Status and "Proposed Recommendation" Re: small comment on the AB draft process document

On Wed, 16 Oct 2013 10:44:38 +0200, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:
> <chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Oct 2013 16:50:30 +0200, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:

>>> ----
>>>
>>> 7.4.3 says, as a first bullet item (to publish a W3C Rec)
>>>
>>> "- must republish the document, identifying it as the basis of a  
>>> Request for Recommendation."
>>>
>>> First I presumed that what was meant here was the availability of an  
>>> up-to-date editor's draft, which must be produced for the transition.  
>>> But that is not considered as 'publishing', formally, so I am not  
>>> sure. But then... here is what it says later in the section for all  
>>> recommendations:
>>>
>>> [[[
>>> • The Director must announce the provisional approval of a Request for  
>>> publication of a W3C Recommendation to the Advisory Committee.
>>> • The Advisory Committee review of the technical report must continue  
>>> at least 28 days after the announcement of provisional approval to  
>>> publish the Edited Recommendation as a W3C Recommendation.
>>> ]]]
>>>
>>>
>>> Does it mean that a document is published that is, for all good and  
>>> purposes, the final recommendation, but the AC has a month to object?
>>
>> Basically.
>>
>>> In which case the document's status on the Web should say something  
>>> like "this document has the provisional approval of the director but  
>>> the AC may still oppose it", as opposed to the final document that  
>>> says "this document has the approval of the AC".

Yes...

>>> Meaning that the two documents are not identical before and after the  
>>> AC approval. Isn't it what the current PR is all about? So why not  
>>> calling a cat a cat?
>>
>> The AB (before explaining themselves in public in any detail) felt that  
>> removing the formal step of PR was a Good Idea. I'm ambivalent.
>>
>>> The only difference seems to be that there is no need for a formal  
>>> transition call to publish a Rec in the new process, which sounds fine  
>>> to me although, truth must be said, that transition is usually a  
>>> matter of an email these days, it rarely means a really heavy  
>>> administration. Ie, the simplification is not significant...
>>
>> Agreed, but I don't think it is harmful, and I would prefer not to do  
>> the work of putting it back in. If you think it should go back in, feel  
>> free to say so (or raise an issue)...
>
> Well, I understand that not calling it a PR may make it look less of an  
> administrative hurdle, ie, I would not fight for it. But maybe spelling  
> out even more explicitly would be helpful. It is also not clear to me  
> how it exactly works in practice:
>
> - would a Rec-to-be become automatically a Rec unless it is objected to,  
> or is there a formal step

There is a requirement to address dissent from the AC. In public, 2 weeks  
before publishing as Rec. But if there is none, its a mechanical formality  
of publish and announce.

> - would somehow the status section (or something else) reflect the  
> situation

Yes.

> I think the second item is important: it should be clear, when reading  
> the document, that it is still not 100% accepted. Maybe not the status  
> section, maybe something on top of the page showing a warning...  
> anything is fine, really:-)

Agreed.

I raised ISSUE-48 for this, and propose to resolve it with an explicit  
requirement that the Status identify whether a recommendation is  
provisionally approved (i.e. still under AC review) or formally published.  
I also added a general requirement that the Status section be unique for  
each publication of a spec. I'm taking that from PubRules, but I think it  
is an important principle in the publishing process in general...

(so please people, read this and check if you agree or not).

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Friday, 18 October 2013 00:42:15 UTC