Process quibble Re: Joint meeting ... on ... aria issues

Hi Rich,

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:26:00 +0200, Richard Schwerdtfeger  
<schwer@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> If it were publicly available (HTML, XHTML, SVG) we could potentially  
> have 100 people on the call. As it was it was a challenge to minute
> this. I do not want to manage a call of that size and we need to get
> things moving forward.

While I appreaciate the issue if 100 people *do* turn up, I think that it  
is counter to the agreement under which the public groups work to set up a  
private meeting with your chosen set of participants.

There is a precedent for each group selecting people to represent it (e.g.  
Forms task force) which is much more in line with W3C process. It can take  
a little longer to set up, but it should resolve problems like half a  
group feeling they are unrepresented and then having to decide whether  
there is some material impact (apart from a round of emails from "Outraged  
of Oslo" and "Misrepresented of Mississippi" pointing out that they  
*could* have been unrepresented).

Perhaps it is a better idea to get the groups to formally appoint a task  
force where relevant. It certainly reduces the opportunities to accuse you  
of doing it with some bias or other.

> The people involved were leaders trying to adopt aria in html,
> svg, and xhtml.

The people chosen were *some of* the leaders in adopting ARIA, I think.  
Possibly a very representative sample, even. But there is a difference.

> I felt it would be more productive to get the leaders to agree on some
> proposals and then take them back to their respective groups for
> discussion. I have posted the minutes on the xhtml 2, html, and pf lists.

When working outside W3C process like this, I am very glad that you took  
minutes and posted them to the relevant groups. That's vastly superior to  
just editing a spec in such a way that the group does not know where the  
change came from or why.

So thank you for doing that.

cheers

Chaals (aka "Get 2 cents in of Getafe")

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals              Try the Kestrel - Opera 9.5 alpha

Received on Wednesday, 17 October 2007 17:55:39 UTC