RE: W3C Manual Of Style

Hi Shawn,
Here are my findings after doing a fairly quick review…


  *   There are 342 results in 98 files with "Success Criteria" in camel case.
  *   There are 355 results in 52 files with "success criteria" in lower case
  *   There are 360 results in 53 files with "uccess criteria, where I've left out the "s" to capture situations where a sentence happened to being with "Success criteria"
  *   There are 2026 results in 434 files with Success Criterion" in camel case.
  *   There are 347 results in 125 files with "success criterion" in lower case.
  *   Consistently used camel case in failure techniques, e.g., Failure of Success Criterion 1.1.1...". There are 606 occurrences of "of Success Criterion" in 210 files. There are 46 occurrences of "...of Success Criteria" in 17 files.
Conclusion: there are many more occurrences of it set camel case, which is my experience. But not exclusively.

My suggestions:

  *   upper case where it is used in combination with the number of an SC
  *   note that this is particularly consistent usage where it is part of a link, e.g., "Refer to Success Criterion 2.2.1<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#time-limits-required-behaviors> for an example... Endemic in index.html (conformance-challenges). Also, consistently used camel in failure techniques, e.g., "Failure of Success Criterion 1.1.1...".
  *   lower case where it stands alone (without SC number)
Let me know and if this sounds reasonable, I’ll begin a clean up PR. I’m sure I’ll run into some headscratchers, which I will flag.

Mike

From: Michael Gower <michael.gower@ca.ibm.com>
Date: Friday, February 16, 2024 at 7:06 AM
To: Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org>, Bruce Bailey <Bailey@Access-Board.gov>, Storr, Francis <francis.storr@intel.com>, public-wcag2-issues@w3.org <public-wcag2-issues@w3.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] RE: W3C Manual Of Style
Thanks, Shawn. I’ve never understood why “Success Criterion” was camel case; I was just told it was – and certainly evidence suggests that was a conscious style, fairly consistently done—and tried to enforce it consistently when I saw it. It
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Thanks, Shawn. I’ve never understood why “Success Criterion” was camel case; I was just told it was – and certainly evidence suggests that was a conscious style, fairly consistently done—and tried to enforce it consistently when I saw it. It is difficult to argue that it could be misread if in lower case. I’ll have a quick discussion on it on today’s call, and if no one has anything concrete to offer, I’ll do a review of the entire non-normative content to see if there’s any situation where camel seems necessary; if not, will create a global change to match EO.

Thanks!
Mike

From: Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org>
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 10:55 AM
To: Michael Gower <michael.gower@ca.ibm.com>, Bruce Bailey <Bailey@Access-Board.gov>, Storr, Francis <francis.storr@intel.com>, public-wcag2-issues@w3.org <public-wcag2-issues@w3.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: W3C Manual Of Style
I am sooo sorry that I did not reply to this thread earlier.

Indeed we have a WAI Style Guide: https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Style<https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Style>

That includes a bit more guidance on Web and web capitalization: https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Style#web<https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Style#web>

And also has success criteria as lowercase: https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Style#sc<https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Style#sc>

That has not been implemented consistently (and in fact there may be times when we might want it uppercase). Unfortunately we haven't had time to explore, discuss, and document that more.

It's lowercase in places like https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/>  and https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/new-in-22/<https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/new-in-22/>  and https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/understanding-techniques<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/understanding-techniques>

As y'all are comfortable, please use lowercase. Or, if someone wants to propose more specific criteria :) for when it should be lower and when upper, go for it. (Or, if you want to use uppercase, I don't have spoons to say anything about that. :)

Best,
~Shawn



On 15-Feb-24 9:59 AM, Michael Gower wrote:
> Michael Cooper at one point stated or implied there was a WCAG style guide, but I’m not sure I ever got a link to it, so this is useful.
>
> Knowing we can settle on Chicago for style and Merriam-Webster’s 10^th for spelling (with a fallback) is useful.
>
> The terms <https://www.w3.org/Guide/manual-of-style/#Terms<https://www.w3.org/Guide/manual-of-style/#Terms> > section is pretty sparse. I’ve started a word usage section on a new Style Guide <https://github.com/w3c/wcag/wiki/WCAG-style-guide<https://github.com/w3c/wcag/wiki/WCAG-style-guide> > page on  our wiki that we can use as an addendum.
>
> Bruce, I’ve pulled out your style reference and included it there.
>
> Mike
>
> *From: *Bruce Bailey <Bailey@Access-Board.gov>
> *Date: *Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 11:51 AM
> *To: *Storr, Francis <francis.storr@intel.com>, public-wcag2-issues@w3.org <public-wcag2-issues@w3.org>
> *Subject: *[EXTERNAL] RE: W3C Manual Of Style
>
> Francis, thank you! I have added a link to the style guide from the bottom of our wiki home page. I am pleased to see we have the flexibility to use lowercase web (when as part of a phrase), and that website can be the single word. I was not
>
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> Francis, thank you!
>
> I have added a link to the style guide from the bottom of our wiki home page <https://github.com/w3c/wcag/wiki/<https://github.com/w3c/wcag/wiki/> >.
>
> I am pleased to see we have the flexibility to use lowercase web (when as part of a phrase), and that website can be the single word.  I was not expecting either of those!
>
> *From:*Storr, Francis <francis.storr@intel.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, February 1, 2024 1:35 PM
> *To:* public-wcag2-issues@w3.org
> *Subject:* W3C Manual Of Style
>
> Hi, all
>
> We’ve been updating content recently to correct the casing of Web, website, etc. In a recent call, we also mentioned the lack of a style guide. However! I’ve discovered that the W3C has a Manual Of Style and it’s still being updated. The Commonly Misspelled Words section contains all the Web-related guides, although it’s perhaps not helpful to allow uppercase and lowercase the word “web”!
>
> Francis
>