Minutes from 1 November 2022

[Zoe Lawson <zoelawson17@hotmail.com>]

Thanks to Kris and Frank for getting me the information I needed right away.

Any delay is mine.

(Or my cat who walked over the keyboard once or twice.)

Zoë

1 November 2022

	Roll call
	Voting members: Robert Anderson, Stanley Doherty, Kris Eberline, Scott Hudson, 
	Eliot Kimber, Zoë Lawson, Eric Sirois, Dawn Stevens, Frank Wegmann

	Non-Voting members:  Melanie Petersman, Kendall Shaw, Todd Thorner, Jim Tivy

	Regrets: Gershon Joseph, Bill Burns, Nancy Harrison


2. Approve minutes from previous business meeting:

	25 October 2022
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00050.html (Harrison, 26 October 2022)

	Kris: Move to approve the minutes as submitted
	Scott Hudson seconds
	No objections, minutes approved.

3. Announcements

	None.

	Note that you will want to download the PDFs attached to https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202211/msg00003.html, as you want
	to be able to view them when we discuss the review of Task content

4. Action items

	25 October 2022:
	Kris: Move @scope and @headers into an attributes group COMPLETED

5. Volunteer tasks

	Keith Schengili-Roberts: Two new example topics from accessibility review COMPLETED

	Dawn and Comtech: Develop draft of changes from DITA 1.3 to DITA 2.0 COMPLETED

	Kris: Kudos to everyone for getting Action Items and Volunteer tasks done.

6. Report from LwDITA subcommittee (Wegmann)

	Frank: In the last 4 weeks, only one meeting. The changes discussed in the 
		October meeting were added.

		The outputclass attribute was added to <prolog> and <topicmeta>, and removed
		entities that only declared an attribute. Instead, declare the attribute 
		directly in the elements affected. 
		(Thanks to Frank for sending me the link to the LwDITA Committee minutes:
		https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/70425/lwDITA_SC_minutes_03_October_2022.txt
		These changes are covered in item 4.)

		Not so much progress on spec draft.

		Kris assisted with getting the spec building and reuse set up and training 
		LwDITA folks on how to use it.

		Frank hopes to be able to do more when day job lightens up.

		Yesterdays meeting:
		Attributes list not quite in sync for MDITA and current DITA spec. Will be 
		discussed more in two weeks.

7. Review of DITA 2.0 proposal deadlines

	https://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/DeadlinesDITA2.0

    Proposal 753 up for discussion today.
	Robert Anderson aims to get Proposal 670 out by EOD today

8. DITA 2.0 stage two/three combined proposals

	Vote: None
	Continuing discussion: None
	Initial discussion: #753 <poster> proposal
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202211/msg00002.html (Kimber, 01 November 2022)
	Feedback: None

    Eliot Kimber: Came out of discussion with LwDITA. Based on HTML5, there was 
		a <poster> element, but got moved to an attribute. 
		after further discussion, realized a subelement would be better.
		"poster" is too generic (could be a physical paper poster), so call it 
		<video-poster>, otherwise as expected.
		video-poster can take @href, @keyref, @format, @scope, same as <image>
		Does not provide for alternative text because the <video> element has alt

	Kris: Thanks to the folks at Siemens for bringing up this concern.
		Questions, comments?

		Any objections for advancing for vote next week? 
		Hearing none, will be up for voting next week.

9. Groundwork for technical content review B: Concept and reference

	Properties lists/tables

	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00047.html (Eberlein, 26 October 2022)

	Kris - two questions
		- Terminology: Hodgepodge of Property list, property tables, property, properties
		Kris and Robert Anderson think this should be a table, since it's specialized from simpletable
		Helps with reuse, etc.
		- Asked for examples. Rarely used, personally.
		Robert, is there background as to why a list sometimes?

	Robert - Background trying to maintain a purist ideal where anyone could 
		display it anyway you want.
		You don't have to use a table, you could make it a list if you wanted.
		Simple table was convienent, but you didn't have to be beholden to that 
		formatting if you didn't want.

	Kris - Thoughts, comments, questions, preferences? Else, Robert and Kris 
		will hammer it out.

	Dawn - Don't plan to use it, but since it's from simpletable, standardize on
		table terminologry

	Robert - yup

	Scott Hudson - Would you change the element name to proptable?

	Kris - No, just clarifying how it works in the speck.
		Anyone using it?

	Stan = only in vain

	Kris - most folks just wanted simple table. Simplicity, or if need to use elsewhere

	Dawn - used table to be able to span, etc.

	Eliot - ServiceNow - only use is not published and not good examples. 
		Could be benificial, but only if you had special indexing or something.
		Unaware of anyone doing that

	Zoe - used to use it at a previous company, but somewhere I got it in my head
		that the element was going away, so I stopped looking into using it.

	Kris - posted on dita-users. Got one example, raw source, and haven't had a 
		chance to look into it yet.

	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00048.html (Kimber, 26 October 2022)

    Kris - Hack with property tables, since simple tables didn't allow spanning.

		â??When a single property type takes multiple values, authors can create
		additional property elements and use only the <propvalue> and <propdesc>
		elements for each successive value.â??

		Now proposed just using simpletable spanning.
		But does that mean we need to fix <properties>
		Question to Robert, if some of these properties attributes are optional,
		how does spanning work?

	Robert - Simpletable spanning only goes across rows, not columns.
		Could have two types with two different descriptions which should work?
		Probably don't need to adust anything.

	Kris - Robert and I want to get rid of the hack.

	Robert - The hack was there because listing the type three times with multiple
		descriptions. Now with spanning, you can do that, officially.
		The hack was just add a row with only a description and the processor should
		work and understand. Most tooling doesn't really support it.
		It would be easier for processors

	Kris - Eliot you supported getting rid of the hack on the list
	Comments or thoughts

	Eliot - Yes, get rid of the hack

	Dawn - Agree

	Scott - Agree

	Kris - No objections, lets get rid of this.

Suggested change to properties tables

https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00053.html (Eberlein, 31 November 2022)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00055.html (Kimber, 31 November 2022)


10. Technical content review A: Task overview and elements (18 October - 01 November 2022)

	Opening of review
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00032.html

	Updated content for choice table elements
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00042.html (Eberlein, 20 October 2022)
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00045.html (Harrison, 24 October 2022)

	Interim status
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202210/msg00046.html (Eberlein, 25 October 2022)

	Final status
	https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202211/msg00003.html (Eberlein, 01 November 2022)



	Kris - Thanks to everyone who participated in the review. Dawn, Kris, Stan, Eliot, Zoe, Bill
		Lets review the comments that are referred.
		From Zoe
			- Post-requisites is not a real word
			- Organizations structure of general and strict tasks

	Zoe - I have the 3 part Intro, procedure, post in my head for both strict 
		and general

	Kris - Chose to do the simple ordered list since strict has that precise 
		ordinality, and wanted to emphasize that.
		But now is a good time for feedback.

	Eliot - I think parallel might be more effective.

	Kris - Anyone else?

	Scott - I would vote for parallel.

	Kris - okay, seems we're moving to parallel.

	Stan - Parallel makes sense

	Kris - okay, I'll make that change
		Post-requisites not a word - it's been there for 15 years let's stick with it

	Zoe - Technically not an English word, could be confusing to non-native English 
		speakers. However, since its what folk have been using for 15 years, I'm fine with it.

	Frank - The description elsewhere is good, but it's not a common term 
		outside of dita. But its described elsewhere in the text and it's clear, 
		so lets keep it.

	Kris - okay, lets keep it.
		Comment from Eliot that would affect about all the short descriptions.
		Eliot recommended shifting to passive to avoid "user"

	Eliot - If we're concerned about the term "users", The passive voice construction would be clear enough and a solutions, but it's not a must do change.

	Kris - Personally, would prefer "users" instead of passive.
		Remember this would make a new pattern

	Todd T - proposes "A choice element describes a way to complete the current step"

	Dawn - can do that, just remove 'the user', go to infinitive

	Eliot agrees

	Kris - does this detract from the meaning

	Dawn - I don't think so. It can be assumed that you're writing for a user.

	Stan - If this were tech doc, we'd use "you", not user.

	Robert - I don't have concerns about removing the phrase "the user"

	Kris - We'll do that.
		Choices element, from Eliot. Eliot suggests we have a Usage information section, similar to choicetable
		Larger comments about usability, presentation, and the example less than ideal.

	Eliot - I hadn't really thought much about these elements. How would I decide when to use Choices
		vs. Choicetable? Why even have this markup, but that's water under the bridge. Choicetable has a usage
		which would help instruct. It might help for choices. If I were a writer trying to figure this out,

		I'd be confused.

		The way choicetable is presented, there are two flavors

		- equivalent alternatives
			or
		- branching trees of actions

		And started thinking more.

	Dawn - Kris and Dawn discussed this earlier. What is the distinction and why. When creating the information
		model for implementations, describe very specifically which to use. There are multiple interpretations,
		so how do we put that into Usage information because it's based on specific scenarios

	Eliot - Right, we can't be prescriptive

	Kris - These have been out in the wild for 15 years, so it might be too late.

	Eliot - would expect the inverse of what's under choicetable
	
	Kris - This is a list?

	Dawn - Yes, that's what choicetable does.

	Eliot - Yes. Looking into current content, and usage not consistent.
		They are underspecialized for where you might want to use them. Which makes it difficult to
		describe them. Is it even appropriate for us to do this?

	Kris - There is more information in choicetable because needed to describe the optional header row to
		override default headers from processors. If didn't need to do that, might not have had
		the usage information.

	Eliot - as a writer coming to the description, would appreciate the information.

	Kris - Does anyone have concerns about adding usage information to choices.
		Roberts, as co-editor?

	Robert - Not really. I couldn't have explained one over the other, so fine with it.

	Eliot - why even have the choices element at all, it's just a list.

	Dawn - yes. What's the difference between info/ul and choices.

	Eliot - and usually if I have choices, I need an info anyway

	Scott - just semantic

	Kris - Suspect originally there from IBM for small images for OS/Product symbols. Predominately how
		I've seen it used. But have also constrained choices out because choicetable has a way to label things.
		Too late to make changes

	Eliot - yup

	Kris - Will make the changes.
		Switching order to prereq element
		â??Processors might render prerequisite links from the related-links section together with the content of the elementâ??
		DITA-OT might have support. Haven't seen clients use it. Recommend removing this sentence.

	Eliot - (confirming) Very strongly recommends removing it

	Dawn - Even though has a client who uses it, agrees.

	Kris - Objections or concerns?
		None. Okay.
		<choption>
		"Can we come up with an alternate way to describe the content of this element?
		Eliot does not like â??names the option,â?? but Kris thinks that â??labels or describes
		the optionâ?? overlaps too much with how we define <chhead> and <chdesc>."

	Eliot - This is pedantic, but it could be a name without semantic meaning, or it
		could be a label. It behaves as a rowheader in your choice table.
		But won't go to the mat for it.

	Kris - I agree about being linguistically precise. However, it overlaps too much.
		Because there's a header row, label is problematic.

	Eliot - Header labels the colums, and choption labels the rows, which are different.

	Robert - I think that's correct.
		I have to drop

	Eliot - I don't want descriptions to get too convoluted, so if name works, that's fine.

	Frank - does "denote" work?

	Dawn - "specifies"?

	Kris - will review, look at synonyms, etc.

	Eliot - I would be happy with names or labels for my "pedandic" requirements.

	Kris - it may be nitpicky, but we're trying to respect all the time you put into the review
		and consider the recommendations.
		Only a few minutes left. Sorry we didn't get to 11 or 12, we'll do that next week.
		11 - what do we want in the spec about changes from 1.3 to 2.0
		Dawn pulled together a PDF, please review to talk about this next week.
		Thank you Dawn, it will be great for the spec and the migration note.

11. Changes from DITA 1.3 to DITA 2.0 -- What do we want in the spec?

https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202211/msg00005.html (Eberlein, 01 November 2022)

    - Next week

12. Using dita-users to get folks to contribute examples for the spec

https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202211/msg00006.html (Eberlein, 01 November 2022)

    Kris - Getting examples from dita-users is a great place to crowd source. We have
		okay from OASIS to have mini competitions, etc. on the dita-users list.
		great way to get more examples

	Scott (?) - Great source for examples.

	Kris - Should be opening a new review on concept and references. It will be 
		shorter but it's not a lot of content.