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

> On Apr 14, 2015, at 16:24 , Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com> wrote:
> 
> On 14/04/15 09:26, David Singer wrote:
> 
>> No, sorry.  That could lead to a situation where a single company has more than one representative for up to two years, which is too long in my opinion.
> 
> What you want could lead to a situation where AC's vote is not
> followed. I find that issue far worse.

Many electoral systems have rules about when you have to resign a seat. E.g. for national systems, a change of citizenship can trigger that. For local bodies, a change of domicile to outside the region represented can trigger that (“Representatives must maintain their primary residency in the district represented.”)
 
> I completely fail seeing the issue behind a Member temporarily having
> two seats. We have a ton of WGs having multiple representatives for
> some large Members, and there's no problem because we focus on skills.
> Why would the TAG be different? Same people, same spirit, same skills,
> and better controlled by TimBL himself.

Because if a company feels under-represented compared to another, in a regular WG, they can nominate as many as they like.  No election required.  The situation is quite different.


I am sorry you can’t see why people may have valid reasons for concern.  They have been laid out multiple times.

I know people who have worked for companies that are, in fact, highly directive of the positions that they take. I’m not willing to name the companies, but I would be surprised if most people cannot think of one.  “OK, the W3C wants you to act as an individual expert. Tough. I am paying your salary, I am paying you to attend the meeting, and you will do what you’re told as long as you work for me.”

As said before, even absent that, people unconsciously move toward conforming to the groups they are members of.


There are other ways to avoid a problem here — e.g. make the TAG so much larger that it’s harder to swamp. But that, IMHO, would make it less effective, less able to move fast, and actually reduce the amount that gets done.


I am still willing to defend the proposal:
* it avoids special elections, which are tedious
* it avoids people having to resign in the middle of some project, or after having served too short a period to get going
* by waiting for the next election, the situation may well resolve itself (there is a good chance — 75% —  that one or both of the two seats expires at the next election anyway)
* the average ‘double representation’ period is 6 months, and the maximum 12, which are not so long


David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.