Is the TAG structure harmful? [Was: Fwd: Forced Resignation]

[ Bcc public-w3process ]

On the one hand, as long as some set of TAG participants are elected by 
Members, I suspect some see (marginal?) value in limiting the number of 
participants from an organization. OTOH, I think Consortium processes 
actually retard the growth of the Web when those processes prohibit or 
limit willing and capable people from directly contributing to Web 
standards.

I realize at least some (small?) set of TAG members have a personal 
preference to work in a small group (and of course there are some 
advantages to doing so), but besides the issue with the current 
structure restricting the set of qualified participants, I think the 
TAG's current structure is suboptimal for a number of other reasons. 
Here are some of them, and I believe all of them could be addressed by 
the group being a `real` Working Group.

* Publication hacks - since the TAG apparently can't publish `real` 
Recommendations, they get WGs to publish their specs (NB: WebApps' draft 
charter includes two specs that are being led by TAG participants and 
proposed to be jointly published 
<http://www.w3.org/2014/06/webapps-charter.html#coordination>).

* Term limits - as the group does more and more spec work, having a 
2-year limit  can be disruptive to the completion of a document.

* Voting - instead of spending time and energy on voting, we could 
divert that energy to getting the `best` people involved and actually 
doing work.

* Charter with clear scope and deliverables.

* IP clarity - extending IP commitments to the participants' 
organization (rather than the individuals) would be clearer and broader 
and this is especially important as the group produces `real` 
Recommendations.

* Eliminate a 1-off group - using a WG structure would simplify the 
Process Document (i.e. eliminate all text related to the TAG).

TAG members - would any of you stop participating in your areas of 
interest of this group was a Working Group?

-AB


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Forced Resignation
Resent-Date: 	Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:51:15 +0000
Resent-From: 	www-tag@w3.org
Date: 	Mon, 30 Jun 2014 05:50:17 -0700
From: 	Alex Russell <slightlyoff@google.com>
To: 	www-tag@w3.org List <www-tag@w3.org>
CC: 	www-archive <www-archive@w3.org>, Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>, 
Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com>, Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>, Jeff Jaffe 
<jeff@w3.org>



Hi all,

As you may know, Google recently had the good sense and taste to hire 
fellow TAG member Dominic Denicola. W3C rules insist that, despite being 
/individually elected/ as representatives of the membership, our 
employment situation is more important to the membership than our 
capacity to make meaningful contributions at the TAG. Therefore one of 
us must resign.

As my term ends soonest, I will be stepping down from my position so 
that Dominic can continue the good work of helping to encourage 
extensibility in the web platform. I will, however, continue to attend 
meetings through the end of my elected term (Jan '15) in protest of 
what, frankly, is appallingly poor organizational design. Evidence of 
this piles up: last year we also lost productive TAG members to vagaries 
of employment interaction with W3C policy.

If the AB's goal with this misbegotten policy were to prevent multiple 
individuals from a firm from influencing the TAG's decisions, I invite 
them to bar me from meetings post my removal. Were it not so, I invite 
them to change the policy.

Regards

Received on Monday, 30 June 2014 14:51:06 UTC