Meeting minutes
Administrative
[various difficulties getting started due to technical problems]
plh: I was going to switch to Zoom before this meeting, but forgot, sorry
florian: Do we have enough people to make progress?
plh: Thanks for sending review announcement, btw
<plh>
plh: we should post to the blog
florian: We have an agenda, don't know if we have quorum
florian: Alternatively, some observations about Council and things we might want to think about for the future
plh: Let's switch to Council, there's too few of us for the agenda
… let's catch up on Councils but no progress on issues/PRs today
Council Commentary
florian: 2 observations from Council, haven't filed issues yet
florian: We had a renouncement process, where ppl can say e.g. "my lawyers told menot to touch this, so I'm out"
… then we have the dismissal process, where others can say it would be difficult to have a fair discussion with that person present, so dismissed
… we nonetheless discover during Council that someone might have interesting things to say, but not want to vote for things
… then I have to remind people that we're not voting, we're making consensus
… so participating influences consensus
… they're not disruptive, and other people didn't think it's a problem, but they want to abstain
… We have a lot of people saying, "I'm here and I want to abstain" and that doesn't really mean anything
… I wonder if we can solve this with a note, or in /Guide
… saying if people think you shouldn't be dismissed, but you feel uncomfortable about it
… you could declare that if group goes in a direction you disagree with you won't block
… but you're there
… so giving something such people can say about this state
… Council is trying to go for unanimity, which is complete support without abstention
… Sometimes person disagrees but doesn't want to sway the group
… Something along these lines has happened a couple times
… I think at the core, this is fine, discussions are constructive, and not conflict of interest and discussion moves forward
… but it's a thing
plh: According to how Council makes its decision, do we say how it makes a decision?
florian: Council is trying to go for unanimous, where everybody supports and no abstention
… if you can't do full-blown unanimity, still supposed to go for consensus
… and if that fails, then vote
… but supposed to aim for unanimity, which is difficult if ppl would support the decision but don't want to be seen as swaying it
plh: Should be unanimous, but may be consensus
… disagree may write minority opinion
florian: Typically pattern is that the Council would actually reach unanimity, but within the group there are a few individuals that want to insist that they're not trying to sway the group
… and are trying to describe that as abstaining
<plh>
plh: In the past we moved away from allowing people to abstain, if you're on the Council you should have an opinion
florian: I think they're trying to say, I have an opinion, but if group wants to go a different way, I don't want to block
plh: That's kinda like abstain?
florian: kinda, but not really?
plh: People choose to not influence decision
florian: If you don't attend call, not influence decision
plh: When issue is decision, you might know that there was some disagreement, the Council can report that
… vs abstaining
florian: Might be that some people disagreed mildly, but not strongly enough to prevent consensus
plh: I don't see how to address it
florian: My advice would be, whether it goes in a Note or /Guide, is to advise people who feel this way
… to not describe their participation as abstention
… but to simply express their opinion, and if group goes in a different way, this dislike will be known, but they will not block consensus
… then we have consensus and not unanimity
… and if they actually agree, then we're unanimous
florian: Not speaking of specific Councils, but observing from multiple Councils
… people who are not being forceful or disruptive, trying to express that they're abstaining, but that's not really a thing in a consensus discussion
tzviya: Because we went through so much effort to define [missed]
… people don't want to be seen as having conflict of interest
… so maybe at the beginning of each Council
… maybe we should make a script for chairs about what the rules of the Council are
… [sound muffled]
… Have a checklist of items for Councils
plh: Wrt Timed Text council
… need for a guidebook for Council itself, for how to run it
… btw, Ralph stepped down as Team Contact for Council
… so Yves stepped up
… I spoke with Yves about this, we have ppl who step into role of chair and have no idea what to do
… and no documentation for what you do
… including remimding ppl of rules of council
florian: Jeff wrote a piece of feedback a long time ago, and while I dsagree with a few pieces of it, most of it would make a really good /Guide text for the Council
tzviya: I think we need to keep it very very brief
… I think we've been very successful with the Councils
… We've had 4 chairs the past year
… each has their own style of chairing
… some behind the scenes work
… actual chairing part we're falling into a cadence, don't need extensive documentation
… but I think we should write a very short document
<plh> fantasai: +1 to Florian on starting from Jeff's document
<plh> ... it is a great explainer of the Council
tzviya: helpful to Council members and people outside it, to understand what the Council is and how it operates
<plh> ... for council participants but also to explain to the outside
tzviya: it's not a checklist for the chair
florian: Helps for how to think about the Council if you're on it, and also if you're external to it
… I think tzviya's suggestion is a quick start guide
… if you're running the council, this is how you do it
… so I think we need both
florian: A few times in Councils where people wondered about precedent
… It could mean 2 things
… 1) As we accumulate a body of Council reports, people have expectations gained from experience
… build up knowledge, not enforceable precedent
… 2) Do we have enforceable precedent? In which if same thing happens, decision is essentially automatic
… But if each case is unique, who decides whether the precedent applies
… But people wonder, can we extract an abstract rule from this Council for next time
tzviya: I mentioned a to-do list for the chairs
tzviya: For precedent, the way I expect is that we set up an archive
… but we don't know what precedent applies when we hear the case
… but we can refer to it if we want
… and we can talk about the Council decision [missed]
… But I don't think that any two cases are so exactly the same that we can automatically apply the decision
… but having an archive makes it easy to point to things
… and even if not identical, we have the reference, and can say here's how it's similar and here's how it's different
… we need to confront the complications
fantasai: Just wanted to say I think having binding precedence doesn't make sense
… and archive to refer to does make sense
plh: +1
plh: also Web moves fast, a decision made e.g. 10 years ago might not apply today
… the platform changes, the community changes, the same decision might not apply even if it's the same problem
… if the Council things nothing changed and nothing is necesary to figure out, can decide to adopt the precedent and short-circuit the discussion
… and Team can recommend that path to the Council if they want to
… What's interesting with Devices and Sensors is that it refers to the first Council's decision
… so parts of that, how did they approach the former decision and how much did it count in the new one?
florian: When we're done, I'll report back about that
florian: I agree, I raised this point because I hear it coming back
… but I agree with everyone here
… If Council later wants a rule in the Process, can ask for it later
florian: Already require archive
… [describes confidentiality rules applying to FOs and Council decisions]
… We need to be careful, but I don't think there's any blocker about this
… Proceedings of Council is different, but the report is meant to be published
tzviya: [missed]
florian: we need to maintain them, but the question is who gets to access them?
plh: We are accumulating records of confidential conversations on our MLs
… outside the participants of that particular Council, can a future Council access those materials?
… might see a case for releasing that information to future Councils
<plh> tzviya: in the councils so far, assumption has been that the minutes would be confidential
<plh> plh: at the moment, it's to clear that they are
<plh> fantasai: it would require a decision of a future concil to unlock some past minutes of a couincil
<plh> plh: and we don't require minutes of present councils
florian: Agree, and I think we might want to address this question soon, while we still are in contact with the relevant people
fantasai: I think if we want to allow access to past Council records, it would need to be by a decision of a Council to access the specific records of a specific previous Council
… shouldn't be that a Council member can access previous council records on their own
plh: that raises question of should we require minutes of the Council proceedings
[some discussion]
plh: When dismissal process is started, these are the potential participants, send us dismissal reasons - is this when we lock the compositionf Council
… or is it after dismissal process is ended?
florian: Question is what happens if there's an election in between?
tzviya: in the past we did it for time of poll to AC
plh: Chair of Council can invite anyone they want, but the question is who is a part of the Council
florian: I think the earlier of the two is appropriate
plh: So if election run the next day, new members would not be part of Council
florian: Yes
florian: Once we've launched the Council process, you don't change membership of Council
tzviya: +1
fantasai: +1
florian: We already have the idea of having a stable set of people, we might want to clarify exactly when that's locked so there's no doubt
plh: I'll raise an issue
plh: Next thing is, 2 chairs of Council emailed staff asking for clarifications about the reports, which made me uncomfortable
… because could be a way for staff to communicate to subset of the Council, rather than entire Council
… I think when Team communicates with Council, unless confidential for some reason, should be accessible to Council and to the parties
… I'm not sure we need to document that
florian: I think I agree with one part but not other
… I think making sure you provide information to entire Council is relevant
… to some degree can just trust chairs, but maybe not and maybe any info should be equally distributed
… as for informing parties, I would make SHOULD rather than MUST
… it's very close to MUST, it's same as MUST unless there's a good reason
… but Council cases could be complicated if we assume there's a technical dispute entangled with a harassment problem, maybe we don't share some of the information with the harasser
… so SHOULD not MUST
plh: Agree, in one case there was one piece of information (undisclosed organization) that could not be shared with AC e.g.
… so perfectly reasonable to have confidential information
… But in this case chair asked for a summary of the WG resolution, but that would be awkward if not shared with the WG
… In this case was able to avoid because this information was in the Team Report, so just referred to that
tzviya: I think we don't need to document [missed]
<plh> florian: partly maybe, the reasons was for the Chairs to do this was a sens of urgency
<plh> ... if we weren't that pressed, we would have done otherwise
<florian> Possible start for the guide, mentioned earlier, from Jeff: https://
<florian> The "burden of proof" and "light tough" sections seems inapropriate to me, and should probably be removed. Maybe some others. But many parts seemed very useful.
<florian> Tzviya: the fairness section has issues too