Re: Director-less W3C

>
>
>
> > There is the new super-committee / Council (TAG+AB) to control the now
> all-empowered staff,
>
> That’s not what the Council is for; it’s to ratify, and if needed make,
> Decisions on Formal Objections.
>

Not just FO, there is this text in the Council description:

   this section is invoked not just for Formal Objections, but also for
Group Decision Appeals, Chair Decision Appeals, and Member Submission
Appeals. Some editorial rephrasing is probably needed to make it clear how
it applies in all cases

And it's a real new committee, with rules for voting, recusing, chairing,
etc. The fact that it's populated by existing committees, which have
originally different roles, doesn't make it free to create and run, on the
contrary (it actually create new dependencies between W3C "pieces" so it's
probably going to be more difficult to run than a new committee created
from scratch IMO).


>
> > and there is a new TAG Appointment Committee.
>
> Right, got it. I forgot the ‘Committee to replace the Director to make TAG
> nominations”
>
> > With a Technical Director function and the existing AC appeal, I don't
> think we need the Council protection.
> > And whether or not we implement a Technical Director function, the new
> TAG sub-committee seems way too heavy a procedure to put in place vs. its
> job: selecting 3 participants from the "outside". The staff/CEO/Director
> selects those today, and unless there is an issue with this system, it
> seems more reasonable to transfer this task to the CEO, since it's more
> political than technical.
>
> The AB felt that it shouldn’t be political, actually; that one of our
> goals in this was to enable the TAG to get the balance and diversity it
> needs, and that actually it’ll take a variety of people trying to juggle
> various balance axes, to come up with nominations.
>

By political, I meant the fact they are chosen by the staff, to indeed
balance and diversify the TAG (same requirements but less co-optation
flavor). The TAG Appointment Committee is going to be expensive to create
(randomly selecting people without asking them is a recipe for issues - or
is it a new duty you accept when you become a chair ?) and I just don't see
the point of this complexity if it worked with a simple selection for those
3 persons for 20 years. ICANN has a nomination committee and it's a pain to
manage, although it's probably necessary for them given it selects seats on
the main ICANN board, not a advising group like the TAG.

>
> So, the essence of your concern is that the TAG Appointment Committee it
> too heavy, and we should have the CEO appoint?
>
>
For this new TAG committee, yes. The essence of my overall concern is: too
much power in the CEO hands and too many committees at W3C in the end.




>
> David Singer
>
> singer@mac.com
>
>