Re: in lieu of umbrella technical summary

Al, 

I still think we need an umbrella message to the list, to provide context
for the discussion-starters.  It could very simply be an un-linked version
of the HC guide page, which maps the different issues which have been under
consideration.  Not everyone is going to go to the web site when they get
their mail, and those who don't may be puzzling on how the whole thing fits
together.  After the amount of very good work that the HC team has done,
I'd prefer to deliver it directly into people's hands.  

My one concern with the guide page is what happens when one follows the
link to WAI/group/HC, where the first two links are to confidential
consortium pages (HTML, and CSS, and BTW the HTML 4.0 link is broken right
now.)  For IG members who are not W3C members, this may cause frustration
and questions about blocked access; for IG members who happen to also be
W3C members and can therefore get directly to these sites, it may appear as
though the IPO/WAI is breaking a cardinal rule of member access,
particularly to those who've stored their passwords so they're not
re-prompted if they move in and out of the links.      

This is a sensitive area of coordination between IPO/WAI and the other W3C
activities.  Perhaps the best way to fix it would be to just remove the
reference to the source materials on that page.  I looked through the other
links and did not find other internal links.  I'm also assuming that the HC
archives which are now public access do not have confidential material in
them; let me know if you think otherwise.

I'll give a separate reply to this message with my draft "preamble."

Thank you to all on the HC team for the hard work; I expect the
discussion-starter pieces in particular will be very helpful as IG members
start to look over the materials.

Regards,

Judy
 
At 09:59 PM 10/15/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Judy,
>
>To keep the Interest Group from being inundated with messages,
>why don't you just include the following fragment in your
>introduction on process?  Then we can fire off the four surviving
>discussion-starters and we are on our way.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>You will shortly be receiving messages setting the stage for
>discussion in four areas where we have questions and know that
>the conclusions reached by the HC group should be reviewed.
>These have symbolic names to help keep the discussion threads
>straight.
>
>These areas are:
>
>OPTION    Making SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs comprehensible
>
>TABLE     Making TABLEs comprehensible
>
>DESC      Text associated with images
>
>REF       Associating HTML contents with external documents
>          (and similar LINK and META extensions)
>
>There are background readings for all the HC group's recommendations 
>indexed in the web page with URL
>
>  http://www.w3.org/WAI/group/HC/guide.html
>
>In addition to the four major areas listed above, this guide
>contains a summary of the conclusions on a few other issues where
>the results are less likely to stimulate discussion.  Feel free
>to discuss any issue you feel needs to be clarified.  We are
>priming the pump only in the above four areas.
>
>Issues written up in the guide but not represented in the four
>topic areas above are:
>
>     Preserving the logical reading order of text
>     Images used as list bullets
>     Range of MEDIA values
>     Controlling dynamic features
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>-- Al
>
-------------------------------------------------------
Judy Brewer   jbrewer@w3.org     617-258-9741
Director, International Program Office
Web Accessibility Initiative, World Wide Web Consortium
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355
545 Technology Square, Cambridge MA 02138 USA

Received on Thursday, 16 October 1997 01:49:37 UTC