Need to fix DID Use Cases ASAP

Hi all,

The DID WG draft charter started circulation with the W3C Advisory
Committee as an "advance notice" last Thursday[1]. The feedback I've
been getting from W3C Advisory Committee Members that have seen the
document for the first time is very negative due to the current state of
the Use Cases Document[2]. Some feedback includes the following statements:

"This is possibly the worst use cases document that I've read as a part
of an AC Review. If this is the state of the use cases, I can't imagine
that the state of the specification is much better. I'm not voting for
this charter -- will object to it instead -- the use cases alone show
it's not ready."

"I couldn't make it through the charter. I hit the use case written by a
male, depicting an image of a scantily clad woman and what it is like to
be a woman in a dance club. Looks like the group is detached from
reality if they think DIDs are going to solve that problem."

"What's the official status of the use case doc that's linked from the
draft charter? It's not done, right..? ... because there's some.. really
not good stuff in there. I'm just worried about the harm it might do to
more than just the work, but the group... remove the unnecessary picture
of a dancing lady.."

"... has possibly one to two use cases that I can use to show upper
management to convince them to participate... the rest are going to
result in eye rolling."

"I read some of the use cases document, but I didn't see any that
actually justified this work. A proper use case should tell a story of a
problem being solved by DIDs that isn't reasonably solved without them.
The ones I read were not doing that at all. They were fairly vague,
talking about some problem around identity or decentralization, and
suggesting that somehow DIDs would help."

The W3C Advisory Committee was never supposed to see that working
document (or rather, that document was supposed to be cleaned up by this
point, but it's not).

What they expect to see at this point is a finalized use cases document,
preferably in ReSpec format.

I've been trying to do damage control, underscoring that the group does
have solid use cases and we're behind in getting that document up to
snuff. Amy and I tried to take some of the use cases and filled out the
ReSpec Use Cases document[3] that has been blank since May of last year.
The Charter has been temporarily redirected[4] to that document (instead
of the one that the AC was never supposed to see):

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-use-cases/

This is only meant as a stop-gap solution, should be replaced with the
correct text that is being worked on by Joe/Christopher/Matt/Dan when it
becomes available.

The challenge here is that the AC is currently reviewing the documents
RIGHT NOW and this is creating a very negative first impression. We need
to fix this problem ASAP.

CCG Chairs, this is a request to have some time on the call this week to
discuss?

-- manu

[1]https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2019Feb/0003.html
[2]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wz8sakevXzO2OSMP341w7M2LjAMZfEQaTQEm_AOs3_Q/edit
[3]https://github.com/w3c-ccg/did-use-cases/commits/master
[4]https://github.com/w3c-ccg/did-wg-charter/commit/d3a2ae0856f23a354047dc840d3d180ef84f03a5

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Veres One Decentralized Identifier Blockchain Launches
https://tinyurl.com/veres-one-launches

Received on Sunday, 10 February 2019 19:39:30 UTC