Re: W3C communities and its modus operandi

* Bijan Parsia wrote:
>This message makes specific claims about numerous process violations.  
>And not ones open to interpretation. I see a follow up from some W3C  
>staff (including Tim Berners-Lee) but I just *don't know what  
>happened*. I've no sense how things directly played out. I could find  
>out, but it's a heck of a lot of work and it would just be me.

As far as the Team's reaction to procedural doubts is concerned, I am
very happy with how things turned out for the better; I think this is
really quite evident if you compare the Team's investigations in such
matters before and after. Here's a list of all before that I know of:

  * http://www.w3.org/mid/442D7ECC.2090702%40w3.org (member-only)

And a list of all the later ones, including corrections to old ones:


There may be even more, but matters eventually reached a point where
I no longer had any reason to express doubts, and consequently paid
less attention. Reviewing all of them is perhaps too much work, but
some of them deal specifically with the cases you mention -- I think
they are quite representative of the Team's current interest in them.

What is also clear from some of these reports is that matters are more
open to interpretation than one might think! The Team addressed those
cases by updating the Process document in no small manner, so that it
better reflects the Team's understanding and current practises. You
can find the then-current Process document under

  http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/

And a list of changes they have made since:

  http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/ProcessChanges

Okay, they may have toned down some things a bit that I'd rather have
stressed, but ultimately I also have to agree that setting expectations
properly is more important than having a seemingly ideal process.

In this spirit, I hope my message helps setting your expectations, too.

Received on Saturday, 28 February 2009 22:53:51 UTC