Proposed way forward for the Tracking Protection Working Group

Dear Tracking Protection Working Group,



I hope that all of you had some time to relax, take a step back, and 
revisit our progress and that you are now re-energized to return to our 
joint venture.

We know that the last weeks have been a bumpy ride. The deadline set by 
Peter's wedding was very challenging. However, we made good progress 
distilling a set of critical issues based on the new editors' draft 
(formerly called the June draft). This constitutes a solid and viable 
starting point for further improvements.

We agree with many of you that due to the short time, we were not 
careful and transparent enough. We are sorry that we have not met your 
joint expectations. Similarly we did not agree on a fall-back plan in 
case we miss our joint deadline. Our road got somewhat bumpier by 
Peter's move to his important new role.

Thank you -- we appreciate that you nevertheless have stayed on board 
thus far!

We now want to guide the group into calmer waters and establish a clear 
process and timeline how to finalise our recommendations.


We want to achieve this by four initiatives:

1.      Search for a replacement chair. The team has asked for
     nominations and volunteers and has already received some suggestions.
     The team is trying to close this as soon as possible.

2.      Launch a poll to understand stakeholder support for the proposal
     and alternative ways to proceed. This allows you to state which
     alternatives you would support and furthermore allows you to
     express objections, comments, feedback, preferences, or suggestions.
     It allows the W3C Director to assess the vitality of the group
     and understand what plans have sufficient support of stakeholders
     in the Working Group.

3.      Prepare a final list of issues including one or more text proposals
     against the Editors' Draft (formerly called the June Draft).
     This will document the remaining issues and draft alternative texts
     in order to "hit the road running" once a new chair has joined our 
group.

4.      With additional chairing resources in place, we expect to continue
     to decide on the open issues one-by-one and then conclude by
     publishing Last Call Working Drafts of our specifications.

We sincerely hope that this addresses your concerns and needs and we 
look forward to a continued collaboration with this great and lively group!
As (in the interim, sole) chair, I appreciate your support and feedback 
in order to successfully complete our joint mission.

Important dates:
  * September 09: Deadline for feedback on the proposed plan.
  * September 10: Poll opens.
  * October 09: The poll closes; chairs and team assess responses.
  * October 02: Issue Freeze: Issues raised after October 02 will
     be deferred to be addressed after Last Call.


Regards,
Matthias Schunter
& W3C Team

Received on Tuesday, 3 September 2013 06:43:00 UTC