Re: Consensus on ISSUE-73 (was Re: Universal Property)

On Jan 18, 2008, at 11:06 AM, Jeremy Carroll wrote:
>
> I noted surprise in the e-mail thread that Bijan proposed to close  
> this issue, when I had understood the chairs as encouraging us to  
> discuss other issues, in the e-mail.

Open world. That we encourage you to discuss something doesn't mean  
you shouldn't discuss others on the agenda.
Or say that you don't want something on the agenda, or that it should  
be in a different part.

> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2008Jan/0100 (for  
> example ISSUE-29 not ISSUE-73)
>
> While Jim may have been somewhat lax on the process it is unclear  
> how we are meant to prioritise topics for thought and discussion  
> when the chair's give instructions to discuss certain issues and  
> then construct agendas concerning others.  Of course, this is  
> generally a good thing, when there is consensus in that it keeps  
> things moving, but it was clear in the e-mail archive that I was  
> not satisfied with Bijan's proposal.
>
> If our process is that the chairs pick an arbitrary issue from the  
> issue list a couple of days before a meeting and stick that on the  
> agenda, and see whether some arbitrary proposal to close it will  
> carry (by majority), then this is somewhat open to abuse.

This is not the process. I would remind you that the process that we  
have around those proposals to resolve is that if someone feels that  
the issue is not ready for resolution then we push it to a  
discussion. We make our best judgement as to what might be ready for  
resolution and there have been several cases where Ian or I have  
pushed an issue, initially on that list, off further, or into  
discussion on the way to making a decision on the agenda. However, we  
may occasionally make mistakes in judgement here. Fortunately, with  
adequate WG participation, they should not generate any problem  
because of the policy of moving them to discussion if we aren't ready  
to resolve it, as determined in the meeting, or by notification  
before the meeting.

In the discussion we had on this issue, IIRC, your position was that  
both sides of the argument had been adequately made, and you didn't  
think that further discussion would change anything. Had you stated  
otherwise, we would have not voted and instead moved the issue to  
discussion. Please correct me if I remember this incorrectly.

> I liked the suggestion that the process was more going to be that  
> the chairs sugegst a couple of the non-consensus issues to discuss  
> by e-mail each week - ISSUE-73 has never been so marked.

We are working on putting this in place, as you can see by the fact  
that we had a draft agenda for next week at the last meeting (Kudos  
to Ian!). However, prior to this, putting it on the agenda was that  
notice.

> On Bijan's point
> "(i.e., we had consensus on the telecon)"
> no, I voted against (I suggest review the IRC)

My understanding was that we had consensus to vote. However if you  
did not understand the status of proposals to resolve, as discussed  
above, your decision might not be what it would have been otherwise.  
I did think we had made this clear. My apologies if we did not. Is it  
clear now? If this is new information to you, then we can revisit the  
resolution.

-Alan

Received on Friday, 18 January 2008 17:30:04 UTC