CfC: Call for Consensus on Charter updates after horizontal review

Hello SWICG!

We had an excellent discussion at today's special TPAC CG meeting. We
reviewed a number of pull requests on the proposed Social Web Working Group
charter. These pull requests were co-authored by myself and Philippe Le
Hegaret of W3C in response to horizontal review
<https://www.w3.org/guide/process/charter#horizontal-review> from W3C.
There was general consensus in the meeting minutes here
<https://hedgedoc.socialweb.coop/4ZzzizKlQn2Rt-ybtcBBnQ> to merge these
pull requests, and this email is a formal Call for Consensus from the CG.

If you'd like to comment, please do so either here on the mailing list or
directly in the Github PRs discussed below.

For reference, here is the current charter draft that was under horizontal
review: https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/2025/social-wg.html


   - PR https://github.com/swicg/potential-charters/pull/89
      - This is actually a PR on the "CG/WG staging document" and not the
      charter but I'm including it here for completeness' sake since it came up
      in horizontal review. The PR updates the staging document
language to make
      it consistent with the new W3C Process. Simply put, the document referred
      to "Proposed Recommendation" but that [no longer exists in the Process](
      https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#old-terms) so this change
      updates the language to simply refer to Recommendation.
   - PR https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/pull/721
      - Moving on to actual charter changes, this is a three-parter PR.
         - HR noted that the "Workflow for Active Items" would probably be
         a better fit under "Participation" than under "Scope", so the
first commit
         in this PR simply moves it to "Participation" without
changing any language.
         - The second commit in the PR address that the same Workflow
         subsection refers to Chair elections, which is not something
that is part
         of W3C Process for Working Groups. Chairs of W3C WGs are
appointed by the
         W3C Team, not elected. (On a personal note my guess is this
was left over
         from a CG chartering draft, where Chair elections can be a thing.)
         - The third commit adds language that specifies our interest in
         bringing in Invited Experts from SWICG. Horizontal review
thought it would
         be useful to specify in order to make application for Invited Expert
         easier. This is all intended to be part of the process where
work done in
         the CG can be "promoted" into the WG, and we'd like to bring in
         authors/stewards of that work into the WG as a part of that
process. By
         specifying it here, it makes the application to be an Invited
Expert from a
         CG member go smoother and easier.
      - PR https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/pull/723
      - This PR updates the mission statement, background and scope.
         - Two changes to language just update things to be a little
         clearer (changing language to be more active like "would
maintain" to "will
         maintain")
         - Adding a sentence to Scope which specifically references
         "further deliverables" linked to the incubation process. This
is to ensure
         that as new work gets incubated from the CG, we have the
option to bring it
         into the WG.
      - PR https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/pull/724
      - This fixes old language (a spec itself is what needs a privacy &
      security section, not each "substantive change")
   - PR https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/pull/725
      - This PR clarifies coordination with the CG. There are two sentences
      changed here.
         - "This group is expected to coordinate with the Social Web
         Incubator Community Group on consensus-based proposals
related to content
         changes for the Social Web Working Group Deliverables." is
changed to "The
         Working Group is expected to request reviews from the
Community Group of
         all of the Working Group deliverables."
            - The reasoning is that the WG charter can't mandate
            "coordination" with an outside group but the charter can
mandate that the
            WG do certain things like request reviews.
         - Removal of the sentence "The Chairs of this group should reject
         proposals that are incompatible  with this Charter."
            - The two objections from horizontal review were that 1) Chairs
            already have the right to reject proposals and the duty to
do so when they
            are out of scope, and 2) "incompatible" is not a meaningful term.
            Ultimately the sentence is saying the Chairs should behave
like Chairs are
            supposed to, so the suggestion was removal.

There is some interesting discussion in the minutes
<https://hedgedoc.socialweb.coop/4ZzzizKlQn2Rt-ybtcBBnQ> of the above,
particularly for PR 725. I'll highlight that Aram Zucker-Scharff of the
Private Advertising Technology WG noted that they have a similar CG to WG
incubation process and what we are proposing here is pretty well in line
with what has worked for them.

This CfC will be open for 14 days from sending of this email, approximately
early morning Nov 28 GMT.

Thank you all for your continued patience and comment!

-Darius