Re: Discussion: Accessibility Issues Procedure

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> 
> On Jul 25, 2009, at 9:36 AM, William Loughborough wrote:
> 
>> Here's a "concrete proposal". It is terse and clear. It describes what 
>> is required to use it and its purpose. It has the further advantage 
>> that it is already in place and does not need any rewriting or even 
>> further discussion. It is purposely designed to provide a means 
>> through which a table is described (via text) for those users for whom 
>> the possibility of depiction (via graphics) is meaningless.
>>
>> summary = text [CS]
>> This attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and structure 
>> for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and Braille.
> 
> That is a reasonable technical position. In fact, I agree that the spec 
> should describe what summary is for better than it currently does.
> 
> However, I also think the spec should continue to describe the alternate 
> ways of describing a table that it currently does, and should recommend 
> describing tables in media-independent markup whenever that is practical 
> and sensible.
> 
> All told, I think there's not a whole lot of distance between our 
> positions on this particular technical issue.

Let me enumerate a few possible ways forward.

Option #1 is that an editor steps forward and fills in the missing 
details incorporates them into a draft and submits that draft for 
consideration by the working group.  That editor could be Ian, but to 
date he has given every indication that the above text is not something 
he would be willing to put into his draft, for whatever reason.  It 
could also be any other person in the working group.

Option #2 is for somebody to fill in the missing details (an example can 
be found at: [1]), and then some editor incorporates them into a draft 
and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Option #3 is for somebody to create text for a straw poll or vote, then 
we hold a poll/vote, and then find somebody who, based on the results of 
the poll/vote, is willing to fill in the missing details and incorporate 
them into a draft and submit the result for consideration by the Working 
Group.

Option #4 is to toss out some general and somewhat vague ideas of what a 
straw poll might look like and hope that somebody else continues with #3.

Option #5 is to accept what currently is in Ian's draft.

As for me, I am not going to step forward to be an editor.  I am not 
going to be the one to fill in the missing details on this issue.  I am 
not the one who is going to create the text for a straw poll or a vote. 
  I think we have plenty enough general and somewhat vague ideas on what 
a straw poll might look like that I feel no compelling need to add to 
this.  So, yes, if in this entire (and very open) workgroup, there is 
NO-ONE who is willing to drive this task to completion, I am quite 
willing to go with option #5.  Which would be a bit of a shame, as I 
sense that my thoughts are not all that far apart from Maciej's, but if 
ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE is willing to step forward, I'm willing to live with 
the description of summary in Ian's draft.

> Regards,
> Maciej

- Sam Ruby

P.S.  Shelley has since withdrawn the proposal below, but that doesn't 
mean that somebody else couldn't use it as either an inspiration or a 
starting point for their own proposal.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jul/0677.html

Received on Sunday, 26 July 2009 01:37:17 UTC