Re: CSS or bust???

Thanks Eliot!

Yes, your concerns are right on the mark, and in the Community Development
Task Force meeting today, we considered exactly the same questions. We
resolved to provide a clearer definition of our beta criteria, which Doug
and Julee began working on. We considered where our resources are currently
allocated, we considered new ways to work with and guide our current
resources, and we considered avenues for recruiting new resources.

These are in the meeting notes that I'll send around here in a bit.

This is it in a nutshell: beta is a progress report and a call to action
for more support. To show progress, we're keen to demonstrate content that
is complete and ready to use (CSS properties and HTML5 APIs), we'll have
established a content architecture, and we'll describe all of the great
work that our dedicated volunteers and stewards have performed over the
past (now six) months. To call for more support, we'll define "gold
standards" for content that is not yet complete and have more cogent
processes for contributing (including more interaction with content
leaders); we'll also have clearer, more actionable flags and a UI that more
successfully guides people to contribute.

So, while alpha was an exploratory phase of WPD, with very little defined
in terms of resources, processess, and tools - let alone content and
content architecture, beta is the proof of concept and the point where we
announce that we are ready to scale our efforts to the wider community.

Such was my interpretation, but I shall defer to my colleagues. Doug,
Julee, et al.: have I got this right?

~Scott



On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Eliot Graff <Eliot.Graff@microsoft.com>wrote:

> Hi All.
>
> [[Before I ask these questions, I want to say that I am as guilty of
> contributing to this as anyone, having recently introduced the 400+
> JavaScript pages in to the mix.]]
>
> Are we really placing our energies in the right places? Are we working on
> the right things? Or are we losing focus?
>
> I thoroughly understand that there are a _many_ important and wonderful
> aspects of WPD that we could be creating, enhancing, and building, but I
> think we may be drifting from our original decisions (and if not, this will
> serve as a verification of our course of action). I was under the
> impression that we determined that we would identify and work on one
> section of WPD at a time to get that area up to what we considered "beta
> content", and that we were going to do that starting with the CSS
> properties. We're not anywhere near complete on those, are we? If we are, I
> apologize, and carry on. But I look at the CSS Properties spreadsheet [1]
> and I see a ton of work left to go. Yet, over the past couple of weeks, we
> are all (myself included) very eager to start work on JavaScript reference,
> Beginner's Guide, DOM, and other large projects (I'm sorry to pick on these
> in particular).
>
> My call to this community is this: We should validate that our priorities
> are sound (from time to time) and strive to stay focused on our highest
> priority items prior to embarking on new work. In short, we need to hold
> ourselves accountable to our goals. Certainly, this is true while our
> community is still small but growing. Maybe later, when we're a robust and
> enormous group, we can have the luxury of being less strident.
>
> Can we reiterate (in mail or during upcoming telcons) what our priorities
> are currently, and make sure that we're staffed to accomplish them in a
> timely manner?
>
> I welcome discussion about this. My main goal is to help us get to beta as
> soon as possible under our chosen criteria.
>
> Most sincerely,
>
> Eliot
>
> [1]
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkRs-89PKiZpdE0xdm9Sb1ZvRW1ZRzMtWEdyU0Z4OEE#gid=14
>
>
>