Re: Can we get consensus on what incubation means (was: Re: WICG Incubation vs CSSWG Process)

On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 1:50 AM, Carine Bournez <carine@w3.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 06, 2017 at 01:20:25PM +0900, Florian Rivoal wrote:
> > I think this also highlights something that we haven't been very clear
> about: In my mind, there ought be be a large difference between incubating
> a spec that could be part of an existing WG, and incubating a community
> that could become a new WG.
> >
> > Overall, I think the idea of starting new areas as a CG instead of
> immediately as a WG until the community has proved itself is fine, even
> though the criteria for the CG->WG graduation is still too fuzzy and a
> source of friction.
> >
>
> I don't think it's possible, nor desirable, to define all the possible
> criteria
> for the CG->WG transition (of group, not transition of spec).
>
> > On the other hand, I am much more skeptical of needing a separate venue
> to incubate specs that fall in the scope of an existing group.
>
>  +1
> It looks like a recipe for failure, the only interesting aspect is to
> involve
> more people from non-W3C-member companies, but surely that could be done
> on WG public fora.
>
>

As they currently exist, I do not believe this to be the case, as I have
explained.  CSS WG is a supergroup containing a dizzying amount of things
ranging from obscure text concerns that apply in certain layout modes in
certain (written) languages, to speech, to general layout to svg
decorations to the selectors that are fundamental even in JavaScript apis.
As such is has a huge number of members for which 90% of the conversation
is noise and very little is signal, for developers it is even worse.
Current practices of doing business this business on a mailing list
firehose with a signup that a lot of people still don't know about or
understand, doing more in this manner only makes the problem worse.
Discussions can also happen on github which is more open, but if so, we
need better ways to involve/clarify what's what as that is also the place
that WG work and all kinds of minutiae happens.

This is, in my mind, a significant problem worth addressing.



> [...]
> > Creating a separate venue to work on a different stages of the same
> scope causes inherent tensions: conflicting senses of ownership, speed
> bumps or road-blocks around the transition point, power struggles over who
> has the greatest ability to influence things, disfunction of the pipeline
> as a whole if cooperation breaks down...
> >
>
> Big +1
>
>
> --
> Carine Bournez /// W3C Europe
>



-- 
Brian Kardell :: @briankardell