Re: Updating our /TR stylesheets

Separation between style and content--which incidentally is how I heard
about Web standards even before I had published (or should I say authored?)
my first Web page--should let us change styles without affecting any of the
legal requirements we have or what am I missing? Frankly, if, as a
standards boy, we write technology for separation of content and style,
promote it as a best practice, then not apply it to the documents we
publish, I find we just loose credibility.

If there are rules in place that make it impossible to change the style of
already published documents (which seems bizarre, I've never heard someone
claiming a Comic Sans version of the constitution diverges from the
original text), can we just freeze pre 2015 specs, then change those rules
and shift to a continuously deployed solution for new specs?

I mean, I applaud trying to find creative solutions to this problem that
has been going on for years, but this feels about the same as
administration's website that aren't available outside of office hours
(yes, this exists).

That said, any solution is better than the current status quo, so if that's
the only way through, let's continue looking outdated but at least, let's
move forward.

With mixed feelings,

--tobie

On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 2:53 PM, Philippe Le Hegaret <plh@w3.org> wrote:

> I'd like to find a path for W3C to update our /TR style sheets and since
> we weren't able to do it so far, here is a radical change on how to do so.
>
> First, since it's too complex to change documents that have been published
> in the past, we must not try to do it. It has the simplification that we're
> breaking the consistency of style between all W3C documents but it allows
> us more forward.
>
> Second, we shouldn't assume we need one new style and be done. Instead,
> I'd like to enable ourselves to have progressive enhancements over the
> years. It will also avoid having everyone trying to squeeze their own ideas
> between of a once-in-a-lifetime chance to change the styles. To make it
> easier on the tooling, we also need something predictable. So, I'd like to
> propose that we allow ourselves to update the /TR style sheets once per
> year, on January 1. All documents published in that year would  have to use
> the style, ensuring some consistency. Note that it doesn't imply we have to
> change the style every year, but it gives us an opportunity if we want to.
>
> I added a set of guidelines and an hopefully simple process to do it:
>   https://github.com/w3c/tr-design/blob/gh-pages/README.md
>
> Feedback is welcome.
>
> Philippe
>
>
>