Best Practices editors: to-do list & timelines - For tomorrow's meeting

Hi all,

The clock is ticking down on our time together, sadly, and I know we're all
keen to get a Best Practices working group note out the to the world where
it can be useful. This email is to help us work out how we can make that
happen.

Quick stroll down memory lane:

At our Face-to-Face in Dublin in April, we resolved: [1]

     •  The WG aims to publish Best Practices as a W3C Note.
     •  Best Practices will (at most) only very briefly discuss "1.
Procurement", "4. Versioning", "5.Stability", and "6. Legacy Data."  We
don't have the time/expertise to do more.

If you'll remember back to our charter [2], that means we're committed to
deliver, at minimum, a working group note on:

    1.  Vocabulary Selection. The group will provide advice on how
governments should select RDF vocabulary terms (URIs), including advice as
to when they should mint their own. This advice will take into account
issues of stability, security, and long-term maintenance commitment, as
well as other factors that may arise during the group's work.

    2.  URI Construction. The group will specify how to create good URIs
for use in government linked data. Inputs include Cool URIs for the
Semantic Web, Designing URI Sets for the UK Public Sector (PDF), and
Creating URIs (data.gov.uk). Guidance will be produced not only for minting
URIs for governmental  entities, such as schools or agencies, but also for
vocabularies, concepts, and datasets.
(We're also committed to delivering the Cookbook, but we can discuss that
separately.)


I'm afraid we may have to reassess our planning a bit, given the late date
and how busy everyone seems to be.  It looks like you have a good amount of
content in the Editor's Draft [3], but there are a number of expansion
notes and formatting tasks to get through.

More importantly though, after last week's meeting (in which the working
group wanted to reassess the use of five stars to evaluate vocabularies
[4]), I'm concerned that the group may need some considerable time to
review and discuss this work (and you, to revise in collaboration with
them) before we can come to a consensus on publishing it.

So I'm looking at the timelines (as is my wont… it's a sad life, I know!)
and here are the options I think we have for this deliverable:


— Option A: (the "We're all in!" option) —

1.  Full, pubrules-ready FPWD to the working group THIS TUESDAY. (19
November)
I suspect we'll have to approve it for publication by email, if we can, or
find some other way to make that work.
[This is for publication 21 November]
2.  Two weeks for public and working group comments (21 November - 5
December)*
3.  One week for the editors to revise the document, respond to feedback,
and return new draft to the working group for final review (5-12 December)
4.  The working group resolves to publish: 12 December

* This is shorter than the usual W3C review period, but it seems to be what
we have.


— Option B: (the "No public feedback" option) —

1.  Editors revise and draft until 21 November.  (This gives you a little
over a week.)
2.  One week for working group comments and discussion (28 November - 5
December)**
3.  One week for the editors to revise the document, respond to feedback,
and return new draft to the working group for final review (5-12 December)
4.  The working group resolves to publish: 12 December

** We would probably arrange an extra call for these discussions during
that week of feedback.


— Option C (the "Last possible minute" option) — ***
1.  Editors continue to revise and work on it until 5 December [to
distribute to the working group, who must read it before they can vote]
2.  The working group may resolve to publish: 12 December

*** Option C has a sizable risk:  that members of the working group may
have objections or want clarifications, and this option doesn't allow any
time to resolve them. The risk means that the working group may not approve
the document.


Ultimately, editors:  I think this both your decision and the working
group's, but it should be guided by what you, in your expertise, think is
best.  Feel free to discuss this here on the mailing list, or among
yourselves.

It would be great if your thoughts could guide our discussion in tomorrow's
meeting.

Cheers,

   Hadley

Hadley Beeman
Co-chair
W3C Government Linked Data Working Group


[1] http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/meeting/2013-04-11
[2] www.w3.org/2011/gld/charter
[3] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/gld/raw-file/default/bp/index.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/2013/meeting/gld/2013-11-07