W3C

– DRAFT –
Revising W3C Process Community Group

10 February 2021

Attendees

Present
fantasai, jeff, plh
Regrets
cwilson
Chair
-
Scribe
fantasai, plh

Meeting minutes

<plh> David: I went through the repo for priorities to send back to the AB

<plh> ... then where we are on major topics

<dsinger_> https://github.com/w3c/w3process/labels/Needs%20AB%20Feedback

Decisions on what needs AB input

<plh> David: #486 and #487 are TAG nomination and election

<plh> ... we need decisions on the AB but doesn't seem urgent

<plh> jrosewell: agree to move forward

<plh> ... overlap with holidays would be be nice to fix

<plh> jeff: +1 to not staggering

<plh> .... #487, is it a process thing or a team thing?

if it's not urgent for 2021, let's skip. We don't have time to discuss today.

<plh> ... I could take it to the team if it's not a process thing

<plh> david: maybe that's what we're asking

<plh> jrosewell: look at the holidays around the world and avoid them

<plh> david: best action is for the team to look at it

<plh> David: #482 on the adoption of a formal anti-trust policy

<plh> florian: AB is more appropriate, so yes

<plh> wseltzer: note we do have a policy

<plh> david: feel free to retitle the issue

<plh> jeff: let's not. the word upgrading doesn't mean we don't have one

<plh> david: ok

<plh> david: #436 (cover #322) on the minimal tooling requirements we propose

<plh> ... this one is urgent

<plh> jrosewell: there is a guideline on #482. it's urgent

<plh> david: ok, should go to the AB and Wendy

<plh> jeff: i sent a request to know how much time and topics we need for the AB

<plh> ... let's come back to that later

<plh> david: #334 Recording of meetings

<plh> ... should go on the AB agenda

<plh> david: #316 and #280 are both concerned with Director-free, #223 is about the AB chair selection

<plh> ... those are at the leisure of the AB

<plh> david: #168 isn't ready for AB discussion yet

<plh> david: #130, why should this go to the AB?

<plh> florian: we're not blocking on the AB

<plh> david: I'll take the label off for now

<plh> Jeff: so we have up to 6 items

<plh> [going through timing for the AB agenda]

Registries

<plh> https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/34786/registries-chair-survey/results

florian: Should share link, but not read in-session

dsinger_: Survey closes today

<wseltzer> [6 responses]

plh: Only 6 responses so far

dsinger_: Do we need to extend it? Do we have time to extend it?

jeff: If they had a strong opinion, they'd respond and otherwise would be delegating to this group

fantasai: Suggest extend til Friday and poke chairs

dsinger_: Agree with fantasai

dsinger_: Who has access to this survey?

plh: Chairs and Team Contacts

dsinger_: Let's extend til Friday and ask the Team

dsinger_: Certainly the Team Contact should be able to respond on behalf of groups that have proto-registries

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask how many responses

<jrosewell> 6 out of 188

dsinger_: OK, so proposal is extend til Friday and poke Team Contacts/chairs

tzviya: How many responses expected?

dsinger_: Hoping for at least a dozen

tzviya: Maybe poke ppl directly

Memoranda

florian: The PR for Memoranda was built on top of another one, can't quite discuss separately

florian: PR that separates note track from Rec track

florian: Last time I was asked to summarize why we should split the tracks

florian: forgot my action item, did last night, so will read the comment

florian: there are pictures!

<florian> https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/342#issuecomment-776579249

dsinger_: Personally I agree

dsinger_: Conceptually separate is much easier to understand

jeff: I have to admit that was much faster than I could follow

jeff: I respect Florian's desire to simplify

jeff: but while it simplifies the actual Process, means quantity of changes we need to evaluate is quite a lot

jeff: Because changes links in the Process

jeff: Didn't understand why necessary to address 461

jeff: All it asks is for TAG to take a document to approved status

jeff: 342 seems nice, but don't see why we need all that change

plh: I like it, but my problem is there no way to go from WD to Note

<wseltzer> +1 to plh

plh: You're forcing to say Discontinued

plh: some groups reluctant, because not discontinued, but want to continue working on it

dsinger_: Would you suggest that as a unidirectional arrow?

plh: Should be reversable

plh: might make second diagram as complex as first one

dsinger_: Not as much as the first diagram

florian: Retiring a REC-track document because giving up on it, that's a handled case

florian: but if taking document on REC track and switching it to a Note with intention of moving back to REC track, very messy from PP point of view

florian: transition from REC track to NOTE is described as abandoning document

florian: If you retire something

plh: Groups can change their mind over years

<wseltzer> [groups can drop something from Rec track without abandoning]

florian: If you want to retire a document, that's allowed.

florian: if goal is to switch tracks, make progress, and then switch again

florian: Replying to Jeff, TAG elevating notes ... TAG can't even publish NOTEs in current Process

florian: We could make a TAG-specific process doesn't seem ideal

florian: and that wouldn't let anyone else elevate their notes

florian: We should let the TAG publish NOTES, and let everyone elevate their NOTES

florian: I could manage to make edits that add elevated NOTEs without this separation, but it raises a lot of questions

florian: e.g. we'd have a way to elevate an abandoned REC

florian: why should that be possible?

<Zakim> fantasai, you wanted to comment on PP

fantasai: the PP is clear: it doesn't consider Notes to exist. so, it will only see WDs
… it's not good

<Zakim> jeff, you wanted to respond to Florian and to comment on his debate with PLH

fantasai: contributions to the Notes aren't covered by the PP

jeff: I object to conflate the 2 issues. the original issue was only to get TAG documents endorsed
… they don't have to be Notes. the TAG is a unique group and we want a wait to endorse their documents
… the solution 342 is unecessary to solve that
… on paths of Notes<->WDs
… this is an illustration of why it would take longer to take this through
… so I'd like a narrow solution for the TAG for the immediate future

wseltzer: +1 to separate the issues. the path to Notes from REC-track is a useful one
… so let's not throw it out

florian: why is that a feature?

wseltzer: I just said the path from REC-track to Notes

<fantasai> I don't see a problem with WD->NOTE, but having Draft NOTE still seems necessary

florian: I thought the AB recommended overall of the states. are we now saying that the TAG shouldn't publish Notes?

florian: if I extend the current process wording, the TAG would be allowed to publish working drafts

<Zakim> dsinger_, you wanted to suggest we maybe need a name other than 'discontinued'?

david: the PP FAQ tells us about TAG participants being treated as IEs

florian: that's the FAQ, not the PP

fantasai: anything the TAG participants produce are owned by their employers in general

<wseltzer> [not uniformly]

david: we could change the label 'discontinued' if that makes WGs unconfortable

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask if the goal is the process or that tag publishing

tzviya: it seems we're getting caught in the process. people outside of W3C don't necessarily care about the details of the Process.
… we should focus on making sure the TAG can accomplish what they need

<Zakim> jeff, you wanted to respond to florian about things that are wrong today

jeff: I don't disagree with #342 being worked on, but we should socialize it given the changes
… it's not just a wording issue
… it will need a broader conversation but I'd like to land a solution for the TAG this year
… the TAG can take a finding to memoranda if we'd like to

florian: if we do it in the reverse order, we'll have duplicate parts of the process

jeff: i don't hear any immediate problem that would solve.

<jrosewell> Observation: we've spent 20 minutes discussing this and don't seem to have a solution that we can agree (or even understanding the exact problem). A general simplification should be completed before these sort of issues are worked on.

jeff: we just want to get TAG documents endorsed

david: Florian, feel free to socialize your idea

<fantasai> dsinger++

david: if we get support, we can think more about it. if we get comments, we can keep looking at minimal changes
… I'll look at providing a path for the minimal solution for the TAG

<jeff> dsinger++

<jeff> +1 to David's 2 proposals

Action: Florian to socialize his ideas in #342

Action: David to come back with a minimal solution to endorse TAG documents

fantasai: the fact that Notes can represent discontinued documents is something people find confusing. Also, we have an old issue about what discontinued documents represent, clarifying it; the proposed changes would do that.

<wseltzer> +1 to the rephrasing

david: #493 and #494 Pull, clarifying Team Amendments. We seem converged, are we?

florian: seems so indeed. I made the edits

wendy: +1

david: approved then

[david going quickly through AC-Review and P2021 issues]

Other Pull Requests

david: I'll roll that over for the next agenda

fantasai: I don't think it makes sense to look at other things than allowing the TAG to publish Notes, and allow Notes to be elevated to Memoranda
… possible restrict the later to TAG-only
… it seems the easiest way to move forward

<jrosewell> https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/467

<fantasai> We've been asked to make the TAG allowed to publish NOTEs, and they use NOTEs not Findings for general documents such as the ones we are wanting them to elevate

<fantasai> If we want to restrict elevation to the TAG, fine

jrosewell: if we need to simplify or get more capacity to edit the Process, maybe the staff can come with external facilitation

david: might be good to get a professional writer

florian: I suspect adding people will just add opinions, we still need consensus

jeff: on TAG and Notes: my advise is that if we don't land #342, we don't delay using Notes

david: true, we can continue with current practices

Summary of action items

  1. Florian to socialize his ideas in #342
  2. David to come back with a minimal solution to endorse TAG documents
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 127 (Wed Dec 30 17:39:58 2020 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/+1 to/+1 to not/

Succeeded: s/not that/note/

Succeeded: s/and #130 aren't/isn't/

Succeeded: i/fantasai: /scribenick: plh/

Succeeded: s/about TAG participants/about TAG participants being treated as IEs/

Succeeded: s/dum/da/

Succeeded: s/real problem/immediate problem/

Succeeded: s/can represent discontinued documents/can represent discontinued documents is something people find confusing. Also/

Succeeded: s/documents represent/documents represent, clarifying it; the proposed changes would do that/

Maybe present: david, dsinger_, florian, jrosewell, tzviya, wendy, wseltzer