<trackbot> Date: 09 December 2014

Issue-129

<trackbot> issue-129 -- Should the Process define Coordination Groups? -- open

<trackbot> http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/129

SteveZ: Judy you were going to ask your Coord Group how they felt about joining the

Judy: i had a chance to talk to them Wednesday
... people are agreeable to that if they have to
... but they have a strong preference to keep it as a structured C<?> Group
... the other person active in a Coord Group, Phil Archer, it sounds like he's going to try to join the call as well
... i'd be interested in a discussion if a Community Group would be interested in a discussion about encouraging discussion (?) overall
... it's possible w/o removing kinds of coordination that are working for some groups
... to make things flexible/broader
... i understand that you (the TF) have a strong goal to streamline the process
... i understand that virginie is working on ...
... with the Coordination stuff that's working, it's the preference of the WAI Coordination Group folks that they'd be able to continue in that format if possible
... if that mechanism were removed from the charter, since they're still eager to meet in a Coordination format
... they'd still do that
... they're asking me to try to do more to keep the Coordination Group structure in tact
... i understand the interest of this group is to try to streamline the process
... in looking at that section of the Process document, it seems like there are some redundancy that could be eliminated
... the basic style of the WAI Coord Group has been going for a long time
... we use it to get input from the WAI Groups
... and we use it for timely input when talking about new verticals
... we're being encouraged internally to handle
... and the group has been extremely useful
... that's where we see the main part of our task looking ahead
... feeding out to the WGs/public
... so there's interest in keeping it, but i understand the process preference

SteveZ: we talked about the side discussion two weeks ago and agreed to delay until after your Dec 3rd telcon
... the general consensus then (not of a huge number of people)
... was that the goal is to try to only put into the process things that *need* to happen
... in a *particular way*
... there was total agreement that coordination is important
... but coming up w/ one mechanism that works for everyone seems to be very difficult
... i'm in a group that strongly rejected the Coordination Group approach
... in the Interactive area (HTML, CSS, SVG)
... they adopted alternative mechanisms for dealing w/ coordination
... it seemed more important to not require any particular thing
... at the time Coordination Groups were created, they were a management structure
... over time, that worked in certain places, and it works well for you, i understand that
... but it didn't work everywhere, and other mechanisms were taken into use
... in particular, the role of Domain leads (which aren't in the process), increased
... we don't want to stick that into the process, that's the organization of the Team
... this would be a good thing to be put into a Best Practices thing
... if we had such a place, but we don't at this time
... i don't see enough reason to keep it in the process
... i'd prefer to move it to some document about Best Practices

mchampion: you summarized the points discussed previously
... this mechanism that works for some is fine, but it's a practice, not something to be baked into the process
... no one is asking Judy to change anything we do in W3C
... if a meeting is valuable, set it up
... if it's important for certain Groups, you could put it in the charter
... as it isn't important for dozens of WGs, it doesn't belong in Process

Judy: SteveZ 's summary was helpful
... i tried to understand from the minutes and was concerned/confused
... as they indicated that WAI was the only
... but phila joined, and he's in another
... i liked the idea of trying to encourage more coordination, and more flexible/fluid forms of that
... even a statement in the Process encouraging coordination and pointing whereever could perhaps be useful
... it seems we do need evolution of the method, and multiple methods
... and we need coordination among the groups, and to enhance coordination amongst the parts of W3C
... one of the things people in our groups are concerned about losing if we lose our formal structure
... currently we do our discussion in Member Confidential space
... and i've checked with how people feel about this
... over time, people feel that's less important, but people feel there's still some need for that
... if we have groups that feel a need to work with member confidential information from other WGs that still work w/ Member Confidential
... and people who are familiar w/ how others talk in a group and can talk rapidly
... i'm curious, if we could put a line in the charter
... would it be acceptable to do some work in Member Confidential
... or would pressure apply on this?

mchampion: you might want to ask ArtB about that
... he has strong preferences for public

SteveZ: in W3C, it's up to the group to decide
... i personally believe there are certain topics that do not need to be open/should not be open
... and there are techniques that mitigate this, such as publishing minutes
... there's nothing in the process that says that a group has to be open
... AB is in a more closed space than Member
... although they try to publish minutes publicly, for discussion that don't need to be closed

phila: hello, I'm Phil Archer, Data Activity lead, succeeded Ivan Herman
... and he stressed that I should set up a Coordination Group
... i thought everyone did it
... and was surprised to discover that only Judy and I do it
... i'm not here to stress support for Coordination Groups
... I had a case recently where I finally got to talk to Robin Berjon
... had i had it 6 months earlier, it could have quite radically changed the charter of a WG
... a different perspective on the charter had i had it earlier
... it doesn't concern me whether it's in the Process
... it's up to individual Staff members to make it happen
... there's a lot of things
... we have to report to the AC how we spent our time
... FT
... what worries me, is that it ceases to be part of the job that I can say i spent time on
... that our members are happy with
... we all agree that coordination is important

SteveZ: that's a new piece of information that i don't think anyone has brought up before
... both Members and Team management perception about time/what needs to be done
... there's a piece of this consensus that we need something in the process document that it is the responsibilities of the Chairs
... that coordination w/ related activities take place
... and presumably points to a place that talks about how coordination could take place
... and the Members would agree that coordination would take place
... the issue of how the Team evaluates its employees should up to the Team, and not the Process
... we're trying not to put concrete things in about how the Team should work
... i assume jeff can speak to that, but it doesn't need to be here

mchampion: i was going to make the same point
... this is the value that the Team adds that the Members pay for
... it's W3M's job to organize this, and reward/manage the people to make it happen
... Members, PoV, we want this to happen, and we trust the Team to make it happen
... as seamlessly as possible

Judy: i think this is a helpful piece as well
... for coordination to work, it needs the Team to facilitate it happening
... but also Chairs to come to whatever form it is
... part of the request to retain structure is
... currently, some chairs find it helpful for their management in their organization to see that this is the structure
... i think we can work around that
... part of the request was that formal chartering helps in time allocation
... i want to raise one other thing, less to do w/ my Coordination Group
... but maybe to how Best Practices on coordination might be written
... that things are Discoverable
... right now, we have very few chartered coordination groups
... the coordination that's going on tends to be more ad-hoc
... the coordination that phila described is more typical than is probably ideal
... w/ a group that's findable, we have people come to us, because we're very discoverable
... i'd say that, how coordination is handled in Process going forward, if there was something not just encouraging coordination
... but also that they be findable very readily
... possibly a place that they post that there's coordination about this going on _here_
... the more that coordination goes underground
... where things -- these new groups are covering X scope and getting sorted out

SteveZ: that was one of the points that came up at the Chairs meeting at TPAC
... where we sort of said we were proposing to cancel this
... the comment that we should find a better mechanism
... in some sense, the announcement list that was created is doing some of that
... it's doing it in a broadcast, and everything all-together mechanism
... it's probably too much data for anybody to be really follow, unless we had filtering mechanisms
... and i don't know what those would be
... you're not the first one to raise the point that we need better mechanisms for people to know what's going on in the org

jeff: i mostly wanted to comment on phila 's comment on Time Allocation
... once it's out of the process, coordination groups won't be accountable in how we report things to the Membership
... that's a new issue, thanks phila for bringing it up
... i agree w/ mchampion, it's something the Team can figure out
... it dawns on me that we have the same thing re: removing Activities
... I believe this is a fixable problem
... If we were to eliminate Coordination Groups, the way that we'd fix the problem, we'd take the time assigned to Coordination Groups
... we'd average/blend it into the time spent on the various WGs that are related
... i'd share w/ the TF that the Membership tends to review allocation of time to WG at times like a Hawk
... they may see that in the year after introducing the changes to remove Activities/Coordination Groups that the amount of staffing time is going up
... when we draft the announcement for wide-review
... i'd appreciate it if the TF and the AB communicate that as a consequence of these changes, there will be a slight uptick in the amount of time assigned to these WGs
... that was formerly assigned to Coordination Groups/Activities
... i think if we do that, it's only a small problem

SteveZ: IanJ has said that the place Chairs go to get information
... i don't think that that has happened in a significant way yet

jeff: that's correct
... there was an earlier discussion between you (SteveZ) and Judy
... we need a stub in the Process to underline the importance of coordination
... and it'd be good if the Editor or someone did this
... as well as a pointer
... we could basically duplicate the current text and put it in the guidebook
... and have a pointer to that
... and if/when IanJ gets around to updating the guidebook, we'd update the pointer in the Process document

Judy: i like that idea
... i'd encourage also, it'd be easy to list individual Best Practices that different clusters of groups could take up for coordination
... i think it might be harder to enhance discoverability of clusters to eachother
... and i'd be happy to brainstorm w/ SteveZ on that
... getting early stage visibility across W3C could be extremely helpful

<SteveZ> ACTION: SteveZ to draft text on coordiantion responsibility for the Process Document and edit Guide to begin collecting Best Practicres for same [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/12/09-w3process-minutes.html#action01]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-44 - Draft text on coordiantion responsibility for the process document and edit guide to begin collecting best practicres for same [on Steve Zilles - due 2014-12-16].

SteveZ: i'll check w/ IanJ and see what he wants to do it
... i suspect he'll agree w/ jeff that the best place to do it is within the guide
... i don't think there's a better place
... with that, i think we can agree, that the sentiment is to remove Coordination Groups from the Process
... replace it with a note about the importance of coordination, and a pointer to the guidebook
... and a note to Membership that this will affect the assignment of people's time

<Zakim> timeless, you wanted to ask if we'd need to update the Process as we change the Best Practice, or just update the Best Practice

SteveZ: in a way that doesn't change people's actual time, just the listing of the allocation

jeff: my only point is that if we change where the document lives, we'd need to change the pointer

timeless: well, couldn't we point to a redirect
... and just change the redirect

Judy: if there's a way to get a stable pointer, the way timeless is suggesting, could be a redirect, but gets you to the right best practices
... that'd be useful
... from my PoV

SteveZ: i think timeless 's point is a good one, i'll coordinate that w/ IanJ
... i think that's it for Issue-129, it isn't quite closed, but w/ my action, i think we should be able to close it

CfC on TAG election

SteveZ: afaict, the CfC failed
... there were 3 responses
... one from chaals saying that he didn't like it
... one from jeff
... one from dka
... the rules that chaals established in the Process CG
... seems to indicate that the CfC failed
... i think we have a difficulty of reaching consensus, except on phone calls

mchampion: chaals seems to have trouble coming to these calls, is that a scheduling issue?
... my non vote, i'm happy w/ it, but i don't really see the problem in the first place

SteveZ: this one said silence does not mean assent

jeff: i think a large problem was that people didn't understand they needed to vote
... i think many would have viewed it as an improvement over the current situation
... that's the only reason i voted in favor
... it might be useful to point out to the proponents that this was defeated due to lack of interest
... that if they want to bring this forward in the future
... they need to get out the vote

SteveZ: part of the problem is that WebApps CfCs say "silence votes w/ consensus"
... chaals in setting up this CG, since he's chair of the CG
... recognized this CG didn't have a standard working culture
... and set it up to require Affirmative action

jeff: i think his rule is right for this group
... in WebApps, people may have already worked on an issue, and are tuned in
... and should go forward
... but here, the vast majority of the CG is tuned out

SteveZ: i guess that most people assume the same rules as WebApps
... i don't know what chaals's objection is

mchampion: can we keep the CfC open until chaals explains?
... if it's just he basically agrees and just doesn't like the wording
... then he should provide new wording

SteveZ: i'll announce the failure

jeff: i think the reason it failed is that supporters didn't announce their support
... chaals has been a leading public/private proponent that the TAG/AB not be controlled by a small group

mchampion: i'm surprised by this

jeff: he always makes this point that he doesn't want two companies to control the TAG/AB

SteveZ: i agree
... i don't want to change the rules of company has at most one

jeff: the big issue is that people didn't vote/participate

Issue-141

<trackbot> Issue-141 -- Improve Errata management in W3C -- open

<trackbot> http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/141

SteveZ: got a setback
... PSIG discussion of PP FAQ-37 seems to indicate a desire to change the FAQ
... and therefore change the rules of what would be legitimate maintenance that keeps the Patent Commitments in tact
... we'd need to consider what would happen
... there are 4 kinds of changes under maintenance
... 1. no text-change
... 2. editorial
... 3. changes that don't introduce new features
... 4. new features
... PSIG discussion seems to be "we don't know what a new feature is", so any change that isn't 1/2 would be 4
... PSIG hasn't updated the FAQ, but it seems like they probably will
... I sent a note to Don Deutsch and Scott Peterson, chairs of PSIG asking for an update

mchampion: this CG is for what's desirable for W3

jeff: PSIG members from some companies are basically supporting positions which would set back our intentions to be more agile w/ our process

SteveZ: we need to look at whether adding an Exclusion Call to the Formal Publication of Errata that makes it Normative
... i don't remember if there's a formal exclusion opportunity there, but perhaps we need to add one

Schedule

SteveZ: i suspect next week (Dec 16th) will be the last meeting of the year
... that people will be too distracted on the 23rd
... we'll tentatively resume January 6th

[ Adjourned ]

trackbot, end meeting