Re: Requested addition to section 7.1

TL;DR: I think we can relax about changing the process itself, and still improve practice significantly, without the world falling over in the meantime.

18.12.2016, 10:21, "Daniel Glazman" <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com>:
> On 18/12/2016 03:39, Jeff Jaffe wrote:
>
>>  it is certainly worthwhile to take this up in Process 2018
>>  [....]
>>  I think it is fine to submit this proposal to Process 2018 and if that
>
> 2018, wow. It's december 2016. Are you serious, Jeff? This precisely
> fuels my other current request in the AC Forum for faster process
> changes.

Which we can make if you can get consensus on a proposal, as noted.

> We are discussing a Process hole that authorized W3M to make a
> unconsensual and potentially harmful decision for one of its most
> successful Working Groups (precisely for the 20th birthday of CSS,
> nice) and you're suggesting to have it resolved in 1.5 years from now
> on average?

I think this overstates the case. As you suggest below, a bad judgement call on consensus is effectively a violation of the Process already. So improving the procedures used, not the rules that govern them, might well be the right solution.

I am hopeful that the current discussion around the HTML Media Extensions group do, as Jeff suggests, reflect an active attempt to improve those procedures. A similar case is the WCAG charter proposal. Watch this space, and member-charters-review@w3.org perhaps…

[...]
> It's then not a consensus. First conclusion: W3M violated the Process.
> Second conclusion: the current CSS WG Charter is void.

That doesn't follow, because the Process describes AC appeal as the error-correction mechanism. We've never seen one of those, so we don't know how it really works, but without one I believe both good and bad decisions stand…

> I am ready to object to all Charters sent for review and vote until
> a decision to fix 7.1.2 with either a constraint or a removal of item 2
> is planified for the next 6 months, not 2018. I am not trusting W3M any
> more to do the right thing based on 7.1.2 item 2.

That seems drastic, and probably counter-productive. Although you're free to do it of course.

> On a more personal note, I find it devastating and heartbreaking since
> I've always stated "I trust W3M to do the right thing" in the past.
> Similarly, I don't think I ever heard W3M say "we screwed, sorry; let's
> fix this mess together right now" and that too becomes untenable.

I have seen that occur - for example the rechartering of the various WAI groups, or earlier the chartering of a group to work on HTML5.

I generally trust that people in W3C - all across the ecosystem - try to do the right thing. And that from time to time they'll get it wrong. Indeed, that's what I do. Having people keep watch for, and try to correct problems is important. Personally, I also prefer to look for a simple solution. Part of that has resulted in me working on the Process for a few years, trying to simplify and modernise it - and alongside that, trying to promote better practice. My long experience has been that the Process was often updated attempting to "quickly" resolve something perceived as a problem, and that it often turned out we should have been looking at our practices instead, because we made the Process over-complicated, too fragile, and didn't solve the underlying problem well.

Mileage may vary, of course…

cheers

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - standards - Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Sunday, 18 December 2016 10:01:52 UTC