Re: Proposed Process Change Regarding TAG Participation Rules

On Nov 3, 2014, at 13:07 , Daniel Appelquist <appelquist@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
>> On 3 Nov 2014, at 12:53, Brian Kardell <bkardell@gmail.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>> 
>> I think as David is suggesting, as of now this would guarantee at least 1 year on TAG, right?
> 
> Well - as I understand David’s suggestion, no. If, for example, a TAG member with 14 months left in her term changes affiliation to a W3C member which already has an affiliated TAG participant, and the next election cycle is 2 months away, then she would give up her seat in 2 months and not be eligible to stand again (unless the other participant stepped down).

As you later note, yes, they’d serve the rest of their first year out. The rule would have them step down (if needed) at that point.  It might not be needed if their colleague’s term is expiring, for example.

The rule would prevent two from the same company from standing in the first place, as well.

> 
> Whilst I think this is a better situation than we have now, as no special elections would be triggered, I still think it falls short, especially since many (including me) feel that the multiple participants constraint is artificial in the first place. As an example, if in the last series of TAG elections a group of candidates have agreed to run on a certain platform, publicly stated this platform, and been successful in their campaign to garner A.C. votes, win seats and change the agenda and focus of the TAG. They didn’t need to be in the same company to do so.
> 
> To my earlier point about appointed members, can we make a distinction between appointed and elected members (and assume that the Director can manage the potential conflicts of interest)? This could also help to manage the diversity issue I have brought up.

Let’s chat about Tag membership.  I think we might have three kinds of members:

a) elected (the eTag)
b) appointed by the director (the aTag)
c) invited by the elected (+appointed?) delegates (the iTag)

If the elected members feel that they can handle an invited member from the same company as one of them, I think that’s fine. Since I expect the Tag mostly to work through unanimity, this is fine.  It might help the iTag to feel that they are ‘real’ Tag members if we formalized class (c), perhaps.  In cases of real conflict, I guess I would expect the eTag to have more weight than the aTag, and them to have more weight than the iTag, but honestly, if the Tag gets stuck in a debate that that’s polarizing, maybe we have asked the wrong question.

> 
> If it’s what on offer, I can live with it, but I’d prefer something stronger, considering that I have supported Noah’s original proposal which would have allowed for multiple participation from a single member.
> 
> Dan

David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Monday, 3 November 2014 15:04:48 UTC