Call for wide review: Proposed Process 2025

Dear W3C community,

The W3C Advisory Board and Process CG are forwarding our proposed Process 2025 
draft for consideration, and request comments by *Monday June 16 2025* (though 
we would appreciate receiving any substantive comments prior to the Process CG 
meeting on 11 June if possible).

   W3C Process Document
   Draft Community Group Report, 19 May 2025
   https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05

The major changes are summarized briefly below, and all changes are fully 
documented in the changes section:
   https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#changes
A diff is also available at:
  https://services.w3.org/htmldiff?doc1=&doc2=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2Fpolicies%2Fprocess%2Fdrafts%2Fsnapshots%2F2025-05

Major changes to the Process include:

* Removing the Proposed Recommendation phase of the Recommendation
   track, and applying the AC Review instead directly to the latest
   Candidate Recommendation Snapshot. This maintains the qualifications
   for Recommendation while reducing administrative steps.
   See https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#transition-rec

* Introducing a new Charter Refinement phase to formalize the
   issue-tracking and decision-making of our currently informal review
   phase prior to AC Review of a charter. The goals of this new phase
   are to:
     * Reduce the number of Formal Objections raised during AC Review
       that could have been avoided by solving small problems earlier
       and developing consensus on larger ones through dialog.
     * Ensuring that comments get addressed, and not ignored, by those
       developing the charter.
     * Making the chartering process more understandable, and therefore
       easier to participate in.
   You can read the new Charter Refinement section at
     https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#group-lifecycle

Other significant changes include:

* Requiring higher vote thresholds for low-participation AC Appeal votes
   by adopting the thresholds from the Bylaws.
     https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#appeal-vote
* Applying the Bylaws concept of Good Standing to AC votes (AB and TAG
   elections and AC Appeals only; not AC Reviews, which are technically
   not votes).
     https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#standing
* Clarifying the differences between major (AC-approved) and minor
   (Team-approved) amendments to a charter, as requested by PSIG.
     https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#CharterReview
* Fine-tuning various details of the Council process.
  https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#changes-2025-decisions
* Simplifying the Member Submissions section.
     https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/snapshots/2025-05#Submission

After the comment period the W3C Process CG and the AB will finalize a 
revision, which we anticipate sending for formal AC review and approval in 
late June or early July.

Specific comments on this revision of the Process are best filed as Github 
issues at the Process CG github repo:
   https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues

More general discussion and comments should be sent to
   public-w3process@w3.org (Public)
   https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/

The Advisory Board handles Process evolution “in the open”, in the Process 
Community Group, and we encourage members of the community to join to help 
shepherd Process evolution:
   https://www.w3.org/community/w3process/
We will be updating the Editor's Draft in response to comments here (the 
snapshot above will remain frozen):
   https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/

Thank you for your careful scrutiny of this update.

Note: You may have heard about a discussion of how AB or TAG members may be 
removed, started by Mark Nottingham in 
https://github.com/w3c/process/issues/882. This is an ongoing discussion, and 
is not included in this proposed update. Depending on the results of that 
discussion, changes in this area may be considered for a future version of the 
Process, and participation in this discussion is welcome, but no specific 
change is currently scheduled for inclusion.

For the W3C Advisory Board and Process CG,
Elika J. Etemad aka fantasai
Process CG co-chair, Process co-editor, W3C Advisory Board member

Received on Monday, 19 May 2025 04:06:56 UTC