W3C

– DRAFT –
Positive Work Environment CG

21 April 2020

Attendees

Present
Ada, Jeff, Judy, Ralph, Tzviya, WendyReid
Regrets
-
Chair
Tzviya
Scribe
Ralph

Meeting minutes

previous 24-March

Moving CEPC from AC review to final

Tzviya: just a few comments
... grammatical comments
… how ombuds is linked from the glossary

CEPC issues list

Tzviya: a comment on "Unacceptable Behavior" section that we'd worked very hard on
… suggestion is to add a heading

#128

Tzviya: we just need to add a subheading to reflect the small pivot we've done
… what do we do next?

<jeff_> https://‌github.com/‌w3c/‌PWETF/‌issues/‌127

Jeff: I'd like to re-raise the question of "sensitivity to contagion" ^^
… "avoid close contact with others"
… people suggested our CEPC shouldn't address basic hygiene
… but I note there are irresponsible people going to beaches now

Judy: as well as reports of people assaulting "by means of infection"
… I thought we considered plugging-in a few words

<Ralph> [there's not pull request identified in that issue thread]

Judy: we don't even have the language to talk about this

Tzviya: CEPC had been nearly finalized as people outside of China were becoming aware of COVID-19

Judy: we had a list of bad behaviors

Tzviya: we have physical contact
… does someone have proposed wording?

Jeff: see my issue

Jory: W3C has offered extensive guidance on how to coordinate activity in a physically distant way
… do we consider if a group insisted on meeting in-person, is there an aspect of that which is a CEPC violation?

<Ralph> +1 to something that would help us address a group with a large contingent who insisted on meeting in person

Tzivya: I'm a little concerned about Jeff's proposed wording; e.g. I don't want someone with the flu near me
… the wording doesn't correspond with our other wording on unacceptable behaviors
… [in other cases] we just list unacceptable behaviors
… "exposing others to ..."

<Ralph> "exposing others to contagious disease"

<Judy> Jb pastes in proposed wording to try some tweaks: "During periods of contagion participants should be extremely careful to avoid close contact with others." How about instead: "[do not] violate social distancing guidance."

<jorydotcom> "willfully exposing others to contagious ..."

Jeff: when I raised this issue it got no support
… if we include it we should come up with more aligned wording

Wendy: a lot of it is common sense
… if I'm sick I need to be mindful of not getting close to others
… even when we included the physical contact language we got pushback
… I don't want to reopen that
… this is also a very situational problem
… with coronavirus we have very specific restrictions
… we might not have the same restrictions next year
… or another ailment comes up and we have different restrictions
… I worry about very specific language here
… we're doing a good job of communicating the restrictions we have today

Judy: mixed thoughts
… agree with Wendy in terms of group behaviors, aspirationally
… some people seem to want to ignore common sense
… for the context of this policy what's important is what individuals do with each other
… apart from respecting the "social distancing" guidelines, maybe something about not putting others under threat

<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to comment on "if a group insists"

<Zakim> jeff_, you wanted to talk about situational guidance

Ralph: is CEPC a place for advice to chairs on what to do if only a portion of the group is willing or able to meet in person?

Jeff: there may be a dozen pieces of situational guidance W3C provides if we decide to meet in-person in Vancouver for TPAC
… but for example we could provide situational guidance for TPAC that if you're sitting with someone at a bar you need to have a face mask
… I'm pretty sure some participants would say "that's your guidance but it's not Member-approved and it's not in CEPC"

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to address the longevity issue

Jeff: that's why I suggested a one-line anchor in CEPC to deal with this class of situation

<jorydotcom> +1 to that

Tzviya: Ralph's point about common sense being an argument against codes of conduct is something we should consider
… even if a vaccine is developed soon, I know people who are immuno-compromised and we'll have to deal with this
… I think we do need an anchor

Judy: this isn't new at all; we have examples
… we have people in our community with chemical sensitivities, perfume sensitivities, etc.
… I know at least one member of our community who does not attend W3C meetings out of concerns that others won't respect this
… i've been in situations where I've had to ask people to move away from me and my request was not respected
… whether its chemical allergy or disease contagion, it may be in the realm of "not respecting distancing"

Tzviya: how about "people should avoid knowingly exposing others to contagious diseases"
… this puts the onus on those who would potentially bring exposure
… Judy's suggestion is that if somebody is asked to keep a distance, that is respected
… i.e. two sentences

<jorydotcom> I agree

<Zakim> Judy, you wanted to provide an example and to provide two examples

Judy: the pandemic is confusing; we have to assume right now that anyone could carry it

Jeff: I like Tzviya's phrasing but I'd drop "knowingly"

<tzviya> proposed "Avoid exposing others to contagious disease"

Jeff: you're not as liable if you don't know, however ...

Judy: if we're looking for anchors that are not too time-limited, that fits the criteria

<Ralph> "respect need for physical distancing due to allergy or infectious disease"

Judy: "infectious disease" doesn't cover allergy or chemical sensitivity
… chemical allergies require active behavior on the part of others
… like camera flash; that requires people to not use flash, and we don't have text about asking people not to wear perfume
… there have been instances of intentionally using camera flash to abuse

<Zakim> ada, you wanted to ask isn't that just assault?

Ada: cases like that fall under "call the police"
… straight-up assault

Judy: in the instances I'm aware of it would not have been an option to call the police
… though one did end up in court but it took 6 months

<tzviya> proposal: respect requests for social distancing due to health concerns such as immune deficiency or allergies

<Ralph> +1 to Tviya's proposed text

<wendyreid> +1

<Judy> +1 to physical distancing instead of social distancing

Ralph: though "social distancing" is the term in vogue, I believe it should be "physical distancing"

<tzviya> Avoid exposing others to contagious disease

<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to express preference for including allergies in the example

Wendy: I prefer the "physical distancing" variant; it's more open

Judy: could we add "immune deficiencies, allergies, chemical sensitivities"

<tzviya> respect requests for physical distancing due to health concerns such as immune deficiency, allergies, or chemical sensitivity

Judy: with regard to the precautions one takes, whether pandemic or chemical sensitivities its not just physical distancing
… "respect requests for physical distancing or other precautions...."
… to cover things like hand washing, ...

<Ralph> +1 to "other precautions"

Tzviya: if we add "other precautions", this could become very broad
… do we want more generic language?
… are we opening a large can of worms at a very late stage?

Wendy: "other precautions" allows for, e.g., what the Canadian Government might require during TPAC
… it's a hook for specific guidance
… keeping it broad means we can do that

Judy: some of the re-convening specifics include things such as "take your temperature every day"

Tzviya: I like the idea of broadening the language

<tzviya> respect requests for physical distancing and other precautions due to health concerns such as immune deficiency, allergies, or chemical sensitivity

<wendyreid> +1

<Ralph> +1

Tzviya: I'll update github

<Zakim> jeff_, you wanted to answer Tzviya's question from 30 minutes ago

Jeff: on "what happens next?"
… once we have a revised document that takes into account the various comments we've received it pays to have a brief call for consensus
… perhaps W3M as well
… and maybe AB also
… then it could go for AC Review
… if we were making major changes we should offer another review round but we're not making such major changes
… set up a WBS and issue the Call for Review

Judy: the process Jeff just described would be great to capture in detail here
… to limit surprise
… are we OK with coupling this with W3C Process ?

Jeff: we are way ahead of the Process 2020 timetable
… i'm not worried about that constraint

Judy: what should we do w.r.t. W3M?

Jeff: generally speaking, all decisions made by W3C are Director Decisions
… revising CEPC is also a Director Decision and the Director has delegated that to W3M
… it shouldn't take W3M very long
… the AB in Process 2020 has put themselves in the approval loop for future revisions of CEPC

<Zakim> ada, you wanted to ask whether coupling will prevent us from my making updates

Ada: we should maintain the possibility of updating the document frequently
… should the event arise that we haven't written the perfect document for all time

<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to comment on AB

<Zakim> Judy, you wanted to comment on process steps -- what, and how we document those

Ralph: W3M will have to send to AC Review so the same request to them can serve both as a final review and start of AC Review

Judy: we should plan on how we want this document to be maintained and we should state that in this document

Jeff: I agree with Ada that it would be great if we had a mechanism to maintain this document on a more frequent schedule

Ralph: it would be a major change to this document to add a maintenance plan now

Tzviya: so we won't add it at this point?

Judy: +1, though we should think what we want

<ada> +11

AOB

Tzviya: we'll have to catch up on the rest of the agenda next meeting

Judy: I'm working on preparing for a call with MIT Ombuds Office

Tzviya: next call scheduled for 5 May
… I am possibly at risk
… assume we'll meet that day; I'll send a notification if not

[adjourned]

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 114 (Tue Mar 17 13:45:45 2020 UTC).