process concerns

I have several concerns about the process that the working group is using.  I 
am making some proposals here on changes to the working group process.   I 
don't view this as a final set of proposals and I certainly don't view this as 
a complete process document.


The working group is using meeting time to select scribes.  This cuts into the 
time available for other tasks.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  The working group keeps a queue of potential scribes. 
Queue ordering is by frequency of scribing and then by recency of last 
scribing.  New working group members are given a one-month grace period before 
they are eligible to become potential scribes. The scribe for the next meeting 
is the lowest person on the queue.  Assigned scribes who will not be at the 
meeeting are expected to arrange for a substitute scribe.  Those who regularly 
do not scribe when called upon are dropped from the working group.


Agenda for working group meetings come out too close to the actual meetings to 
reliably allow working group members to propose changes.   Insufficient 
information is available in the agenda announcement for working group members 
to prepare for the meeting.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Working group members may suggest agenda items for the next 
working group meeting up to 48 hours before the meeting.  The working group 
chairs area may reject or defer these suggestions, supported by a resolution 
of the working group if the suggestor so requests.  If accepted agenda items 
cannot be taken up during the meeting, they become high-priority items in the 
next meeting, i.e., the are taken up immediately after administrative and 
time-critical agenda items.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Information about agenda items, particularly any slides 
that will be presented, should be distributed to working group members at 
least 24 hours before meetings.  Information may be distributed in the form of 
links, e.g., to a slide deck, to a list of action items, to draft minutes, to 
an email thread.


It should be possible to find out the topics that the working group has 
discussed and what work it is undertaking.  Currently the only way to do the 
former is look through the entire logs of the previous working group meetings. 
  The only way to do the latter is to understand the logs and make inferences 
as to what the dicussions in the logs imply.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Working group scribes ensure that meeting minutes have 
topic headings that reflect the discussion in the meetings, editing the IRC 
log and regenerating minutes if necessary.  Topic headings should be specific 
enough to determine what was discussed.  The topic heading "quick status 
update of ongoing activities" is too vague by itself unless all discussion was 
only about administrivia and otherwise should be augmented by subtopics.  Good 
topic headings will allow one to easily find out what has been discussed by 
looking at https://www.w3.org/services/meeting-minutes?channel=rdf-star&num=2000

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Each working group meeting has as its first agenda items 
the potential approval of any unapproved minutes of previous meetings.  The 
working group does not accept meeting minutes unless its headings reflect the 
dicussion topics in the meeting.  Approved minutes have their DRAFT marker 
removed.

PROPOSAL:  The working group has someone fix significant topic problems in 
past meetings.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  The working group prepares and approves resolutions before 
significant activities are undertaken by the working group.  Activities that 
need approved resolutions include preparing documents for publication and 
performing technical work that could make changes to RDF or SPARQL.  The 
resolutions shall be clear as to what the activity will be.  Working group 
members performing the activity shall come back to the working group as needed 
for clarification of what the activity should encompass.

PROPOSAL:  The working group has someone prepare resolutions for current and 
past significant activities and determines whether or not to approve them. 
See below for a few examples.


It should be possible to find out what is happening in the working group and 
how it relates to what the working group has approved.  Finding out what is 
happening curently requires looking through issues and pull requests in 23 
repositories, and this is may not generate a comprehensive list.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Once a resolution to undertaken an activity is approved one 
or more actions are created in the main working group repository 
(https://github.com/w3c/rdf-star-wg) and linked back to the resolution.  If 
the activity involves changes to documents, issues are created in their 
repositories and linked back to an action issue in the main repository.  Pull 
requests then are linked back to the document issue.  (QUESTION:  Should 
merging significant pull requests require some sort of, potentially indirect, 
working group approval.)

See https://github.com/w3c/sparql-entailment/pull/10 and 
https://github.com/w3c/sparql-entailment/issues/7 for a mock-up of how the 
linking would work.


The working group should regularly review current activites and other actions.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  All working group actions should at least link back to an 
open action issue in the main working group repository.  Forward links as well 
are preferred.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Action issues on the main working group repository, 
including both issues resulting from actions assigned in meetings and other 
activities that require action by someone in the working group that cannot be 
immediately performed, should be tagged accordingly.   All action issues 
should have the action tag.  Overdue action issues should have an overdue tag. 
   When the working group members tasked with an action believe it is complete 
the action issue should be given the complete tag.

PROCESS PROPOSAL:  Each working group meeting has as its second agenda item 
analysis of open action items.  Action items that are newly marked as complete 
are candidates for closure.  Action items that are overdue should be modified, 
possibly just to change the due date.  Action items that are ongoing do not 
need to be discussed.



Potential proposed resolutions for current work in the working group.  The 
first is much more specific because it requires actions on 22 different 
documents.

PROPOSED:  Document editors are to prepare their documents for first public 
working draft publication.  All documents should pass W3C publication rules. 
Repository issues should be prepared for errata in 
https://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/RDF1.1_Errata and 
https://www.w3.org/2013/sparql-errata.  Editorial errata should be fixed and 
any other editorical improvements may be  made.  Other errata should be fixed 
if this can be done without any changes to RDF or SPARQL.  Editors may suggest 
a potential working group activity to address other errata or other problems 
in the documents.

PROPOSED:  Add the rdf:JSON datatype to RDF.  rdf:JSON is already defined at 
https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld11/#the-rdf-json-datatype and is in the RDF 
namespace document at
https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#

PROPOSED:  Investigate whether RDF strings should be augmented to support 
internationalization.  The W3C internationalization group should be consulted 
to determine what they want.

Received on Thursday, 9 March 2023 21:38:30 UTC