- From: Philippe Le Hégaret <plh@w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2024 15:29:02 -0500
- To: W3C Process Community Group <public-w3process@w3.org>
- Cc: team-americas@w3.org
Available at:
https://www.w3.org/2024/12/11-w3process-minutes.html
Topics:
RESOLUTION: Resolutions in this meeting are tentative,
finalized if no objections by the end of December 20th
Feedback on Charter Refinement Text
We're targeting to present the relevant new parts to the W3C Team on
December 19.
Text version:
Revising W3C Process Community Group
11 December 2024
[2]Agenda. [3]IRC log.
[2]
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2024Dec/0000.html
[3] https://www.w3.org/2024/12/11-w3process-irc
Attendees
Present
florian, plh, fantasai, ian
Regrets
TallTed
Chair
plh
Scribe
fantasai
Contents
1. [4]Administrative
2. [5]Feedback on Charter Refinement Text
1. [6]Ian's Feedback
3. [7]Meeting Closed
4. [8]Summary of action items
5. [9]Summary of resolutions
Meeting minutes
<TallTed> regrets, due to collision with DID WG Special Topic
Call
Administrative
Discussing what to do about quorum.
Maybe auto-close the issues if no comments after a period of
time.
RESOLUTION: Resolutions in this meeting are tentative,
finalized if no objections by the end of December 20th
plh welcomes Ian Jacobs to the call
plh: Would be good to have a session about the Process with the
Team
… most feedback is "Process is too complicated and arcane"
… but we can't fix everything
… we need to keep iterating on Process
… but we can get feedback on new things
Feedback on Charter Refinement Text
github: [10]w3c/process#934
[10] https://github.com/w3c/process/issues/934
[discussing doing a presentation to the Team]
plh: Probably looking at January now. Can take an action item
to schedule it.
… we usually target Thursday at 9am Eastern for project reviews
florian: Ideally, by the next AB F2F, we can declare that
Process CG is done, and launch first informal AC review
… so if we want to do some explaining to the Team, we could do
it after that
… but if we want to raise issues, sooner is better
fantasai: last Process CG meeting before AB meeting is Jan 8th
… better to get in before then
plh: could maybe do December 19th?
fantasai, florian, Ian: wfm
plh: Can focus on changes that affect the Team
… what's new from perspective of Team Contact in the new
Process
Ian's Feedback
github: [11]w3c/process#934
[11] https://github.com/w3c/process/issues/934
Ian: Prepared a deck wrt chartering at TPAC, particularly issue
of FOs
… but I have no recollection of presenting this deck
… I created a modified version for today
<Ian> [12]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/
1snHd4J0S73cPMc4zRx-158JpncCULWRFp7mifDTlmdI/edit#slide=id.p
[12]
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1snHd4J0S73cPMc4zRx-158JpncCULWRFp7mifDTlmdI/edit#slide=id.p
Slideset: [13]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/
1snHd4J0S73cPMc4zRx-158JpncCULWRFp7mifDTlmdI/edit#slide=id.p
and [14]archived PDF copy
[13]
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1snHd4J0S73cPMc4zRx-158JpncCULWRFp7mifDTlmdI/edit#slide=id.p
Ian: Some things driving conversation
… very few times that Team doesn't propose a charter to AC
… concern around growing number of Formal Objections
… and increasing Member engagement around chartering
… seems this was also your goal
florian: yes
Ian: We wrote down high-level goals to solving this
… want to make sure work is interesting -- people are engaged
if it's interesting
… make it easy to do reviews
… want not just AC review, but earlier review to improve
quality, build community and support for the work
… and improve consensus and understanding of the charter
… maybe resolve some FOs, even if not all of them
… critical to consortium health that Members be engaged
… demonstrations of engagement help the staff allocate
resources
Ian: for each of these, how would we do it?
… identifying interesting work, we have CGs, listen to
Membership, etc.
… we have many mechanisms to hear what's interesting and what's
not
… Tactics for improving consensus, e.g. cultural values and
shared principles (design principles, vision, etc.)
… improving training and education around CGs
… no hammer to get ppl to agree, need to do it in soft ways and
help them feel part of community and share the values
… but consensus is not always possile
… we can do things to improve the odds, but sometimes can't get
to consensus
… so should capture the disagreements
… charter reviews create opportunity fo rshared understanding
… and charter reviews should produce proposals for improvements
to increase consensus, and documentation of dissent
Ian: I don't want to increase opportunities for FOs
… instead, want to create incentives to make a decision
… we want engagement
… hearing conversations about doing more community management
on AC Forum; no need for process, just need to do a better job
… easier to raise issues early, without calling them FOs
… Let's keep finding ways to make things easier to do
… Tooling improvements, centralizing management of charter
reviews, etc.
… Members need to be interested because interesting topics, but
also not dissuaded from engagement because hard to do
Ian: Ideas for experimentation
… There's an initial charter
… different series of review steps (analogous to REC track)
… gathering comments on their way to AC Review
… this would include the staff
… part of my comment in issue is, let's not add hooks for
objections
… let's say cultural expectation is that all charters go to AC
Review, except rare cases where staff determined this is spam
… we want the staff to have some fallback power to prevent
undue noise
… if ppl don't trust staff to do that, bigger problem
… assuming staff does what it always does, and prepares to send
to AC
… if bad idea, we can have staff comments, horizontal review
info, etc. AC can make the call
… incentive for the staff to express itself, but AC decides
… so I would like to suggest that we don't put a magnifying
glass on the staff's tasks, but find incentives and use
cultural means to get the desired outcome
<Zakim> florian, you wanted to respond a couple of points (once
Ian is done)
florian: That's interesting, because I think we are close on
many things; but some you have a different read on what we're
proposing
… your main point of difference is "don't create so many
opportunities for FOs"
… and I don't think we are, so let's talk about it
… One that's new is ability to FO to Team refusing to propose
something at all.
… I don't expect this to be used.
… I expect Team to be reasonable.
… But it's signaling. This is something you have a right to
ask.
… Sometimes people believe "it'll be ignored anyway, so why
bother asking"
… or sometimes they see "Team proposes", and therefore wait,
but nothing happens
… makes it clear that you can ask
Ian: It should be socially appropriate to ask "what's the
status of X"
… usually have reasons why it's not happened yet
… but hammer in process to FO, not sure it's useful signalling
… Both of us agree this is likely unnecessary, unlikely to
happen often
… If we can just put our comments and put out the charter, the
need for staff to stop spam is almost never
… We both have a model where we don't think a thing will happen
very often, but rely on
… which approach do we take in leveraging those models?
… I love asking, but don't like FOs
<florian> fantasai: the reason we put it in there is not
because we expect it to be use
<florian> fantasai: you have to be rejected before you can
object to the rejection
<florian> fantasai: this forces exposing the reason if there is
a rejection
<florian> fantasai: there has been requests from the AC that
there be backstops to Team decisions
Ian: if you want the charter to be submitted faster, FO, is not
the option because it's slow; only if something is blocked is
it reasonable to use
plh: [missed] I see within the AC a lot of frustration, not
always justified, that I didn't get my way so I'm going to FO
… e.g. object to a charter because an issue in the spec didn't
get addressed as they wanted
… nothing I can do to prevent that from happening, but it does
add weight to the whole thing
… interesting case between AB and Team, Exploration IG
… at some point will ask Team to send charter to AC, but
there's no chairs
… can you object to that?
… even when Team comes up with middle-ground solution, ppl not
trusting the Team
… vs pragmatics of the Team not seen as constructive as it used
to be
<Zakim> fantasai, you wanted to react to plh
<Ian> fantasai: You can object to the team not sending a
charter to the AC for review if you have requested and the team
has refused you.
<Ian> fantasai: The other thing you can object to is, in the
process of drafting the charter, you can object to some aspect
of the charter. The charter still goes to the AC with the
objection attached
<florian> fantasai: you can object to the Team not moving a
charter only if they reject a request you made, so if you
haven't asked, there's nothing to object to
<florian> fantasai: the second point is that while we're
discussing a charter, you can file an FO, but it doesn't get
processed right then, it gets queued for processing later, at
the same time as the AC Review
florian: Another nuance, you don't get to object to Team not
sending to AC, but to not starting the chartering procedure
… if we are starting that, no blockage
… if Team said, no not going to work on it, then AC rep could
complain about not being allowed to work on the charter
Ian: Why just create opportunities to converse. This opens the
door to more FOs
florian: 2 parts, other part is FOs against content of charter.
It does not create opportunity for more Councils.
… This says that if you raise an FO during charter drafting,
then it doesn't get handled now
Ian: Yeah. It's just the Team micromanagement bit that's the
source of my reaction
… I think we can experiment before formally changing the
Process
… e.g. batching including Team comments
… We should try something 3-4 times before embedding in the
Process
florian: We cannot experiment with saying that we don't have to
process FOs right now. We have to process them; ignoring them
is a Process violation.
Ian: adding an objection to Team not processing something is
what I object to
[ some back and forth on what constitutes an FO ]
plh: Wrt FO against Team for not sending a charter to AC, is
important
… there's no way for someone to escalate that
… that's something we should give permission to AC to escalate
… give a way to object to that kind of non-decision
Ian: Person wants us to put forth a charter, and Team doesn't
want to, then require Team to put forth to the AC along with
Team comments
florian: That's not better. If a bad charter ends up in front
of AC, it will not only end up with FO anyway, it will require
involvement of the entire AC
… that's not better
florian: There's the abuser case, but there's also the naive
person case
… by having right to refuse, when someone asks you can have a
conversation explaining why you refuse, e.g. this or that needs
fixing
… requirement to forward as soon as asked, is impractical
… and no right to appeal a refusal is politically untenable
… I think the Team is unlikely to refuse anything that's
reasonable
… and if Team isn't reasonable, then they deserve to get the FO
plh: I heard 2 different things
… Ian says, we don't need to change Process, we need to change
Team practices
… say instead of refusing charter, just send to AC with
commentary
… Florian discusses problem of unconditionally forwarding the
charter
Ian: It helps to enumerate use cases
… question is whether we think it's infinitesimally likely to
have FOs in this approach
… 1. Staff is empowered to not put forth charters that are
obviously not ready or spammy, and no appeal is likely in that
case
… 2. Reasonable charter, in that case just send to AC,
potentially with our own comments, for AC to make decision
… No need to reject reasonable charters, so we won't
… If we're all saying staff wouldn't do that...
florian: You know this, and I know this, but bulk of AC
doesn't.
… There's a good chunk of AC doesn't understand how chartering
works, doesn't understand they can ask the Team for charters
… adding a hook in the Process makes it clear that any AC rep
has the right to request a charter
… given how the Process is written, if we point that out and
say that you can't object to it, that leads to object that you
can FO if rejected
… saying that this is uniquely unappealable will be weird
fantasai: Part of purpose of Process is documenting how the
process works, so that ppl can understand how to do things
… and wrt the FO that you're saying we don't need because Team
is reasonable, AC wants to know that if Team becomes
unreasonable, they have recourse
Ian: We don't need to document everything in Process
… we have /Guide etc.
… I don't think we should add "how to" into the Process
plh: I don't think we're going to reach a conclusion today on
this
florian: Thanks for sharing the perspective
Ian: Some concern about over-engineering staff processes
… concerns that arise in this topic, and gut reaction to it
… valid topic
florian: Wrt removing procedural things from Process, and in
some cases I agree -- e.g. just did this for Member Submissions
… but this one needs more because it's contentious
plh: Sometimes just Guidebook needs to be revised
… maybe ProcessCG can be more involved in /Guide
… but trying to figure out what's our next step from here
florian: I'll note that you two disagree on this FO
opportunity, so not AB vs Team here
… One thing we might attempt is to de-emphasize that part.
… What's essential is that there are clear boundaries, and
ensuring ppl know they have the right to ask
… if it falls out implicitly that an FO is possible, maybe
you'll like this more
[discussion on how to structure next week's presentation]
Ian: Just wanted to express my appreciation for working on the
Process
Meeting Closed
plh and fantasai review the Process draft
ACTION: plh file issue saying that Team can unilaterally
forward a charter draft to the AC (so that it doesn't get
stuck)
ACTION: florian or fantasai to draft a PR de-emphasizing the FO
factor of denying charter advancement
Summary of action items
1. [15]plh file issue saying that Team can unilaterally
forward a charter draft to the AC (so that it doesn't get
stuck)
2. [16]florian or fantasai to draft a PR de-emphasizing the FO
factor of denying charter advancement
Summary of resolutions
1. [17]Resolutions in this meeting are tentative, finalized if
no objections by the end of December 20th
Received on Thursday, 12 December 2024 20:29:06 UTC