APOLOGY to WOWG

>* a note on timing/scheduling:  I and presumably a number of other folks
>set aside time to respond to the document that we were expecting
>considerably prior to its actual arrival.  When it became clear that the
>deadline was slipping, I and presumably others indicated that it would
>be colliding with some other time issues.  It has been very difficult to
>reclaim the necessary time in the specific interval that was required.

Lynn makes a VERY valid point here - when you slip in a deadline, 
realize it doesn't effect just you, but everyone in the WG.  When you 
agree to do something by a certain date, please try hard to release 
by that date - even if you need to do what Dan C did in his "what 
Daml does" email -- he left a couple of "to be completed" notes and 
published on time.  If it becomes clear that your schedule will slip 
because other people aren't getting things done or an emergency 
arises, please let the Chairs know as soon as you can (earlier is 
better) so we can adjust schedules and/or let the rest of the WG know 
-- if one knows in advance that something will get moved, adjustments 
can be made.

  I too am overwhelmed in my personal life, and that is why I asked 
the W3C to find a cochair for the working group (and Guus is great 
and making it possible to keep this thing moving).  If you find 
yourself overwhelmed in something we've asked you to do -- come back 
to us and we'll try hard to get you more help.  Our WG deadlines are 
not very negotiable, but our "staffing", with 50 WG members, can be.

I APOLOGIZE personally for the fact that I've not been doing a great 
job of reminding people about deadlines and trying to keep things 
moving more smoothly.
I am trying to do a better job of keeping track of action items and 
making deadlines and expectations clearer, and will continue trying 
to approve this.

I also feel very strongly that consensus is absolutely the most 
important thing we are striving for, and I try hard to make sure that 
opinions other than my own will get represented.  However, I've also 
been very personally involved in web ontology stuff for close to a 
decade, and am dedicating most of my professional life and reputation 
to make this semantic web thing happen, so sometimes I lose sight of 
the forest for the trees.  Accept my apologies for this in advance, 
and please don't refrain from letting me know via personal email if 
you feel I've gone too far or that something is being done you don't 
approve of.  While there's no way an effective chair can make 
everyone happy in a group this big, I will sure try hard to get as 
close as I can.

Thanks for the time you put into this activity - as you can see, I 
feel very strongly we're doing something important here, and I really 
appreciate your efforts to make it a success.
  Jim H.

-- 
Professor James Hendler				  hendler@cs.umd.edu
Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies	  301-405-2696
Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab.	  301-405-6707 (Fax)
AV Williams Building, Univ of Maryland		  College Park, MD 20742
http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler

Received on Thursday, 21 February 2002 14:22:07 UTC