Results of AC discussion of Process 2015 and 2016.

All,
As a aid to discussing what should go into the Process 2016, I have extracted the comments that were minuted in the Process 2015 and 2016 discussions at the May 2015 AC Meeting that were actually suggesting something that might be a Process change. These are given below with the name of the commenter attached. Note some editing for clarity and some rearrangement was done to make the comments more coherent.
Steve Z
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JudyZhu: I wanted to suggest we define a principle/rule for transitioning a group from IG to WG.

raman: Is it time to put more structure in the TAG to ensure all aspects of Web platform are represented?
... A rough structure can guide the TAG and voting structure
Jim_Bell:  it would be good if the TAG had specialties it needed to be effective
... boards often look at what the necessary skills are for success; what's overrepresented and underrepresented
... without hardwiring categories into process doc, this self-review could help in consideration
dsinger: I personally want to select to the TAG people who know what they know and what they don't know; but what gets missed, is what they don't notice.
chaals: I don't think that the process by which nearly half the TAG are appointed gives a guarantee of all the expertise we need
... I'm unconvinced that reserved slots would do so either
... because a) we'd want to reserve more spots than seats, and b) people have multiple strengths

glazou: some of us traveled around the world to discuss what we want. I want to talk about the TAG
... Disagree with Chaals
... We have difficulty activating expertise of horizontal reviews
... the TAG is the supreme court, I want it to have a veto
... and if so, we need transversal activities represented there.

mchampion: interesting idea, though not exactly in-scope of process 2016
... start talking about what we can learn from other orgs
... collect ideas, e.g. whether to give TAG power that's currently given to Director
... there are 94 refs to the Director in the Process; David counted.

timbl: a Formal Objection (FO) is not a normal part of the activity
... maybe you should get one FO card, and have to earn more
... it's exceptional
... "stop that train" emergency cord
... exceptions are expensive. They are for exceptional use and should be used carefully.


Alan: inconsistency between process and member agreement on how consortia can join W3C
... process lets member orgs pick "4 random people"
... and we may not be getting the right IPR commitments
... I was given advice that I needed to change the process doc, so I'm bringing it forward.

Steve_Zilles: originally, that was put in to discuss consortia of individuals, e.g. HTML Writers' Guild
... there's a difference between orgs of individuals and or orgs of orgs
<chaals> [Note that I raised issue-163 on the process - https://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/163 - to track the question Alan identified. Better description could be useful]


cwilso: We've been talking about incubation in CGs as a way to drive new work
... I want us to continue that, it's worked well

      ... I don't think it needs a formal reference in the process
... but when you bring things to WG, either they say "change it" or you get enough people from the earlier effort into the WG to say, "it's good"


mchampion: AC, would you like to see it in the process?
... e.g. CG submissions like Member submissions?
... or we could just let it keep evolving
... as an AB member and process CG member, I'd like to hear from more AC

dsinger: process for CG and process for WG are well-documented, but there's not a documented bridge between the two
... we might lose the traceability of contributions
... with VTT, we tried to trace, then get voluntary signatures from contributors to CG
... do we get appropriate traceability on IPR?

cwilso: good point, since "contributions" are the only things that have IPR commitments in CGs

Ian: It's currently a chairing question. I like Chris's idea that tooling can help
... there's no exclusion in CG because it's a contribution-based process
... either you've contributed, or you haven't
... finally, CG improvements wiki
... currently not resourced to be done

timbl: put some licensing infrastructure on github

dsinger: we shouldn't use a contribution tool that asserts contributors own their contributions, if we're having editors committing group work



mchampion: do you see any value in making the CG process more formal?

Ian: I don't want to see it part of formal process, but believe any significant changes should get similar level of review


<chaals> Clean up meeting requirements: notice, minuting, remote participation

<chaals> Restructure TAG?

<chaals> Define "WG decision" and edit the text on "consensus and decisions" which is big and bulky

<chaals> Clarify "evolution of Process"?


mchampion: as Jim put it, how do we keep from overspecifying or underspecifying formal process, while keeping documentation of best practices
... the Guide is old-school
... barely updated
... so how do we document best practices?

<Ian> (Ian was going to say at the mic that there are two (at least) types of things in the Guide: operational details and good practices....the team focuses more on updating the operational details)