Re: A charter for the Social Web Working Group

I wanted to start by saying that we're in favor of creating a WG here.

I did want to go even further than Pierre-Antoine did, though, and call out
how the W3C process works and requires WGs to work.  It is totally okay
(and even a good pattern) to use a CG as a feeder/incubator for a WG (I
co-chair the Immersive Web CG and WG that do just this - and yes, we have
joint meetings), but it's important to understand that in the Process, the
Working Group must be open to all the Members, and the WG must function by
consensus of its membership - in other words, although it can certainly
take input from a CG, that input is not binding, but the consensus of the
WG members *is* binding.  You can't hand a spec from a CG over to a WG to
rubber-stamp as a standard; the WG has to form consensus around its work,
even if it starts from a CG draft.  The WG can absolutely make decisions
that the CG doesn't "approve of" - because there aren't any fixed rules for
consensus in a CG, and a WG is not subordinate to a CG, as Pierre-Antoine
said.  Clear consensus from a WG is the price of being on the REC track.

I would strongly advise thinking of this as moving the bulk of the work
into the WG - and definitely liberally using invited experts as appropriate
in order to ensure all the right people can be there in the WG, even if
they are not W3C Members.

-Chris Wilson