like to have a next meeting, and
    quickly.

    <Eli_Weger__Pearson> MONTHLY?

    <mgylling> +1

    Peter: how frequently should we meet? I would like monthly
    personally.

    <Eli_Weger__Pearson> Sorry for the caps

    <ivan> monthly is fine

    <Jason_Merrill> monthly sounds good

    <laughinghan> do we need to meet regularly yet?

    monthly sounds good.

    @@: To start, every two weeks, then monthly.

    @Dani: Otherwise, we will not get anything off the ground.

    <laughinghan> I personally vastly prefer IRC > meetings >
    mailing lists

    Ivan: We should try to use the email list or Githib to work
    asyncronously. I don't think we should rely on telcos.

    Peter: Put ideas and work on the mailing list. If there is
    anything else, please follow up by email.

    <laughinghan> what is TPAC?

    <Eli_Weger__Pearson> I've got to jump off and join another
    meeting. Bye everyone!

    Ivan: We signed up for a short face to face meeting at TPAC,
    but we haven't heard any status.

    <pkra> Thanks, Eli.

    Ivan: TPAC is a week long meeting where working groups meet
    face to face. It is also a place to have neutral coordinated
    interaction with other groups. It is an intellectually
    stimulating, but exhausting week. This year, the TPAC is 3rd
    week in September in Lisbon.
    ... we may get a spot.

    <laughinghan> bye, thanks!

    <Jason_Merrill> thanks all


    [End of minutes]
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