Re: request a heartbeat publication of HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives

As co-cordinator of the Task Force I would point out that there were strong objections to publishing the heartbeat, given the circumstances. The group therefore decided, a few weeks ago, to produce a new draft and try to publish that.

Those circumstances included an expectation that the longdesc decision would have been handed down some time ago, that new editors would have been named, and that a new proposed draft would have been available.

None of those things has happened, and there have been increasing calls to publish the existing version. This suggests the Task Force should reassess its decision, either agreeing to a clear alternative or changing the decision in light of the fact that the assumptions underlying it turned out to be false.

As well as co-cordinator, I am the only representative of Yandex participating in this group.

With my Yandex hat on, we want to see an update to the current Working Draft as soon as possible. 

We don't really care if it is the current version since this is a Working Draft and (according to the Process and presumably the Status of the Document) doesn't claim to represent consensus even of the group publishing. I note that publication of a 'heartbeat' Working Draft is an administrative decision and does not, according to the Process, require the consensus that is necessary for something that claims to accurately represent the consensus of the Working Group.

We would prefer to see something with longdesc included, but don't think the continued wait serves any useful purpose.

cheers

Chaals

13.10.2014, 12:03, "Léonie Watson" <LWatson@PacielloGroup.com>:
> TPG supports the publication of a heartbeat working draft for the following
> reasons:
>
> 1. It will provide a clear point of reference for the guidance as it
> stands. The future of longdesc remains to be determined. It would therefore
> be more confusing for this document to include longdesc advice now and for
> that advice to be removed (should the longdesc attribute not be returned to
> the HTML5 spec), than it would be for longdesc advice to be added once a
> decision has been made.
>
> 2. Publishing a heartbeat is a marker en-route to final publication. As
> David Singer said:
>
> “A heartbeat does not need to be ‘ready’ or ‘done’ or even ‘fully consented
> to’ (it is common to insert issue markers for points of contention). Indeed,
> we’d be going to LCWD and on from there if it were done.”
>
> 3.                The CFC for publication of the guidance was
> supported by all parties concerned [1]. Per the W3C process the document
> should have been published as a result. Since this has not happened it does
> not seem unreasonable for a heartbeat to be published based on that
> consensus, and for the guidance to be updated once the future of longdesc is
> known.
>
> Léonie
>
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/2014Jun/0019.html
>
> --
> Senior Accessibility Engineer, TPG
> @LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup

--
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Monday, 13 October 2014 10:21:31 UTC