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Subject: RE: [dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help Technologies Guide


Title: RE: [dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help Technologies Guide

Thanks Stan for your message and the good conversation in the call today. I want to emphasize that I don't doubt the good faith and good intentions of everyone who has been involved in this project. I also apologize for not paying more attention to this project earlier on, so that I could have raised concerns then.

I will work to try to find a constructive compromise that will be good for the DITA community and acceptable to OASIS and JustSystems.

Best regards,
Su-Laine


Su-Laine Yeo
Interaction Design Specialist
JustSystems Canada, Inc.
Office: 778-327-6356
syeo@justsystems.com
www.justsystems.com




-----Original Message-----
From: stan@modularwriting.com [mailto:stan@modularwriting.com]
Sent: Tue 3/10/2009 6:41 AM
To: Su-Laine Yeo; stan@modularwriting.com; dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org; sdoherty@verivue.com; Tony Self
Subject: RE: [dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help Technologies Guide

 Hi Su-Laine --

In terms of what is or is not appropriate procedurally for DITA Technical
Committee approval of a DITA Subcommittee (SC) document, I defer entirely
to the TC Chair, the TC, and OASIS.

In terms of this proposed subcommittee publication and others in the
pipeline (preceding and following), I can provide some context ... at
least from my perspective. :-)

Subcommittees should seek approval from their parent TC(s) before they
publish documents for at least three reasons:

1. Sanity check -- Does this proposed publication conform to the goals of
the
subcommittee? Is it appropriate?
2. Sanity check -- Does the proposed publication offer value to the
target
community? In this case our audience consists of  Help authors who use
DITA as their source.
3. Endorsement -- Does the proposed publication reflect positively on the
overall mission of the TC? Would members of the TC promote this
publication in their respective organizations?

The DITA Help SC has updated the TC on its proposed DITA 1.2 and DITA 1.3
goals and activities numerous times:
- DITA 1.2:
> Get organized
> Survey the state of DITA-authored Help
> Educate DITA users about existing solutions (this publication)
- DITA 1.3:
> Continue to educate folks about existing solutions
> Identify and develop specializations and custom processing
that would advance the feature set and usability of
DITA-authored Help.

Before your email last evening, all the feedback that I have received has
been supportive of the content in the DITA Help Technologies Guide and of
approving it at our TC meeting today. There are a couple of nice-to-have
production edits and nice-to-do build improvements (notably DITA 1.2 and
DITA-OT1.5 M11), but otherwise what is before the TC represents the best
effort of the Help Subcommittee. I continue to recommend that we discuss
and approve it today.

Thanx,
Stan

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Su-Laine Yeo"
  To: stan@modularwriting.com, dita@lists.oasis-open.org
  Cc: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org, sdoherty@verivue.com, "Tony Self"
  Subject: RE: [dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help
  Technologies Guide
  Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 18:07:57 -0700


  I should rephrase my earlier comment: I can see this type of document
  as
  being valuable, but I am unconvinced that an OASIS committee should
  publish this kind of document. I've read the DHSC Statement of
  Purpose
  here:
  http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita-help
  and
  I don't see how this draft guide fits.

  Su-Laine


  Su-Laine Yeo
  Interaction Design Specialist
  JustSystems Canada, Inc.
  Office: 778-327-6356
  syeo@justsystems.com
  www.justsystems.com



  -----Original Message-----
  From: Su-Laine Yeo [mailto:su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com]
  Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 3:09 PM
  To: stan@modularwriting.com; dita@lists.oasis-open.org
  Cc: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org; sdoherty@verivue.com; Tony Self
  Subject: RE: [dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help
  Technologies
  Guide

  Thanks Stan. I can see this type of document as being valuable, and I
  am
  glad the Help Subcommitee took the initiative.

  However, I question the value of having the DITA TC give their
  approval
  of this document. What is "approval" by the TC intended to convey to
  the public who reads the document? The TC members are not necessarily
  experts in the technologies described in this guide. Much of the
  factual
  information in the draft guide is impossible for individual DITA TC
  members to test and verify for themselves in a reasonable timeframe,
  as
  verification would depend on extensive experience with a very wide
  range
  of technologies, some of which are expensive and some of which have
  not
  yet been released. The guide also contains predictions along the
  lines
  of, "Such and such a group will be using technology x in the future",
  which we obviously also cannot verify.

  Another thing that "approval" could mean is that the TC considers the
  opinions expressed in the document, and the amount of emphasis given
  to
  various products, to be free of bias towards particular vendors. I am
  not at all convinced that this is true; the fact that some
  product-specific sections are written by people who work for the
  product
  vendor would indicate otherwise.

  It's great that you've given the TC the opportunity to review this
  document, however the word "approval" is problematic for me.

  Best regards,
  Su-Laine


  Su-Laine Yeo
  Interaction Design Specialist
  JustSystems Canada, Inc.
  Office: 778-327-6356
  syeo@justsystems.com
  www.justsystems.com




  -----Original Message-----
  From: stan@modularwriting.com [mailto:stan@modularwriting.com]
  Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 10:43 AM
  To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
  Cc: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org; sdoherty@verivue.com; Tony Self
  Subject: [dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help Technologies
  Guide

  Hi all --

  The DITA Help Subcommittee submits for your review and approval
  Release
  1.0 of our DITA Help Technologies Guide. We appreciate that members
  of
  the TC are swamped with DITA 1.2 specification work, but we hope that
  we
  could get your approval of this document in two weeks time (Tuesday,
  March 10). We plan to update this Guide every 3 - 4 months to keep it
  current.

  I have attached a PDF2 version of the document with Acrobat Reader
  commenting enabled. MS HTML Help and TOCJSBIS versions are available
  at:

  http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita-help/documents.php

  Check out the nifty OASIS-branded HTML that Tony Self (Help
  Subcommittee
  chair) has integrated with his WinANT tool.

  If someone with write privileges to the Adoption TC email list could
  forward this email and attachment, we would appreciate it.

  Thanx,
  Stan Doherty
  DITA Help Subcommittee, Secretary


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