Re: Suggested response to the Yandex "cannot iive with loosening of TAG participation requiremens"

> On Apr 13, 2015, at 14:29 , Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com> wrote:
> 
> On 13/04/15 00:43, Stephen Zilles wrote:
> 
>> The first version (that which is now in the Draft Process 2015 document)
>> 
>> “A Member organization is permitted at most one participant on the TAG
>> except when having more than one participant is caused by a change of
>> affiliation of an existing participant. At the completion of the next
>> regularly scheduled election for the TAG, the Member organization must
>> have returned to having at most one participant.”
> 
> I also have concerns about this, but for reasons I think are entirely
> different from the one behind Chaals' objection.
> 
> 1. the last sentence is unclear. I could understand the intent if it
>   meant "the next election for the extra seat under consideration" but
>   if that's really any election, it means we're back to the previous
>   situation where a TAG member has to resign at some point to comply
>   with rules we found counter-productive and over-rigid enough to
>   update them. In short, this does not solve the issue.

I don’t understand why this doesn’t solve the issue. It doesn’t matter which seats are considered.

What we wanted was that if someone changed allegiance, we (a) did not force a special election but (b) any >1 seat count for their employer would last no longer than until the next election. How the company resolves this — resignation, who resigns, when, term endings, etc. — is up to them.

Say, for example, in year X, A from the company is elected. In X+1 B from another company is elected, and then changes allegiance to the same company as A. Since A’s term expires at the next election, the company will, with no special thought, return to having one member — B.

Do we need the obvious stated, that you cannot stand for election if, if you are elected, the rule would be violated?

> 2. this does not change the center of gravity of the TAG. The TAG is
>   a group of individuals that we all value for their expertise, not
>   a group of employees of their employers. As a matter of fact, they
>   remain on the TAG if they become unaffiliated…

That’s the theory, and I encourage you to read the previous comments to understand the concerns about this in practice.

(Since the previous discussion, New Scientist has published an edition that focuses on ‘belief’. In it they report on research in which volunteers were given moderately difficult tests. Without any influence, they get X% right. When the group answering is ‘seeded’ with volunteers deliberately answering wrongly, the percentage of correct answers plummets to around X/3%. Ah, they went with the crowd, you say. No, they honestly believed their answer, and that they had not been influenced by others.)

> Sorry if my comments above arrive late, I was burried under work and
> then sick.

I am sure thoughtful comments are helpful at any time!  Glad you are feeling better enough to comment on W3C processes…

David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.