Starting a new thread - re: Note 3 for definition of "document"

Hi gang,

I'm back home from my vacation, and I'm trying to make sense of - by my 
count - 15 distinct proposals for how to phrase Note 3!  I find that 
understanding them all by going through the e-mails for them all nearly 
impossible, so I've tried to capture them all, in chronological order 
(as they appeared in my inbox) at the bottom of our existing wiki page 
New Note 3 for definition of "document" 
<https://sites.google.com/site/wcag2ict/edits-for-michael-post-2nd-public-draft/new-note-for-definition-of-document>.

I believe there are 4 "latest" proposals on the table.  In chronological 
order, they are (grossly paraphrased):

  * v7 from Peter Korn: a marrying of Mike's earlier proposal with text
    that I thought David liked
  * v8 from David MacDonald: edit to Peter's v7 that satisfies him
  * v13 from Mike Pluke: drops "database" from the set of examples, and
    follow's Gregg's approach with the conditional "because those files
    are part of software... they are covered by WCAG2ICT"
  * v14 from Gregg Vanderheiden (which is chronologically earlier, but I
    suspect due to e-mail crossing may be "later" than Mike's): drops
    "database" from the set of examples (like Mike's) and also rewrites
    the first sentence to add in "software creator" authorship; keeps
    the same second sentence "because those files are part of software"
    as above.

I suggest that all further edits occur on this wiki page, with a note as 
to which earlier variant they are an edit of, and how they are an edit 
(visual change tracking of some sort).  I think that may help us all 
comprehend what each is proposing.


With that out of the way, here are my thoughts:

 1. For somewhat obvious reasons, I'm not thrilled with dropping
    "database" from the examples.  They are a very important file type,
    and I believe they will too easily be confused by folks as being
    documents.  I want to see "databases" included in the list of examples.

 2.  From variant 9 onward (last ~36 hours of proposals from Gregg &
    Mike), the second sentence introduces a conditional, and all
    variants of this conditional appear to be some iteration of:
    "Because those files are just part of the software...'sensory
    experience to be communicated to the user' from such files... is
    covered by WCAG2ICT like any other parts of the software".  I think
    doing this as a conditional is a mistake.  It doesn't matter who
    created those files (a concept Gregg's variant 14 introduces).  It
    doesn't matter if embedded in those files (e.g. embedded in a
    database) is a document.  All that matters is that 'sensory
    experience to be communicated to the user' in such files is clearly
    covered by WCAG2ICT, based on what it is when the user interacts
    with it.  If that 'sensory experience to be communicated to the
    user' is expressed solely in the software UI, it is covered by the
    software aspect of WCAG2ICT.  If instead that 'sensory experience to
    be communicated to the user' in such files is an embedded document
    that gets extracted from such a file, upon extraction it is a
    document and is covered by the document aspect of WCAG2ICT (it was
    also a document when it was inserted into that file).  Therefore I
    think the conditional is a mistake and we shouldn't have that in our
    text.

 3. Gregg's variant 14 further limits the examples of the first sentence
    based on "software creator intent", which adds a lot of ambiguity to
    the note (how do we discern that these files "are intended to only
    server as part of software"? - ask the author about this for each
    and every file that accompanies some software?).  I think this is a
    big mistake and we should avoid that approach.


I have just added variant #15 to the wiki page.  It starts with the 
"variant 7/8" first sentence, listing the set of example files without 
any conditionals or "software creator intent", and it includes 
databases.  I marry this in the second sentence with the Mike/Gregg 
latest variant that the "information and sensory experience to be 
communicated to the user" from such files, is just another part of the 
content that occurs in software and is covered by WCAG2ICT like any 
other parts of the software. Finally I add a new sentence of my own 
designed to directly address David's concerns: IN RARE CASES, THE 
RETRIEVED CONTENT IS AN EMBEDDED DOCUMENT, AND SHOULD THAT OCCUR, IT 
BECOMES A DOCUMENT ONCE EXTRACTED.

This new sentence not only covers the database case, but also the 
virtual machine hard drive file, etc.  It covers "user-generated" 
content as well as "software creator content" (and covers this no matter 
what the "intent" of the author of the content was).

Here is the fully proposal/variant #15:

    (New) Note 3: Software configuration and storage files such as
    databases and virus definitions, as well as computer instruction
    files such as source code, batch/script files, and firmware, are
    examples of files that function as part of software and thus are not
    examples of documents.  If and where software retrieves "information
    and sensory experience to be communicated to the user" from such
    files, is just another part of the content that occurs in software
    and is covered by WCAG2ICT like any other parts of the software.IN
    RARE CASES, THE RETRIEVED CONTENT IS AN EMBEDDED DOCUMENT, AND
    SHOULD THAT OCCUR, IT BECOMES A DOCUMENT ONCE EXTRACTED.


How does this work for everyone?  I would very much appreciate it if 
responders would do two things:

 1. Append any new variants you propose to the bottom of New Note 3 for
    definition of "document"
    <https://sites.google.com/site/wcag2ict/edits-for-michael-post-2nd-public-draft/new-note-for-definition-of-document>,
    noting who you are, what variant your new proposal is derived from,
    and how it is different.
 2. Offer in e-mail your critique of my proposal #15 (if you "can't live
    with it"), so I can understand why you reject it and what your
    counter-proposal is trying to achieve relative to what I proposed. 
    I hope I managed to do that in this e-mail...

Regards,


Peter

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