Workshops

This page is an effort to iterate on how W3C does workshops.

Background Info

That Old-Skool Smell by Alex Russell

Problem Statement

Our goal is to enable interested stakeholders to collaborate on solving hard problems.

The position paper/program committee structure has been claimed to be inappropriate for many types of events. The bit that has not been clear is that this type of Workshop is not the only type of event that may be hosted.

We should clearly educate our community, especially our chairs and those who organize meetings, on what the requirements are, and are not, in this regard.

W3C relies on participants self-identifying as relevant stakeholders. Denying Working Group members the opportunity to participate in a meeting is counter to this principle. However, at the same time in our current world it is critical that we enable remote participation as a prime way of interacting. Additionally, we should recognize the value of post-event participation; W3C meetings are normally minuted in IRC, allowing at least minimal real-time participation, and a detailed record. Working groups, task forces and community group meetings SHOULD request a telephone bridge (or use some other mechanism) to allow for real-time remote voice or video participation.

Some working groups have already adopted requirements that binding decisions can only be made asynchronously, providing a realistic opportunity for those unable to attend a meeting to challenge a decision made by those who were. This should be encouraged, and should become the norm, as something that groups SHOULD do - and we should increase the cultural expectation that they will be conditions of agreement to waive minimum notice periods.

For face to face events, there SHOULD be 8 weeks notice. However, a group may choose to shorten this for urgent topics, if sufficient remote participation ability is enabled (e.g. through telephone or video). For virtual meetings there SHOULD be one week notice, unless it is held at a regularly scheduled time.

IRC and reasonably accurately real-time scribing should be the norm. Best practice is to declare a shared wiki/etherpad for live note-taking, if live-IRC-minuting is not utilized.

Working Group decision-making procedures SHOULD be asynchronous.

Agenda should be provided in advance of meetings, Action items and minutes should be made available afterward (within one week). For larger meetings, video recordings should be made and offered if possible; summaries of discussion and outcomes must be published.

Workshop attendance is open to anyone. However, workshops MAY use a structure such as requests for position papers or statements of relative stakeholding to allocate limited places. This should not prevent remote participation. It is important to enable deep discussion amongst people invested in a problem, focused on clearly identifying the problems and finding solutions.

Background Info

Problem Statement

See Also