RE: TAG seeks input re www-tag

As a lurker on this list that has largely stopped reading the messages for
just the reasons identified below, I would encourage you to adopt the second
approach below with an additional suggestion.  One (or all) of the official
WG members should be (feel) empowered to politely terminate a thread that is
wandering off-topic or no longer contributing to the goals of the group.
Inviting the public to participate should allow the WG to solicit ideas and
feedback, while still maintaining clear control of the process.  Publishing
the agenda for the week in advance should help focus the exchanges, but I
think there is still a need for the WG members to let us know when the
discussion has gone afield of the topic at hand.

J

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-----Original Message-----
From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
Tim Bray
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 2:47 PM
To: www-tag@w3.org
Subject: TAG seeks input re www-tag


The TAG has a problem: we can't keep up with the volume
of email on www-tag.  This is a problem because it's part
of the TAG's mandate to do our work in public.  Furthermore,
I have fond memories of the old XML WG, where we had a large
and vociferous IG that gets a lot of the credit for coming
up with good ideas and shouting down our lousy ideas.

In particular, several of us are intimidated by patterns
such as the following:

- a posting from a TAG member gets a response where each
  original sentence is followed by multiple paragraphs of
  response
- threads that continue for 10 or 20 messages with no real
  new arguments being brought forward

So, we solicit input on how to handle this.  Here are some
options:

- Become ruthless and enforce a rule that all postings must
  contain an issue number in the subject line or have a
  subject line that says "New Issue Proposal for TAG"
- Try to restrict discussion to those issues that the TAG
  plans to discuss at its next meeting - we'd have to publish
  our agendas well in advance, but we think we can do that.
  This model worked pretty well in the old XML IG.
- Drastically restrict posting rights to www-tag; either
  to TAG members or to Invited Experts or by some other
  criterion.

Your input is solicited.  What's happening now isn't
working well enough. -Tim

Received on Monday, 1 April 2002 16:03:32 UTC