On Publications (Re: Suggestions for opening up PF)

On 04/08/2015 11:57 AM, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> As to process around publication it is my (perhaps naive) understanding that W3C staff serve the membership and as consensus is a pillar of the W3C process I would expect that subverting consensus is anathema to policy.
Let me jump in the discussion here so the background is well understood.

Some of the publications (basically everything except normal WD, LC, and 
non-substantive CR) are subject to the Director's approval:
[[
/* must / obtain Director approval.
]]
http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#transition-reqs

The role of the Director, as "lead technical architect at W3C", is to 
assess "consensus 
<http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#def-Consensus> within W3C for 
architectural choices, publication of technical reports 
<http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#Reports>, and new Activities 
<http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#Activities>."
  http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#Team

It should be noted that, in practice, the Director does delegate his 
authority to approve transitions. For First Public Working Drafts, the 
Domain Leads are representing the Director. For CR, PR, REC, and PER, 
Ralph Swick and myself are representing the Director (modulo potential 
conflict of interest, ie I don't get to approve transitions coming from 
my own Domain).

In addition, the W3C Process references the publication requirements at
  http://www.w3.org/2005/07/pubrules

It is the mission of the W3C Team to ensure that publication 
requirements are being followed, which have been mostly maintained by 
the W3C Communications Team over the years.

So, Janina is correct to point out that, in order to change the W3C 
Process, you'd need to go and raise an issue with the W3C Advisory Board 
[1] if you do not believe that the Director must approve transitions. It 
is not however in the prerogative of a Working Group Chair or an entire 
Working Group to change that. You cannot change it for the PF Group 
without changing the rest of the Consortium either due to the nature of 
the W3C Process.

Now, it may well be that you believe the W3C Team isn't efficient in 
terms of publishing and the Process is fine but ill-implemented by the 
W3C Team. Without more specific here, it'd be difficult for me to give 
more advise. We are in the process of changing our publications get done 
and I'd happy to get into more details in a separate thread as well.

Philippe

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/

Received on Thursday, 9 April 2015 19:36:02 UTC