Capturing questions and concerns about conformance approaches

[rachaelbradley]

The goal of this thread is to document the concerns about each conformance approach being discussed in July. I've listed the approaches as comments below.

Please do the following:

1. Read the conformance approach and comments listing questions and concerns.
2. Please reply to the thread with additional questions and concerns about each approach that have not been captured
3. Please avoid engaging in discussion about those questions/concerns beyond documenting them. We will gather these together and use them to organize and inform our conformance conversations.

For purposes of this discussion, I have used Bronze to mean the lowest level of conformance though AG is still exploring that.

Note This is not covering the scope of elements being tested, only the levels of the conformance.

[rachaelbradley]

Approach: Foundational plus percentages

• Bronze = Foundational requirements and some percentage of supplemental requirements and assertions
• Higher levels of conformance - Additional percentages of supplemental requirements and assertions

Note that this is a % of the total number of possible supplemental requirements and assertions not the number of instances they apply.

[rachaelbradley]

Approach: Foundational plus points

Bronze = Foundational requirements and supplemental requirements and assertions equal to a number of points
Higher levels of conformance - Foundational requirements and additional supplemental requirements and assertions based on points

[rachaelbradley]

Approach: Foundational plus sets of requirements and assertions

Bronze = Foundational requirements and supplemental requirements and assertions based on sets (these might be recommended based on content type or intended audience)
Higher levels of conformance - Additional supplemental requirements and assertions based on sets

[rachaelbradley]

Approach: Foundational

Bronze = Foundational Requirements only.
Higher levels of conformance - Additional supplemental requirements and assertions (selection would mimic the items above)

[ChrisLoiselle]

This is a comment from myself and not my employer. Conformance should be made as simple as possible. If we are to introduce a point system then is AG and W3C responsible for grading or are your reliant on self reporting and third party auditors? Overall goal is for adoption and to avoid gamification. If requirements are required, then they aren't supplemental. I'm not following how you can have a requirement that is supplemental. Terminology definitions are key here.