Re: Evergreen Formal Objection handling (ESFO)

On 3/19/19 11:43 AM, Michael Champion wrote:
> I think the fundamental issue here is that the WG process with all sorts of mandatory steps to check consensus is most suitable for situations where the real-world isn't providing continuous feedback about whether an idea works or not.  It optimizes for the cases where there isn't technical agreement and empirical data, ensuring that a broad range of people buy into the judgment call the WG is making, since it is expensive to be wrong. The Living Standard / Evergreen alternative emerged because in many web platform cases there's a lot of experiments and empirical data being brought to the table before a spec is locked down, and all those calls for consensus, formal objections, appeals, etc. are either irrelevant bureaucracy or used mostly for political reasons to block something being considered a "standard."   It's not so expensive to be wrong if the editor can quickly fix problems that are noted in the real world.

The REC-track process is implemented in different ways by different WGs.
This is a Good Thing, and it's not a flexibility I think we should be
giving up in Evergreen Standards.

W3C's REC track is about adhering to certain principles in the evolution
of standards:
   * being open to feedback from everyone, early and often
   * rigorously and fairly processing that feedback
   * making decisions by consensus among diverse constituents, not by fiat

The specifics of how that feedback is solicited and processed and how
consensus is created is not dictated by the Process. I don't think
ER-track should be more specific than REC-track in this facet. If there
are practices that you believe should be in dictated in the Process
because the current Process is not specific enough, then they should be
proposed for both tracks. If there are specific steps in the REC track
that you believe are bureaucratic nonsense that should be eliminated or
replaced by some other mechanism, then they should be fixed, for both
tracks. This project of defining a new track should limit itself to
*modifying* the parts of the Process to enable the new work mode, not
creating an entirely new Process and defining a new work mode under
different principles of operation.

> I agree with Chris and Dave, the editors and chairs can generally be trusted to do the right thing in such conditions.   The point of the Evergreen track is to provide a more optimal process for situations where up-front prototyping, data collection, and technical judgment  by the people most closely involved are working well.  The Rec Track process still exists for those situations where there is likely controversy, data is hard to gather or interpret, and formal consensus (or the authoritative resolution of objections) is needed to credibly consider something a standard.

This is true for experienced and competent editors and chairs. We do not
always have experienced and competent editors and chairs. The job of the
Process is to be a framework which enables more people to be competent
editors and chairs.

> I suspect the best way to deal with Evergreen track failure conditions
> where there are controversies and objections by closely-involved experts
> is to move those specs move to the Rec Track, not to put a lot of
> consensus-checking bureaucracy into the Evergreen track.  
Working Groups aren't going to choose a track based on how dysfunctional
they are. They're going to choose a track because it's the work mode
they're comfortable in or its the work mode their Staff Contact is
comfortable in or it's the work mode that's the most in-vogue at the
time the group is chartered. Frequently, they will choose the work mode
that provides the least friction, and our job is to make sure that doesn't
mean less rigor, less openness to feedback, or less emphasis on finding
consensus.

 > (That's partly why I think the decision to move to the Evergreen track
 > should be made after a spec is fairly mature and the WG can assess
 > whether they can optimize for ease of progress or whether they need
 > the Rec Track process to ensure that each step forward has broad consensus ...
 > but I'm deferring pushing that argument until we have a better sense
 > of how the Evergreen stage itself will work).

I think I agree with this sentiment.

~fantasai

Received on Wednesday, 20 March 2019 17:07:45 UTC