Doug,
did you intend a personal reply to be copied to www-archive?
do you deny that you told me on irc, iirc, that I would not be welcome
at Cannes, and that the SVGWG would not have time to discuss issues I
might wish to raise.
regards
Jonathan Chetwynd
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.openicon.org/
+44 (0) 20 7978 1764
On 20 Jul 2008, at 19:59, Doug Schepers wrote:
Hi, Jonathan-
(This is a personal reply, not an official W3C comment.)
Jonathan Chetwynd wrote (on 7/18/08 6:53 AM):
**Members of working groups are interpreting the current charters
to prevent discussion of whether their charter is actually meeting
the needs of end-users. I have personal experience of this in
respect
of public lists and or phone conferences for WAI, SVG and CSS groups
Nobody on the SVG WG said or did any such thing, and you know it. I
read every email on that list, and I take into account even non-
technical feedback that might somehow require a change to our
specifications, and the SVG WG is very receptive to the needs of
users and authors. I myself spend quite a lot of time thinking
about how graphics can be made more accessible, building examples
and test cases, and working with other groups inside and outside W3C
to work toward that goal. I would probably spend even more time if
I had it.
So, I think you owe the SVG WG a retraction and an apology for your
slander.
In fact, I tried to engage you, Jonathan, to contribute in a
collaborative and productive way in the SVG Interest Group, but you
said you didn't have the time. I went through considerable effort
to create an IG to do exactly what you're asking: engage users and
authors who have different backgrounds (designers, non-English-
speakers, people with accessibility needs) at a social and semi-
technical level, to drive use cases for our specs. The first thing
you did upon joining was to malign and complain about the IG, in
emails to the public lists and me privately, and on the IG wiki...
before we'd even got a chance to get started. This kind of
counterproductive and negative attitude calls into question your
willingness to work with others (which is critical in a large
organization) to make the needed change, rather than just standing
on the sidelines complaining.
Finally, you told me you don't have time to participate; your reason
(getting involved in a new activity) is understandable... but it
seems to have made you no more sympathetic to the fact that all of
us are busy, too.
I find it amusing that you complain that WG participants are not
engaging in accessibility, and cry foul at being told not to post on
a certain subject, in light of you telling me to "consider not
replying to emails that contain the keyword 'accessibility'". [1]
I suspect that you would find a more receptive audience to your use
cases and requirements, and to your claimed constituency, if you
were to try a less divisive and more cooperative approach. I
suggest you watch this video that discusses "poisonous people" [2],
and reflect how this might affect how you engage in a dialog on W3C
lists.
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-svg/2004Oct/0021.html
[2] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
Regards-
-Doug
