TF meeting process Re: RESOLUTION...

On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:27:07 +0200, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>  
wrote:

> I am with you however on the process: I too was unable to attend the F2F  
> in the UK as I have no patron or sponsor to cover the near US$3000 it
> would have cost me to attend, nor was I able to attend virtually (as
> sadly I need to sleep and go to work in a time-zone 8 hours removed -
> the UK meetings starting at midnight local time through 8 AM local time).
> The 'agenda' was not formally released in a timely manner, and what was
> shared (March 29th as "a punch list"
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2010Mar/0552.html |
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/ftf_2010-04#agenda) made no mention of  
> voting or passing of resolutions.

> While I think that ultimately it would be counter-productive to make too
> much of an issue about this, I do wish to go on record as making it known
> that I too am also displeased with this procedural gaff - any resolutions
> should have been formally brought back to the entire TF, not just those
> privileged enough to be in the UK earlier this week.

*If* a group makes decisions based solely on those who are in the room at  
a particular time, and those decisions are substantive, then it would not  
be making too much of an issue - it is an important balance in the  
process. However, that is not actually the case...

Josh noted already, but it is worth re-stating. The meeting clearly  
understood that any "resolution" was effectively a proposed resolution for  
the TF at large following its normal process. Calling them resolution in  
the minutes is just to take advantage of the minuting tools W3C has to  
help us collect them, and note explicitly what *the meeting* agreed (with  
or without objections, as the case may be).

This process has long precedent - the Web apps group and its predecessor  
Web APIs has been using it since work began in early 2006, HTML WG (of  
which the TF is formally a subset) uses it, as do various others. It might  
have been helpful to have clarified it in the minutes, but given that it  
is a standard part of process I'm not that fussed.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com

Received on Friday, 9 April 2010 12:06:24 UTC