Re: Consolidation of Task-forces

Le 10 févr. 09 à 21:35, Harry Halpin a écrit :

> Tim Anglade wrote:
>>
>> Hey there.
>>
>> Le 10 févr. 09 à 20:34, Harry Halpin a écrit :
>> [
> [snip]
>> I object. **Strongly.**
>>
>> My problem with your whole proposal is that it negates the diversity
>> and industry appeal this group should have. As one of the few  
>> business
>> guys posting regularly on this list, let me tell you that I doubt any
>> industrial will follow the vision you outline.
>
> What vision? That's a plan for deliverables. It's just saying, instead
> of 7 task-forces spread among what appear to be about 20 people
> delivering what appear to be 18 reports, let's go for 4 reports that  
> we
> can actually get done, and assume that we have a core of about 15-20
> people working on things, which is what we seem to have. I am against
> putting things in the charter we cannot reasonably deliver within a
> year. The criteria for "reasonably deliver" is that these do not  
> already
> have someone who wants to work on them, i.e. volunteer to edit.

This criteria, to my knowledge, is not a W3C one.

Again, your plan for deliverables all but ensures that there will be  
no more than 4 subjects tackled and only 20 people in the group.
Leaving even the “empty” task forces in is a good way to open the door  
to 30 more people joining in later. Again, openness, welcomeness:  
traits I think our XG should have.

> I could see the case for a separate "Business" report, if people felt
> getting into the nitty-gritty on micropayments and such would be
> something they would work on.

Micropayments would probably be a bigger subject treated elsewhere.

Otherwise, to repeat myself: Business overall is an important subject  
I think we should be aware of and handle appropriately.

> Also, most of the deliverables seemed to be reports. If it appears one
> of the reports has too broad a scope and is getting to big, it would
> make sense to split it. But why *begin* saying we're going to write 18
> reports, especially if they seem to have attracted little attention  
> from
> the list?

Focus. Small deliverables. More manageable to work on small actions  
when we are strained on resources. More ways to involve people if our  
group grows larger.

> There are marketing firms that write reports on this stuff all the
> time, no reason to duplicate their efforts. A single final report  
> with a
> few subsidary documents that aim explicitly at future  
> standardization is
> the usual product of XGs.

And the problem is exactly that they're written by *marketing* firms  
instead of a body like the W3C. I think we can definitely add input,  
fresh ideas and original perspectives on those subjects.

>> Instead of closing doors (by merging task forces and the like) we
>> should try to open them. Again, I understand your idea of doing stuff
>> with what we have now. But since we don't need editors attached
>> everywhere, I strongly feel we should keep an open mind to let the
>> people who we are missing right now join in later.
> Perhaps more people from industry will e-mail the list with their
> opinions? There were quite a few at the workshop, hopefully they  
> will be
> speak. If you or anyone else do feel that more people would be
> interested, please have them join the list and speak up. If they do  
> not
> join the list and speak up, I think it's unwise to assume they will
> speak up at a later point. I do think if get some practical stuff and
> interaction with codebases out, people might speak up.

Oh well. I really wouldn't be surprised if we got new business people  
in (we're talking to some companies on our side). Give it some time.  
And let's make some efforts reaching across to them and making sure  
they have a place in our XG.

> I do not think 18 reports is very practical or will even be noticed by
> industry.

18 reports is more noticeable than one. Quantity is not all though but  
I have no doubts about the quality of the work this group could produce!

> I will not touch the Unified Charter till I hear from more people.

Very sensible; I would obviously not recommend taking decisions based  
on my sole input. I do think that Christine's comments were basically  
along the same lines as mine, but that may be wishful thinking. Any  
others? Please join in!

> On a personal aside, it does appear that industry has already started
> voting with their feet towards the "Open stack" of OpenSocial, OpenID,
> etc. To me, comparing the "OpenStack" to other stacks and getting this
> working with the rest of the W3C mission, accessibility,
> internationalization, mobile phones, trust and privacy etc. is a good
> place to begin.

Right. This is an exciting development. The way I take it is: since we  
have business interest expressed for the domain at large and its  
initiatives, let's make sure we can host those who already want to  
participate and can welcome the rest later.

>>> We can also make another Doodle talking about who would want to
>>> join which of the consolidated task-forces, edit which documents,  
>>> and
>>> chair.
>>
>> That seems like a fair step — If we don't make some Task Forces
>> disappear before submitting them to a vote.
> OK, I'll make the doodle this weekend, although some else could do it
> beforehand if they wish and send it to the list.

Just to clarify: I think this doodle will help us identify who works  
on what. But I think that TFs without an editor after the vote  
shouldn't be removed from the draft.



Nice call on splitting the discussion in two, by the way, as those two  
lines of discussion are indeed very separate. Thanks for that.


Great discussion otherwise. Spirited debates are always hard to follow  
but I'm very happy to see the discussion advancing.


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Received on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 21:10:29 UTC