WebVTT Interop Investigation

Hi everyone,

I’m so sorry for missing the meeting this morning - I got the time mixed up. Here is what I was planning on saying about the WebVTT Interop Investigation:

(TL;DR: We are having the meeting next Wednesday, 7/23 at 9am PST/4pm UTC. Please join if you are interested in fixing issues in the WebVTT test suite! Send a reply if you’re interested in coming next week, or some time in the future, or if you would like to come but the time doesn’t work for you. We can reschedule if that is the case for enough people.

Zoom link <https://us04web.zoom.us/j/77767978616?pwd=sAe8ppkDU1jNG2qSeyjmzmZyPiDcQA.1>

And check out the repo <https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-webvtt> for updates about this investigation!)


Hi! I’m Dana Estra. I work at Apple on the WebKit team. Some of you might have met me at TPAC 2024, when I spoke to this group about my plan to propose WebVTT as an Interop focus area. I have an update: WebVTT was picked as an investigation area <https://webkit.org/blog/16458/announcing-interop-2025/%23investigation-efforts-look-ahead>, which means that issues in its automated test suite need to be fixed before it can become a focus area. 

So, I am starting a committee to work on the WebVTT test suite investigation, and I am recruiting people to join! 

With over 200 failing tests, I could really use some help. I am also relatively new to WebVTT; I would appreciate the help of people with more knowledge and experience in WebVTT to find flaws in tests and point out missing ones.

Interop investigations generally seem to have a meeting once or twice a month, and the first thing the group does is make a list of goals and assign them point values so that it can score itself at the end of the calendar year. Even though the investigation ends in December, it seems common for investigations to be renewed for multiple years. If you are interested in what other investigations have looked like, you can check out the Accessibility Interop investigations <https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-accessibility> that have been occurring since 2023.

I’m planning to have the first WebVTT Interop Investigation meeting next Wednesday at 9 a.m. PST (4 p.m. UTC) to start making our list of goals. If you’re interested in joining next week, or some time in the future, send me a reply. If the timing doesn’t work for you, let me know what time does, and we can try to figure it out.

Thank you so much!

Best,

Dana Estra
destra@apple.com