Re: Developer Feedback to W3C (was: AppCache post-mortem?)

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013, Doug Schepers wrote:

> Hi, folks-
>
> Dom, thanks for pinging me. Some of this is reminiscent of a blog post I
> wrote last year [1], which reflects some ideas that had already been
> floating around for a while. While we've made a bit of progress in some of
> these areas (particularly the "crowdsourcing testing", which may have been
> part of the inspiration for Test the Web Forward), I don't think any of
> these ideas has reached their full potential.
>
> On 5/14/13 4:15 AM, Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for the excellent points that have been brought up in
>> this thread; I'd like to propose a summary of where I think we are,
>> and would like for volunteers to step forward to bring up more
>> concrete plans that we can include in our proposal.
>>
> [...]
>
>> * structural challenge: there seems to be consensus that it is
>> currently too hard for developers to influence the course of a spec,
>> even when the state of the related technology is close to being
>> unusable. Several proposals have been voiced to help reduce that
>> barrier:
>> - make it much easier to submit bug reports, with a bug squad that
>> would actually triage and dispatch bug to the relevant working
>> groups as needed
>>
>
> I would suggest that it should also be easier to file a bug with
> implementers, as well. I've always wanted to have a place to file a bug
> once for all the browsers *and* the working group (backed by a test, of
> course), let people upvote that bug, show which browsers pass the test with
> regular updates, and demonstrate the priority of certain bugs among
> developers. Sort of a combination of a bug-filing system and
> community-driven, sustained Acid Test. Having each browser have their own
> issue tracking systems is necessary, but it makes it hard for developers to
> coordinate on systematically requesting for specific bugs.
>
>
>  - make it easier for developers to provide more qualitative and
>> quantitative feedback on various technologies via surveys
>>
>
> I'd really like to get this going. Part of the problem is finding
> developers and designers to answer this; coordination between all of our
> DevRel teams, and major dev sites, could help us come up with the right set
> of questions and a meaningfully broad set of responders.
>
>
>  - get developers effectively represented in the W3C process via a
>> new class of membership or through an elected representative
>>
>
> I don't think developers should have to join W3C to participate; they can
> participate now in our public WGs, and even join the WG as Invited Experts.
>
> I have noodled around in the past on having "developer representatives",
> elected periodically... questions would arise of whether they truly
> represent their constituents, how to hold them accountable, how to pay for
> their travel and time, etc. I think I favor the idea of a W3C staffer
> dedicated to advocating for developers, but it doesn't have the same feel
> as someone elected and serving as an independent advocate.
>
>
>  As Alex pointed out, getting more developer feedback is only useful
>> if that feedback has real influence on the course of our various
>> technologies, incl. in their implementation in browsers — so an
>> important aspect of making this work is to determine what parameters
>> of the way we gather or represent that feedback will make it truly
>> influential.
>>
>> I believe these 3 proposals have merit and can bring a very positive
>>  impact on W3C (well beyond our gap with native); but as they stand,
>>  they're still mostly vaporware, so I would need volunteers willing
>> to dig further into them to turn them into more concrete proposals
>> on which we could elaborate. Any taker? Robin? Alex? Yehuda?
>>
>> (I'll also ping our devrel team since this whole thread is very
>> relevant to them)
>>
>
> Having some infrastructure and community around all these efforts would be
> useful. The route I took to doing this was starting WebPlatform.org.


My read of the history of webplatform.org is that it was a
vendor-initiated, lead, and managed project which was loosely facilitated
by the W3C. It was done this way to create independence from any one vendor
-- despite most (if not all) of them being enthusiastic supporters. That
the W3C has had a role in it at all is testament to the belief by many that
it is an honest broker; certainly not the sort of organization that would
claim credit for member's work, surely.


> Our initial aim there is to provide high-quality documentation, so
> developers get in the habit of going there for information (unlike W3.org),
> and then to incrementally build up the tools and information for
> participating in standards themselves... for example, learning about
> features early and trying out the JS shims, so they can give educated
> feedback about how well it works and how it might change; and even just
> serving as a central location to find someone to help you triage your bug
> or feature request, answer surveys, and generally discuss stuff that will
> impact standards.
>
> We're making good progress on the documentation front, and starting to get
> into a rhythm... maybe in a few months, we can start to think seriously
> about some of these other aspects.
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/community/**devrel/2012/03/22/devrel-and-**webed-cg/<http://www.w3.org/community/devrel/2012/03/22/devrel-and-webed-cg/>
>
> Regards-
> -Doug Schepers
> W3C Developer Relations Lead
>
>
>