Re: UPDATED AGENDA and Survey - AGWG & Silver joint Meeting May 18th 2021

just came across a possible improvement wew did not pick up (until now?)

SC Understanding update: "What it about" Vs. "What is isn't about"
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/744

Op wo 19 mei 2021 om 11:45 schreef Léonie Watson <lwatson@tetralogical.com>:

> I think Jake and Patrick make good points, particularly about doing our
> best to make WCAG "clearer, more easily understandable, and not some
> exercise in reading between the lines".
>
> If there are known improvements that can be incorporated into 2.2, and
> given that there are 116 open pull requests, it's hard to imagine there
> are not, we really should be doing all we can to make 2.2 the best
> version of WCAG to date.
>
> It's also worth looking ahead to the time when 2.2 goes to the AC for
> endorsement. If there is not a good explanatory narrative, it may not
> play well.
>
>
> Léonie.
>
>
> On 19/05/2021 08:30, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> > On 19/05/2021 07:34, jake abma wrote:
> > [...]
> >> Personally I do not have the perfect answer, but it would be great to
> >> have a thorough discussion about the critical notes from the community.
> >> It might be that we can do more than only wait a couple of years till
> >> SIlver might be mature enough to use, *and IF Silver solves the
> >> critical notes!*
> >
> > Anecdotally, I've had conversations in the last year or so with
> > developers, including people who used to be more involved in WAI-IG
> > discussions and the discussions on github etc - and sadly, a lot of what
> > I hear is that people are frustrated by long-standing gaps in
> > documentation, lack of clarity in some of the non-normative
> > documentation that has been around since WCAG 2.0 days (2008!), lack of
> > *live* examples of some of the trickier asks of SCs, and just examples
> > that they can actually relate to common patterns and practices of modern
> > web development. And most of the time, they need answers/clarifications
> > *now*, not in some "we'll fix that in the next version, and if not, in
> > Silver".
> >
> > And this frustration, and the feeling of things not actually getting any
> > better, is only increased when they then see the backlog of issues/pull
> > requests that seem to be going nowhere. More than once I've suggested to
> > people that they should file an issue for a specific
> > suggestion/question, and they've just told me outright "what's the
> point?".
> >
> > And I won't lie, even I often ask myself the same question in my
> > occasional bursts of activity, filing issues/PRs ... knowing that
> > they'll end up with a lengthy flurry of back-and-forth discussion...and
> > then don't seem to go anywhere after that. Or that they spark page-long
> > soul-searching discussions on points that are surprisingly foundational
> > ("what IS color, really?" etc), which just underline how some of the
> > "fudges"/handwaving definitions of SCs that came from the 2.0 era (and
> > have just been rolled into 2.1, and soon 2.2, and then 2.3) may not
> > stand up to close scrutiny and poking after 13 years of developers
> > trying to grapple with them and trying to apply them to real-world
> > diverse content.
> >
> > But, probably to the annoyance of many people, I persevere - and yes,
> > often with fairly strong and stubborn opinions - because I want to make
> > sure that WCAG and its non-normative resources can become clearer, more
> > easily understandable, and not some exercise in reading between the
> > lines ("I think what the WG meant to say at the time is..."). And I try
> > (and sure, sometimes miss completely) to make the explanations/examples
> > in the non-normative explanatory documents make some kind of pragmatic
> > sense - because developers are more likely to follow advice/rules when
> > they can understand better *why* they should do it (and not just as a
> > box-ticking exercise of "well, you have to because that's the law").
> >
> >> For me it feels like the WCAG WG and all related sub-groups
> >> are exponentially growing (too ?!) fast and this might result in even
> >> more cluttered documentation and it is very hard to keep track on
> things.
> >
> > To this point, I'd add: I know the desire is to show progress by ...
> > creating more and more SCs. As a way to show that WCAG is "agile". But
> > the risk here is that we end up with a "quantity over quality" outcome.
> > And particularly when there's a desire to move quickly and push new
> > things out at speed, there's a danger that things are less than
> > polished, and more fudges/handwaves are done just to get an SC over the
> > line in time. The result is, just like after 2.1 was released, that edge
> > cases and unforeseen outcomes bubble up later on, when there's no chance
> > anymore to properly address them, because at that point focus is already
> > on the next batch of new SCs.
> >
> > That's not "agile". That is simply adding to "technical debt" of the
> > spec and its documentation.
> >
> >> Don't shoot the messenger ... :-) Love you all, and hope this
> >> positive critical note helps us steer into the good direction!
> >
> > While my abrasive style is probably harsher than Jake's, the motivation
> > behind it is the same. I *want* WCAG to be a good set of guidelines. I
> > *want* them to be understandable, and as comprehensive as can be. I
> > would love to be able to paper over/address many of the vagueness, gaps,
> > and overlaps that we found over the years (which become even more
> > obvious when you spend time trying to explain things to other
> > auditors/developers ... that's when you get those "but *why* is this not
> > covered? but what about *this* scenario?" questions, and you'd want to
> > have a logical and understandable answer that goes beyond "it is what it
> > is, it doesn't have to make sense, you just have to interpret it this
> > way and move on".
> >
> > P
>
> --
> Director @TetraLogical
> https://tetralogical.com
>
>