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

Thanks, Jeanne for an amazing job as scribe.

I've sent a cleaned up version to Ivan to make it easier to catch up for
folks who couldn't join the call.

Thanks everyone for a great first step! I'll be following up with a doodle
and some conversation starters soon.

Best regards,
Peter.
On Apr 27, 2016 7:10 PM, "Jeanne Spellman" <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
>      __________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>    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]
>      __________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>