Re: Ideas on simplification of process and operations

On 7 Jul 2010, at 5:15 AM, Robin Berjon wrote:

General statement: I think a number of "process issues" are in fact  
operational issues. For instance, the Chair is responsible for keeping  
discussion moving forward. From the process document 3.1.1:

"When the Chair believes that the Group has duly considered the  
legitimate concerns of dissenters as far as is possible and  
reasonable, the group SHOULD move on."

The Chair is empowered to say to a commenter "That's an old issue and  
I won't reopen unless there's new info" and then move to another  
issue. People can object. The objections are carried forward. And  
progress is made.

So: mentoring of chairs and reviewers, and guidance for both might get  
us a long way to improving speed on the "Classic" track.

Here's the bit of process document that talks about review  
responsibilities, btw:
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#doc-reviews

See also the requirements related to WGs formally addressing comments:
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#formal-address


[snip]

>
> LC can be gruelling when you're faced with a comment DDoS, but on  
> the other hand if we don't have LC we don't get (all) comments. I  
> think we might help groups by introducing some exceptions to the  
> strict handling. For instance, comments that duplicate ones already  
> made shouldn't have to be tracked, just replied to with a pointer to  
> the duplication.

I don't consider that an exception to strict handling. It is entirely  
appropriate to bunch comments. The substantive reply is written once  
and sent to N people.

It is possible, of course, to shift the burden from the group to the  
reviewer in a number of ways. For instance:

* The reviewer must use a particular system for entering comments.
* The group will not send out any notices; the reviewer is responsible  
for tracking the issue. [Obviously tracking software can do the work  
of sending out notices on state changes, but some groups may be using  
approaches that require them to manually write email to everyone.]


> And in extreme cases where comments are more nefarious than helpful  
> perhaps invert the burden of proof to place it on the commenter. But  
> again, that's for the "Classic" track.

I believe the Chair is empowered to keep discussion constructive. I  
don't have a rigid formula for handling nefarious comments, but I  
believe it is not a violation of process to ask commenters to interact  
in a way that is constructive. And if they don't behave, let the  
Director know at the document transition meeting.
>
>> I know the requirement for implementations is often questioned but,  
>> as indicated above, when there already are implementations  
>> available this may be skipped. The W3C didn't have this step in the  
>> beginning and it was added because fixing errors found while  
>> implementing the spec after it had been published as a rec was too  
>> costly. Removing this requirement would be going back to where we  
>> started so, do we really want to do that?
>
> No, that would be a terrible idea.
>
>> Now, I was asked to come up with ideas to simplify the process and  
>> I realize there isn't much in any of what I discussed so far. So,  
>> detaching myself from the current process and all the reasons  
>> behind the existence of each step, I would venture that to be  
>> really attractive to the crowd we are targeting, we'd have to offer  
>> a radically different process such as:
>>
>> Call for participation (based on some general idea of what the  
>> problem at hand is) & development of charter/requirement doc
>> Draft work
>> Last call/review
>> "Final" spec
>>
>> With a quick revision cycle.
>
> I like that, and I like "W3C Community Specification". Presumably we  
> would enforce some minimal pubrules?

Today, the pubrules constraint only kicks in for the final incubator  
group report. I've not heard strenuous objections to having it at the  
end.


> And I take it that such a specification would offer no IP protection?

That is on our todo list to discuss!

Ian


>
> --
> Robin Berjon
> robineko — hired gun, higher standards
> http://robineko.com/
>
>
>

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Friday, 9 July 2010 21:37:14 UTC