Equity Review Board

In our discussions of an ERB, I have expressed concern with moving 
forward with an ERB unless/until it is better defined.  In this email I 
elaborate on the source of my concerns and propose two paths forward - 
one of which is a specific proposal.

*Concerns:*

I have two classes of concerns:

a. A Review Board sounds like a relatively formal team with rather heavy 
responsibilities.  Creating such a board without a clear mission and 
without clear accountability could be confusing.  Depending on its 
accountability, such a board might require not only AC approval, but W3C 
Steering Committee approval (I say "might" because it is not even 
defined what the ERB is).  I don't think it is responsible to create a 
Review Board without detailed definition.

b. The nature of the W3C organization presents challenges.  Every year, 
when I do the W3C Diversity Report [1] I struggle to provide a better 
report.  But it is difficult because of the nature of the W3C 
organization.  There are at least three dimensions of W3C which make it 
particularly difficult.

   i. We are a global organization.  As a global organization, there are 
immense challenges to even define what we mean by "our objectives for 
diversity".  We are in so many countries, there are so many diverse 
groups, there are so many languages that are on the web (and plenty more 
that are not).

   ii. We respect privacy.  We do not collect information about people 
in any place, which makes it difficult to formally set targets or 
evaluate them.

   iii. W3C is a community.  It is appropriate that we challenge the 
entire W3C community to become more inclusive and diverse. But the fact 
that noone controls our hundreds of members (certainly not the >10,000 
people in our CGs) makes this a challenge.

*Paths forward.*

I see two possible paths forward.

1. Create an Equity Review Board.  Spend some time working through the 
issues above so we can have a solid understanding of the scope and 
responsibility of the ERB.

2. Create an Equity Advisory Board instead of an ERB.  Here is a 
strawman proposal for an EAB:

  * Mission: Form an impression of inclusion and diversity at W3C and
    advise the W3C Community (team, members, participants) on ideas to
    improve inclusion and diversity.
  * Composition: Seven elected members, two appointed members, one
    ex-officio as follows:
      o The seven elected members are elected by the AC.
          + They serve rotating two year terms (3/4 expire every year)
      o After each election, the seven elected members identify
        weaknesses in the EAB composition, and find two appointed
        members to assure diversity of the EAB
          + The terms of the appointed members begin 6 months after the
            seating of the elected members
      o After each election, the then-serving nine members elect (from
        themselves) a chair for the next year
      o The W3C CEO serves on the EAB in an ex-officio (non-voting) fashion
  * Status
      o Once approved by the AC, the Team can immediately organize the
        first election (top 3 vote getters get an initial three year term)
      o A version of this description will be added to the W3C Process,
        with the process community allowed to make further tweaks.

Jeff

[1] 
https://www.w3.org/blog/2020/06/diversity-and-inclusion-at-w3c-2020-update-future-of-the-w3c-diversity-fund/