Re: Request for CCG Chair Intervention in CCG Process

On 8/20/21 7:15 AM, Mike Prorock wrote:
> You are asking some great questions.  I am going to answer inline so that 
> things don't get missed.

Thank you for the responses, Mike, Heather, and Wayne. The CCG Chairs position
feels crystal clear to me and I really appreciate the speed and decisiveness
with which the Chairs engaged.

What I was most concerned about was that the work item groups would end up
with no way to manage dissent and that work item members could bypass work
item consensus by repeatedly raising a formal objection. It sounds like there
are good protections in place to prevent that from happening (and for the
check and balance to not be abused by the Editors).

It does change the mental model that I understood the Work Item Groups to be
operating under, but that's fine -- there's a clear path to determining
consensus and managing dissent now where the responsibility is delegated to
the Editors and with an appeal path to the CCG Chairs. That feels manageable
and scalable to me.

I had tried to ensure buy-in in the entire VC HTTP API group so that everyone
could participate in the dissent recordation process for managing dissent,
instead of depending on the Organizer to do so (by allowing for more dissent
to be recorded and then moving on), but unfortunately this was misread as
changing the consensus process... which led to more trouble than it was worth.

I was also operating under the assumption that applying the full weight of the
W3C Process to a work item was overkill, that resolutions made in a work item
group were preliminary findings (what could be challenged later), but it seems
as if some folks in the community want us to operate with full W3C Process
from day one. I personally think that this desire is misguided for work items
under incubation, but will try to operate under this mode until it becomes a
problem (and will then re-raise the concern at that point in time). Perhaps
I'm worrying about it prematurely.

To be clear, I had assumed that work item groups just operated as lowercase
"working groups" per W3C Process where the organizer was acting as Chair with
the broad ability to seek consensus and manage dissent, which included
broadening the amount of dissent that could be recorded (this is what
temporarily switching to simple majority / super majority voting does for
decisions that can be challenged later - FCGS, FPWD, CR, PR, REC <-- each
stage allows for a formal objection to anything in the specification on any
technical ground).

What I'm understanding now is that:

1. The Editors, not the Organizers, determine consensus
   and manage dissent.

2. Any dissent on a resolution recorded by the Editors,
   through a formal objection, is raised to the CCG Chairs
   for a final decision.

3. There will be no ability for a group to use any form of
   simple majority or supermajority voting to make a
   temporary decision, manage dissent, and/or move on. We
   are now required to use the full blown W3C Process for
   all resolutions in work item groups.

Works for me, proposals for the VC HTTP API work item group to move on are
forthcoming.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
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Received on Friday, 20 August 2021 13:36:51 UTC