Re: Some thoughts on TF aims and how to reach them

Thanks, Patrick.

I agree that there is too much process discussion! That’s on me. Bruce, Alastair, and I made some decisions at our coordination meeting today, and we will stop talking about process and just start doing it.

There are a couple of things I want to emphasize:

  *   We have 22 PRs in front of the WG right now, the majority (if not all) of which will merge next week; that seems to me to be a non-trivial first ‘sprint’.
  *   We have a project board set up, and a vision for how things can move smoothly through it. It’s sticky at the moment  because we’re trying to clear a pre-populated board and get that lighter process in place. Bruce, Alastair and I have picked up all the unassigned items on it and will have ‘pre-chewed’ them for Friday’s call.

The process you describe is pretty close to what we have proposed on paper, with minor differences (e.g., the bugs are being merged BEFORE  being included in a TWO-week review notice).

The basic ask for TF members is:

  1.  self-assign a Todo issue and shepherd it to draft (bring up for discussion as needed)
  2.  draft PR and get another TF member to review it (via the git review process)
  3.  walk the group through the draft PR at our call
I think that can be nimble. If it turns out not to be, we’ll adjust.

We agree, minutes should be much lighter. From now on, comments will go in the issues, and issue progress will be measured by labels and board column position. The only thing Bruce will capture in minutes is which issues were reviewed, and anything that comes up that isn’t captured through the project board.

Thanks,
Mike


From: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
Date: Friday, December 1, 2023 at 10:10 AM
To: WCAG 2.x issues list (public-wcag2-issues@w3.org) <public-wcag2-issues@w3.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Some thoughts on TF aims and how to reach them
Hey all,

following on from the very process-discussion-heavy session today, a few
thoughts...

Historically, the 2.x backlog of issues (660) and pull requests (222) we
have on https://github.com/w3c/wcag  have been down to the
less-than-dynamic/limber way the WG as a whole operates. Trying to get
things surveyed/discussed by the entire WG, and getting consensus, has
been a slow process, particularly while the focus has been on working on
new SCs etc.

I had high hopes that with the backlog TF, we could "short-circuit" some
of the inertia by having a smaller, more nimble group that can at least
do the initial triage of issues/PRs. Sort things out into a few buckets,
to at least try and get the backlog into a more manageable state.

For both pull requests and issues, in the first instance, review if
they're still relevant ... I have no doubt that among the 660 issues and
222 PRs currently on the repo there are things relating back to 2.0 or
2.1 that are either never going to be addressed/changed, or that have
since been clarified already elsewhere. If they're not relevant anymore,
close them with a comment to that effect ("we believe this issue/PR is
not relevant anymore and are closing it. please open a new issue/file a
fresh PR if you feel that this is still a valid concern.")



If the PRs are still relevant, ascertain if they're editorial or
substantive.

If they're editorial, and the group agrees they're editorial, earmark
them as "we're going to merge this

--
Patrick H. Lauke

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