GL13 revision

We discussed and agreed at Seattle, and I took an action item, to rework 
the statement of SpecGL's GL13 [1] (and its verbiage).  Current GL13:

Guideline 13. Support general document conformance conventions.
  Checkpoint 13.1. Use conformance key words.   [Priority 1]
  Checkpoint 13.2. Distinguish normative and informative text.   [Priority 1]
  Checkpoint 13.3. Use consistent terminology.    [Priority 1]
  Checkpoint 13.4. Provide a fast way to find conformance 
information   [Priority 2]

Proposed revision, along the lines of proposed rewording of the GL itself 
that we agreed at Seattle:

### begin draft ###
Guideline 13.  Clearly identify conformance requirements.

The checkpoints of this guideline aim to ensure that normative content and 
conformance requirements are easily identifiable in specifications.  It is 
important that specifications provide unambiguous statements, that clearly 
define what is required in order to claim conformance and what is 
optional.  It is important also that the conformance statements are easily 
identifiable as such, and easily locatable.  Clarity is fostered by 
uniformity of structure and style, and consistency of terminology and 
phraseology.

Authors and editors of specifications should already be familiar with the 
W3C Manual of Style [STYLE-MAN] and Publication Rules (member-only) 
[PUBRULES  ], which help to achieve clarity and uniformity.  This guideline 
builds on those general document conventions, with a particular focus on 
the presentation and identification of conformance information.

(...The same 4 checkpoints follow...)

[LH Note.  I'm not completely satisfied with "conformance requirements" in 
the statement of the GL13, but we can word-smith it later.  In Seattle 
draft minutes, we said "conformance criteria", but I'm not wild about that 
either.  "Conformance information"?]
### end ###

-Lofton.

[1] http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/2002/12/qaframe-spec-20021220#b2ab3d435

Received on Sunday, 12 January 2003 13:07:57 UTC