Re: Followup to "Supergroups" message to AC Forum

On 7/5/2016 5:31 AM, Florian Rivoal wrote:
>> >On Jun 21, 2016, at 22:59, Jeff Jaffe<jeff@w3.org>  wrote:
>> >
>> >Of course things change and W3C has never been so rigid to blow up a WG just because priorities changed.  But when they change, the existence of chartered deliverables (and a conversation that led to them) allows an explicit discussion.  "Oh, we are missing the plan we all agreed to.  Why? - Our prioritized changed; let's document our new priorities.  Our priorities didn't change but the work slipped; let's redouble our efforts."
> The problem is when the conclusion sounds something like “Our priorities didn't change but the work slipped; let's redouble **someone else's** efforts."
>
> The majority of the*individuals*  in the WG do not feel like writing tests falls on them. Now sure, these individuals beleong to member companies, and it is up to member companies to write tests, but if they haven't assigned people to it, asking the people who're not assigned to do it when they think it is going to be done is not productive.

So the basic question is "who is responsible to demonstrate the 
existence of interoperable implementations?".  Which is a very good 
question.

The tragedy of the commons confronts all standards development: all in 
the commons want work to proceed to Recommendations level, but each 
actor would rather have someone else do all of the work.

In the past several years we have tried several approaches to address 
this.  We tried to raise money from members to create more tests.  That 
flopped.  We have had some success with TTWF and testing frameworks.  
I'm open to other approaches.

But at the end of the day, the way the W3C process is set up, it is the 
responsibility of the Working Group to move reports through the process 
towards the recommendation.  That makes it the WGs responsibility to 
enable, empower, cajole, pressure, all stakeholders to do the work 
necessary to move the work forward. Having milestones can be a useful 
marker - it represents the consensus of the WG of what they believe 
should get done and it can be used with stakeholders as part of the 
process to enable, empower, cajole, and pressure.

This becomes counterproductive if there is excessive effort in creating 
the dates or if there are punitive actions for failure to meet these 
dates (I hope that is not the case).

So, for CSS, let's have a productive, positive discussion about 
expectations through the chartering process.  Then, let's have the WG 
and the Team work together to get the demonstrations of interoperability 
that we need.

Jeff