Re: clear & simple

CMcCN:: "W3C Technical Reports such as the Guidelines have to meet a 
certain standard as specifications, and that means they need to make 
certain things (like what is normative and what is informative) clear."

WL: Yes,   we need a normative document but IMO it needs to be almost 
hidden away.

The only argument about this is that Gregg, who originally proposed what I 
(albeit in somewhat "elitist" mode) called on to be hidden away: the 
"normative document" that Jason is working so hard on (as are we all), at 
the last telecon said that events had overtaken us - I think meaning that 
comments of the kind that complain about the arcane nature of arcane 
documents being off-putting required us to make the document itself 
simplisticer. I still don't believe that.

I think that the *NORMATIVE* (there!) version *must* be formal, etc. In the 
terms of an old programmer's badge "Good Programmers Don't Document - It 
Was Hard to Write, It Should Be Hard to Read!" Now for academicians and 
others familiar with the forms/norms and conventions of this sort of 
undertaking it is NOT hard to read - no more so than a logic diagram to 
logicians or the Xs and Os used by coaches/players, etc.

Further I think that this should be our central concern, particularly as we 
strive to achieve greater generality/abstraction.

The "popularization" of the content of the Content Guidelines might not 
even be within our scope (or abilities?).

I think I'm proposing that such efforts as my "Guideline Guide" properly 
reside elsewhere and that EOWG should have the deliverable of making the 
normative informative. Going any further than the Techniques document is 
IMO more than we should be doing. That piece is actually central to the 
issue of making the dark things clear and in fact won't need very much 
change as WCAG 2 emerges.

I may also be proposing that the Techniques (somewhat abstract) be parent 
to the Examples which are a growing collection of actual code samples, etc. 
- a section for any technology that might be being used by designers/authors.

The Guidelines should have our attention The Techniques and Examples need 
our participation as well. I am not at all convinced that we should even 
address style/context of their presentation so long as we follow our own 
sanction to write them as clearly as the Techniques document has been written.

Full Stop!

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Thursday, 14 September 2000 10:01:34 UTC