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Larry Masinter wrote: "Once a change proposal is accepted, the chairs seem to be soliciting counter-proposals, or even 'no change proposals'." I replied: "Clarification: We think this is a reasonable elaboration on what the policy calls for, but we agree that at this point it should be documented properly. Possible Policy Update: We will probably make the call for counter-proposals and alternate proposals a formal part of the policy. It has become an important enough part of how we work to be fully documented."
There was some recent discussion around whether the editor of a document (who seems to be free to change the document while the issue is still being discussed and is still open) can also submit alternative change proposals, no-change proposals, etc., each with separate rationales. The result is a lot of confusion about what's even on the table, and whether the proposals are addressing the same or different problems, and also about the timing of proposals and counter-proposals, which get us all caught up in the mechanics without much focus on the actual issues. My own experience in a lot of standards groups has been that you can make better progress if you separate out the first step, of understanding whether there is agreement around the "problem description", from the second step getting agreement around the "proposed solutions" for a problem. To clarify: the "bug" is that the current *actual* process here is confusing, and seems to be leading the working group in circles around ISSUE-66. It seems like the proposed fix is just to document the current process in the "decision policy" document doesn't seem likely it will resolve the "bug", does it?
Strawman resolution: The Chairs are happy with the way counter-proposals collect opposing arguments, and move debate away from the mailing list into clear position statements. Therefore we expect to document the de facto current policy. That is to say, a one month counter-proposal / alternate proposal period some time after an initial proposal is received.
Addressed here (as described above, by describing the process and the specific requirements for zero-edit proposals): http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy-v2.html.diff?r1=1.9&r2=1.10&f=h