Re: CFC: a policy for calls for consensus on SWICG group decisions

Dear Evan, thanks for your quick objection and path to support, which I will think about while traveling tomorrow and over the weekend and seek to 

First, I would like to clarify for the second-to-last bullet that the proposal text does not mention or propose a 'SWIP process', just the text of the ‘Proposal’ section, which I will append here for clarity. The proposal is to decide on a first SWICG operational agreement. SWIP is just an acronym in the title of the document and is not a part of the proposal text. I can see how embedding the proposal in a bigger email leaves open to interpretation exactly what the proposal is or is not. I have attached the proposal to this email. The attachment is the same as the contents of ‘Proposal’ section before.

Secondly, it would help me address your objection if you would please clarify what you mean by the last bullet. What do you mean by “the current rules, such as they are”? I see you asserting what the rules are, but I am not familiar with those being SWICG rules. My understanding is SWICG has no operational agreements and no charter, and that the SocialWG chair thought we didn’t need one when forming SocialCG. Some other community groups’ CG pages link to a charter/agreements (examples of which I linked to in my proposal), but I believe https://www.w3.org/community/socialcg/ never has and neither did its initial group proposal <https://www.w3.org/community/blog/2016/11/18/proposed-group-social-web-incubator-community-group/> announcement. If rules were changed after formation, I would expect that I would have an email because that CG process requires "The Chair must give actual notice to the participants of any material changes to the [operational] agreements."

Please provide clarification of your objection on the above, and I will follow this thread over the next couple days and try to synthesize something after the weekend that addresses concerns.


> On Sep 28, 2023, at 10:07 PM, Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name> wrote:
> 
> -1
> Thanks for doing this, Ben. In general, I like it, but I have some details I’d like to see tightened up before I can support it.
>     • It should be made clear that only members of the SocialCG should be involved in decision-making processes. The passive language like “if no sustained objections are raised” makes it sound like non-members could object.
>     • Objections or agreement should be clearly labelled as such, with +1/0/-1 voting. Questions or observations are not objections.
>     • Splitting the conversation across different communications forms would make for a lot of missed messages and duplication. Instead, we should keep any discussions requiring consensus here, on the email list. Off-list discussions are fine, of course, but it’s not a “real" objection/agreement unless it happens here.
>     • The Chairs should have the final decision if consensus has been reached.
>     • I like this SWIP process, which you created for this proposal. It’s reasonable, but I’d like to see it defined separately from the consensus proposal. I think it would be a great test of this consensus process!
>     • To adopt this policy, I think we need to adopt it under the current rules, such as they are, which is by proposal and plus-voting in an in-person meeting. I think we have one planned for next Friday.
> Thanks again,
> 
> Evan
> On 2023-09-28 8:00 p.m., Benjamin Goering wrote:
>> SWIP-37f2: a policy for calls for consensus on SWICG group decisions Introduction
>> The Social Web Incubation Community Group is missing an explicit decision-making policy, which essentially all other W3C community groups have to ensure asynchronous and healthy consensus mechanisms across timezones and participatory modes.
>> Proposal
>> W3C SWICG will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document, §5.2.1 Consensus.
>> To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional.
>> A call for consensus (CFC) will be issued for all resolutions via email to public-swicg@w3.org (archives). The presence of formal resolutions will be indicated by a "CFC" prefix in the subject line of the email. Additional outreach to community venues for more affirmative consent is strongly encouraged. There will be a response period of 14 days. If no sustained objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Community Group, i.e. a group decision.
>> All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.
>> This policy is an operational agreement per the W3C Community and Business Group Process.
>> Context W3C Groups with Similar Decision Policies
>> These community groups and working groups have similar decision policies with tentative meeting resolutions and confirmation of calls for consensus via email:
>>     • WebAssembly Community Group Charter
>>     • Credentials Community Group Charter (see section "Transparency")
>>     • Web Extensions Community Group Charter
>>     • Web of Things Interest Group Charter
>>     • HTML Working Group Charter
>>     • Web Platform Working Group Charter
>>     • Web Applications Working Group Charter
>>     • Media Working Group Charter
>>     • Web Performance Working Group Charter
>>     • Service Workers Working Group Charter
>>     • Verifiable Credentials Working Group Charter
>>     • JSON-LD Working Group Charter
>>     • WebAssembly Working Group Charter
>>     • Web Authentication Working Group Charter
>>     • Immersive Web Working Group Charter
>>     • Web Payments Working Group Charter
>>     • Devices and Sensors Working Group Charter
>>     • Distributed Tracing Working Group Charter
>>     • Web Editing Working Group Charter
>>     • Internationalization Working Group Charter
>>     • Publishing Maintenance Working Group Charter
>>     • Solid Community Group Charter (see section "Decision Policy")
>>     • Decentralized Identifier Working Group Charter
>> Proposal processes on SWICG Forum with identical response period:
>>     • FEP-a4ed: The Fediverse Enhancement Proposal Process
>> W3C Community Group Process
>> W3C SWICG is a W3C Community Group (CG).
>> CGs are described in their process document as follows (excerpted for concision):
>> This document defines W3C Community Groups, where anyone may develop Specifications, hold discussions, develop tests, and so on, with no participation fee. …
>> Community Groups that develop specifications do so under policies designed to strike a balance between ease of participation and safety for implementers and patent holders …
>> A Community Group may adopt operational agreements… that establish the group’s scope of work, decision-making processes, communications preferences, and other operations. …
>> The following rules govern Community Group operational agreements:
>>     • They must be publicly documented.
>>     • They must be fair and must not unreasonably favor or discriminate against any group participant or their employer.
>>     • They must not conflict with or modify this Community and Business Group Process, the Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA), or the Final Specification Agreement. …
>> the Chair determines the means by which the group adopts and modifies operational agreements. The Chair must give actual notice to the participants of any material changes to the agreements. Participants may resign from the group if they do not wish to participate under the new agreements. …
>> Note: W3C encourages groups adopt decision-making policies that promote consensus. …
>> Each Community Group must have at least one Chair who is responsible for ensuring the group fulfills the requirements of this document as well as the group’s operational agreements.
>> Related Reading
>>     • IETF RFC7282 On Consensus and Humming in the IETF
>>     • Doty, Nick, and Deirdre K. Mulligan. 2013. "Internet Multistakeholder Processes and Techno-Policy Standards: Initial Reflections on Privacy at the World Wide Web Consortium" Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law 11.
>>     • Harmonization (standards), en.wikipedia.org
>> Editorial Notes
>> The title of this proposal was generated in line with norms established by Content addressed vocabulary for extensionsand FEP-a4ed: The Fediverse Enhancement Proposal Process.
>> ⚡ P='a policy for calls for consensus on SWICG group decisions'
>> ⚡ echo "SWIP-$(echo -n "$P" | sha256sum | cut -c-4): $P"
>> SWIP-37f2: a policy for calls for consensus on group decisions
>> 
>> The 'SW' in 'SWIP' stands for 'Social Web'.
>> This proposal was initially published at:
>>     • https://socialweb.coop/SWIP/37f2/a-policy-for-calls-for-consensus-on-swicg-group-decisions/
>> Copyright
>> CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
>> To the extent possible under law, the authors of this Proposal have waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.