editors - "versions" in the WG drafts

Hi all,

I noticed today that we did not update the "WG draft" links (redirects,
in fact) since the may bunch. My bad, certainly, since I've been in 
charge of updating the redirects.

I think it's a pity because we didn't update these more often that the
ones published in the TR (technical reports) space, even though there
have been a lot of itermediary versions in QA/WG/2002/XX/. 

We're not hiding the WG work (e.g, the URIs for WG drafts are visible in
the publicly archived WG list), but we're not disclosing it well. What's
the interest of having WG drafts if (according to our commitment to work
in public) we're not giving the "public" (ie the IG) ways to react and
contribute in "real time"?

An example of that is that the WG page shows no WG draft for test GL,
whereas there have been a few WG drafts already.

Another concern I have is about the "versions" headers in the WG drafts.
We have a lot of dated drafts, but for most of them the "versions"
headers are wrong (most of the time the dated draft claims to be the may
draft...). Worse, I think, the 20020826 WG draft of the spec GL claims
that the previous version is the may one. I think this is very bad!

Don't misintepret my words, I'm not saying the editors are doing a
bad job, I'm just thinking the importance of this headers is being
overlooked : WG drafts, all of them, have a *major* importance to track
the WG's work history, as much as the mail archives, if not more.

Hence this proposal for action(s):

- immediate action : fix all drafts between may and august, add/fix
  "this version" and "previous version" on all of them. I volunteer to
  do it if editors are happy with it, or you can take care of it by
  yourself if you prefer/don't want me to mess with your drafts.
  Editors, please answer "go ahead" "no I'll do it", or "I disagree with
  the whole idea" (and let's discuss it...).

- long-term rule : be sure to have those headers properly set for all WG
  drafts, and be sure to update the redirections (/QA/WG/.htaccess) when
  a new draft is done, and the table (/QA/WG/#docs) when it's a first
  draft. You can always contact me if you don't know how to do it or
  prefer not to do it yourself.

Regards,
-- 
Olivier Thereaux - W3C
http://www.w3.org/People/olivier | http://yoda.zoy.org

Received on Sunday, 25 August 2002 21:23:02 UTC