AB Specification Coordination Teleconference -- 01 Dec 2014

<scribe> scribe: timeless

Welcome

virginie: roundtable ... introductions, maybe?
... elf-pavlik
... Virginie Galindo, Gemalto
... i offered to lead w3 coordination discussion
... is it good, possible ways to improve

timeless: Josh Soref, BlackBerry
... coordination is important, and there are cases where it doesn't work

elf-pavlik: XXX
... I joined because we
... i was involved in schema.org
... I was involved w/ Action Handlers
... I also worked w/ Liaison TF in Social IG

dka: dka, Telefonica, CoChair of TAG

<ArtB> ArtB: I'm here as "Friend of the Consortium". I support this effort to try to get better technical coordination for Consortium's broad set of technical work.

dka: with a TAG hat that i'm here
... general "W3C" making W3C work better hat
... to reflect tbl's comments
... if this involves source control (github), we have a positive view on
... maybe i can channel on that

<elf-pavlik> minutes from Social WG + Schema.org meeting at TPAC http://www.w3.org/2014/11/tpac-social-minutes.html

jeff: Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO
... we have a lot of places to coordinate, and need solutions in places

<rubys> http://intertwingly.net/blog/2014/11/20/WHATWG-W3C-Collaboration

rubys: Sam Ruby, CoChair of HTML WG
... I'm an editor of the URL spec

<ArtB> ArtB: I'm here as "Friend of the Consortium". I support this effort to try to get better technical coordination for Consortium's broad set of technical work.

chaals: Chaals Nevile, Yandex, CoChair Web Apps
... do stuff across w3c for a very long time

<bkardell_> "Chapters" efforts to involve scores of developers will pose some interseting new challenges as well... sorry I'm having phone issues

chaals: i think it's important that we work out coordination across large areas
... it's an important part of W3C

AB project reminder and working method

virginie: because the scope is quite large, and each of us may have different priorities
... this is where we may choose priorities
... and try to make an action list
... and see if we need a call after this
... we have an hour call, (50mins left), we can end it quicker

Welcome

bkardell_: Brian Kardell
... it sounded intriguing to me, that we have a group trying to help synchronize

<virginie> https://www.w3.org/wiki/AB/2014-2015_Priorities/w3c_synchro_consistency_plan

bkardell_: it's a really necessary thing, i'm heading up efforts to involve scores of developers in reviews
... something we've never done before

AB project reminder and working method

virginie: it was proposed to the AC members during the AB meeting
... W3C is developing lots of new features
... and there may be interest to make sure we don't lose control of development
... to make sure everyone is aware of what's going on
... we need to make sure that different communities around W3 are coordinated
... WGs, W3C, developers
... formatting information, threading it, using appropriate tools
... making sure that W3C is coordinated
... Domains (Activities, ...)
... making sure that there's correct socialization of new technologies
... i added what tbl wrote to the list
... potentially adding Good Practices to the Process
... most of w3c activities are led by humans, it's not just process, it's also communicating
... you can add your own ideas / share your views on how w3c communities can be better synchronized
... we decided to work in public
... potentially using calls
... using the Wiki
... there's also an ML

<virginie> mailing list : http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-coord-mechanisms/

virginie: you can subscribe
... questions?

dka: i don't know if you've ever been on a Coordination Group Call

timeless: I haven't

dka: those have been around for a while
... are those in the thinking of how we attack this problem

<ArtB> (FYI, I just added a Scope section to the wiki: https://www.w3.org/wiki/AB/2014-2015_Priorities/w3c_synchro_consistency_plan#Scope )

dka: a warning about that
... for years I was on HTML Coordination
... it became the most dreaded call in my diary
... there was no information
... not that it was boring, but it wasn't useful
... i don't want to create things that take up people's time in the name of coordination
... i like the idea of using automated tools
... dashboards
... i'm warning against mechanisms that require a lot of individuals' time

virginie: very good warning
... i had more in mind to format information
... rather than having calls
... i know everyone is very busy
... i agree that tools would be great

<elf-pavlik> tools/dashboard reminds me of http://okfnlabs.org/dashboard/

virginie: one of the questions i had during the last AB meeting
... imagine we invented a great tool
... how do we make sure we have one great tool in w3c
... we need to put high priority on developing the tool
... for me one of the facets would be distribute appropriate (?) information

<dka> Something like an activity feed…

virginie: i see elf-pavlik provided a dashboard

chaals: having a dashboard that you can look at is pretty helpful
... it's a lot of work
... when do you need to be aware of stuff
... there are a few straigth-forward things
... knowing what a piece of work is
... we got a request in WebApps from A11y
... you have a pile of specs, it doesn't explain what is going on
... to have to read the entire spec to figure out if it's worth commenting
... having a way to look at the specs, figure out what they do
... once upon a time you could probably use the /TR/ page
... but recently when I tried, that failed
... you have to keep clicking

<ArtB> (FYI, Dashboard wiki https://www.w3.org/wiki/Dashboard )

chaals: usually the a11y people are the only ones who know if you need a11y input
... but the people working on the spec don't know

virginie: ArtB put a dashboard link in irc
... i think IanJ also mentioned trying to improve communication tools of W3C
... i should check on the status

bkardell_: what kind of data are you hoping to capture in the dashboard?
... lots of developers have no idea what specs are being worked on/what state they're in
... that's hard to track
... browsers keep something of what they've spiritually agreed to
... what they haven't commented on
... that data is available
... if you needs review
... what sorts of things do you think need to be in a dashboard

virginie: for myself, the kind of information i'd expect to be propagated across w3c contributors
... specs, status, potential impact on the open web platform
... level of commitment (lively) to the spec
... this is a long term effort
... i wouldn't be able to tell you which dashboard i'd like to have
... from my experience, not living in Silicon Valley
... not having Browser Vendors as my best friends
... not taking coffee with them every day
... it's hard for me to know
... I'm looking for a snapshot of current development
... and being able to dive in

<bkardell_> +1 to all that

virginie: without having to join a ML w/ 500 emails
... depending on who you are, you should be able to get the information you want
... i know there's the idea of developing a spec on github

chaals: i'm reminded that there used to be an SVG that the Team would trot out
... that shows the WGs
... afaik, that's no longer maintained
... the UCs I have
... 1. "we are interested in some kind of feature some where, how do we do it, who cares? what spec/group?"
... I go ping people/hunt around random sources

<bkardell_> even more complex when you go outside the organization :)

chaals: the recent list for "requests for review" is helpful for tracking "when things are coming up now"
... answers "what do i need to ask people to look at"
... the other side is
... WebApps has "PubStatus"
... PubStatus tells you where each document is up to
... it doesn't tell you much about what a document is
... I know, because i'm in webapps
... for people in other groups, that document wouldn't be enough to understand what the work is

virginie: would you see a categorization of the features
... what would help to find the appropriate information?

chaals: there's a point where "if you don't have two full time librarians", "you won't achieve much"
... ideally you'd have people who could describe features
... so you could browse by features
... being able to look at what a group works on
... and the specs that they have
... see what specs are related

<ArtB> Sounds like we need some Best Practices re documenting a "good" Abstract, Introduction, UCs, etc.

chaals: how you easily collect that information beyond a search engine
... there are metadata solutions
... but that's pretty hard to maintain
... groups are useless at providing good metadata

<elf-pavlik> re specs relevance: if we automate tracking dependencies we can detect some similarities

chaals: (historically)

bkardell_: if we shoot for perfect, we'll never get there
... i know the annotation stuff, i know it isn't quite ready, but pretty close
... if we could get the ability for individuals to annotate on specs
... especially if the community could do legwork for us

<chaals> [+1/2]

bkardell_: i feel that could be useful, and mostly maintained by the community

jeff: i wanted to share an idea which came up in a different context
... at TPAC, we had a Chairs breakfast

<chaals> [Things that are mostly maintained by the community but on which we really rely have some issues - although as Brian points out, perfect is the enemy of good...]

jeff: one of the questions that came up from the Chairs
... there was the sense that they also need some kind of coordination
... i didn't interpret it as a tight closed loop kind of coordination
... like the kind once hoped for in Coordination Groups
... or a wiki where you can get everything you want
... i interpreted it as a request for loose coordination
... in the Team we have a Project Review
... from time to time, if someone's Project (WG, WG Document) has made an advance
... the Team Contact would schedule an hour/two
... and everyone on Team could get an update on that item
... we had the idea to broaden that concept beyond the Team
... maybe Team + Chairs + TAG + AB
... anyone in that group of "Thought Leaders for W3C" who thinks it could/should be shared broadly
... could request a timeslot
... to give an informal discussion/formal presentation
... have a once a week timeslot
... koalie volunteered to work on it
... i'm not proposing that this would solve this TF's task
... but it's an approach that could address part of this problem

timeless: i'd like to have that as Publicly available for others

virginie: dka briefly mentioned at the beginning of the call
... each WG chooses its Work Method / Tools
... reporting from each WG is different
... there's a trend to move to GitHub management

<elf-pavlik> eg. https://github.com/jasnell/w3c-socialwg-activitystreams

virginie: there was a request from BradHill to have Best Practices for moving to Github
... there's a guideline provided by npdoty
... that can be improved
... I'm not saying it's a solution for great coordination across w3 communities
... having reliable tools, would be good
... a direction we should look for
... jeff ... you may have access to information on priorities
... is there anything planned... moving everyone to a Github like tool?

jeff: i don't think we have a plan like that
... i know darobin and others are looking at
... how do we make github more usable/more consistent
... in terms of a forced march
... I don't think we're likely to duplicate github, and we're not going to force people to use it
... nothing so comprehensive

dka: i get worried about people moving to a Github-like-tool
... i think people want to move to Github because that's where there other work is
... there's network effects w/ github
... my concern w/ Github is on the long term

<bkardell_> +1

dka: i think tbl had concern in his email

<virginie> dan refers to http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2014Dec/0004.html

dka: part of the value of W3C is long term history
... W3C's Mission outlasts other things on the web
... stuff on the web might come/go
... W3C continues to play its role
... I'd expect W3C to outlast Github
... even though right now the developer community won't think about Github going away

<bkardell_> "github like" may be counter productive actually, i think it would be really off-putting

<elf-pavlik> i could try checking with sys team about option to setup open source clone https://about.gitlab.com/

dka: W3C needs to plan on
... concretely, it's important that w3c has a backup of what is in Github
... those are the concerns i have
... when I mentioned Activity Streams earlier

<bkardell_> instead of people saying "yay it's git" I think people will just say "look how out of touch W3C is"

dka: I had in mind a Github stream
... What people have mentioned you
... being able to wrap it up in a dashboard
... replicating that/having that view would be good

timeless: tried github to give formal feedback on specs
... by creating pull request with lots of changes
... every now and then something would get dropped since it didn't apply any more
... my rebases would lose most of the things, comments
... unless doing something odd like have branches for each set of comments
... useful to see which comments caused given change

virginie: w3c would need something to map github to w3c working method
... we're not there yet
... to dka's comment on having a dashboard, that would be great
... i think this would only be realistically implemented if there's consistency
... we should go to SysTeam
... if we were to develop a dashboard based on Tracker/Github/Bugzilla
... what I had in mind was duplicating Github, but dka said we'd lose the network effect
... Thanks for coming to the call
... I think we need to look for information/getting people to be involved in getting the information
... one work method is interviewing people
... possibly interviewing w3c domain leaders
... discuss w/ IanJ
... see where there's a lacking/what's a priority
... perhaps people could do interviews
... what do people think about interviewing?

chaals: generally i'm skeptical about interviewing, it's hard to do
... but, "where do they run into problems?"
... my guess is that the information is probably somewhere
... but they don't find it, it takes too long to find what they need
... i think it'd be useful to talk to chairs of groups who do horizontal review
... and industry IGs
... in the last few years there's been a trend to form an IG
... the IG lets them talk to eachother
... they talk to eachother, work out what they want, and then talk to the relevant WG about each REQ/UC
... i think that'd be a good set of people to talk to
... Chairs and Staff Contacts for those groups
... what information do you know/what goes wrong/what do you do
... also AC Reps where their Orgs seem to be involved in several bits of work

<elf-pavlik> in Social IG we try to get going with Liaison TF https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialig/Liaison_TF

chaals: ideally you'd talk to AC Reps who aren't involved in work but want to be
... but it's hard to identify them

action list

virginie: a call for volunteers
... who feels they'd be willing to put more effort into this project?

<elf-pavlik> +1

virginie: is this not something you have time

<virginie> +1

virginie: i'm interested

<jeff> +1

<bkardell_> +1

<chaals> [There are tasks that I think I would take on…]

virginie: i'll try to make a list of the ideas that were listed
... maybe i'll go for a proposal after that
... i'll send a summary to the ML
... i hope you're all subscribed

<virginie> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-coord-mechanisms/

<elf-pavlik> i subscribed today

virginie: since i've only been in w3c 3 years, i think interviewing will be helpful for me
... the next step is possibly putting things in the wiki
... is that ok?

next call (if required)

virginie: another call? or some other preferred working method?

<virginie> working method : mail and wiki

<elf-pavlik> mail & wiki first and then call once when we see need

<jeff> [/me is flexible to work however wants to work]

timeless: my neck is hurting, so i'm happy to not have calls

<chaals> [like Jeff… but think we should have meetings only "as necessary"]

virginie: my target is to present something in May 2015 to AC reps
... it takes time to gather ideas
... we'll synchronize by mail+wiki

<dka> another call ok

<dka> mail & wiki also ok :)

virginie: thanks for taking the time for this call

<dka> thx virginie!

virginie: thanks timeless for scribing

[ Adjourned ]

<virginie> thanks josh timeless :)

<elf-pavlik> thank you virginie & timeless !!!

trackbot, end meeting

- DRAFT -

AB Specification Coordination Teleconference

01 Dec 2014

Attendees

Contents

Welcome

AB project reminder and working method

Welcome

AB project reminder and working method

action list

next call (if required)

Summary of Action Items

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