Subject: [vwrap] Comments on http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vwrap-intro-00

From: Katherine Mancuso <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 13:42:40 -0700

Hi Christina,

I wanted to take the opportunity to welcome you to the list, and reassure
you that this is absolutely a great way to give input.  Draft authors find
it easier to work with feedback like this that is tied to specific language
in the documents, specific implementations, or provides specific suggestions
for revisions.  I know that many of the draft authors are currently pretty
busy with other things so I wanted to make sure you knew immediately that
your input was welcomed!

I personally am the group's accessibility person, and work mostly with the
W3C on a separate effort to make the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines
(originally designed to standardize web browsers) as inclusive of virtual
world viewers as possible.  This effort speaks to your comments 4 & 8 about
not excluding web browsers as potential viewers.  I want to note that
there's an interesting effort out of IBM called Kestrel to create a
browser-based viewer for the blind; I believe that it is based on Dojo & its
accessibility toolkit.  I am not a protocol person, and thus can't speak to
many of your concerns, though sometimes you'll hear me speak up on the list
when we discuss metadata or other accessibility related issues.

One issue that I can help clarify here with respect to your comment 4 is
some history. The original mandate of this group was to standardize a very
specific class of virtual worlds, and I'm not going to give you the exact
definition of that because I fear I won't get all the technical points
right, someone else can chime in here.  There was a previous group called
OGPX that attempted to include other kinds of virtual worlds like World of
Warcraft, but the use cases of the participants proved too disparate for
something to be developed, so this effort has limited itself rather narrowly
in the interest of actually being able to make some sort of standard.  In
general in the IETF, standards that attempt to harmonize a specific group of
software products which have a compelling use case for working together and
enough in common to make something work have the best chance to make it
through the process and then have developers make successful implementations
(a standard doesn't matter if no-one uses it).  I hope that helps clarify
things about this effort a bit.

Also: we do have an authentication draft, it's over here:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vwrap-authentication-00

thanks,
Katherine

-- 
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Katherine Mancuso: crusader of community art, social technology, &
disability

Current work:
Walt Disney Imagineering & Parks and Resorts Online, Intern (work:
accessibility evangelism & interactive projects)

Research:
Center for Assistive Technology & Environmental Access (http://www.catea.org
)
Georgia Tech, Digital Media (http://dm.gatech.edu)

Community:
The Vesuvius Group: metaverse community builders (
http://www.thevesuviusgroup.com)
Gimp Girl Community Liaison/Research Fellow (http://www.gimpgirl.com)
Alternate ROOTS: arts*community*activism (http://www.alternateroots.org)

Contact in the web, the metaverse, the world:
http://twitter.com/musingvirtual
http://muse.dreamwidth.org
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kathymancuso
SL: Muse Carmona
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