<koaliie> Previous (2014-08-01)

<scribe> scribenick: koalie

<jeff> https://www.w3.org/wiki/Webizen

<michiel> Hi all

<michiel> BTW: I'm using the SIP bridge successfully

[Jeff Jaffe goes over agenda]

Jeff: I'd like to exit today's meeting with a consensus on how we might include the representation to the survey
... Mark pointed out that the marketing survey questions should be submitted to our Advisory Committee as well as twitter followers

[type q+ in IRC join the queue]

[dial 41# to raise hand]

[dial 40# to lower hand]

Run through the wiki to make sure we are aligned on our proposal

Jeff: Last time we talked about the goals, mission and success criteria
... let's start with goals

<koaliie> Goals of program

Jeff: Any modification?
... seeing no queue, I'll assume those are agreed for now

<koaliie> Missions of the program

Jeff: no comment on missions?

<koaliie> Success criteria of the program

Jeff: Any suggestion on deleting, adding success criteria?

Olle: Success criteria should go back to goals
... and bring value to W3C
... increase review, spec writers, if we don't reach those goals, I don't see a value in the program

Jeff: Feel free to edit the wiki, and if you haven't, I'll do it in the coming days.

Michiel: based on experience with frontend dev, there's a certain disappointment with spec development
... they love the Web but not the W3C
... it's weird but it's tangibly out there when I organise events
... get the foot folks of the industry who are apparently in love with browsers but not W3C anymore; there's a love/hate relationship, to change the idea the people have of W3C would be a goal for me as well

Jeff: Excellent idea. I believe it was always intended.
... the language we use in the wiki --attract stakeholders, etc, there's nothing wrong with adding "build appreciation"
... feel free to add the bullet to the wiki
... if you don't do it, I'll take care of it in the next few days

Brian: Careful with the language
... don't sound too bureaucratic.

Discussion of marketing survey

<koaliie> Target market and marketing study

Michiel: Not being a Twitter user, there's bias in asking this huge echo chamber, other channel active as well?
... do you need to be on Twitter to answer?
... many of the people I represent don't have twitter accounts

[Jeff gives info on context which led to adding marketing survey as a means]

Jeff: We're open to different approaches

Michiel: ISOC people care about the net but I guess the Web also
... it's beyond the IETF community
... ISOC has communication channels
... like mailing lists and newsletter
... I'm willing to connect you with the Chief Internet Technology Officer
... There are some points where ISOC IETF and Webizen intersect

Jeff: At the moment, I'm not thinking to reach out to the internet society
... I've reached out to them several times over the years, sometimes successfully, other times less so

<michiell> Jeff, there is a new CEO and new CTO @ Internet Society, and I think there is opportunity to strengthen contacts

<AnnBassetti> the influence of ISOC may vary by country or locale ... my impression, in the USA, Seattle area, is there is little or no awareness or participation in ISOC

Julian: Recom? is quite happy to put out a questionnaire and do analysis; is that still wanted?

jeff: is that the org we spoke to a few weeks ago?

Julian: Yes

Jeff: I don't recall they provided input; they're happy to review it but they didn't do anything

Jeff: are they waiting for me?
... it was a good suggestion, and we did speak to them

Julian: I'll go back to Recom? and I'll get back to you

Jeff: I appreciate this

Armin: question 2 particularly is missing "how much are you willing to pay for" e.g. e-mail address etc.
... What you get for what it costs is missing

Jeff: There are a couple ways for doing it
... I'm open to different input
... on the last call, we said you have to start somewhere

Jeff: if you ask people what they want to pay, people will generally want to pay less
... we came up with USD 100 to cover expenses, so in the survey we tell that is what it costs, and would you join for that?

<michiell> Ask the money question at the end

Jeff: is there a better different way to ask?

Armin: Of course, we could say that @currency?@ in each country. Another is to name what benefits with costs and ask
... what would you be willing to pay for which?

Jeff: what are you suggesting? different programs?

Armin: name services and values
... e.g. USD 20 for an e-mail address

Jeff: Well, we do that. there's a prologue which describes the service, and a question that asks whether people would sign up

<michiell> I would suggest to use a 'card sorting' mechanism

<AnnBassetti> or maybe there needs to be an explicit question about cost?

<michiell> This makes people put their favorite features on top

Jeff: does the prologue need to be closer to question 2?

Armin: [something about would you join a freemium model]

Jeff: We would be losing money if this were free

<michiell> That gives a qualitative indication as well as an overall preference

Jeff: The free model would get a lot more support probably, but that's not consistent with what other people have said: we can't lose money on this.

Julian: In terms of survey content, Recom? has said we need to test what we're going to offer, and not just t-shirts
... what needs to be in this is the mission, what people want to see, what they are buying, their reward for signing up
... if you're in agreement, what I can do is get back to Recom? and see what feedback I get

Jeff: isn't that what question 7 does?
... if there's a better way to say it, sure

<michiell> Q1 should actually be the last question, I think

Discussion of email thread about "representation" including how to represent this thread in the survey

Jeff: the survey came out of the last meeting
... since then, there was a lot of input about representation

Jeff: it's sensible to put questions related to that
... but there were so many different points of view that I don't know the right way to ask

Brian: what I was proposing in e-mail is what developers want: participate as a first class citizen in the W3C
... we have various open source orgs etc, but to put together an org is non-trivial
... W3C has been helpful creating community groups
... how to avoid legal loopholes to create an org?
... if you can do that you'll get a hundred, a thousand developers

<michiell> +1

Brian: provide a nice way for developers to be first-class citizen in the W3C
... they can create a github org or something else

Jeff: At one level, and chaals said it, anybody can create an org
... but for W3C to create such an org, that's one of the things we're not really good at
... W3C itself is not an org
... we're not a legal entity

[W3C is hosted by legal entities]

Brian: is that necessary to be a legal entity to participate in W3C?

Jeff: Yes and no.
... we have ways for individuals to participate in W3C as individuals
... we have hundreds of invited experts in our working group

Brian: They have no representation
... they don't have a say in the advisory committee

Jeff: It would be a quite astonishing change in the structure of the W3C to have folks on the advisory committee who are individuals
... I guess it could be done
... one way to do it is you can have every webizen be a member of the AC but that wouldn't scale very well

Brian: I agree

[musical interlude]

Jeff: another way to do it is via a webizens electoral college
... that was a proposal I had brought forward to the June Advisory committee meeting and that got substantial push-back
... do you have any other mechanism in mind?

Brian: You create a github org, put out your license, state what your operations are. I'm proposing little change, really.

<ahaller2> +1 for electoral college

Jeff: here's a possible interpretation
... if every webizen went to this so-called org, and it had a voice on the AC, it's the same proposal as the college, except it's weaker

<MarkCrawford> lessened concerns

Jeff: if we have a single AC rep, I'm curious, would that be acceptable to e.g. Mark who voiced concerned last June?
... So, that's a compromised position

Brian: You assume I'm talking about a webizen org, I'm talking of an org.

<michiell> Should perhaps be possible for a community group to 'elevate' key persons without membership to AC status by means of a group donation?

Brian: whatever it takes to join, whether that org is made of one or hundreds of developers

Michiel: My idea was that CGs are already a pretty open mechanism
... I'd see a model where people pitch in together
... that would allow more open input into the AC model
... going back to 1994, I wanted to join W3C, I was just a student. I got frightened and joined 5 years later.
... looking from the outside, it was an ivory tower I didn't have 50K$ to join
... the CGs mechanism is attractive
... it works to get people together

Jeff: Linkage between CGs and AC?

Michiel: if you could elevate a CG to get an AC rep of the CG, my guess is it would be far better to get individuals there and be represented
... a tiered system
... where people affiliated around a subject get to have a voice

Jeff: Each CG gets an AC rep?

Michiel: Not all. Get a payment slot available for a given CG to send a person to the AC

Jeff: Do we know of any CG that would be interested in doing that?

Michiel: I don't have a list of them, but my guess is that any interest is topic-based

Jeff: I'd be interested in understanding some practical use-cases
... We have an open-annotation CG that's been active for quite some time
... the Team said, gee, we're ready to launch a Working Group
... from then on, Hypothes.is became a startup member for 2 years [to be in that WG]
... your particular example of CGs funding involvement, I haven't seen any example of this

Michiel: it's a mechanism to elevate the group to a certain status that gives them a voice

Armin: Another approach would be to link to the membership cost: for every webizen, we get x representatives

Jeff: That was the electoral college proposal last June
... an AC rep for every 200 webizen
... that got shot down

<michiell> The startup fee would mean 20 webizens per vote

Jeff: 200 was in between full member and affiliate fee

Brian: What Michiel proposed is close to what I'm talking about
... people are free to establish a group, pretty much like a CG, perhaps with founding documents of how they operate,
... we don't care how they get funding (paypal etc.)
... we don't care how many members
... all I care about is removing the legal hurdle
... the joining fees remains the same

Jeff: How is that different from my proposal in June,
... which the AC shot down

<michiell> Jeff, the difference is I guess that it is not a quorum but a group

Brian: What I saw in June was fairly complex

<AnnBassetti> I believe the AC shot it down, for fear that companies would quit their regular memberships and buy back in as "webizens"

<AnnBassetti> IOW ... for much less money

<olleo> Comment: getting "webizens" to create a legal org raises some challenges, e.g. in what jurisdiction is it established?

Brian: you can't shoot down someone who can pay the price to join as a member

<ahaller2> +1 AnnBassetti, I also got the feeling that this was the concern

<olleo> Comment: So a way to view Brian's proposal is that W3C provides a framework for a kind of "virtual orgs".

Mark: ... my concern would be to have a certain level of assurance of IP made by legal entities which can be made accountable in court

<michiell> comment: we have the same situation for invited experts

Mark: we would not have the same situation if we had a legal entity, or even individuals signing IP policy individually
... we don't have the same level or recourse
... to the point I wanted to make, having heard the dialogue, what it is we want for these webizens?
... are we interested in getting their technical input? or governance input?
... are the goals listed sufficiently descriptive?
... it would be much more important to get input for spec content and not so much at the AC level or AB level
... I looked at a different org, OASIS, which has both corporate and individual memberships
... corporate level has voting rights, a say in the running of the org
... individual level doesn't

Jeff: At least for me, the things that aren't clear to you are clear to me, here's how the fine line is
... The most important thing that comes out of W3C is specifications
... they affect lots of people
... we think it's important to grow this set of people who develop specs, provide requirements, etc.
... it's the general public
... it's our view point that we lack the view point from developers
... by creating this community, we aspire to increase the level of participation and affiliation to W3C.

<michiell> comment: if people don't like the governance, they won't contribute the technical input

Jeff: in the W3C means of getting work done, there is a difference between getting requirements and getting the technical input to address those requirements
... the former is what the working groups do
... we already have an effective mechanism to get this technical input from non-members: invited experts

Mark: that's your position, I don't hear that from several other members of the group
... you carefully distinguish AC charter review and other AC tasks, is that on purpose or an omission?

Jeff: One of the rights and privileges of AC reps is that they can name people from their orgs to be in working groups
... we have an IPR lack of clarity if a webizen can be an invited expert in any group

Mark: why don't leave the AC out of @@@if this is the issue?

Jeff: That's what I was proposing initially with upper house and lower house

<AnnBassetti> I think I like the bicameral possibility of structure (upper / lower houses)

Brian: on the legal aspect, currently a lot happens in public mailing lists
... some even avoid W3C discussion and bring back stuff later to W3C

<MarkCrawford> Unfortunately I need to drop

Brian: in regard to Mark's concerns about IPR agreements with individuals being the problem, merely pointing out
... that individuals participate as invited experts, on mailing lists,
... CGs, twitter and on IRC channels that both do and don't belong to W3C
... - and we have open source orgs and individuals that participate as first class today.
... If we can solve those issues to satisfaction, surely we can do the same here.
.... Where is the legal argument?
... IEs are individuals but they don't represent anybody

Jeff: You're right that there aren't a lot of fine lines
... each thing that we introduce we introduce with a lot of care
... in case of IEs which is one of the things you mention, they make IPR commitments
... in cases this is more restrictive than Members
... furthermore, IEs are only invited if invited by the chair of the working group
... with a new program such as the webizen program, we're in the same situation
... we need to be careful when we figure out legal protection of the Web
... I'll take an action, based on this call, to propose further questions to the survey
... but we don't have a clear consensus
... we don't need to have consensus for the rest of the survey, but it's important to have an understanding of what each proposal is
... and to consider what has been shot down before
... I'll put my ideas on the list or wiki
... and invite others to contribute to phrasing
... I'd like to get the survey out by September
... we need another meeting
.. I'll send around a doodle poll for the week of September 1

Jeff: Anything else?

<michiell> Thanks, all.

<veronica> thanks