Re: Input needed: US Federal Reserve Payments Position Paper

On 12/09/2013 03:34 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
> In the course of removing those sections, it occurs to me as perhaps
> suitable to add the following to the existing section of "Government
> Regulatory Environment":
> 
> In general, we call the Federal Reserve Board's attention to the
> International Monetary Fund's Code of Good Practices on Transparency in
> Monetary and Financial Policies, which recommends that "the coverage of
> transparency practices for financial policies in the Code includes those
> for the operation of systemically important components of the nation's
> payment system".
> 
> Please let me know if this is acceptable.

I don't think that this paper is the most appropriate opportunity to ask
the Fed to comply with certain transparency practices. I think it would
be fine to indicate that the technologies being created by the Web
Payments CG allow for greater transparency, but asking the Fed to do
anything other than consider adopting that technology (for the various
reasons outlined in the paper) goes too far.

> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca
> <mailto:jpotvin@opman.ca>> wrote:
> 
>     I'm fine with removing it. As said in my message, it was "for your
>     assessment, discussion, revision/rejection". 
> 
>     Joseph
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Manu Sporny
>     <msporny@digitalbazaar.com <mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com>> wrote:
> 
>         Joseph, a few suggestions:
> 
>         1. As Dave Raggett said, you can't say the W3C will do this or
>         that. We
>         do not represent an official W3C position here, those statements can
>         only be made by W3C management and it will take months to get
>         buy-in for
>         that. If we put in those statements, we'll be mis-representing
>         the W3C,
>         which will endanger the transition of our work into a W3C
>         Working Group.
>         This is a clear red line, we must not cross it.
> 
>         2. Even stating that the W3C Web Payments Community Group will do
>         this/that is not possible given our timeframe. We run on
>         consensus, and
>         we don't have time to form consensus before submitting the
>         paper. So,
>         the best we can do is outline the technologies we're working on and
>         where we think the US Fed can help as facts/opinions coming from
>         individual authors of a paper submitted by members of a group
>         operating
>         as a CG at W3C. It's a distinction that is important to make.
>         The paper
>         isn't our position as a group, it's the position of a few members of
>         this group (the ones that co-author the paper with me). We can't
>         misrepresent the views of this group either.
> 
>         3. While I agree with the thrust of what you are saying, I'm
>         concerned
>         that the way you worded both sections is unnecessarily
>         antagonistic. We
>         want to draw the US Fed into this group to participate, showing them
>         that we have a solution to some of the problems they outlined,
>         not come
>         across as a group that is making large demands of it.
> 
>         4. The changes that you are requesting are more about politics
>         external
>         to this group and things that this group is not working on at all. I
>         realize that we need both sorts of changes to move forward, but this
>         group is not involved in any of the standards that you outline
>         in the
>         "Conformance with Open Standards" section. WTO, IMF, ISO/IEC -
>         we have
>         almost no involvement with those groups and it's hard to
>         translate what
>         you're writing into something that's actionable by the US Federal
>         Reserve. It comes across as a radical group making demands of an
>         organization that is not going to be able to make those changes
>         in the
>         next 5-10 years if ever due to the current political environment.
> 
>         On 12/09/2013 07:44 AM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
>         > = Conformance with Open Standards = = Principles of a Free and
>         > Democratic Society =
> 
>         While I agree with the thrust of what you are saying, I'm
>         concerned that
>         the way you worded both sections is unnecessarily antagonistic. It
>         treats the US Fed as an adversary rather than a partner. Phrases
>         like:
> 
>         "W3C web payments community group calls upon the US Federal Reserve
>         Board to align its system with the International Monetary Fund"
> 
>         are so politically charged that it'll marginalize the work we're
>         doing
>         here. Additionally, changing what I wrote:
> 
>         "Unfortunately, the lack of political will at the Federal level to
>         support new technologies like"
> 
>         to[1]
> 
>         "We recommend that Federal Reserve find the political courage to
>         engage
>         current-generation technologies"
> 
>         is a change for the worse, it wrongly paints the Fed as weak,
>         and doing
>         that is no way to win friends. :)
> 
>         In short: suggest, don't demand.
> 
>         Could you re-write those two sections with this input in mind.
>         I'm also
>         going to have to go through what I wrote and make sure it doesn't
>         violate any of the suggestions above, I have a feeling that it
>         does. :)
> 
>         Steven's feedback is also good, the paper is now too long and
>         hodgepodge, we need to start aggressively condensing and deleting
>         unnecessary content. I'm going to start with the technical mumbo
>         jumbo
>         that I wrote at the end.
> 
>         -- manu
> 
>         [1]
>         http://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/index.php?title=FedPaymentsPositionPaper&diff=133&oldid=132
> 
>         --
>         Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>         Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>         blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch
>         http://blog.meritora.com/launch/
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     -- 
>     Joseph Potvin
>     Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
>     The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
>     http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/opman-portfolio
>     jpotvin@opman.ca <mailto:jpotvin@opman.ca>
>     Mobile: 819-593-5983 <tel:819-593-5983>
>     LinkedIn (Google short URL): http://goo.gl/Ssp56
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Joseph Potvin
> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
> http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/opman-portfolio
> jpotvin@opman.ca <mailto:jpotvin@opman.ca>
> Mobile: 819-593-5983
> LinkedIn (Google short URL): http://goo.gl/Ssp56


-- 
Dave Longley
CTO
Digital Bazaar, Inc.

Received on Monday, 9 December 2013 20:53:15 UTC