Re: Assessing consensus and our voting process

čt 6. 7. 2023 v 12:22 odesílatel Jacopo Scazzosi <jacopo@scazzosi.com>
napsal:

> Hi all!
>
> There’s a couple of significant decisions that this group needs to take,
> namely:
>
> 1. Whether to handover the finalization of the WebID spec to the Solid WG
> 2. If so, whether to nominate me as the editor of a “consensus report”, a
> document summarizing the different points of view on all aspects of WebID
> to offer to the Solid WG as a starting point for their work on WebID itself
>
> As per its charter [1], this group seeks to make decisions when there is
> consensus, with consensus defined by the W3C Process Document [2] as
>

There seems to be a small misunderstanding. The charter you are referencing
served our predecessor group from 2008-2012 and has been inactive for more
than a decade. That was a distinct group with an exclusive, invitation-only
membership model.

In 2012, we evolved into the present community, which operates with a
different ethos entirely. We are inclusive, welcoming the public, and our
operations are self-organizing.  I dont believe we formally selected a
chair, but we could for the handover period, if that is a barrier to
progress.

You have been chosen as an editor, a decision arrived at after numerous
endorsements and no objections. The discussion has been open for some time
and the consensus of the group is clear.


>
> > Consensus:
> >  A substantial number of individuals in the set support the decision and
> there is no sustained objection from anybody in the set. Individuals in the
> set may abstain. Abstention is either an explicit expression of no opinion
> or silence by an individual in the set.
>
> Unfortunately, this group has clearly been struggling with producing any
> kind of consensus for a long time. IMHO, this is due to two reasons:
>
> 1. only few members are active members
> 2. active members disagree on a number of issues
>
> Given that the group’s charter does not indicate how to proceed and the
> Chair is often unresponsive, we need to figure out a way forward.
>
> In the presence of persistent and sustained objections and disagreements
> that prevent consensus from being achieved, the W3C Process Document
> suggests that
>
> > Groups should favor proposals that create the weakest objections.
>
> This helps but doesn’t resolve the issue of most members being inactive
> ones. Gathering a significant number of votes / feedbacks is difficult,
> even when restricting the voting pool to those who’ve been active on this
> list within the last few months. In cases like this, the W3C Process
> Document suggests:
>
> 1. Assessing consensus by means of “lazy consensus”, in which lack of
> objection after sufficient notice is taken as assent
> 2. Defining a minimum threshold of active support beyond which a vote is
> considered valid
>
> As neither of these is mentioned in this group’s charter, I kindly ask all
> active members to state which of these two options they like best, with the
> goal of picking one of these as a way to move forward. In the case of "lazy
> consensus”, I also ask you to indicate the length of time you would
> consider acceptable as “sufficient notice”. In the case of the threshold of
> active support, I also ask you to define such threshold in terms of number
> of votes (or any other quantifiable metric you would feel comfortable
> with). If you do not find any of these acceptable, I would be thankful if
> you could explain why.
>
> I would be a lot more comfortable with some guidance from our Chair as W3C
> guidelines [4] indicate that the Chair should be in charge of calling for
> votes on significant issues and nominating editors. I literally lack any
> formal mandate to write this email and propose this course of action.
> However, we are being called to make a significant decision and, in the
> absence of our Chair, I’d like this group to rise to the occasion in a
> manner that respects all the time that we have collectively spent working
> on WebID.
>
> [1]: https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/charter
> [2]: https://www.w3.org/2023/Process-20230612/#Consensus
> [4]: https://www.w3.org/Guide/chair/role.html
>
>
>