Re: WCAG 1.0 - Errata Update Needed...

Summary: Sidar would like to see errata discussed and incorporated into 
a second edition, but feel that many issues which require discussion 
are properly dealt with either in the work on techniques, or in the 
development of version 2.0 of WCAG.

More detailed response...

There seem to be three issues in play.

One is incorporating errata - "mistakes in WCAG 1 that can be readily 
cleared up without changing the meaning of the document" might be a 
working definition.

A new example might be clarifying what is meant by "relative units" in 
checkpoint 3.4, since the CSS specification describes px as a relative 
unit, although the clear intention of the WCAG checkpoint is to refer 
to units relative to the base size definition of the user. Some more 
examples are in the current list of errata: 
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WAI-WEBCONTENT-ERRATA of course.

As Judy pointed out, the process for dealing with these things has been 
recently revised, and it is now realistic to rapidly incorporate them 
into a second edition.

 From Sidar's perspective, this would be extremely helpful - in 
particular as a motivation to update the translations of WCAG being 
used in Spain and South America, and course material that we currently 
produce - and we feel that it should be possible without distracting 
the working group too much from the major task of developing WCAG 2.0.

The second part is in making clarifications, as discussed by Kynn. The 
"until user agents" checkpoints are one example, but there are other 
areas such as what kind of metadata is actually required by checkpoint 
13.2. This is more complex.

There may be areas that can be readily resolved by the group, and 
incorporated into a second edition, as clarifications. There is one 
example in the current errata document. There are probably other ares 
better clarified by providing techniques - and we would ike to see more 
frequent republication of the techniques note.

The third area is contentious "errors" - ones where there is currently 
significant discussion required, or disagreement. Correcting these 
takes some substantial work, and we feel it is appropriate that this 
work is part of the development process leading to WCAG 2.

Finally, we agree that a second edition is not going to be made 
redundant by working on WCAG 2.0 in any reasonable time frame - the 
investment in and implementation of WCAG 1.0, and the time required to 
move to a new standard, particularly for languages other than english, 
where translation of documents and tools is likely to slow down the 
adoption even further. In the meantime, the fact that errata are known 
but not incorporated in a revised edition is already a problem, because 
many people do not read the errata.

Cheers

Chaals McCN


On Friday, Nov 28, 2003, at 18:17 Australia/Melbourne, Kynn Bartlett 
wrote:

>
>
> On Thursday, November 27, 2003, at 09:57 PM, Judy Brewer wrote:
>> You seem to be asking a different question than Alistair, about an 
>> amendment to WCAG 1.0 itself, using the documented errata, and 
>> possibly also using some draft WCAG 2.0 provisions. Since the W3C 
>> Process for incorporating errata has recently been changed, it should 
>> probably be looked at anew with regard to some of the documented 
>> errata in WCAG 1.0.
>
> I would suggest "WCAG 1.0, Second Edition" as per a number of updated
> W3C specs (XHTML, XML, etc) that use such terminology.
[snip]
> As Joe Clark pointed out, this is what I proposed in May:
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2003AprJun/0218.html
>
>> "Erratum" seems a bad choice for an update which was planned from the
>> start -- the phrasing "Until user agents handle empty controls
>> correctly ..."
>> indicates that this is not a mistake per se, but a simple update.
[snip]
> This is the approach which I feel would have the greatest benefits to
> the working group, the Web developers, and the general public.
>
> WCAG 1.0 is with us now, and is being used -- likely in an "unpatched"
> mode by developers, most of whom NEVER look at the errata -- and will
> continue to be used as WCAG 2.0 work proceeds.
[snip]

--
Charles McCathieNevile                          Fundación Sidar
charles@sidar.org                                http://www.sidar.org

Received on Thursday, 4 December 2003 02:24:19 UTC