Publishing Business Group Steering Committee — Minutes

Date: 2018-09-21

Attendees

Present: Rick Johnson, Dave Cramer, Jun-ichi Yoshii, Tzviya Siegman, Karen Myers, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Bill Kasdorf, Jeff Jaffe, Garth Conboy

Regrets: Rachel Comerford, Ivan Herman, Luc Audrain

Guests:

Chair: Liisa McCloy-Kelley

Scribe(s): Karen Myers, Dave Cramer

1. EPUBCheck Funding

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Do we want to start with EPUBCheck funding? Have we seen any commitments

Tzviya Siegman: I have to check with Richard and George who are keeping track of the funding
… I have heard of people who have committed anecdotally
… Rachel spoke with orgs who said they would commit
… There are amounts coming in; not sure how much
… Julien @ contacted me about writing a post for a Brazilian blog
… word is going out, getting some press
… keep pushing this.
… I will ask George to give us an update; would be good to get regular updates

Bill Kasdorf: As soon as site went live we kicked into gear
… Task force members would make personal contacts within orgs they signed up for
… we also said that the chairs
… a more formal appeal to go out from the chairs
… I drafted and sent it out but have not heard yet

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: we will do that
… had a tough week
… will need to look at that

Bill Kasdorf: Just want to make sure if we do it; who will do the sending
… thinking is should go out from one of the chairs, who would sign it
… I need to send you the names and emails of contact emails

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I am happy to send to you contacts if you send me the list
… in the same vein, I have not sent note to BG
… we sent to WG and CG this week
… will do that later today or top of Monday to make top of people’s in-boxes
… and help them understand
… I went to my boss this week
… explained why it was important
… PRH will make a commitment, but need to finalize the amount
… anything else we want to talk about relative to EPUBCheck funding?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I’ll put purpose and future of SC later on call

2. Promoting TPI and membership levels

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: In order to help Karen, Ralph, Alan we need to maybe work on a document that outlines what participation in each of these three groups entails
… who are the right kind of people to be involved at each level

Tzviya Siegman: One thought I have is to start inviting
… some of the evangelists like Bobby Tung
… although timing is not great in Taiwan
… Good to communicate what the participation, and talk about exactly what the groups are doing and the distinction between the groups

Bill Kasdorf: Want to point out this is an opportune time to talk about the three groups
… the BG we have talked about in more amorphous terms
… When I tell people we’re fixing EPUBCheck, that’s a concrete thing people can get their heads around, and it’s important for the echosystem
… and draft for Web Publications
… We have concrete things to talk about, not just generalities

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: great point, Bill

Bill Kasdorf: I bring it up because people wonder if these groups do things

Jeff Jaffe: some plus 1s
… document you suggested would be helpful
… Bill’s point
… documents are helpful, but in my mind
… the core people who are involved every day and every week understand the momentum
… the fringes of the old IDPF membership are not as plugged in as they used to be for whatever reason
… having lots of conversations is important
… perhaps even more than the document
… Working Group is very specific, charter, specs, in what is trying to do
… BG is less specific
… and is more open
… we should be able to tell people this is the watering hole where we discuss very specific things like EPUBCheck
… but we also talk all together about how to get adoption; how to relate to Amazon
… I would not call it a formal relaunch but make sure TPIs understand they can come here for conversations and get traction

Rick Johnson: I would like to make the case for an international audience for this document
… Southeast Asia, South Africa
… I want to do the next thing; help me get started and get involved
… this document could help to address some of that as well

Dave Cramer: I think we don’t need a doc as much as communications coming out all the time
… web site should have introduction to all the groups
… but weekly blog posts, articles describing what is happening would be good
… BG as focal point for problem-solving in the industry
… we have not really taken on that role yet
… as Jeff said having that watering hole
… we have heard some pain points around the standards
… we need a place where we can triage issues
… I am having an issue, but is it a spec, workflow, vendor problem
… best handled by whom?
… one of our groups, BISG?
… that is a useful role we could play
… and would allow us to be more visible in the publishing world

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I think we needed to be better about communications
… suggested the document to help us be clearer about the messaging when we’re out there talking
… that personal 1:1 is important
… we have all come to this in different ways and have made this commitment for different reasons
… Personally, talking to my management about the work
… and importance of putting money
… reaction of ‘you do this work for Liisa’ not PRH
… and I said ‘no, I do it for PRH’
… help people to make that case in their own organizations is a bit of what I would like to get to
… a good argument for why your org should support

Karen Myers: we need both, in my experience
… to rick and Liisa’s point, we do need some document with talking points that talks about the digital transformation
… and how you get engaged in an org like w3c, and how to take advantage of all these things
… there’s a high-level opportunity here
… and we need to talk about what each of the groups do
… we should go through the exercise of getting these talking points down
… and then how to communicate them
… there’s a huge need for education and understanding

Bill Kasdorf: as you explain to your management
… first target is former IDPF members
… we want all publishers
… but let’s not let Jeff’s comment that Amazon joined W3C get lost
… that is significant
… I’m sure we have to be careful about what we need to say
… I am not advocating public things as much
… we don’t want to alienate Amazon
… but personal conversations like you had with your management
… that is an attention getter
… Amazon is at the table

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: But Amazon is not at the table yet
… I told their book people they have joined
… they are not ready to sit at the table
… they are interested
… Jeff has good point, to carefully pull their book people in and back to the center
… that is a tough nut to crack

Bill Kasdorf: that is a good reality check
… and the accessibility work is relevant to someone
… at least a movement to get them more engaged

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Absolutely
… anyone else want to jump in on this topic?
… as a next step
… I am going to commit to
… after I have gotten Bill his doc and sent to BG
… I am going to start a document that we can collectively edit; I’ll send a Google doc link

Karen Myers: +1

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I think to Jeff’s point of getting Amazon more engaged
… we can talk about whether there is any chance
… where we can do the one thing they want - warn people when their images are not big enough

Rick Johnson: is editing for the we the BG as a whole or this committee?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I think we start here and then take it to the bigger group

Tzviya Siegman: you mentioned that Amazon has an issue
… can you ask them to log it?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Can I do it on their behalf? Is that ok with you?

Tzviya Siegman: yes

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: let me talk to them and see if they will let me do that

Dave Cramer: ….has not been best practices
… pre-flight; normative statements in the specs; concern that EPUB is used to enforce vendor guidelines for ebooks

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I hear you and share that concern
… maybe think about what the marketplace needs from EPUBCheck
… does it become a more normative useful tool if it incorporates those processes that we all do on the fly

Jeff Jaffe: I want to tiptoe into comments about Amazon and EPUBCheck
… if there is something specific Amazon wants
… and we have an EPUBCheck funding campaign
… is there a way to size the cost of what they want
… and get them started as participants by contributing

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I would think there is

Tzviya Siegman: If they are limiting image size
… and others are not
… then we are validating the spec
… error warning would be triggered for Rick unless we have a less specific error warning

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: They want biggest image files possible
… they have a minimum; at least this big

Tzviya Siegman: That seems a bit more likely
… we have opposite
… people could have bad images and they still want to get them through
… have legacy titles
… still have a problem; it’s not a spec
… validation that other vendors don’t have
… need to create a Kindle-specific warning and require other vendors to ignore it if they choose to

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Or we engage more of the vendors and come to a standard about it

Dave Cramer: I am not seeing our role for the quality of content

Rick Johnson: I have to leave for another meeting. Sorry.

Dave Cramer: sounds further from mission of W3C to enforce private companies’ quality control concerns
… I see need for a tool, but don’t see that as EPUBCheck
… make sure content follows the EPUB spec
… foresee large technical difficulties
… see if Amazon can swap out PDF or image files
… we are drifting into vendor-specific workflow territory

Garth Conboy: I think an info message from EPUBCheck would be overall good fo industry
… I would be happy to throw them a bone to get them more involved
… that would not be specific to Amazon
… agree we need to be wary on vendor-specific stuff
… this may be vague
… but it may be done in EPUBCHeck and I woudl not oppose it

Bill Kasdorf: I agree with Garth; we do have best practices under development
… other thing to point out
… Accessibility checking tools report errors and warnings and it is very useful
… they say this thing does not align with best practices
… doesn’t say it’s illegal or a violation
… not uncommon for that kinds of checking tool to enforce conformance and good practices
… admit that would be a next generation EPUBCheck

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I totally agree

Bill Kasdorf: We could add the image thing

Tzviya Siegman: EPUBCheck already does errors and warnings
… in terms of low res images
… think about medical publishing
… a lot of those are not high res
… I get flack from Amazon about the quality of images
… they are not improvable
… they are not clear images because the magnification is 1000 percent
… we would need more detail about what Amazon wants before we say yes or no

Garth Conboy: I don’t think we want to do machine learning on high res or fuzzy images

Dave Cramer: If book has warning in EPUBCheck it cannot get into the supply chain in US publishing industry
… if not an error or warning
… gate-keeping for content feels like a bad place for W3C to be

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: complete agree it should be informational not a warning

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: responding to your comment, Tzviya, why I have been arguing why we need to tag an image
… tell everybody it’s as good as it gets; accept it
… don’t put it on the page that it’s low res
… Amazon would be happy to accept if we tag it in some way

Tzviya Siegman: Do we have discussion about summary and details tagging? I would like to invite them as a guest

Dave Cramer: that sounds like in-line metadata about image quality
… stuff you don’t want to expose to the end user

Karen Myers: Liisa; yes, that was the problem about summary and detail
Karen Myers: ..I cannot let user see this

Dave Cramer: space, I cannot do things
… It’s Donald Trump from scan of paper from 1970s
… they asked me to have images re-taken for that book
… I explained I could not get him back with his ex-wife or make him younger again

Bill Kasdorf: Maybe WashPost would like to get involved

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I like the EPUB fuzzy

Tzviya Siegman: There are ways to obfuscate

Dave Cramer: and schema, but that may take a while

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: all right
… Let’s get back to the agenda
… are there any specific things we want to take to the BG next week?

Tzviya Siegman: i will miss the meeting on Tuesday

3. Agenda items for BG call next week

Bill Kasdorf: Fundraising

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Do we want to talk about image quality topic
… to be considered for a future version?

Tzviya Siegman: It’s fundamentally a change in the direction of EPUBCheck
… we have not really come to agreement in this group

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: what I am asking is if we should ask BG if they are grappling on how to deal with images across reading systems
… or would you be interested in tools
… or if others say they have it solved
… But I think it’s an issue
… There is getting the backlist up to speed
… and making sure the front list will work in that interim space for all the retailers you send to
… it is tough; not an easily definable space
… I think there are things we can share

Garth Conboy: I don’t have an issue with fuzziness
… interesting discussion today, but wondering if it belongs in SC or be in BG because it’s interesting stuff
… and makes people realize it’s TPI topic of value

Dave Cramer: a great topic for the BG agenda

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: what else do we have on the agenda for next week

Garth Conboy: Fundraising update, I’d presume (for agenda for BG).

Jeff Jaffe: one thing we may want to share somewhere
… Dominique Hazaël-Massieux is as W3C staff member for MDN
… basically used to be the Mozilla Developer Network
… he has been working to get their agreement to put things on MDN
… related to developers not necessarily browser technologies like what Mozilla usually implements

Tzviya Siegman: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Related

Jeff Jaffe: but other web technologies that are used by others
… would be good for Dom to share with BG on what his conversations have been and how to take that forward

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Could someone who can explain it join the call?

Jeff Jaffe: Dom would do it; don’t know if he is available

Tzviya Siegman: I have spoken with Dom about this
… forgot to put on the agenda
… I spoke extensively about what would be needed to add EPUB
… dropped a link in
… we still need to get to TPI discussion
… we could put on the agenda for next time, or I could talk about what would be involved in documenting MDN

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Do you want to talk about it here before taking to the BG?

Tzviya Siegman: there is significant resource requirement; think we should discuss here first

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: ok
… any further comments for next week [agenda] for the BG
… I want to raise a conversation about pagination
… an interesting business level conversation to have; will likely push into best practices
… from content and reading system standpoints
… when you move things out of order
… paginate not in print but inserted in middle of book
… if people are addressing those issues
… we have been looking at issues coming up from reading systems
… think we are not alone in some of the questions that have been raised

Dave Cramer: by pagination, you mean expressing numbers in EPUB when they are not exact analogs?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: exactly
… point made about different kinds of publishers
… this may be different for different people; where is it needed and where is the preciseness of it needed
… In time we have left
… shall we talk about role of this group?

4. Role of Publishing Steering Committee

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: do we need to formalize it
… put our thoughts on paper
… now is time to jump in

Dave Cramer: I have
… not entirely clear to me
… what the role of the SC is
… this is in some ways a holdover from the IDPF board
… it was a literal board of directors that had many things it has to do
… so the environment around that board has changed dramatically since the merger
… the way these calls have been going is some combination
… of working on agendas for BG meetings
… and having substantive conversations about issues important to the industry that don’t have to be restricted
… I have impulse to try things without a SC
… seems mission of BG is to provide coordination and leadership
… and work on interaction between other groups
… feels like we may some duplication of effort

Karen Myers: s/Barth

Garth Conboy: I agree with Dave
… but cannot refer to merger as complete
… it is still embroiled in litigation
… we made a substantial change to be heads of working groups and task forces
… I don’t think we want SC to go away right now because merger is not complete
… but SC should do as little as possible and put the bulk of the stuff into the BG proper

Bill Kasdorf: mainly Garth’s point
… and observation that SC does a lot of the work and BG is more passive
… that ambiguity of who approves decision on who gets the EPUBCheck development work
… the SC did all that
… nothing is really being done by the BG; it’s all being done by the SC
… does not seem like that was the original idea for the BG; that’s the formal group in the W3C

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: as Garth said, the SC is the coordination among the groups
… ask if we should bring certain items forward to other groups
… we have strong opinions
… kind of nice to talk through our opinions here so we don’t overwhelm others
… would we drown out other voices
… how can we pull other voices into the conversations
… put our feelings aside
… seed conversations along
… get the BG actually active and not overwhelm them with being a second meeting of all of us

Dave Cramer: I am worried about the flip side of that
… how do we get people engaged if the interesting conversations are happening in the SC
… other things happen in a group that you are not a member of

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I don’t think we stop people from discussing

Dave Cramer: EPUBCHeck conversation would be a good one; don’t think we’re helping by insulating them from those discussion
… this conversation about what EPUBCheck is and should we expand it, and resources is interesting
… maybe we have these conversations with the larger group
… WG has these kinds of conversations
… having them twice is not as interesting the second time

Dave Cramer: +1 to tzviya

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: anybody else?

Dave Cramer: Just briefly mention that the SC
… is something that does not fit neatly in the W3C process right now
… the BG makes all the decisions
… we would be fine with the BG

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I honestly don’t
… I explained this to Jeff and Karen
… I have tried over last year to see what it’s like to just be a member not of BG
… and not pay attention to other two groups
… where I find out about the other groups is here
… You don’t bring them to the BG
… and it makes me realize we need to figure out a better coordination
… if not SC
… we’ll need to figure out where it is
… We came here understanding that this is a bit of an experiment
… not exactly the same model W3C has had
… I am concerned we are effective and no one wastes their time

Dave Cramer: brings up communications and more topics in the BG and keep all participants informed

Jeff Jaffe: I don’t have a strong opinion about this
… the way the non-working groups
… work is more for team to stay out of
… but I’m hearing both sides and hearing that BG is where nexus of conversation should happen
… and others say they are not happening is they are in SC instead
… one possible way forward is to keep SC for a period of time
… those who think conversations should be in BG, then be encouraged to do so
… and they will have proved their point and SC is no longer needed
… if not, we keep SC as a central point of coordination

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: +1 to Jeff

Karen Myers: @: I like that

Dave Cramer: +1

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: We are at over our time
… if anybody thinks of anything else for BG agenda next week, let me know. I will send out agenda this afternoon

Garth Conboy: thanks Liisa and Karen

Dave Cramer: RRSAgent: make logs public