Re: multi-stakeholder participation (was Re: Deciding Exceptions....)

Hi Alan,

On Feb 7, 2012, at 5:34 AM, Alan Chapell wrote:

> So rather than focus on those, I'll merely point out that no one on this thread has even entertained the concept of having invited experts from the long tail of industry. Regardless of the requirements imposed on first parties, when 60 pages of documents appear on the desks of the technology leads who are not Adobe or MSFT – it will create pretty significant indigestion. While publisher are part of that equation, there are also a number of small to mid sized technology platforms out there that do not have the resources of a big company. And while you are one of the smarter people that I've come across in recent memory, the idea that you (or anyone) can serve as a proxy for how an entire marketplace works smacks of hubris. 
> 
> I would hope that advocating a multi-stakeholder approach is a relatively uncontroversial idea on this thread - as that seems to be a core philosophy of the W3C. It just seems that we have a few holes in terms of perspective when it comes to our talented TP group. And I'm sort of curious why I'm the only person who feels that way….(?)

Delayed response here; I've been busy with all my action items and text proposals.

Broad multi-stakeholder participation for this work is a goal that W3C staff have put significant effort into over the last nine months. We have actively called, cajoled and recruited participants from various parts of industry, academia and civil service. I'd like to think we've done a reasonably good job there, but I'm certainly still interested in getting more eyes and feedback on these documents.

The FAQ we posted in November [1] details a range of participation options, including the Working Group, the Community Group, the Interest Group, and simply joining the public mailing list and observing meetings. We've had some luck on getting a wider range of public interest organizations to comment via the Do-Not-Track Community Group (thanks to Lee and John for focusing that group and bringing their feedback to the WG) and I could certainly see something similar being useful for consolidating feedback from smaller publishers or platforms. Thomas and I had floated the idea of a Web Advertising Business Group last summer and didn't get much response, but I'd be eager to try something like that again as a Community/Business Group that can gather discussion and feedback from publishers, smaller ad networks or other industry organizations that we're not hearing enough from. 

If that sounds promising to you, Alan, or to others in the group, and you might have recommendations for contacts to get involved that way, please let me know off-list and I'll try to get that started.

Thanks,
Nick

P.S. Also, W3C has also just announced a reduced Membership fee for start-up companies [2], if there are any organizations for whom that change could get them involved, please point them to me or me to them.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2011/tracking-protection/faq
[2] http://www.w3.org/News/2012.html#entry-9347