Going beyond AC-moderation (Was: PWE Meeting 28 February 2023)

Hi all,

As usual, I won't be able to make the PWE call (that's the time at which I
need to pick my kids up). So I'll just share my perspective on AC forum
moderation here.

While I agree wholeheartedly that there is a tone issue in the AC forum
(and elsewhere in the org), I think it is part of a larger problem around
the role of the membership, its lack of diversity, its lack of engagement,
direction, and sense of ownership, the lack of focus on and closure of key
topics, etc.

So while moderation can help with tone issues, I don't see it do much for
the broader issue.

Of course, we can always do things in parallel and work on moderation of
the AC and fixing its broader organizational problems at the same time.
However, we are resource-constrained, and some of the work that's necessary
to fix broader issues forces us to face some unpleasant truths about our
organization (like its lack of geographical diversity). My concern is that
we'll work on fixing tone issues, and immediately proceed to avoid tackling
the bigger problem.

So my suggestion would be to reframe AC moderation within a broader project
of rethinking/reimagining the membership and its role in the organization.

W3C's new bylaws rightfully center the organization around its membership.
W3C's key value prop comes from its ability to convene a broad and diverse
set of stakeholders around the web standardization process. This is also
one of the key elements to W3C's legitimacy. Yet we all agree that the
membership is poorly engaged, not very diverse, nor really representative
of the broad set of stakeholders of the Web platform. That should raise
alarm bells at the Board level. And it could be an area of huge and
necessary impact for PWE.

Happy to continue this conversation asynchronously if there's interest to
do so.

--tobie


On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 5:37 PM Reid, Wendy <wendy.reid@rakuten.com> wrote:

> Hi PWE,
>
>
>
> We'll meet at 15:00 UTC on Tuesday February 28, 2022. Details including
> Zoom information can be found here:
>
>
>
> https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/pwe/calendar
>
>
>
> We use IRC to take minutes for the meeting. You can use IRC in your
> browser by going to irc.w3.org and then to the #pwe channel.
>
>
>
> Agenda:
>
>    - Preamble to CEPC [1]
>    - Moderating AC-Forum [2]
>    - Open PRs [3]
>
>
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> [1] https://github.com/w3c/PWETF/pull/246
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> [2] https://www.w3.org/2023/02/21-ac-minutes.html
>
> [3] https://github.com/w3c/PWETF/pulls
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>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wendy
>
>
>
> *Wendy Reid *(she/her)
>
> Accessibility and Publishing Standards Lead
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> President, RakAbility, Rakuten Americas
>
> Toronto, Canada (GMT-5)
>
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