Invalid transition status.
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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
Transition to
UNKNOWN STATUS
Once the Process Document requirements for the transition to
UNKNOWN STATUS have been satisfied
(see
section 6.7
),
W3C follows the steps described below to complete the transition.
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.
Note: If your specification involves an Internet
Media Type, before the transition to
UNKNOWN STATUS, see also
How to Register
an Internet Media Type for a W3C Specification
for information about
how the W3C liaisons to the IETF track the registration process.
- Transition request
-
- The Team Contact reviews the (Team-only) pre-publication steps.
-
At least one week prior to an expected
meeting with the Director, the
Chair (or Team Contact)
sends a transition request to
the Director (and anyone working with the Director on transitions): timbl@w3.org, ralph@w3.org, cc'ing plh@w3.org,
w3t-comm@w3.org,
and chairs@w3.org. We recommend explicitly addressing the expected reviewer(s) by name in the body of the message.
-
The Team Contact organizes a transition meeting
with the Director to discuss the request.
-
The Director approves the transition request.
- Publication and Transition Planning
-
- The Document Contact prepares the
document in accordance with pubrules and develops a proposed
publication schedule, taking into
account possible publishing moratoria. 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.
If a document to be published consists of more than one HTML
file (i.e., there are style sheets, schemas, etc.), all
materials MUST
be made available to the Webmaster from a single
directory (which may include subdirectories).
-
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).
See below for details about
scheduling a publication, and specifically requirements about advance notice to the Webmaster.
- Form and Mailing List Preparation
-
-
The Team Contact ensures that there is a mailing list with
a public archive
available for comments; use the mailing list request
form.
The Team Contact also ensures that there is a mailing list with
a Team-only archive available for AC Representative comments; this list
is cited from the review form.
-
The Team Contact builds a
UNKNOWN STATUS
review
form that the Activity Lead (or Project
Manager) reviews for correctness.
Note:
At the current time, WBS review forms are generated from
installed documents, but before the Webmaster completes
publication.
- The
Team Contact sends a draft transition announcement
to the Communications Team at w3t-comm@w3.org.
- Publication and Transition Announcement
-
-
After coordination with the Communications Team on the transition
announcement timing (especially those accompanied
by press releases; see more about
interactions with the
Communications Team), the Webmaster completes publication and notifies the person who
sent the request, cc'ing webreq@w3.org and w3t-comm@w3.org.
Publication SHOULD precede the transition announcement by
only a small amount of time.
-
The W3C Communications Team sends a
transition announcement
to w3c-ac-members@w3.org
and chairs@w3.org
and on the W3C home page.
- The Chair SHOULD forward the announcement to the Working
Group's public mailing list taking caution not to
send any Member-confidential information to a public list.
Note: The
Working Group SHOULD NOT publish a
(new) revision of a UNKNOWN STATUS before the end
of the (current) review period.
Transition request
The message subject line and body SHOULD identify this as a "transition request";
see above for where to send the request.
A
UNKNOWN STATUS transition request MUST include:
- Document title, URIs, and estimated
publication date.
- The document Abstract and Status sections, either
by reference (e.g., the URI to the document) or direct inclusion.
Furthermore,
the transition request provides evidence that the group has
satisfied the transition
requirements. The questions and observations in the subsections
below provide examples of what
SHOULD be in the transition request
to help the
Director
assess whether the group has satisfied the transition requirements.
The transition request SHOULD be
organized so that it serves as the basis for the agenda of the meeting with the Director.
Note:
All requirements related to a Proposed Edited
Recommendation (PER) are limited to the scope of the changes.
- The request
must
record the group's decision to request advancement (e.g.,
a link to
meeting minutes or email announcing the group's decision).
- The group
must
provide public documentation of all substantive changes to the technical report since the previous publication. Include, for example, a link to a change log
where important changes are highlighted.
If there have been substantive changes to the document since the
previous transition (except for the removal of feature at risk),
the Working Group must republish the document at an earlier status.
- The group
should
provide public documentation of changes that are not substantive.
- The group should
address all recorded errata.
- The group should
report which, if any, of the Working Group's requirements for this document have changed since the previous step. Are any requirements previously satisfied no longer satisfied? Are any requirements previously unsatisfied now satisfied?
- The group should
report any changes in dependencies with other groups.
- Does this specification have any normative references to W3C
specifications that are not yet
Proposed Recommendations? See Normative References Guidelines.
Note: In general, documents do not advance to
Recommendation with normative references to W3C
specifications that are not yet Recommendations. See Normative References Guidelines.
- The group must
show that the changes to the document have received wide review (defined in
section 6.2.3.1 of the Process).
- Was there review from implementers?
- The group must
formally address all issues raised about the document since the previous maturity level.
- Include a link to an issues list that indicates that the Group
has been responsive to reviewers who have raised issues since
the previous transition. The Director's expectations are
that, as a document advances, the Working Group will keep an
increasingly precise record of how it has formally addressed each
issue.
- For changes in the issues list since the previous transition:
- Highlight issues where the Group has declined to make a change,
with rationale. See also
Clarification: tables summarizing review Tim Berners-Lee (Tue,
Feb 15 2000).
- Highlight issues where the Group has not satisfied a reviewer
and has either not yet responded to the reviewer, or the reviewer
has not yet acknowledged the Group's decision.
- Show, without highlighting:
- Issues where the Working Group has accepted a proposed
change.
- Issues where the Working Group has clarified the specification
to the satisfaction of the reviewer.
Formal Objections
- The group
must
provide public documentation of any Formal Objections. For each Objection, is there a public record of the decision, the objection, and attempts to satisfy the reviewer?
-
The group must
show adequate implementation experience except where an exception is approved by the Director.
Were the expectations set at Candidate Recommendation met?
- The request MUST
Include a link to a
final implementation report, or, if there is no such report,
rationale why the Director should approve the request nonetheless.
Patent disclosures
- Has anything changed on the patent disclosure page since the
previous transition?
Have there been any incomplete or problematic disclosures?
- If the group is not using IPP: Does the disclosure page conform to the patent policy
requirements?
For a UNKNOWN STATUS transition,
the convention is to hold a transition
meeting attended by:
- The Team contact(s)
- The Project Manager (or someone appointed by him), who generally
chairs the meeting.
- Those assigned by the Director to manage transitions.
- The Director should be invited to attend the meeting if the
transition involves contentious issues such as IPR, technical or
other concerns.
- The Working Group Chair(s)
- Others invited by the Project Manager (or whoever is chairing the
transition meeting)
- In the event that the specification significantly affects the
work of another WG, a (non-Team) representative of that Group
should be invited to the call.
The Team Contact is responsible for the execution of the
following (under the supervision of the Project Manager):
- Scheduling the meeting. To allow chairs of WGs with
dependencies and other commenters time to review the treatment of
review comments in the disposition of comments document, the
transition request MUST be sent a minimum of seven days prior to the transition meeting.
- Reserving a teleconference
bridge.
- Choosing a scribe prior to the meeting.
- Ensuring that the meeting record is distributed to the
participants. The meeting record (typically a link to an IRC log)
must include the decision, and should
highlight all recommendations. The meeting record should be sent to
all participants attendees, and
MUST
be cc'ed to w3t-archive@w3.org.
- Administrative
-
- Is everyone here?
- Confirmation of Chair, Scribe
- Are any changes required to the agenda?
- Review of the transition request
- In particular, review those items highlighted as
requiring the Director's attention.
- Decision
- The Director assesses whether the W3C Process has been followed
and whether there is sufficient consensus to support the transition
request.
In most cases the decision to make the transition
is made during the teleconference.
However the decision could take up to two weeks if any difficult
issues arise during the meeting. The Director may delegate the
W3C decision; see Team processes for TR
publications.
- Next steps
-
- If the decision is negative: how do we repair the problem? what
happens next? who does what? Note: If documents
have been copied to /TR space, please remove them.
- If the decision is positive: how do we announce this decision?
when? what is the plan and schedule for any
communications opportunities, including Member
testimonials?
any action items from this meeting?
Some reasons for declining a transition request
-
There have been substantive changes since the
previous transition. In this case, the document is returned to
the Working Group for further work.
- The Director is not satisfied with how the Working Group has
addressed issues.
- The Working Group has issued a transition request despite a
Formal Objection and the Director is not satisfied with
the Working Group's rationale.
- The Director believes that special
entrance criteria have not been satisfied.
Per section 6.1.1 of the Process, "The Director must inform the
Advisory Committee and Working Group Chairs when a Working Group's
request for a specification to advance in maturity level is declined
and the specification is returned to a Working Group for further
work."
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.
- Document title and URI(s). Document URI requirements are described
in Publication Rules.
-
One or two sentences of description of the specification (for communication purposes on the "current status" pages). The sentence may be taken from the abstract. As an example, see status section for specifications related to mobile web authoring. These status pages, as their name suggests, let the community know about relationships among close specifications, what to use and not to use, how things fit together, etc. Contact the Comm Team with questions at w3t-comm@w3.org. Note: The Webmaster may also ask the Document Contact for assistance in categorizing the specification in an existing (or new) group on the TR page.
- A proposed publication schedule.
- Record of approval of the transition request.
The Document Contact negotiates
a publication date with the Webmaster. Each publication request SHOULD propose a 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.
As of 2 March 2010 (cf. the
announcement to chairs) the Webmaster publishes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Regarding advance notice:
- if the checker reports issues that are confusing, please send the
publication request no later than 3 business days prior to the desired
publication date and in the request explicitly state which
issues require Webmaster attention.
- otherwise, please send the publication request no later than 1
business day prior to the publication date (and 2 days is even better).
If the Webmaster finds errors during the publication process, he will
endeavor to publish on the desired date, but he MAY also postpone
publication to the next available publication date in order to resolve
issues. In general, it
will not be necessary to change the title page date of a document that
is published a couple of days later than planned.
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.
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:
- The publication request is complete, and
- 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.
Transition Announcement
A
UNKNOWN STATUS transition announcement MUST include the following information:
- That this is a
UNKNOWN STATUS
transition announcement.
- Document title, URIs.
- Instructions for providing feedback.
- Review end date.
- Link to information about the review; generally this is a link
to an online form (created by the Team Contact). The following information from the transition request
MUST be available (generally in the
form):
- title, abstract, and status. Note: It is
useful to draw the reviewer's attention in the
review form to important information, even if some of that
information is duplicated in the status section due to
pubrules requirements.
- implementation information
- information about changes
- information about wide review
Note: if you started the review at Candidate Recommmendation phase, update the review form as needed, making it clear what the updates are, and update the closing date for the review.
- Information about any Formal Objections.
- Link to a public (home) page for the group that produced the document.
Please use the Team-only transition
announcement template as a starting point.
Page owned and process managed by
Philippe Le Hégaret and Ralph Swick on behalf of the W3C Director.
Coralie Mercier, editor
This document has been constructed by merging information from
several "How to" documents created by Dan Connolly, Al Gilman, and
others. A filter is applied to
the document source to provide
transition-specific views.
Last modified: $Date: 2017/01/12 10:06:02 $ by $Author: denis $