Ensuring charters fit the mission and values of W3C #620
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It requires AC approval to charter new work. If some stakeholders believe that a charter does not fit the mission and values of W3C, they would object (this has happened in the past). That objection would be resolved as any other objection (e.g. Council). It is not obvious that we need anything more process-wise to address this issue. |
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The guide documents horizontal reviews ofcharters: https://www.w3.org/Guide/process/charter.html |
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+1 to Jeff. This is a (major) reason for AC review. Whether the AC can see what comment HR groups, TAG, AB, and (for charters offered by other than the Team) the Team might have, is a separate issue. |
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(feel free to open new issues that are more specific) |
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So you are comfortable replacing the Director's expert, principled strategic guidance with a political process? When I was an AC Rep, I was once told by the team that I had "exceeded my quota of formal objections" by voting against too many charters. AC Reps have NO incentive to run a rigorous charter review by the experts in their company, and are actively discouraged from objecting unless a a charter is so toxic it would "drive W3C over a cliff." I respectfully disagree that this is a sufficient substitute for having someone or some small group empowered to ensure that charters advance W3C's mission, would create standards that maintain the conceptual integrity of the web, and are consistent with explicit values. If the AC is only arbiter of whether charters fit W3C's mission and values, then drop the whole "formal objection" notion and just make it a (supermajority?) vote. Don't put on AC reps the burden of having to publicly justify and defend a NO vote (and endure social media attacks from promoters), just let them exercise their judgment and tally up the collective decision. |
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Mike, in a member-led consortium, for that is what we are and formally becoming, it's the members' responsibility. We can't duck it, and we shouldn't delegate it either. We elect the TAG and AB to look at these, and if it takes a formal objection, and a community debate, and a formal decision from the Council, that's good. Forcing us to measure questions against values, and not delegating that wrestling, is good for the community. |
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The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed The full IRC log of that discussion<fantasai> Subtopic: Ensuring charters fit the mission and values of W3C<fantasai> plh: I'm not sure we can do a lot in this iteration of the Process <wseltzer> +1 to defer <fantasai> ... at minimum I expect us to defer for now <plh> ack plh <plh> ack dsinger <Zakim> dsinger, you wanted to suggest that we say that individual council members MAY report on their own participation (but not others) and that absence should be recorded <plh> ack jeff <florian> q+ <Zakim> jeff, you wanted to comment on #620 <fantasai> jeff: I provided some logic in a post last night <fantasai> ... which if you want could be used to close the issue <fantasai> ... I think it's important that charters fit the mission and values of W3C <fantasai> ... I believe the process that we have is sufficient to take care of that <fantasai> ... and I think trying to go through some mega-definition of the mission and values and create a new specific process under that <fantasai> ... would result in a very long process text <fantasai> ... which would not serve a lot of purpose <fantasai> ... so I won't argue strongly for that, it's just my input <fantasai> github: https://github.com//issues/620 <plh> ack florian <dsinger> +1 to Jeff. We have HAD charters where the AC has had a lively discussion over whether something is in scope, fits mission and values <fantasai> florian: I partly agree with Jeff, but only partly <fantasai> ... I agree that we fundamentally have the right framework <fantasai> ... and that the AC approving a charter is the thing that ensures it serves the mission of W3C <fantasai> ... but as mentioned in other issues, what happens prior to AC review needs improvement <jeff> q+ to agree with Florian <fantasai> ... Horizontal review, and review from AB and TAG, there's a number of areas where we could improve the pre-WBS review of charters <fantasai> ... and the info that goes into that review <fantasai> ... and that will strengthen the fundamental framework that the AC ultimately decides the fitness of the charter <fantasai> ... whether we close this now or later, I'm unsure <plh> ack jeff <Zakim> jeff, you wanted to agree with Florian <plh> q+ <fantasai> jeff: I agree with Florian <fantasai> ... we have other issues raised against specific things like TAG review, and much cleaner to deal with specific issues like "TAG shoudl review or not" rather than intergalactic issues like this one <dsinger> (I also agree that TAG and AB should be given opportunity to comment, and the usual HR groups, and for charters offered by other than Team, the team too, and that all such comments should be evident in AC review) <plh> ack plh <plh> https://www.w3.org/Guide/process/charter.html <fantasai> plh: Process for horizontal review of charters is in /Guide right now <fantasai> ... we have horizontal Team people who are in charge of ensuring it gets done, but not how it gets done <fantasai> ... e.g. idk if Yves goes to the TAG <fantasai> ... We definitely don't have anyone from AB, and if we want to put AB in the loop could do that <plh> ack fantasai <Zakim> fantasai, you wanted to +1 jeff and florian <fantasai> ... Maybe should improve /Guide and link to that part of the /Guide from the Process <plh> fantasai: agreed with Jeff and Florian. <florian> fantasai: I agree with Jeff and Florian, this is something to work on in specific issues, and there's nothing to do in this issue <fantasai> i/fantasai/scribenick: florian <fantasai> scribenick: fantasai <fantasai> plh: So I'll put Propose to Close flag on it <florian> q+ <fantasai> plh: wseltzer, anything you want to look at from /Guide perspective? <fantasai> wseltzer: I always welcome suggestions to improve the /Guide <fantasai> florian: I think this meta-issue is not useful <fantasai> ... but the individual issues are <wseltzer> q+ <fantasai> ... and see that there is appetite for additional improvements from the Membership <plh> ack florian <fantasai> ... some in /Guide and some in /Process <plh> ack wseltzer <fantasai> wseltzer: Then I should move to quickly update the /Guide <fantasai> plh: I did put Propose to Close on the issue, and will assign the issue to wseltzer <fantasai> florian: Do it in /Guide or Process is one question <fantasai> ... another question is do we do it with one large issue that talks about everything, or in individual issues for specific improvements <fantasai> ... I prefer the latter <fantasai> ... not prepared to say today that all the improvements belong in /Guide <fantasai> jeff: Could close by saying that those issue that should be Process issues, people should raise individual issues and raise TAG thing as an example <fantasai> ... and what goes into /Guide raise against /Guide <fantasai> plh: so we should treat as a more granular level <fantasai> plh: perhaps Florian we should sit down and split up the issue? <fantasai> florian: we have some already <dsinger> q+ to wonder why we are not proposing to close this? <fantasai> plh: if conclusion is we already have issue and don't need to open more <dsinger> q- <fantasai> florian: I think we should propose to close this, and work on the individual issues, and if we're not happy with the result we can work on it some more <fantasai> dsinger: Specific comment is that AC is supposed to review for scope mission and values <fantasai> ... that's one of the reasons for AC review <fantasai> plh: [missed] <fantasai> github: https://github.com//issues/620 <fantasai> plh: Ok I'll comment that we will close in 4 weeks, and ppl should open new issues if they want something specific addressed <fantasai> Topic Any Other Business <fantasai> s/Topic/Topic:/ <fantasai> plh: need to check if got AB feedback on AB-feedback issues <fantasai> plh: In the Agenda I split issues into Needs Proposed PR <fantasai> ... have a bunch of such issues <jeff> q+ to comment on #497 <fantasai> ... so starting in October I will try to assign those to make sure we have ppl who will take responsibility for writing a PR for those things <fantasai> ... and we do have a bunch of remaining DF issues <fantasai> florian: I think this is going to get easier soon, because we've solved quite a few related PRs <fantasai> ... both for issues that need PRs and those that don't <fantasai> ... we need to do a round of triage, and for half the issues we've already solved <fantasai> ... many are overlapping, or stale <fantasai> ... so we will need to do that kind of triage soon <fantasai> plh: Feel free to add proposed to Close for anything already resolved <plh> ack jeff <Zakim> jeff, you wanted to comment on #497 <fantasai> jeff: I had raised 497 anonymous formal objections before dsinger raised 618 ability to defer decisions <fantasai> ... I think we struggled with handling anonymous objections <fantasai> ... given we have deferral available <florian> q? <florian> q+ <fantasai> ... wanted to get reactions to [missed] <plh> ack florian <fantasai> florian: I think this is thought-provoking and interesting, but not ovious that it's right or wrong <fantasai> ... but for Council to be able to decide to delegate a decision, they need to know what it's about <fantasai> ... so you still need to give some summary of what the objection iss <dsinger> q+ to agree with Jeff and Florian <fantasai> ... Council might decide to handle the decision with the Team as proxy <fantasai> jeff: Not saying all anonymous FOs need to be deferred <fantasai> ... in some cases maybe okay to proceed with anonymity and full council <fantasai> ... but it's an interesting tool to have, ability to delegate <plh> ack dsinger <Zakim> dsinger, you wanted to agree with Jeff and Florian <fantasai> dsinger: I find myself agreeing with both of use <fantasai> ... it's a good use case to mention for deferral <fantasai> ... e.g. Council realizies it can't process this and respect anonymity, and delegates to some unit <fantasai> ... but in many cases can address question without compromising anonymity <fantasai> ... So to 618, do we add possible reason to defer as "can't process this while respecting anonymity" <fantasai> plh: okay, I'll put a comment on 618 and then propose to close 497 <fantasai> ... and ppl can check <plh> q? <plh> fantasai: we'll do triage of issues after TPAC <fantasai> dsinger: if anyone really wants to join, we'll be here in SF, but it'll just be a working session <fantasai> plh: if you need me more than welcome to ask to join remotely <fantasai> plh: next meeting is Thursday after TPAC <fantasai> ... we should process any feedback from TPAC <fantasai> Meeting closed. <fantasai> s/Subtopic: 623 Recusal/Topic: 623 Recusal/ <fantasai> i/florian: In the middle of/Subtopic: Process Text vs Guide <fantasai> i/florian: going down the list/Subtopic: Strong Pre-existing Opinion/ <fantasai> i/florian: Next question in/Subtopic: Contesting Reasons to Dismiss/ |
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@dwsinger I agree with the "members responsibility" point. But the FO process is an anachronism unless there is some Director (Directorate, Technical Director, whatever) to appeal to. The Council punted the most recent "hard" question about DID to the Founding Director (so I hear), and that's not actually in the Process yet. So I for one have little confidence that the Council mechanism will work for hard strategic issues. So given that there's no interest in a Technical Director / Directorate, the way forward seems to be to accept that these are member decisions. But don't bias the process against NO votes by forcing them to be "formal objections" to the institutional memory of a Director that must meet a high conceptual bar ("run off a cliff") and force the NO voter to fight an almost certain-to-lose public battle to overturn the supposed :"consensus" . Just make it a secret ballot vote by the AC to approve a charter or not. |
I don't think that a secret ballot vote by the AC is an effective means to determine if a charter fits the mission and values of W3C. |
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The current process creates a MASSIVE bias in favor of approving charters. It takes zero thought and effort to vote yes (and not be publicly accountable if the charter creates problems down the road), but a willingness to go public (and be ready for abuse on social media) , craft a compelling argument, and defend it repeatedly in order to formally object. |
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@dwsinger there are many tools in the governance toolbox -- resorting to straight voting by the AC is only one option (and it has some serious downsides, as explained). Many successful systems use bodies that are both accountable to voters and invested in finding the right long-term solution (rather than just the most popular/expedient one). |
I find that outrageous. If you filed frivolous objections, they should be dismissed because they're frivolous, even if you only filled one of them. Otherwise, they should be considered seriously, not matter how many you have. |
No, it did not. On January 28th, the AB said it was happy to take it, but that given the rest of its pipeline, it expected a delay of a few weeks, and said that if the Team did not find that acceptable, they had the ability to do it themselves under the current Process[1]. The team decided to do it themselves, as they felt it was urgent and could not wait. [2] (The Team/Director rendered their decision on June 30 [3].) [1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-members/2022JanMar/0021.html |
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Although I personally was comfortable with closing this issue - seeing that several people do not agree - I think we need to leave it open. |
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"What is in scope for W3C" is a pretty common bone of serious contention. HTML, Verifiable Credentials, Payments, Linked Data / Semantic Web have all been argued over long and hard in relatively recent memory. Meanwhile it seems topics that don't involve a major shift in the work of a "heavyweight" W3C member are often uncontroversial, however tangential they appear, if there are a reasonable number of interested members who want to work on them. It seems reasonable in this organisation, better than many at dealing with controversies and strongly entrenched positions, to start from a presumption that what a "sufficient" proportion of members think is in scope is reasonable work to do, rather than inviting people to take as a mission, suggesting that it probably isn't. In other words, I think what @michaelchampion describes as
seems reasonable to me. In part because I think it's somewhat inaccurate and somewhat hyperbole. Also in part because I believe that a large number of the "philosophical objections" I have seen over the last couple of decades and more are just ill-disguised efforts to tilt the market in one direction or another or to save someone from having to rework something. The AC review process is far from perfect, and we are not as efficient as if everything were decided by one very active leader with total control over direction. But even TimBL was never that. While I favour W3C have a formal technical director on staff, i don't think that would change the vital role that AC review - and the subsequent discussion - plays in dealing with these questions when they arise. |
That's a pretty offensive and sweeping claim. Asking for you to substantiate it would likely make the situation worse, as well, as you'd have to name names, so I won't ask for that either. Please try to imagine that honest people may sometimes reasonably disagree and we do not need to make such accusations, and should not. Thank you. |
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Building on #620 (comment), it is critical, post-Director, to clearly state in the W3C Process what the mission, values and scope of the W3C are, so that folks have a basis for their objection (and their input in general) -- otherwise it will be just one opinion against another. |
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As a reminder: "The W3C Process Document describes the organizational structure of the W3C and processes, responsibilities and functions that enable W3C to accomplish its mission." The Process isn't the place to define the mission, values, and scope of the W3C. Instead, it should point to where those things are defined. And the mission/scope/goals should come from some combination of AB/TAG/BoD, within their respective scopes and past decisions. I see #651 and #653 as a better to discuss the issue of how charters are established. The team filters the request for new charters (based on mission/scope/values)in coordination with AB/TAG, and makes decisions that can be objected. |
Fine with me as long as: (a) text that defines the mission, values, and scope of the W3C is removed from Process In the meantime, the Process contains text that defines the mission, values, and scope of the W3C |
can you point me to an example of such text in the current or draft Process? Except for the first sentence of the abstract, I can't find any statement on mission/values/scope. The Process already links to https://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission |
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See screenshot above from https://www.w3.org/2021/Process-20211102/ To be sure, my objective is to make sure that there is a stable and complete set of documents that establish the rules to which members are subject to. |
Those aren't our only choices, luckily. There are a wide variety of governance structures we can choose from --with huge differences in their properties. The most obvious in this situation are:
The politics in each case work in profoundly different ways. A benevolent dictator worked for a long time, but I think we all recognise that it has a dependency on finding the right person, which is difficult. It also makes us vulnerable to that person's absence. A petition system (which is effectively what is currently specified) creates incentives for partiicpants that may not lead to good outcomes. Because so many AC reps are disengaged, I'm concerned that outcomes will be fragmented, factional, and vulnerable to manipulation. A board, if we get it right, will take ownership of the vision and scope of the organisation, but still gain legitimacy through being elected. They can make the difficult decisions and assure that a strategy is consistently applied, as opposed to the piecemeal approach that's implied by the AC. It can adapt over time as members come and go, but maintain consistency though the overlap. This is not about replacing the AC as a backstop to assure that members are on board with new work, BTW -- if we had the TAG (for example) inserted into the process, I don't think we'd remove the AC step. It's about whether using the AC as the sole steering function for new work is wise for the future of the Web. |
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That screenshot doesn't define the mission nor scope of W3C. It certainly touches on values, without trying to define those values either. They are used as a justification for how the Process is being set up since the Process is a reflection of those values. I agree that consensus/quality/fairness being values of W3C needs to be referenced. We can certainly add a link to something like https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/tree/main/Vision (or, better, make sure it's properly integrated on w3.org if that's not the case already). |
W3C revolves around the standardization of Web technologies |
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Could the discussion of what / where the mission and scope of the W3C are be split into a separate issue? |
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Tying this into some discussion that happened on a members' call:
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Values. Charters should be disapproved, or at least be subject to intense scrutiny, if their aim or likely effect is in direct conflict to our values. |
+1, assuming "values" is defined somewhere. |
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This is one of the less obvious gaps opened up by not having a Director to implicitly define and then make hard decisions based on "our values". Sure, the Values need to be defined in a fairly clear way (that's another set of issues in https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/issues ). Just like asking the AB+TAG to step up to some of the Director roles in FO handling, asking them to make implicit -- for the time being -- value judgments the Director once made about charters makes sense to me. |
While accountability is good, and while the board ultimately has some control over what the Team does through its power to employ people or not, I don't think we want the Board to be the main arbiter of such things. It's been clearly established many times that we wanted the Board to be tasked with running the organization, not the technical program. Yes, there are gray zones in between, but no, I don't think we want to directly involve the Board in chartering. |
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From #620 (comment) :
This is too close to "the Team decide what the members should work on": such a pattern is almost guaranteed to fail because the Team has no control over the members' priorities. The only way an SDO works is if the members decide what they want to work on; the Team is there to support, guide and facilitate that work. |
Not only that "we wanted", but the AC has been given explicit reassurances from the GovTF that this would be the case. |
Perhaps I was unclear. I'm just proposing (assuming?) the Board annually assess how well the Team has done in vetting charters that "fit the mission and values of W3C" as part of its management oversight function. I don't believe anyone is holding the Team accountable for that now. W3M has seemed more concerned with recruiting members by offering to help create charters that would attract them, the AB has no power, and the Director/SC were more or less checked out. If it's not the Board holding the Team accountable for effectively pursuing the W3C's mission, who is holding them accountable?
I'm saying the Team should ensure that the work W3C members do UNDER W3C's AUSPICES fit W3C's mission and values. And I'd be very comfortable with an alternative way to ensure charters are appropriate for W3C but the alternatives (another Director, a Technical Director, a more rigorous AC approval mechanism that doesn't make Approve the default) got lots of pushback.
I don't think the web standards ecosystem needs another OASIS, which is sort of an 'SDO in a box" for groups who want to create a standard under a well-defined process and IPR system but with few requirements to fit into a larger mission or architecture. |
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The Board has direct oversight of the CEO and thus indirect oversight of the staff, indeed. We have initiated the practice of having a staffing function review – what staff do we employ, doing what – but I agree we could go further in accountability. |
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As David says, the BoD's oversight of the Team's behaviour is indirect, as it should be. That's not really sufficient for an accountable decision-making function. More appropriate would be decision-making by a person or body who was elected, and who could be removed. ... and I strongly agree with Michael's comments about OASIS. We need to do better than the equivalent of 'some folks wanted to do this, let's see what happens.' |
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I'd be in favour of closing this issue with no change. The thesis that there's insufficient scrutiny of charters prior to approval has been demonstrated to be false. All the folk who should be able to review charters can and do already do so. Any definition of W3C's mission/values/goals that is open enough to be acceptable to all members is by definition not going to be suitable, by itself, to use as a yes/no threshold measure for whether any proposed charter is acceptable: the decision can only end up with members, which is where it already lies. |
Please explain the logic here. I opened this issue because I believe the team does relatively little scrutiny of charters to ensure they are consistent with W3C's mission and values. That creates a problem:
So what evidence has come out in this thread refuting that argument? |
I'm sure I missed that proof, and don't agree. I think it important that AC review can be informed by any AB and TAG review, if possible, for example. I think we're still at risk of "if you don't object to my charter I won't object to yours" that is a common pattern in standards bodies, if they are not careful. |
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@dwsinger @michaelchampion to summarise (somewhat selectively):
The best practical proposal I have seen is @frivoal 's suggestion that the team does more to pre-analyse proposed Charters against W3C's mission and scope and provide their analysis to the AC in advance of the AC Review. I don't believe that requires a Process change. And I do believe that it's only an input to the AC Review and that AC has the final say, rather than Team having a pre-filtering role. Of course the Team could discuss their analysis with the people proposing the Charter and encourage them to make changes so that the Charter has a better fit, if that seems appropriate. @dwsinger has introduced in the most recent comment a new consideration in this issue thread, that political machinations come into play during AC reviews, with members trading off their votes to suit their own needs. That may be the case, but I think a) it's impossible to regulate against, unless you want to remove the AC review of Charters altogether and b) it seems like a separate issue with a much bigger scope than just Charters: it could equally well apply to transition reviews. [Edit] Removed "in a hard yes/no way (that was my reading of the comment)" after discussion with @palemieux |
+1 |
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I don't disagree that there have been AC discussions about scope and mission, around Charters. I do disagree that what we do now is good enough. It's too easy for Charter approval to become routine, and now that the Director has left, it's by no means clear whose job it is to ask "should we really be doing this?" from a web architecture, scope, mission, or procedural point of view. I continue to think that the TAG and AB should be (a) enabled to provide comments on charters, so that the AC can consider them in AC review and (b) expected to do that. So, a case where we get questions about charter statements being problematic arising 'late in the process' (e.g. at a document transition time) should alert us that (b) above failed. We should aim to catch chartering problems, well, in chartering, not later in the process. |
I thought that was the clear purpose behind the AC review of charters. I'm pretty sure objections have been raised on all those grounds to one charter or another over the last couple of decades. Given the AC is expected to do the review, I don't think the TAG and AB should be expected to "pre-digest" that review for them. That seems likely to make the AC routinely expect the TAG and AB to do the work and go along with what they suggest, as well as raising the workload for the AB and TAG, and complicating the perception of W3C Council resolutions of such objections as are raised. However, it is reasonable for individuals on the AB or TAG to raise concerns to the AC. |
The AC may be "expected" to review charters, but in the currently open charter ballot only about 3% of the membership has responded at all, and only one saw fit to make a comment (on a completely editorial point). Skimming the charter reviews for the last year or so, only one got even 10% of the membership responding, most get no more than 5% of the members responding. More importantly, most of the substantive responses (suggest changes with or without a formal objection) are either on Process-related points such as the Success Criteria, or are on Mission/Strategy related point ("W3C should not be doing this"). And formal objections now go to a W3C Council, made up of the TAG and AB. So, why NOT have the TAG and AB "pre-digest" charters to give up-front feedback on issues are going to eventually give when Formal Objections are resolved? It seems like a better use of everyone's energy to have issues about mission/strategy/values and the mechanics of the Process resolved early on. For example, the HTML Working Group that in principle gives W3C's imprimatur to WHATWG living standards that meet W3C's criteria. (But hasn't done so in a while for various reasons that seem related to the mechanics of the collaboration). While the AC clearly has the ultimate authority on whether to approve such a charter, there are so many devils in the details, personal interaction issues, and meta-level abstractions involved that SOMEONE clearly needs to drive a top-down strategy and implementation review to make recommendations on whether to try to fix or give up on the collaboration. Is that a Board responsibility? A management responsibility? An AB responsibility? Whatever, it seems extremely inefficient to wait until there is a Formal Objection to a charter or Proposed Recommendation to do the necessary research and consensus-building, then make a strategic decision, then make sure it is implemented in the Process and other foundational documents or policies. So, "pre-digesting" this kind of stuff is EXACTLY what we need given that the AC reviews don't get the participation or engagement needed to create informed, authoritative decisions. |
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The AC is a large-enough group for the problem to be "someone should/will do it" to be common. There needs to be some kind of function to raise concerns to the AC so that when they are voting, they don't just say "another of these, rubber-stamp". (Maybe we should send occasional 'test charters' for approval that should obviously be disapproved, to see whether people are paying attention!) |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/
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Exactly. Our current design effectively relies on someone to FO so that the Council can make a reasoned decision about what we can / should / will do. That makes the process needlessly adversarial and expensive if we want good (for some definition of good) charters. Of course, if we want to wave through any charter that gets support from a few members and lacks anyone with enough energy to object, it's a great design. |
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I've filed a related issue for the AB to discuss. https://github.com/w3c/AB-memberonly/issues/149 |
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Closing in deference to https://github.com/w3c/AB-memberonly/issues/149 |
frivoal
added
Closed: Retracted
Turning @mnot's #328 (comment) into a standalone issue: In a W3C without an engaged Director, how do we ensure that chartered work is consistent with W3C's mission and values?
Underlying problem: Initially W3C had a Director to make judgments on how to maintain the conceptual integrity of the w3c's standards system, but now that role is essentially vacant. So we need some mechanism for the community to evaluate such matters at charter time, and encourage any concerns to be explicitly raised and authoritatively resolved during the approval process.
Symptoms: W3C's recent public controversies tend to happen when a spec gets to Proposed Recommendation and only then are are fundamental questions surfaced about its appropriateness for W3C's mission, culture, implicit values, etc. The obvious example is EME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypted_Media_Extensions#Criticism . We can certainly expect future controversies based on privacy and sustainability concerns. Once W3C is launched as a non-profit corporation without even nominal supervision from academic institutions or Director applying an explicit vision and implicit values to approve work at various maturity stages, it will be even more important to ensure such issues are resolved early. Rejecting a spec worked on for years for fundamental philosophical reasons will seem like a betrayal of trust and drive members away. Conversely, not ensuring that W3C's Recommendations align with a coherent mission and set of values will drive away those who engage in W3C hoping to close gaps between the web's "full potential" and current (sometimes ugly) reality.
Possible solutions:
Tweak the current / proposed Director-free process to ensure charters get horizontal review to surface issues and the AC is informed of these results when voting on a charter. That seems to be the intent of TAG and AB should be able to formally review charters #328, but as @mnot notes that is "sweeping some signficant problems under the carpet."
@mnot's suggestion: Make the TAG (or possibly TAG+AB) "responsible for new charters (much as in the IETF)" . But this will add to the already significant burdens of the TAG, and it's not clear that the current TAG members want the role.
My previous suggestion in Proposal for a Directorate #457 and embedded is other issues for a Technical Director(ate) that would be explicitly hired/elected/appointed to be responsible for issues at the intersection of architecture and strategy such as the problem here. But that proposal has gotten little support, and raises the obvious question of who exactly W3C could entrust with such responsibility and how to find a qualified independent person W3C could afford to hire. Plus this would require engagement of the Board of Directors who will have their hands full restructuring the current organization.
Perhaps there are other possibilities, or an efficient / workable way of combining some of these options to address the problem.
Also, perhaps this issue must be deferred until there is an authoritative and operational statement of what W3C's mission and values are. This has been an AB "priority" for some time now, and perhaps will get some cycles once a BoD takes over the job of advising and supervising the team on "business" matters. But I suspect discussions of the process for ensuring the values are respected in charters can proceed in parallel with discussions of the content of the values.
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