[Bug 9898] The Decision Policy (as applied) is ineffective at getting closure on ISSUEs

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9898


Shelley Powers <shelleyp@burningbird.net> changed:

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--- Comment #3 from Shelley Powers <shelleyp@burningbird.net>  2010-06-13 00:38:06 ---
(In reply to comment #0)
> I gather an important point of the Decision Policy is to manage dissent by
> establishing a due process for dealing with the dissent as opposed to having
> permathreads of claims that a particular concern hasn't been duly considered by
> the WG as a whole to go on indefinitely taking the attention of the WG
> participants and interfering with productive work at the WG.
> 
> Before the current Decision Policy was put in place, the idea of soliciting
> concrete proposals (now termed Change Proposals) was accompanied by a reference
> to
> http://bitworking.org/news/Camera_Ready_Copy_and_the_Social_Denial_of_Service_Attack
> (See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jan/0385.html)
> 
> While pointing to
> http://bitworking.org/news/Camera_Ready_Copy_and_the_Social_Denial_of_Service_Attack
> doesn't explicitly say that a substantial reason for soliciting concrete
> proposals is avoiding Social Denial of Service Attacks, I think it was
> reasonable for readers of the 0385 email to infer that what later developed
> into the Decision Process was supposed to limit behavior that would tie up the
> finite attention of WG participants. I posit that this reasonable inference may
> have played a substantial part in getting the WG to agree to a heavyweight
> Decision Process. At least I thought that the end points of the Process were
> supposed to be end points of attention-exhausting activities around a given
> ISSUE.
> 
> Now that the Chairs have, on behalf of the WG, made their Decision on some
> ISSUEs, I see almost *nothing but* emails about the subject matter of the
> ISSUEs or about the fallout of the decisions coming from public-html.
> Evidently, giving dissenters the benefit of due process didn't bring the ISSUEs
> to closure. We have both attention-exhausting permathreads *and* a heavyweight
> process. 
> 
> I think this is a sign of the Decision Process not working properly. It is
> possible that this isn't a bug in the Decision Process document per se, but in
> the application of the process. Emphasizing the a Decision applies "at this
> time" is effectively an invitation to continue discussion instead of bringing
> the ISSUEs to closure.

I believe you exaggerate. 

What permathread? There was a discussion about a couple of recent decisions
recently because both parties who submitted proposals (original and counter)
questioned the fact that our objections were not addressed. I have since filed
a bug in the decision process to ask the co-chairs to address all
objections--those stated in the surveys, and those in the counter-proposals.
And I'm keeping my options open as to whether to file a formal objection. 

Later, the discussion varied into the fact that neither hidden nor accessible
is fully accessible at this time, and a lively discussion ensued about how to
make it so. Not surprising: the decision was to keep both, but problems still
exist with both.

Do you expect that one decision means there is no discussion about the
elements? Even if the elements, as they are defined, are problematic?

There are no permathreads. There is a new discussion based on a formal
objection for continuing to include links to the WhatWG document within the W3C
HTML5. And the HTML5 editor seems to be unhappy with most, if not all, co-chair
decisions.

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Received on Sunday, 13 June 2010 00:38:09 UTC