Revising W3C Process Community Group

Agenda bash

fantasai: looks good to me

jeff: someone recommended that we need to draw a line between things with PRs and things without

fantasai: not today. the registry stuff still needs sorting. maybe end of month.

david: we're targeting Spring AC
… informal review in March?
… so AB approval in March
… we'll start drawing lines by the end of the month
… refine the work in February

#461 - Elevating a TAG document to W3C Approved Status

GitHub: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/461

David: +1 to not require Notes not to contain implementation technology
… [reading his notes on GH]

fantasai: CSS working group produced a Note that was an interesting proposal informing others
… we should clarify that Notes don't receive IP commitments

plh: example of MSE, where we published a tech mapping
… as a note. That had implementable tech

<fantasai> proposal: W3C NOTE SHOULD NOT specify implementable tech, transition request MUST include rationale for not being on REC track

plh: +1

Resolution: : W3C NOTE SHOULD NOT specify implementable tech, transition request MUST include rationale for not being on REC track

fantasai: what about the naming?

fantasai: "W3C Memorandum"

david: ok with me

<wseltzer> ask the TAG, who wants to produce the things?

jeff: at some point, we should send this to the TAG for them to comments

wseltzer: "memorandum" feels legal to me :(

fantasai: it is used in various context. UK definition for non-legal usage: "an official report about a particular subject that is written for a company, organization, or government to consider"

<wseltzer> "working paper"

<weiler> [and memorandum seems.... not-self-explanatory. it's clearly new, but it doesn't help the outsider]

<wseltzer> "paper"

<wseltzer> "whitepaper"

david: we can use "note", "report", "memorandum", "whitepaper"

fantasai: having separate names would help depending on the level of consensus

david: ok, we'll do a poll in the pull request
… I'll go with memorandum for now

Resolution: Go with Memorandum in the PR for now, bikeshed the name later

#356 - Streamlining the process document

GitHub: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/356

David: how can we achieve that?

wseltzer: tried to and it's a big task
… maybe folks want to join me with a big chunk of time to attempt to do this

david: we could have a dedicated meeting for this. I still see this as a serious issue

fantasai: this will have to be done through individuals pull requests
… rather than having a meeting
… it would help if we split the document
… into separate files
… we don't have support for multi-pages documents in bikeshed

tantek: the reason a meeting would be useful is that some of the assertions are debatable.
… we should do it at the highest level rather than doing per section

fantasai: if you have a suggestion, please post it

wseltzer: less formal meeting and more folks sitting with a whiteboard on what needs to be rewritten

david: we can remove repetition and guidance

wseltzer: I doubt we'll achieve this in 2021

tantek: +1 to wendy. any large rewrite takes a while. maybe next year.

<Zakim> tantek, you wanted to note a meeting could ask/discuss what are the goals of the process document, who is the audience (today, not 20 years ago)

tantek: to help the meeting, we can start by looking at the goals and who the audience is
… it's been a while we looked into that

david: I'll encourage folks to look for redundancies and related in the meantime

#130 - Enumerate the requirements for wide review

GitHub: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/130

fantasai: we need a specific proposal for text in the process. the revision of /Guide helps a lot
… we seem fine for now
… maybe we can add something next year if needed

david: ok. I updated the issue

<tantek> I like Leonie's comments in the issue

plh: Pointed to /Guide document. I don't think it answers all the questions, but agree with fantasai that I don't see what can be added to the Process document at this time

tantek: was to address a problem or make things easier?

fantasai: HRGs were getting called in very late in the game just before CR transition, which was stressful and difficult for them, wanted clearer guidance on getting involved earlier
… the process is at high level but, to make things more specific, the new guide document helps

#466 - Registries Survey

Github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/466

david: the survey needs to be as helpful as possible

tantek: I like the questions in general. little confused about how many applied to creating vs updating a registry
… 2 different stages
… having troubles to answer the survey as it is

fantasai: the maintenance of the registry is the proposal
… the process to update a registry has to be documented
… the process document does not impose any requirement on that process must be

fantasai: I'll update the proposal to include "for the registry definitions..."

jeff: i'd like to move fast on this since it's getting in the way for 2021
… we should empower a small set to finish the wording

<tantek> I would agree with that, registry table(s) should not necessarily be in /TR

david: if something is on /TR and operates under the Director, should the registry tables be under /TR?

david: we can have a w3.org URL but /TR?

fantasai: we conclude it's possible to publish the tables and the registry rules in the same document

<tantek> I'm more interested in seeing how much this process allows for non-w3.org URLs to registry tables

<fantasai> it doesn't

<fantasai> that's intentional

<fantasai> If someone wants to maintain a registry table somewhere else, they can already do that

plh: I'm fine with the tables being under /TR under the authority of the groups

david: do we need the last question about separate process tracks?

fantasai: I agree that the question doesn't need to be asked to the community
… happy to push it to the AB

david: don't feel strongly about it, just concerned

<Zakim> jeff, you wanted to comment on the length of the process document

jeff: not worried about the length of the process document. complexity/verbiage is more of a concern
… if it's a separate piece, that's fine

<Zakim> tantek, you wanted to give example of HTML and microformats rel registry

tantek: separate registries: HTML refers to the microformat rel registry

tantek: maintaining the flexibility of having the tables outside w3.org should be kept

<jrosewell> Observation: this solution (https://www.iana.org/protocols) provided by weiler looks very good for maintaining and communicating this information as I understand things. Why reinvent the "wheel"?

david: it could be a redirect

fantasai: we need a w3c url to guarantee long time maintenance of the URL
… otherwise it's not a w3c registry

<jrosewell> I see the reason to have on W3C. It's about maintaining a controlled archive. Don't we have a similar issue with use of GitHub?

<fantasai> jrosewell, yes, we do. Which is why I keep complaining about groups publishing their work at github URLs.

fantasai: we need to conclude on the survey.

<tantek> I'm ok with "registry on w3.org" meaning ok that it's a redirect or archived copy on w3.org while the actual maintained / edited registry is elsewhere (on a separate domain etc.)

david: doesn't sound like we can get rid of the last question

<tantek> yes, common practice is tables are separate from registry definitions, AND on a separate domain

david: it's a mistake to bar the common industry practices. how to verify that the registry process is being followed

<fantasai> tantek - sure, but is that because it's a good idea or because of technical / organizational limitations

<fantasai> tantek - we don't have such limitations here

<tantek> because it's what individual groups/communities want, and therefore it's what they think is a good idea. it's about agency and adoption

fantasai: goal of the survey is to get opinions on what people needs

<tantek> also, don't break existing registry processes

<jrosewell> Could we ask IANA for a copy of iana.org/protocols solution and then host it on registries.w3.org ? Then adapt that once it's up and running to meet specific W3C needs.

<tantek> also this is about re-use of existing registries

<fantasai> we're not changing any existing requirements

fantasai: the underlying question is "if you're making a registry at W3C, what do you need from us?"

<fantasai> jrosewell, if you want to host at IANA, host at IANA and reference it. Nothing preventing you

tantek: there are a lot of existing registries. you want to make it easy to reference a registry
… with heavy wording on must be on w3c, this seems a bad idea
… the primary use case is to reference registries

fantasai: we're targeting audience that want to publish registries on w3c

tantek: we should drive to use existing registries

david: our primary audience is the folks who lack a registry process at w3c

fantasai: sure. we're looking for feedback

tantek: the survey is about forking or creating rather than reusing registries
… which is harmful

david: can we improve the first question?
… I'll rephrase the third question

fantasai: we need the feedback asap

<tantek> Does your group need to define a registry or preferably re-use an existing registry?

<tantek> ^ this is the kind of wording change we need

<fantasai> This isn't about using registries, it's about maintaining them.

david: ok, I want to comments before end of this week and I need permission to send this out

<fantasai> You can reference any registry you want

<fantasai> nothing about what we're doing is changing that

<tantek> it doesn't read that way

<fantasai> "Does your Working Group use a registry of some kind?"

<tantek> it fails the clear case of what happened in HTML

david: I'll work with plh to setup the survey based on comments this week

<tantek> the WG did not maintain the registry, merely used it by reference

<fantasai> tantek: it can continue to do so

<fantasai> tantek: it doesn't need to be a W3C Registry for a W3C REC to reference it

<weiler> do your WG's specs create or use registries?

<tantek> biasing towards moving the locus of control (maintenance) of a registry to a WG may be harmful

<fantasai> tantek: Referencing registries is a solved problem and not what we're about here.

#435 - Tooling

Github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/435

[out of time. to be continued]

Next meeting

David: 20th, 7am PT

tantek: ical for this meeting?

david: not yet

jeff: we're working on it actively

[adjourned]