RE: Proposed Process Change Regarding TAG Participation Rules

> In my experience, to echo a comment I made during the AB's discussion of this topic, true "votes" are rare.  If that is the concern …

I don’t think there’s likely consensus on the AC on the larger questions of the size of the TAG, whether it should be a self-appointed WG as opposed to an elected body, or how many members be elected from the same company.  There does seem to be rough consensus that it is un-necessarily burdensome on everyone to force immediate resignations/elections when someone changes jobs to an employer already supporting a TAG member.  I am exploring the details of what a proposal would look like, not trying to re-open the larger issue.

I hope there is also consensus around David Singer’s proposal that if an appointed TAG member joins a company already supporting a TAG member, and both terms run for a year past the next election, then somebody has to resign in time for either the elected seat to be filled by an election or the appointed seat to be re-appointed.


From: Chris Wilson [mailto:cwilso@google.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 4, 2014 12:26 PM
To: Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH)
Cc: David Singer; chaals@yandex-team.ru; Daniel Appelquist; public-w3process; Wayne Carr; Stephen Zilles; Brian Kardell
Subject: Re: Proposed Process Change Regarding TAG Participation Rules

Under current process, there is no difference in the constraints on participation for TAB members who are appointed by the Director (vs elected) - indeed, that would be a bit odd.

In my experience, to echo a comment I made during the AB's discussion of this topic, true "votes" are rare.  If that is the concern, then I'd suggest simply increasing the number of members of the TAG until 2 votes from the same Member would not be of concern.

On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 10:53 AM, Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH) <Michael.Champion@microsoft.com<mailto:Michael.Champion@microsoft.com>> wrote:
So what would the proposed change mean for a scenario under which an appointed TAG member changes jobs to be employed by a company that already supports an elected TAG member?  Does the elected member face re-election the next time around because of the appointment?  Is the Director compelled to appoint someone from another company at the beginning of the next TAG term?  Or are appointed members not subject to the participation rule?

-----Original Message-----
From: David Singer [mailto:singer@apple.com<mailto:singer@apple.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, November 4, 2014 10:24 AM
To: chaals@yandex-team.ru<mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru>
Cc: Daniel Appelquist; public-w3process; Wayne Carr; Stephen Zilles; Brian Kardell
Subject: Re: Proposed Process Change Regarding TAG Participation Rules

On Nov 4, 2014, at 10:39 , chaals@yandex-team.ru<mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote:

>>>>  To my earlier point about appointed members, can we make a distinction between appointed and elected members (and assume that the Director can manage the potential conflicts of interest)? This could also help to manage the diversity issue I have brought up.
>>>  Let's chat about Tag membership.  I think we might have three kinds of members:
>>>
>>>  a) elected (the eTag)
>>>  b) appointed by the director (the aTag)
>>>  c) invited by the elected (+appointed?) delegates (the iTag)
>>>
>>>  If the elected members feel that they can handle an invited member from the same company as one of them, I think that's fine.
>
> There are people who have a concern that electing lots of people who live in the same kind of environments and face the same kinds of issues and don't face or really understand issues that are relevant only in other parts of the world. Dan and others have clearly stated they are not people who have such a concern.
>
> Being one of those people, I have a further concern that if the TAG becomes a group of like-mined individuals reinforced by people selected by those individuals, the problem is made worse.
>
> The current setup allows anyone not elected to participate on an apparently equal footing. Letting the elected members give additional force to paticipants seems to me a very *bad* mechanism for building global trust.

The current setup doesn't even mention invited members, does it, so they are hardly on an equal footing. The TAG voting is clear also:

"When the TAG votes to resolve an issue, each TAG participant (whether appointed, elected, or the Chair) has one vote; see also the section on voting in the TAG charter[PUB25] and the general section on votes in this Process Document."

I am suggesting that if, in fact, we have a practice of having invited members on the TAG< we should make their status clear, both for their benefit ("I am a bona-fide invited member") and for ours ("but invited members do not vote", and so on).

I share your concerns that the TAG could become a self-serving bunch, but then we (are supposed to) do what we're doing today and re-elect more of the same bums, I mean, try to throw the bums out!

I would actually like the TAG to be stronger and more involved; I actually rather like striving towards some sense of architectural cohesion.

David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.