W3C

– DRAFT –
Process CG

13 October 2022

Attendees

Present
(tink), chris, cwilso, dsinger, fantasai, florian, jeff, Léonie, pal, plh, TallTed, ted, tzviya, weiler, wseltzer, wseltzer weiler
Regrets
-
Chair
fantasai
Scribe
fantasai, plh

Meeting minutes

Clean-ups

Bikeshedding Acknowledgement of Member Submissions

github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/640

fantasai: Ack is a little of an awkward word

fantasai: here it means "We reviewed your submission and have decided it's appropriate to publish, and will publish it"

fantasai: I welcome suggestion for in the pull request

Improving definition of consensus

github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/635

fantasai: consensus was focused around formal objection
… didn't work in a more broader way, like for the council
… so we tried to improve this definition

florian: primary reason is indeed due to the council.
… can't file formal objections against the council
… also the definition was broken. you can object to a decision
… but, in the absence of decision, that doesn't mean there is consensus

florian: Chairs are empowered to move forward in the absence of consensus

jeff: nice piece of work.
… for AC polls, we introduced terminilogy like objection but not formal objection
… ie express strong disagreement without holding up the work
… which of the terminology for AC polls, ie express objections but not formal

florian: you can say you disagree
… you can substain your objection, but not formally object

jeff: the intent here was that you didn't want to stop the work
… but you expressed strong feelings

florian: that would be disagreement

jeff: ie we can change to use the term "disagreement"

florian: we didn't mean to introduce new terminology but yes, it would be appropriate

jeff: that would be enhancement for the AC polls

plh: I can take an action item to look into that

plh: proposing revised wording for AC polls

tzviya: changing the wording is not a good idea in AC polls

fantasai: proposal is to take the pull request and let others figure out how/when to apply it outside of the process

fantasai: any comment or reservation?

RESOLUTION: merge https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/635

Director-free

Address necessary mitigations for sustained objection

github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/645

florian: main scenario: AC review with a decision which will cause something to happen
… since formal objections can be made to decisions
… we might be facing where we want to substain a FO against something that already happened
… since we can't go back in time, we're now describing what happens to undo a decision
… like publishing a Working Draft
… the Council can make a WG to republish the Working Draft without the problematic wording
… the Council should give recommendation to undo things

fantasai: important part is to enact the team to take the steps in a timely fashion

jeff: a formal objection is not considered fully addressed until the complete process was applied

fantasai: I think we do reference that term

fantasai: the team is responsible for the follow-up
… and we can check during transitions
… publication can be blocked if it did not happened

florian: the intent was that indeed but in the transition request, we speak about unresolved formal objection
… we should have use the term "fully addressed objection"
… I consider a friendly amendment to the pull request

jeff: ...

plh: Team does't decide, it acts

plh: if need to publish a WD, the Team responsible for doing it

jeff: Seems the Council isn't directing, it suggests how consequences might be mitigated
… so someone else might have a different idea
… the problem here is that there's a cascade of imprecision
… It's just unclear and imprecise what we're trying to get done

floriaack plh

florian: That's useful feedback, I know what I meant but see how it's not clear in the text

florian: My idea is that the COuncil will not direct Team to do a specific thing
… if we sustain an objection that needs mitigation, 3 parts
… Council, which might ahve a good idea can state an idea
… Team is responsible to make sure something is done
… Up to WG to fix the text, but up to the Team to make sure they do
… one of the blocking points is that if there was a sustained FO about something in the document, and WG hasn't done anything, the Team who should ahve already put pressure on WG to do something about it, the Team can deny the publication
… precisely how to address it, Council doesn't mandate a specific action
… but acknowledges that there's a problem that needs fixing, and need to fix it

<Zakim> dsinger, you wanted to address the formal responsibility

dsinger: I think I'm with Florian, the formal responsibility to implement is on those whose decision was overturned
… so if chair made decision to do X, and this was sustaiend, chair is formally responsible
… Council should only recommend, e.g. remove this technology from the draft
… WG might say, that's not as simple as deleting Section 5 or whatever
… and would need to work on other consequences
… So Council recommendation should be light touch
… Team is responsible for making sure that mitigations do in fact happen
… but formal responsibility is on the ppl whose decision was overturned

jeff: Thanks Florian for clarifying the intent, and I think intent is good
… pieces wrt imprecisions arise when amidst all shoulds and mights, there are disagreements
… if Council says mitigate with XYZ, but WG takes a different approach
… Council then no longer exists, Team has to decide whether that's adequate or not
… so potentially Team is in a conflict with the WG
… and consequence is that FO isn't fully addressed
… So not objecting to the concept, different ways could have done
… e.g. say Council may suggest, and just leave it at that
… I'm not objecting to this approach either but don't know what happens if there's a disagreement

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to comment on role of Council

tzviya: Mostly what dsinger said, I think we can just tweak a sentence here and we'll be fine
… Council should suggest consequences mitigation
… Jeff was saying that could lead to confusion
… Councils don't always suggest mitigations
… which doesn't mean Councils can't make that suggestion
… [quotes text]
… Maybe we soften the wording here

<Zakim> florian, you wanted to answer jeff's council

florian: Should we pull the PR and improve later, or merge the rest and consider this one separately?

jeff: I would not like to issue sustained disagreement with anything :)

fantasai: the entire reason for this pull request is to define mitigations and makes someone responsible for it
… and judge them to be adequate
… the Council can suggest

jeff: can switch SHOULD suggest to MAY suggest, but need to make someone responsible for ensuring following up

plh: [some scenario]

florian: People can push back on the Team if their judgement is inappropriate

florian: My inclination is to merge this, and I've taken some notes on editorial improvements
… but if group wants to hold can do that as well

plh: Any reservations about merging this PR?

<cwilso> +1

<fantasai> +1

RESOLUTION: Merge PR

Refactor Group/Chair Decision Appeal and Formal Objection sections

github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/643

florian: This one noticed that we had a few sections next to each other that felt better refactored
… in particular because we had both the notion of a group decision appeal and of a formal objection
… which might have different roots in history of how W3C worked
… but in practice work exactly the same
… have a decision, objection, goes to Council
… so instead of 2 things that do the same, we merged these two appeal paths and called them formal objections
… and also did some editorial rearranged to make things more clear

fantasai: informally, we refer to both of this concept as formal objections

florian: so this brings Process inalignment with how we discuss

plh: Need to adjust something
… Group Decision while the WD was in progress
… FO could be delayed until the transition request
… and in the absence of that transition, Director could sit on it
… If you change this to FO, then you're forcing the clock, instead of waiting for Transition
… the Team has 90 days to try to resolve the FO by consensus, otherwise has to bring it to the Council
… so that's a significant change, we can't delay anymore the FO processing until Transition request

florian: Useful point, but regardless, this doesn't erase that disticition
… that's been erased by prior work on the Council
… so since now no longer useful to have two terms, merge them
… but yes, you're right, historically one required immediate action and the other didn

florian: This is btw related to first thing we discussed, "I want to block but don't going to" is a possibility
… gives WG time to work through the disagreement
… without filing FO
… and then can file an FO later

<Zakim> jeff, you wanted to ask about 90 days and also Issue #1

jeff: This forced me to reread 5.6
… would like to take a minute to talk about 2 issues not directly related to PR

jeff: First, wrt 90 days that Team has to form Council

5.6 Recording and Reporting Formal Objections

jeff: what happens if after 88 days we're almost at a breakthrough, but ran out of time?
… and talked about idea of the Team being committed to ask for additional time
… has that come up as an issue

florian: Hasn't come up as a separate issue, but in order to ask Council have to form it
… around 90 day barrier have to form the Council, the Council can then say so

jeff: so the Council is allowed to send it back to the team?

fantasai: yes
… see separate pull request

jeff: Paragraph to make consensus work, that goes away?

florian: Yes, because we fixed that earlier

fantasai: ok to merge?

RESOLUTION: Merge https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/643

Adopt the W3C Council for handing Formal objections and related matters

github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/642

florian: Imagine we just merged in all the things we agreed to merge
… now we have Everything About the COuncil
… I think we mostly know what it's about :)
… Do people like the details?

plh: If we agree to merge, that's fine, but once we get comfortable with the Draft, reread and check the ramifications

florian: Absolutely
… If we have a major problem, we shouldn't merge, but merging will make it all easier to review

plh: if you find an issue later, we'll come back to it
… we will give a chance to CG to have a full read

florian: This PR includes everything discussed until now
… somie tweaks and editorial things
… and the other things we decided to merge earlier today will land together with this

https://pr-preview.s3.amazonaws.com/w3c/w3process/642/4ee7660...b879c6f.html

plh: It's too long to review on the call
… so first question is, did ppl have a chance to look at this or would people want more time to look at it?

<cwilso> (looked at it, +1)

florian: This is not radical if you've been following the whole Council thing we've been doing
… most of this should be expected, just while preparing we made some tweaks

plh: does anyone need more time?

<tzviya> +1 to merge

<fantasai> +1 to merge

pal: I don't have any concern with merging, because will make the review easier
… but I do have significant concerns with bar for forming council
… but happy to discuss that against the merged draft
… merging makes it easier to review proposal in the entirety

dsinger: having things in separate PRs makes both editor's lives harder and our lives harder, better off if we merge and continue to refine
… so that we have a single document to review

jeff: I also agree with merging
… for all the reasons stated earlier, plus I have no disagreements with the text either

jeff: I think the point about review is extremely important
… usually we send for AC review when we think we're done, but this is so significant
… we should not only end it to AB but encourage AB to send it out for an early review with the AC now, even though we're not ready yet
… because got to get the AC engaged and looking at it earlier
… earlier we do that, less time in the end
… we should get wider review of this document once merged

fantasai: +1 to Jeff for sending it out for early review

jeff: but we have some outstanding items to fix first, so let's fix those first

fantasai: any objeciton to merge?

RESOLUTION: Merge #642

Define editorial vs substantive changes for non-REC-track documents

github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/647

florian: been a problem for awhile that we very clearly define what is an editorial change vs substantive change for RECs, but not for anything else
… what is editorial vs substantive for charters? for CEPC?
… for anything other than REC, wasn't defined, but we were relying on the definition
… so this is a minimal change to the definitions that we have to make them apply to things other than REC-track documents

florian: Intent is that this changes nothing for REC track, but provides an answer where we didn't have one for other types of documents

plh: Seems harmless to me

jeff: Interesting that you're making us think about all the new kinds of documents we have
… so I have a registry, and I add a new line in the registry

florian: That's a Class 5 change, and is already defined
… unchanged

fantasai: any concerns?

jeff: We have places we do different things for different classes of changes
… we addressed class 5 in 2021?

florian: Yes, for registries everything is well-behaved already
… but for example, at end of AC review, can do different things for editorial vs substantive changes
… in case of specs, we know what to do
… but for charters we don't
… so that helps with that, primarily
… what it is we do with different classes of changes, is in a separate PR

wseltzer: This one, I see edits to the text of the change description, what is the meaning of changing from "correction" to "changes"
… and would it be argued that different sets of things are covered in 2 or 3 for the same type of document?

fantasai: we changed corrections that do not add features to "other changes that do not add new features"
… i wanted to use a new generic term

fantasai: on one hand changes can be editorial, on other hand can be new feature, if substantive but not new feature falls into class 3

wseltzer: is there something new that are class 2/3 compared to Process 2021?

florian: for a spec, it doesn't change anything
… but for others, like CEPC, it's different

wseltzer: That's aht I wanted to hear, that for specs it doesn't change

jeff: CEPC is an interesting one
… we could make it a statement one day

florian: even if we don't, it still goes through AC Review

jeff: things like Ethical Web, Privacy Questionnaire. to add a new Ethical Web guideline, those are called new features?

<TallTed> (future calls should strive to end at :55, rather than :00)

florian: distinction between 2, 3,4 a re important. changing the interpretation means you're not in class 2

<tzviya> +1 to merge

+1

<jeff> +1

RESOLUTION: Merge #647

end

[adjourned]

Meeting closed.

Summary of resolutions

  1. merge https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/635
  2. Merge PR
  3. Merge https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/643
  4. Merge #642
  5. Merge #647
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 192 (Tue Jun 28 16:55:30 2022 UTC).

Diagnostics

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Succeeded: s/problamtic/problematic/

Succeeded: i/... any objeciton/... but we have some outstanding items to fix first, so let's fix those first/

Succeeded: s/nfea/fea/

Succeeded: s/... things/jeff: things/

No scribenick or scribe found. Guessed: fantasai