RE : Open and Transparent W3C Community Group Proposed

Hi all,

trying to get the best of that wonderful end-of-week-thread...

I think that part of the conversation has gone wrong for 3 reasons.

First the condition this CG was created. Imagine that prior to creating it, Art would have socialized it a bit, or would have warned that this CG was a possible mean  to follow up on his willingness to support openess and transparency, calling for contributors and support... I am confident it would not have collected so much cristicism.
Second, this CG adresses together the financial, governance, communication and contributions aspects of W3C. AB, AC rep, W3C communication team, the people who had a mandate related to that topic : this is all about their  job (our job). Opening a CG to tell people how they should work, what they did wrong, with no prior communication can be frustrating.
Third, one could suspect this CG to be just another way to propose things that did not get consensus (such as creating a public AB mailing list), and would generate waste of time for everyone, W3C team, AC rep, AB... But lets hope it targets more then that.
That was for the dark side of the CG. Now ... lets be positive.

If we look at the objective of that CG, I dont see how it could harm W3C activities : it is supposed to create public discussion about more transparency and openess in W3C. It is a CG, and it is an interesting topic. None can prevent that discussion to happen, and if it is with a federated public, it can be beneficial to everyone. Lets see how the CG members will contribute to that one. Worse nothing happens, best, W3C gets good feedbacks.
If the reputation and efficiency of W3C can be improved by incubating here some good ideas, I see no problem with that.

Virginie
 (gemalto AC rep, proud AB member, crazy Web Crypto WG chair)




________________________________________
De : Robin Berjon [robin@w3.org]
Date d'envoi : vendredi 8 août 2014 13:17
À : David Singer; Sylvain Galineau
Cc: jicheu@yahoo.fr; Karl Dubost; Revising W3C Process Community Group; W3C Members; Arthur Barstow
Objet : Re: Open and Transparent W3C Community Group Proposed

On 08/08/2014 02:04 , David Singer wrote:
> Mind you, I’d prefer we work grounded in real problems.  Can someone
> point at an instance where someone or something suffered as a result
> of a lack of openness or transparency?  Without actual cases to
> ameliorate, I am fearful this could spend a lot of effort to little
> effect.  “I tried to find X but could not.”  “I tried to communicate
> Y but could not.” and so on.  Anyone have specific instances?

Well, we still publish our documents under closed licenses for instance.
That forces us to remain stuck in antiquated collaboration models.

A lot of people are raising concerns with the way the W3C runs itself,
as part of the renewed interest in the organisation over the past few
years. I don't necessarily agree with all of those concerns, but I'm
happy that people have it: it means we're alive. Nevertheless, the AB
remains to a large extent opaque in its operations. It's hard to reform
when you can't see the dynamics at play. It also gives an unfair
advantage to old hacks (such as yours truly) who know exactly who to
bribe for information over newcomers who want the organisation to head
in a given direction.

This is notably important given the several requests to improve the
Process, and the AB's involvement in that.

None of this is the end of the world. But they are genuine issues of
openness and transparency. This CG opens a venue in which outsiders can
petition on similar topics.

--
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

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Received on Friday, 8 August 2014 14:12:27 UTC