- From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:31:48 -0400
- To: Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>
- Cc: public-qa-dev@w3.org
Dear Björn, I share many of your concerns. The W3C staff is aware of the situations you describe and is seeking solutions both general and specific. I expect others on the W3C staff will respond on separate threads in the appropriate fora to other points you raised. You are correct when you say W3C "relies on volunteers." Most of the work of the Consortium is done by volunteers, be they employees of a Member organization or independent contributors like yourself. The full-time staff only does a small percentage of the Consortium's work. For instance, the TAG was created so that more volunteers could dedicate time to promoting architectural consistency. The W3C Offices and volunteer translators help W3C reach out to more regions of the planet. And, of course, volunteers working with the staff on the validators have succeeded in creating services of great value to the community. Yes, we rely on volunteers. It is a serious problem, then, when a group or the staff fail to be accountable to those who make contributions. A number of forces can cause a group to be less responsive than we would like, including the group's natural desire to move quickly, the number of participants, the number of comments it receives, divergent expectations with reviewers about what constitutes adequate handling, and, in some cases, less staff coordination than we would like due to resource constraints. We strive to find a workable balance that will satisfy all parties, and when we fall short, we evaluate what went wrong. So what are we planning to do about the HTML Activity? The HTML Working Group has endeavored to be accountable to commenters but, as your email illustrates, it has not always succeeded. The group, currently small, has received a large number of comments. Responding to hundreds of comments requires time, but timely responses are important. The lack of a response to a substantive technical comment is unacceptable. The HTML Working Group will need to review its processes for handling comments. As you know, new charters for the HTML Activity are in a phase of initial review by the Membership. Some of the anticipated changes are designed to (1) change the HTML Activity so that browser developers are better integrated; this is expected to increase participation which, in turn, should help improve responsiveness; (2) put more emphasis on input from content developers, implementers and users; and (3) increase the priority of connection with the validator community. I expect that the charters will be publicly available in the September time frame. What are we planning to do about the validators? The staff cares a lot about using and providing useful public tools such as the validators. We are discussing the future of these tools internally, with a commitment to more hardware and human resources, and more involvement of Working Groups in the development and maintenance of tools related to their technologies. (My personal view is that the validators should also connect to the TAG as part of providing assistance in "doing the right thing" for the Web.) I agree with you that we need to pay attention to the load on the servers as the usefulness of these services increases. The staff is devising additional changes to improve communication with content developers, implementers, and users. I expect proposals will be available following the W3C management meeting mid-September. Thank you again for your contributions to W3C, including airing your concerns on this list, which also acted as a catalyst for others to express their concerns. These blog entries and emails are as valuable as many technical contributions as they enable us to gauge how we are doing as an organization. I look forward to a series of changes that will make your participation, and that of others, as rewarding to you as it is important to W3C. Tim Berners-Lee
Received on Friday, 28 July 2006 18:31:59 UTC