TPAC 2019 - an apology

Hi All, 

As Co-Chair, I'd like to make an apology. At this year's TPAC, we tried running parallel breakout sessions without a detailed agenda [1]. However, I'd failed to account for folks jumping from one room to another, frustrating some folks who had no visibility/context to what was happening in each room. In hindsight, this was an obvious mistake and I'm truly sorry for this oversight - so I hope you can forgive me as this is the first time we've tried this format. I'd like to thank folks that came to talk to me directly about this (specially Vincent and Reilly!) - I heard you and I've taken immediate steps to rectify this for TPAC 2020: I've created a spreadsheet that we will all modify in real-time - giving everyone control and visibility over the agenda and rooms (currently read only as I'm drafting it out!):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14PvD9Hx5qB2SMOHp7h6u8aUvr-9LTmWMkysIvFyJBwA/edit?usp=sharing

Regardless, and judging by the way my inbox blew up with newly-filed and closed GitHub issues, I strongly believe our meeting was a resounding success: Folks were fully engaged in high-bandwidth discussions around themes and specs, and it was an absolute delight to see everyone working together and cross-pollinating across different specs (as opposed to folks being bored, checking email, etc., as is so often the case in W3C meetings).

Our goal with the new format was:
  
  * Every spec gets equal time/representation (and not just one spec rules the meeting, as happened in previous years). Not everyone is interested in all specs in the WG, so no one should have to suffer listening to things they have no engagement/interest in. 
  * Focused groups: fast-paced/high-bandwidth (no passing microphones around!) discussions. 
  * Everything is captured as issues/pull requests on GitHub.
  * Make Editors more responsible for their own work and community engagement. 

For those in the main room, we saw massive progress on a number of specs, specially IDB, Gamepad, and Manifest - and even on a few of the WICG proposed ones, like the Badging API. There was also a hive of activity around storage, which I'm looking forward to hearing more about. 

I'm really excited to continue this format next year but with the inclusion of the open/dynamic agenda I linked to above. Leonie and I are always looking for suggestions on how to run things better. As Chairs, we are here to serve you as best we can and make your specs a success. So reach out to us and let us know what you'd like to see next year and we can help make things happen. 

Over the next few days, we'll be requesting/gathering short summaries of what each spec achieved during TPAC so we can post them here. Thanks to those folks who have already provided these.  

Again, a huge thanks to everyone who attended this year's WebApps WG meeting in Fukuoka! It was wonderful to see you all.  

[1] https://github.com/w3c/webappswg/issues/10

Received on Monday, 23 September 2019 14:05:37 UTC