Re: Webizen progress and next meeting

On 5 August 2014 23:33, Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:

>  Top posting to start a thread on a related idea.
>
> Some of the Webizen input was of the form - if Webizens do not get to
> elect representatives who participate in Charter review - then no point in
> having the program.
>
> Some of the input we received from the Advisory Committee was of the form
> - if Webizens participate in the AC Charter review, then we have deprecated
> Membership to a level that the AC is not comfortable with.
>
> Part of our challenge is to find the middle ground between these two
> statements - which at first glance offer little in the form of middle
> ground.
>
> Here is one idea that someone presented to me.  Have the Webizens elect
> representatives.  Encourage them to participate in Charter review.  The
> Director will (of course) pay heed to their input - as the Director always
> cherishes input from the public.  But have this review outside of the
> formal W3C process.
>
> This would give Webizens a tangible value.  But it would finesse some of
> the AC concerns.
>
> It also might be a little too "cute".  Maybe Webizens would feel that this
> does not provide real Charter review privileges.  Maybe the AC would still
> be uncomfortable.
>
> I'm just thinking out loud.  Interested in input.
>

Thanks for initiating, imho, a fascination discussion.

Democracy, which is the primary governance system of the world today, is
based on the principle of "one man one vote".

There's a certain problem in computing known as the "sybil attack" or "sock
puppets" which can also be equated to "vote stuffing".  It's where a single
entity can have a disproportionate effect on the reaching of consensus.

What I'd love to see for webizens is an "opt-in" situation where people can
join a community and have a say in the future of the web, but that one
person can only have a single voice in the collective.

All members of the group would also receive a dividend based on the
commons, ie the common value creation.  In time, if enough value is
created, in a fair way, the incentives will be for more and more people to
become webizens, and benefit mutually form the process.

Just my $0.02


>
> Jeff
>
> On 8/5/2014 8:03 AM, Brian Kardell wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 5, 2014 5:44 AM, "Charles McCathie Nevile" <chaals@yandex-team.ru>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 04 Aug 2014 18:52:03 +0200, Brian Kardell <bkardell@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Aug 4, 2014 12:29 PM, "Jeff Jaffe" <jeff@w3.org> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Thanks to all who participated in last Friday's call.
> >> >
> >> > The Doodle poll for the next call is at [1].
> >
> > Regrets for the call.
> >
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> At the risk of sounding like a broken record, developers have no
> first-class voice with regard to w3c matters, especially with regard to
> direction in terms of TAG and AB  - at least for WGs we have possibility
> for invited experts, but IEs have the same issue: while granted status for
> WGs, they have no (even collective) representation. I understand that some
> membership was opposed to this, but is it just off the table?  I don't see
> anything in the survey even hinting at this.
> >
> >
> > Some membership were indeed opposed, others (like me), were of the
> opinion that webizens (imho, developers, IEs, and other non-member
> interested parties) actually should have good, representative
> representation. Already, chairs are able to participate in AC meetings, and
> as well as being in some cases invited experts I find that they are often
> reasonably good representatives of participants in their groups, but I
> don't think this is enough.
> >
> > I'm not a huge overall fan of the webizen idea, since in most cases I
> think it would be far better for developers who want representation to get
> together and set up a non-profit that can join W3C.
> >
> This is what I was hoping we could avoid with Webizen.  The truth is that
> setting up a nonprofit is non-trivial to do with any legitimacy, its a
> legal entity and generally needs a board and treasurer and founding charter
> and so on.  I've consulted with a lawyer friend who pointed out that since
> their purpose is to represent, it's likely that this can be called into
> question and that  for this to work we'd need to set up more than one.  If
> we ran a big campaign to spin them up for every 100 developers or so there
> then also seem to be possible affiliations which current w3c rules seem to
> imply they could deny membership based on.  If you are an existing legal
> entity, joining w3c is just "submit paperwork and pay the fee", and you
> already have all this.  If you are creating a loose group without an
> existing body the required effort is very significantly greater.  None of
> this seems strictly necessary.
>
> > For a group of 100 US-based developers, the cost would be in the order
> of $75 and they get an AC rep, the right to nominate official partiipants
> to groups, etc. - plus access to the material that is confidential to the
> members. For a group based in a developing country there is an existing
> mechanism to reduce the price to something locally appropriate. And W3C
> already has the mechanisms and staffing in place to manage this so the
> extra cost of maintaining it is close to zero.
> >
> > That said, one of my success criteria for a webizen project is that
> invited experts participate. And one good reason for them to do so is that
> they collectively get "direct" representation - i.e. to select among
> themselves people who are interested in and capable of (primarily the issue
> here is time and money) representing the interests of a constituency in the
> way AC reps do for their sponsor organisations.
> >
> > I hope I will get to the wiki this week to try and push this idea a bit
> further. If it doesn't happen today, please feel free to nag me by private
> email or twitter until I have done so.
> >
> > PS: Brian (and anyone else not versed in the slightly arcane, but
> incredibly useful, IRC tools): you should send a /msg to RRSagent:
> > /msg RRSAgent help
> > to learn more about what it does. In particular, it doesn't log /me
> commands - this is a feature that allows people to make comments that are
> available to those in the meeting but that do not form part of the record…
> >
> Yes, that's what I was saying.. I mentioned that calling in was an
> impossibility via /me, it's not logged.
>
> > cheers
> >
> > Chaals
> >
> > --
> > Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
> > chaals@yandex-team.ru Find more at http://yandex.com
>
>
>