Fwd: Council discussion framing and pre-read

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 5:03 PM
Subject: Council discussion framing and pre-read
To: ab@w3.org Board <ab@w3.org>


This email *IS* the pre-read for our conversation on Monday.


Our first goal is to ensure we have captured or addressed the debrief of
the council experiment.  The summary of the debrief and the minutes are at
[1].  You do not need to read through all that, it is informational. There
are minor points in that document that are not here; the more contentious
points I pasted here.

First, I hope to get consensus these points are resolved or relatively
easily resolvable:

   -

   Chairing: Clear chairing norms should be defined, multiple chairs are
   typically best practice, but most importantly Council should choose its own
   chair(s).
   -

   We need clearer guidance/definition/process for recusal and abstention.
   -

   We should have clear expectations for pre-read material.
   -

   The CEO should be explicitly included.
   -

   The case needs to be clearly laid out for the Council.  It seems like
   the “Team representative” should be the investigator and present the case.
   -

   Clearly set expectations for the timeline of resolution (DAS was delayed
   at start)
   -

   Team contacts for the AB and TAG should be added
   -

   Tooling: We should create more private discussion lists, and we need to
   improve tools for scheduling and communications.
   -

   The Council must work hard to exhibit role model behavior, in terms of
   avoid dominant voices, inclusion, and respect.


I think these points probably need more discussion before concluding we can
fix the concerns:

   -

   We should strive for a lighter touch in analysis and decision making.
   -

      We should NOT incentivize frivolous FOs.
      -

      We should avoid “non-normative” guidance, and not focus on
      technically solving the FO’s problems.  We may have a heavier touch on
      process issues, of course.
      -

   We should give general guidance on how to formulate a solid, productive
   FO.  For example, I’ll channel the discussion of the FO on Web Machine
   Learning - if the FOer was deeply involved in the charter development, why
   did they have to FO? Clear “Web Platform Formal Objection Principles” would
   help avoid this costly process.  On DAS: why no details, or clearer
   statement of what bar the group should achieve?


*I would like to ask for other issues that need to be addressed, and
whether they are blocking issues or those that just need to be addressed.
Please reply to this email with issues you would like to add.*

Next, I’d like a temperature check from the AB of whether we believe we
should focus on the Council as an FO mechanism, and try to solve these
problems (or identify additional problems. We will do that in the first
session after a brief review of the open contentious issues.

Once we’ve identified any additional issues, and hopefully resolved we
should go further down the Council path, we should discuss the identified
issues and see if we can move them forward.

-Chris

[1]
https://www.w3.org/Member/Board/wiki/images/4/4a/W3C_Council_Experiment_debrief_summary_-_Google_Docs.pdf


(note: that's not actually a Google Docs link; I just forgot to remove that
in the name before uploading, and we apparently can't rename files in the
wiki.)