Re: charter update with two year cycle

David,

I completely agree....:-)

Katie Haritos-Shea
703-371-5545

On Oct 8, 2016 7:36 PM, "David MacDonald" <david100@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> >we aren't "committing" to anything beyond the deliverables in the draft
> charter
>
> I believe the word "commitment" is your word from the TPAC face to face as
> you presented it to the group and privately. You wanted the group to be
> "committed" and held accountable to do this, that is how you explained it
> to us.
>
> >The 2-year cycle language is there to express *INTENT*
>
> I don't think the current model should be automatically given the "INTENT"
> to do something it wasn't INTENDED to do. The WCAG 2 model (Principles,
> Guidelines, Success Criteria, & Techniques) was never intended to be on a 2
> year cycle. It was created to *overcome* the need for a 2 year cycle to
> stay relevant. It was created to provide stable testable criteria without
> being limited by the technical changes that come and go every year. The two
> year cycle model is very old fashioned... it's WCAG 1. I'm not saying
> Silver won't figure this out balance of "relevance" and "stability" in a
> new and better way than WCAG 2, but a two year cycle is not the WCAG 2
> model.
>
> Now if you mean...  "we won't be done creating SCs from our current gap
> analysis during the charter period but we're going to ship WCAG 2.1 anyway,
> and then ship again when we get it done." Then let's say that in the
> Charter. That's not a 2 year cycle, that's a late delivery with an interim
> stop gap release, which is a different thing.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> David MacDonald
>
>
>
> *Can**Adapt* *Solutions Inc.*
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> On Sat, Oct 8, 2016 at 12:42 PM, John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ​​Gregg wrote:
>>
>> > Neither
>> ​>​
>> ​> We are not regulators and don’t create regulations.
>> ​> ​
>> What we are creating are not technical standards.
>> ​>​
>> ​> We are working on voluntary GUIDELINES - that may be adopted by
>> regulations - or not.    In fact they may be used in many different ways.
>>
>> Thanks Gregg, that's exactly the point: we are working on *voluntary*
>> Guidelines, and this working group needs to keep doing that. At some point,
>> regulators, commercial companies, even governmental organizations, will
>> take up and use our Guidelines, either because they are mandated to do so,
>> or because they choose to do so because they are smart (<grin>): They
>> recognize all of the benefits we've been telling them they get when they
>> apply our guidelines to their content. Yes, that includes ensuring content
>> is accessible to PwD, but they also get the SEO benefits, and the increased
>> ROI that inclusive design brings, and all the other "Fireman" reasons we
>> bring to the table (and not just the "Cop" ones...)
>>
>> Which then begs the question: do we wait until we've processed *all* the
>> new proposed SC in one big batch, or do we release them piece-meal as they
>> are ready, so that those new *voluntary* (standardized) Guidelines can be
>> voluntarily taken up with a high level of assurance by those entities that
>> *want* to do so?
>>
>> Clearly, it is obvious that is how *I* feel, and (I believe) many others
>> do as well: ship what's ready against a well known public schedule, and
>> keep working on the rest. By establishing a cadence of regular updates
>> every 2 years, we establish a pattern that stakeholders can work with,
>> around, or ignore, as they choose: but we keep shipping them every 2 years
>> as they are "ready" - in batches, and on schedule.
>>
>> Meanwhile, David wrote:
>>
>> > it seems that in the case of committing to a 2 year cycle in the
>> Charter,
>>
>> David, I think right there, I've identified a possible communication
>> issue: we aren't "committing" to anything beyond the deliverables in the
>> draft charter (https://www.w3.org/2016/09/draft-wcag-charter#normative
>> ) which covers a 2 or 3 year timespan. Specifically, we would be
>> committing to:
>>
>>    1. Releasing WCAG 2.1 (and in this Charter's timeline *ONLY* 2.1 -
>>    work on 2.2 would be a normative deliverable in the subsequent Charter)
>>    2. Accessibility Conformance Testing Framework 1.0
>>    3. FPWD of "Silver" (this is still a TBD, but I believe we should get
>>    this into the Draft as well)
>>
>> That's it, nothing more.
>>
>> The 2-year cycle language is there to express *INTENT*, because we know
>> that this effort (whether completing Silver, or continuing to add SC that
>> are coming from the TFs now, and from other groups in the future) will take
>> more than the timeframe of the current charter (2 or 3 years). It's part of
>> our plan and thinking for *AFTER* this Charter we are working on now
>> lapses; we're saying that we recognize that accessibility guidance will
>> continue to evolve, as our industry and technologies do, and that we plan
>> on avoiding getting into the kind of "trap" we are in now, with a dated (if
>> still robust) Guideline that has huge gaps to fill today, and also dealing
>> with a significant backlog. Providing this kind of "Vision Statement" was
>> recommended to some of us at the TPAC meetings, and providing that kind of
>> Vision Statement in no way locks us into that pattern, but it does
>> recognize we need to operate differently, more adroitly (agile?), and that
>> we will, as a perennial Working Group, continue to provide this type of
>> Guidance both short and long-term.
>>
>> I think that point is critical as well: The traditional W3C Working Group
>> process sees most WG's produce a spec while in Charter, and then the WG
>> "disappears". We've seen that with the HTML5 WG (it is gone, morphed into
>> the Web Apps WG), and closer to home the UAAG WG and ATAG WG have also been
>> wrapped up. But we don't see that happening (God forbid) to this WG, so it
>> is helpful to signal to the larger W3C our intent.
>>
>> Finally, Bruce wrote:
>>
>> > I  think a two year cycles is very challenged to find a sweet spot.
>> Imagine 2.2 comes out has 20+ new SC.  Or imagine 2.2 comes out and has
>> exactly one new SC, because we are committed to being boxed by the calendar
>> -- since that is part of agile.  Either way, I think people's reaction will
>> be like, "Thanks, I will wait for 3.0."
>>
>> Two thoughts: first, given the complexity of producing robust new Success
>> Criteria (and all the other attendant requirements around that, like
>> Understanding documents, and Techniques) I personally don't think we'll
>> ever get to batches of 20 per release (but maybe I'm wrong - we don't know
>> yet), but even if we are down to batches of 5 or 6, why is that a problem?
>> And if, down the road, we do arrive at a point where we're only releasing
>> one new SC at a cycle, either we're an awesome group that have covered
>> everything in a very short timeframe, or technology has decided to stop -
>> Moore's Law has burned out. (I don't really expect either of those
>> scenarios myself however).
>>
>> Meanwhile,  if a company or org *voluntarily* decides to wait for 3.0,
>> then... wait for 3.0.
>>
>> However, others may in fact choose to voluntarily take up the new SC in a
>> 2.1, or a 2.2, and even for those organizations who will wait to mandate a
>> 3.0 until it is ready, the newly minted dot-X SC could always be taken up
>> as "Best Practices" - in fact I suspect that this will likely be the
>> majority position for many organizations in the early days, especially
>> immediately after the release of 2.1. That's not necessarily a bad thing
>> BTW, but again, those orgs would be working with 'standardized' and
>> 'vetted' requirements that will "someday" be the actual requirements in
>> their world, so perhaps they (the organizations contemplating what to do)
>> will "future-proof" themselves by voluntarily taking up the new SC now. I
>> can't see any downside here.
>>
>> > I would like to let the group know that my management has quelled my
>> personal anxiety about the charter mentioning 2.1.
>> >
>> > So no, talking about WCAG 2.1 does not have any potential to disrupt
>> the Section 508 process.
>>
>> I'm very glad to hear this, and I hope you aren't "Freaking Out" any
>> longer. My offer of good scotch however remains, and I hope we can follow
>> through on that in the near future.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> JF
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 7, 2016 at 3:14 PM, Gregg Vanderheiden <
>> gregg@raisingthefloor.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 7, 2016, at 3:55 PM, John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Which raises a fundamental question: is this group working on a
>>> regulatory standard or a technical standard?
>>>
>>>
>>> Neither
>>>
>>> We are not regulators and don’t create regulations.
>>> What we are creating are not technical standards.
>>>
>>> We are working on voluntary GUIDELINES - that may be adopted by
>>> regulations - or not.    In fact they may be used in many different ways.
>>>
>>> G
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Foliot
>> Principal Accessibility Strategist
>> Deque Systems Inc.
>> john.foliot@deque.com
>>
>> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>>
>
>