Re: Managing Public Comments to the RDF WG

The working group is obligated to consider and respond to every comment on 
public-rdf-comments@w3.org during last calls, and some other times.  The 
working group should take into consideration all comments on -comments at 
other times.  When impassioned debates ring out there, it is very difficult to 
determine what is a comment and what is not, so the effect is that the working 
group cannot do its job.

I am absolutely opposed to opening up public-rdf-wg@w3.org to outside 
contributors.  In my opinion, this change would make it much harder for the 
working group to finish its work. I would lodge whatever objection I can to 
this, and would agitate for an official W3C decision before it is done.

There are other places where officially W3C sanctioned discussion can take 
place on RDF.  semantic-web@w3.org is probably the best of these.

In my opinion, the best course is to
1/ Have the WG chairs triage all messages to -comments.   Those that are not 
real comments would receive an official response to that effect, saying that 
the message will not be further considered by the WG and inviting the poster 
to repost to semantic-web and telling the poster how to object to this 
decision.  Those messages that are real would receive the usual official 
response saying that the message has been placed on the list of comments and 
that the WG will officially respond.
2/ Have WG members not post to -comments unless it is an official response.
3/ Have an autoresponder for -comments saying that -comments is only for 
comments to the WG on one of the WG documents were the poster requires an 
official response from the WG.  Also add this to the mailing list description 
at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-comments/

peter

PS:  Most of this is just a rehash of the original message, but I think that 
it needs to be restated loudly and often, just not on -comments.   The current 
situation is becoming unsupportable.

On 06/19/2013 11:03 AM, David Booth wrote:
> I appreciate the difficulty that is caused by having so many messages sent 
> to public-rdf-[comments]@w3.org , but the practical implications of the 
> policy below seem problematic.
>
> When a comment or proposal is sent to the public-rdf-comments@w3.org list, 
> frequently there are important followup questions and explanations.  If 
> those are posted to "semantic-web@w3.org, public-lod@w3.org, other mailing 
> lists", how would the commenter be assured that the working group would see 
> them?
>
> I think the root of the problem is the fact that the regular RDF working 
> group mailing list is only open to members of that group. Other than the 
> public-rdf-comments@w3.org list, there *is* no other public communication 
> channel available for people who are not WG members to communicate with the 
> RDF working group.  That is a problem.  I believe it was an unintended 
> consequence of the decision to limit the public-rdf-wg@w3.org list to 
> working group members (to avoid spam?).
>
> CONCRETE PROPOSAL: (a) Change the subscription and posting policy of the 
> public-rdf-wg@w3.org list to allow people who are not working group members 
> to subscribe to that list and post to that list.  (b) When a comment or 
> proposal is sent to public-rdf-comments@w3.org, encourage followup 
> discussion to take place on the public-rdf-wg@w3.org list.
>
> Thanks,
> David Booth
>
> On 06/19/2013 11:43 AM, David Wood wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The purpose of the public-rdf-comments mailing list is to ensure that
>> members of the public may suggest changes to or raise concerns about
>> specifications managed by the RDF Working Group.  Importantly, the
>> RDF WG has a requirement to ensure that each public comment is
>> formally addressed.  That is very hard for us to accomplish when
>> detailed and long-running design discussions take place on that
>> list.
>>
>> We discussed the management of the public-rdf-comments list during
>> today's telecon and decided that long-running conversations should
>> not take place on that list.  Members of the public wishing to hold
>> such discussions are encouraged to do so on semantic-web@w3.org,
>> public-lod@w3.org, other mailing lists or via interpersonal
>> communications.
>>
>> Members of the public should therefore limit traffic on
>> public-rdf-comments to concrete proposals to change RDF WG
>> specifications.  The public-rdf-comments mailing list should not be
>> copied on messages to other mailing lists.
>>
>> Members of the RDF WG should refrain from replying to
>> public-rdf-comments without permission of the WG chairs.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Regards, Dave -- http://about.me/david_wood
>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Thursday, 20 June 2013 14:44:23 UTC