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Organize a Recommendation Track Transition

This Guidebook is the collected wisdom of the W3C Group Chairs and other collaborators.

About This Document

This resource describes the internal W3C Technical Report publication processes. A companion document provides more information about roles involved in these processes and interactions with the W3C Communications Team. A comparison of requirements across all document types is available.

Steps for Publication of an Ordinary Working Draft

These steps are grouped by theme. They are not strictly ordered; in practice, some steps are completed in parallel. For instance, groups often manage the transition request/meeting steps in parallel with the publication request steps.

Publication Planning

• The Document Contact prepares the document in accordance with pubrules and develops a proposed publication schedule. The title page date is chosen based on the anticipated publication schedule. Note: Director approval is required for some namespace URIs; see URIs for W3C Namespaces for details.
• Before sending the publication request, the Document Contact SHOULD install the document in its final location. The Document Contact MAY request publication of a document that is not yet installed at its final location, but in this case MUST provide installation instructions to the Webmaster.
• To ensure that Webmaster and Communications Team resources are available for publication, at least five days prior to the anticipated publication date the Document Contact sends a publication request to the Webmaster at webreq@w3.org, optionally cc'ing w3c-archive@w3.org (which has a Member-visible archive). Note: If the publication is the result of returning a document to a Working Group for further work, the Team Contact alerts the W3C Communications Team by sending to w3t-comm@w3.org a draft announcement for the Membership (required by section 7.4.6 of the Process) that explains why the document was returned for further work.

Publication

• The Webmaster completes publication and notifies the Chair and Team Contact of publication, cc'ing webreq@w3.org and w3t-comm@w3.org. Note: If the publication is the result of returning a document to a Working Group for further work, the Webmaster alerts the W3C Communications Team in the publication announcement.
• If this publication is the result of returning a document to a Working Group for further work, the Communications Team announces that to w3c-ac-members@w3.org and chairs@w3.org.

Note: Instructions for publication of an Ordinary Working Draft are included for convenience even though this is not a Recommendation Track transition as defined in the W3C Process.

Publication Request

A publication request is an assertion from the Document Contact that the document satisfies the pubrules requirements. The subject line and body SHOULD identify this as a "publication request"; see above for where to send the request. A publication request MUST include the following information.

1. Document title and URI(s). Document URI requirements are described in Publication Rules.
2. A proposed publication schedule.

Scheduling Publication

The Document Contact negotiates a publication date with the Webmaster. Each publication request SHOULD propose a publication date, which SHOULD be at least five days later. The title page date SHOULD be the same as, or shortly before, the proposed publication date. If the request does not include a proposed publication date, the Webmaster MAY consider the title page date as the proposed publication date.

If it becomes apparent that a publication date will be well after a title page date, the Webmaster SHOULD ask the Document Contact to resubmit a revised document with a more current title page date.

When scheduling publication, please note that publishing "blackouts" occur at the end of the calendar year and around certain W3C events such as AC meetings and All-Group meetings. The Communications Team announces these publishing moratoria with approximately six months notice. The announcements are linked from the Chairs' Guidebook.

Publication

In order to ensure publication standards, upon receiving a publication request the Webmaster SHALL make a best effort to verify that the document satisfies the pubrules requirements except for the accessibility requirements of section 1.6. The Webmaster SHALL publish the document (cf. the Webmaster's guide) if the following conditions have been met:

1. The publication request is complete, and
2. The document satisfies the pubrules requirements verified by the Webmaster.

Otherwise the Webmaster SHALL NOT publish. In this case, the Webmaster SHALL provide details to the person who sent the request about which requirements have not been satisfied.

The Webmaster SHALL NOT publish the document until the date on the title page or later. The Webmaster publishes the document by updating the appropriate technical report index and updating the latest version link, and then announcing publication as described above.