Appeals and Formal Objections in the W3C Process

All,
Toward the end of the process of creating Process 2015, a number of issues related to "appeals" in the W3C process surfaced. At that time, there seemed to be too little time to appropriately address the issues with the care the seem to be needed. Now that Process 2015 is in Review, it is time to start on revisions for Process 2016 and the "appeals" issues seem like a good place to start.

There are a number of issues:

1.      The language used to describe what can be appealed, by whom and to whom is inconsistent and flawed.

2.      There are three categories of appeal: of Group Decisions, of Member Submission rejections and Advisory Committee appeals.

3.      There are potential cases that are not covered and, probably, should be covered; for example, the Director overriding the apparent consensus of an AC Review

4.      And, there are pieces of W3C Policy that can be appealed but are not described in the Process Document

Similarly, the description of Formal Objections is a bit cloudy, at least for Formal Objections in AC Reviews.

I have raised appropriate issues and to put forward suggested changes to deal with those issues. These suggestions for change and the text that they are based upon will arrive in a separate messages.

Steve Zilles