Re: Doing HTML the right way at W3C

On Thu, 2010-07-22 at 13:13 +0100, Dave Raggett wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-07-21 at 21:36 -0400, Philippe Le Hegaret wrote:
> > We've all agreed that HTML is part of the Core mission of W3C. It ought
> > to mean that we should try to do it right.
> > 
> > I'd like to get opinions on what needs to be done to do HTML "the right
> > way".
> > 
> > Is publishing an HTML standard enough for us to declare victory? If not,
> > what else should W3C ought to be doing?
> 
> People see HTML as more than just the markup, so this needs to include
> other things essential to interoperability of web pages using HTML, e.g.
> scripting APIs (including events), style sheets, and media formats.

Looks like I wasn't clear enough. Yes, we need to do other pieces of
technologies along the side of HTML. But, for the purpose of doing the
HTML language right, what else beyond the standard needs to happen?

> Non-core, but valuable to our mission is promoting effective use of
> HTML, e.g. best practices for accessibility, use of scripting and style
> sheets, and online services such as validators.

I can see us doing several things:

- Technical writers

 We keep saying than having technical writers would improve the quality
of our specifications. The amount of resources to providing technical
writers for our Core activities would be very significant, something
like 0.5 FTE per WG.

- Education

 * More Guidelines and articles
  How do we get them done?
   We certainly encourage more documents in the HTML Working Group. Is
that enough?
   There are websites like w3cschools or HTML5 doctors. Do we want to
compete with them or do we consider them good enough?
  Should we promote wiki websites along the side of recommendations to
allow the community to "extend" the specification, similar to the PHP
documentation website
   Similar to what I18n is doing. Again, how do we get them done?

   I can see this taking anywhere between 0.5 FTE and 1 FTE.

 * Online training
   Web seminar, Video materials?

   I can see this taking anywhere between 0.3 FTE or more.

 * Course materials
   OWEA goal is to develop education materials around standard
technologies so they can be reused in schools.

   I can see this taking one FTE. The OWEA have been proposing a model
to us for providing those resources.

- Testing

  Make W3C the place were testing of Web technologies happen, by
developing a service to allow Web users to submit tests

  This is 0.5 FTE for one year.

- Validators

  Our validator effort has been pushed into an open source model. It
kind of works as far as I understand it but we also know that our
validators are aging, to the point of becoming harmful sometimes.

  This is a 0.5 FTE effort, for HTML, CSS, SVG validators.

- PR materials
  I get requests from our Comm folks to produce more materials for the
press, to help them put HTML in the big picture

  Not quite sure what level of effort to put here.

- Certification
  A lot of softwares are claiming to be "HTML5" compliant nowadays.
Should we look into certifying them?

  This is a 1 FTE effort... to start with. Clearly, this requires a
different business model. We could also talk to the Open Group, who has
been doing certification for a while.

So, this makes a good start for a list. Now, is there anything on this
list we think we ought to do for the purpose of the HTML language at the
minimum? I'll ask a similar question for our other activities later...

Philippe

Received on Thursday, 22 July 2010 12:51:03 UTC