RE: Few comments on the webizen wiki

Hi all,

About the idea of having a mail address created for webizen, I understand the cost of it, and remove my idea.
Agreing with most of the comments, clarification from chaals here.

Regards,
virginie

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles McCathie Nevile [mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru]
Sent: lundi 12 mai 2014 01:31
To: GALINDO Virginie; public-webizen@w3.org; Coralie Mercier; Jeff Jaffe
Subject: Re: Few comments on the webizen wiki

On Wed, 07 May 2014 16:51:38 +0200, Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:
> On 5/7/2014 10:40 AM, GALINDO Virginie wrote:

> Thanks for the input.  Comments below.

Ditto.

>> -About the package
>>
>> The fact that webizen would not attend the WG has its rationale. But
>> what about allowing an ermanent observer status. Meeting the WG
>> participants for a webizen may have a real value. I know that
>> observer status is a chair discretion, but here we may have a kind of
>> priority observer status.
>
> I'm reluctant to impinge on the authority of the Chair.  In general,
> it can be difficult to get Chairs who after all are volunteers.  I am
> reluctant to reduce their authority.  But certainly, if a Chair would
> like to give observer status, that is encouraged.

I think we should be clearer in the wiki (and subsequent marketing
material) about participation - that it is not a right, but that there are many ways relevant individuals can help do the work of a WG.

I think we should also be clear that many chairs are likely to take being a webizen as *some* evidence of understanding the requirements for participating as an invited expert…

In any event, given a chair has the right to specifically exclude people  from a group for failure to behave appropriately, I think there isn't much impingement implied on the authority of chairs. In any event, chairs relying a lot on some authority given from W3C, rather than respect from their group for doing a fair job of running it, are often going to have a bad time…

>> Note that OWASP is providing a mail address for their individual
>> members, this also could be a cool thing to provide:
>> geek@w3c-webizen.com <mailto:geek@w3c-webizen.com>

Maintaining a large-scale email system isn't really trivial. I'm not sure the benefit is worth the cost.

>> -About the regional aspects
>>
>> I think that OWASP grid can be a good example. They have chapters,
>> and individual choose a chapter to be associated with. The rest of
>> the organization stay global, but it helps to build locally some
>> active community. W3C already has some offices, which may be good
>> anchors, as a beginning.
>
> I agree that there could be value in having better regional support.
> Currently, we talk about that vaguely - in terms of the possibility
> that in the future there could be regional voting.

I think mandating regional voting is a very bad idea. While it might be the case that if we have a large bloc of Chinese webizens they often vote for chinese candidates, restricting their vote in that way seems an artificial curb on their right to support whatever and whoever they prefer. (Having a voting system that lets them do this reasonably fairly also seems important, as I have noted elsewhere).

> If you have specific ideas on how to get organized regionally from Day
> 1, I encourage you to edit them into the wiki.

>> -About the webizen AC definition
>>
>> "They may accept Member-confidential information, but may not
>> distribute Member-confidential information within their companies
>> (since their companies are not Members) or among Webizens (because
>> re-distribution to all Webizens means it is no longer in Member space)."
>>
>> While I understand the rationale, I don't see how this can happen in
>> practice. Can you remind me what is member-confidential information
>> today ? members details, some announcement in advance, what else ?
>
> There are numerous mailing lists and certain Working Groups that
> operate in Member space.  Typically these mailing lists have a
> "member" prefix, although there are a few exceptions (notably
> w3c-ac-forum).  Our commitment to the Membership is that this information is not public.
> This allows Members to express points of view that (for example) they
> would not like attributed to them in the public press.  I would not
> like to remove that commitment to Members.

Agreed. That said, I think there is a strong case for actively committing to providing questions for survey to the webizens, under a condition of member-confidentiality. Equally, I would suggest that how webizen reps voted should be information available to the webizens, probably under the same conditions.

Member-confidential means information is only available to (tens of?) thousands, and I rather suspect that people are still slightly wary of what they say in such cases. W3C confidentiality levels are remarkably well-respected, but there are leaks.

> Today, most Working Groups operate in public, but there are some who
> prefer that their deliberations remain in Member space.

There are also, I think, some social advantages in giving webizens some access to information that is considered confidential (even if it isn't *very confidential*), in terms of building a real relationship and respect.

cheers

Chaals

--
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
         chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com


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Received on Monday, 12 May 2014 08:46:12 UTC