Re: User Facing Documents

Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:

>> For FPWD of less technical documents, I tend to feel that it is 
>> important that they are in sync with some explicit version of the more 
>> technical docs -
> 
> Which seems to indicate that there are only certain kinds of less
> technical documents that can be published or, maybe, even worked on,
> before the technical documents are available.  I would fit Guide and
> Reference and even a longish Overview into this group of "can't publish
> early" documents.
> 
> What less technical documents are left, then?  Features/UC&R, I guess, but
> perhaps only for those parts of the language that have been agreed on.
> (By the way, have we agreed on any parts of the language?)
> 

My previous message
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2007Nov/0107
was in part motivated by your message.

To me, we should be publishing both some normative descriptions and some 
informative descriptions soon.
Both need to be highly qualified with - this "design is a work in 
progress" stickers.

My concerns about RDF Mapping could be addressed with a big enough 
disclaimer of that sort. Personally, I would prefer that we publish 
documents where a significant percentage of the design (not the document 
style) already has a fairly high degree of (informal) consensus; thus I 
have a preference for not publishing RDF Mapping in the first round. 
However, clearly we will need such a doc, and if there are editors who 
are agreeable to the chairs, then the only thing I would insist on is a 
clear enough statement that this part of the design is (particularly?) 
contentious.

In an informative document, concerning an unstable and unfinished 
design, there are clearly trickier editorial issues about how to present 
the *unfinished* sticker.

I believe that wide review is important, and that appropriate 
publication will help ensure that.

I think each WG participant will have in mind some of the people they 
would like to be reviewing our work, and the sort of document that will 
enable that review to happen. Thus  participants who have the energy to 
produce a document should be encouraged to do so. If the document I want 
to produce does not speak to the people you are most interested in, 
that's no big deal - produce another document that does.

Obviously too many documents would be a bad thing, but I think that is 
more a theoretical than an actual risk.

Jeremy

Received on Tuesday, 6 November 2007 16:02:31 UTC