Re: Invited expert - Change of policy?

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Renato Iannella <renato@nicta.com.au> wrote:

>
> On 7 Apr 2009, at 10:54, Harry Halpin wrote:
>
>  The solution is simple: Everyone becomes an "Invited Expert" and agrees to
>> the XG Charter policy.
>>
>> However, this would require everyone who participates in the public
>> list-serv or who speaks at the telecon to sign up to be an Invited Expert
>> first, and would require explicit banning of everyone who does not sign up
>> as an Invited Expert from the list-serv. That sort of list-serv and telecon
>> does not seem very public or open to me.
>>
>
>
> No, that is not what I said Harry. Nobody is banned from anything ;-)


However, this would prevent interaction with companies or people who for
some reason or another may not be comfortable or have time to sign up to be
an Invited Expert. This may include people from major social networking hubs
or smaller sites or community efforts who just want to dip their toes in,
and would prevent cross-posting and so interaction with the wider Social Web
community.

Since W3C groups usually have a public list and a member-only list, and
interaction with both public and member-only lists are both taken
seriously,  I am pretty sure there isn't an actual legal issue here,
especially as XGs just look at future standardization but do not actually
make standards, unlike the HTML5 WG. If there is an actual legal issue at
hand, Renato, you should clarify and bring up previous experience
explicitly, and we can run the possibility by a legal expert.

More likely, it's an operational issue. In particular, whether or not
someone should have to fill out both forms (W3C account and Invited Expert
status) before joining the "public" list or not. It seems de-facto, at least
according to usual W3C terminology, that then that list would be a
*member-only* list, not a "public" list. Is there any reason why such a list
would be called "public" rather than "member-only"?

I am happy to have a member-only list that uses Renato's procedure and a
public list that doesn't. I see no reason why we should not have a public
list where the general public, who may not have W3C accounts and may not
fill out the form for whatever reason. The question is where should most of
the work take place, and the charter currently says the public list.  Again,
would like to hear the opinions of more people in the group and would like
to hear more about the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.


> It's very simple....instead of the public sending an email to "
> public-xg-socialweb-request@w3.org" and *bypassing* the Charter Policy,
> they simply fill in a form (name, email, company), click the "agree" check
> box" and they auto-join both lists.




>
> The advantage of this is that everyone is "equal" - there will be no
>  questions like "are you an invited expert?" or "just a public participant?"
> when discussing contributions towards deliverables.
>
> BTW, the HTML WG has 255 Invited Experts and followed the same process.
>
> Currently, the public needs to fill in this form to get a W3C account:
>  <http://www.w3.org/Help/Account/Request/Public>
>
> Then fill in this form to join the XG:
>  <http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/ieapp/>  (Note: W3C account need to
> access this URL)
>
> Perhaps W3C can streamline that into one simpler form?
>
> Cheers...  Renato Iannella
> NICTA
>
>