Re: Revised text of guidelines in response to action item

Thanking William for his valuable comments, here is a brief explanation of
what I have attempted to achieve in this draft:

1. I have followed Gregg's suggestion to include the explanations and
elaborations in the text of the guidelines. Gregg has argued that this
will make the document easier to understand and interpret.

2. I have qualified most of the requirements with explanations and
exceptions. This is supposed to address the concern, often expressed in
meetings, that guidelines need to specify precisely which kinds of
solutions do, and do not, count as satisfying the requirements.

3. I have eliminated unnecessary terminology which is liable to generate
confusion.

4. I have eliminated some of the technical assumptions which underpinned
earlier drafts (e.g. that all web content is accompanied by
author-specified presentations), and which were shown to be erroneous in
meeting discussions.

There are still technical concerns which haven't been addressed and, as
William pointed out, there are explanations and definitions which should
be added (we need to agree upon a document structure: where the
explanations, qualifications and definitions should reside in relation to
the guidelines, how the technology-specific checklists should be
arranged). Finally, the non-technical overview needs to be integrated as
well.

As always, any comments, proposals, alternatives, suggestions etc., are
most welcome as we try to reach agreement on the substantive issues before
us.

Received on Monday, 11 September 2000 21:32:30 UTC