Re: Webizen progress and next meeting

Top posting to start a thread on a related idea.

Some of the Webizen input was of the form - if Webizens do not get to 
elect representatives who participate in Charter review - then no point 
in having the program.

Some of the input we received from the Advisory Committee was of the 
form - if Webizens participate in the AC Charter review, then we have 
deprecated Membership to a level that the AC is not comfortable with.

Part of our challenge is to find the middle ground between these two 
statements - which at first glance offer little in the form of middle 
ground.

Here is one idea that someone presented to me.  Have the Webizens elect 
representatives.  Encourage them to participate in Charter review.  The 
Director will (of course) pay heed to their input - as the Director 
always cherishes input from the public.  But have this review outside of 
the formal W3C process.

This would give Webizens a tangible value.  But it would finesse some of 
the AC concerns.

It also might be a little too "cute".  Maybe Webizens would feel that 
this does not provide real Charter review privileges.  Maybe the AC 
would still be uncomfortable.

I'm just thinking out loud.  Interested in input.

Jeff

On 8/5/2014 8:03 AM, Brian Kardell wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 5, 2014 5:44 AM, "Charles McCathie Nevile" 
> <chaals@yandex-team.ru <mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru>> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 04 Aug 2014 18:52:03 +0200, Brian Kardell 
> <bkardell@gmail.com <mailto:bkardell@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Aug 4, 2014 12:29 PM, "Jeff Jaffe" <jeff@w3.org 
> <mailto:jeff@w3.org>> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Thanks to all who participated in last Friday's call.
> >> >
> >> > The Doodle poll for the next call is at [1].
> >
> > Regrets for the call.
> >
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> At the risk of sounding like a broken record, developers have no 
> first-class voice with regard to w3c matters, especially with regard 
> to direction in terms of TAG and AB  - at least for WGs we have 
> possibility for invited experts, but IEs have the same issue: while 
> granted status for WGs, they have no (even collective) representation. 
> I understand that some membership was opposed to this, but is it just 
> off the table?  I don't see anything in the survey even hinting at this.
> >
> >
> > Some membership were indeed opposed, others (like me), were of the 
> opinion that webizens (imho, developers, IEs, and other non-member 
> interested parties) actually should have good, representative 
> representation. Already, chairs are able to participate in AC 
> meetings, and as well as being in some cases invited experts I find 
> that they are often reasonably good representatives of participants in 
> their groups, but I don't think this is enough.
> >
> > I'm not a huge overall fan of the webizen idea, since in most cases 
> I think it would be far better for developers who want representation 
> to get together and set up a non-profit that can join W3C.
> >
> This is what I was hoping we could avoid with Webizen.  The truth is 
> that setting up a nonprofit is non-trivial to do with any legitimacy, 
> its a legal entity and generally needs a board and treasurer and 
> founding charter and so on.  I've consulted with a lawyer friend who 
> pointed out that since their purpose is to represent, it's likely that 
> this can be called into question and that  for this to work we'd need 
> to set up more than one. If we ran a big campaign to spin them up for 
> every 100 developers or so there then also seem to be possible 
> affiliations which current w3c rules seem to imply they could deny 
> membership based on.  If you are an existing legal entity, joining w3c 
> is just "submit paperwork and pay the fee", and you already have all 
> this.  If you are creating a loose group without an existing body the 
> required effort is very significantly greater.  None of this seems 
> strictly necessary.
>
> > For a group of 100 US-based developers, the cost would be in the 
> order of $75 and they get an AC rep, the right to nominate official 
> partiipants to groups, etc. - plus access to the material that is 
> confidential to the members. For a group based in a developing country 
> there is an existing mechanism to reduce the price to something 
> locally appropriate. And W3C already has the mechanisms and staffing 
> in place to manage this so the extra cost of maintaining it is close 
> to zero.
> >
> > That said, one of my success criteria for a webizen project is that 
> invited experts participate. And one good reason for them to do so is 
> that they collectively get "direct" representation - i.e. to select 
> among themselves people who are interested in and capable of 
> (primarily the issue here is time and money) representing the 
> interests of a constituency in the way AC reps do for their sponsor 
> organisations.
> >
> > I hope I will get to the wiki this week to try and push this idea a 
> bit further. If it doesn't happen today, please feel free to nag me by 
> private email or twitter until I have done so.
> >
> > PS: Brian (and anyone else not versed in the slightly arcane, but 
> incredibly useful, IRC tools): you should send a /msg to RRSagent:
> > /msg RRSAgent help
> > to learn more about what it does. In particular, it doesn't log /me 
> commands - this is a feature that allows people to make comments that 
> are available to those in the meeting but that do not form part of the 
> record…
> >
> Yes, that's what I was saying.. I mentioned that calling in was an 
> impossibility via /me, it's not logged.
>
> > cheers
> >
> > Chaals
> >
> > --
> > Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
> > chaals@yandex-team.ru <mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru> Find more at 
> http://yandex.com
>