Vision TF meeting

PR 111

PR 111 https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/pull/111

<koalie> Previous (2023-08-10)

<amy> Agenda

<cwilso> /me w3c/AB-public#111

<tzviya> w3c/AB-public#111

Tzviya:  The only thing on the agenda is this PR.
… This is taking the published document and working through some of the proposed changes we had talked about in the MD document previous.
… Chris, do you want to introduce?

cwilso: This was a bit of a rewrite of the rewrite, because I did just graft into the Bikeshed version.
… I tried to take MD changes and apply to Bikeshed.
… I tried to explain the rationale for those pieces as I went.
… Towards the end, there are more significant changes.
… I did take guidance from a number of different places, comments on previous PR, issues filed with feedback on that
… and went back and looked at things filed that I could resolve.
… These are all in the comments.
... The easiest way to look at this is the built version.
… It's good to read through commentary, but if you want to see the result or the diffs, there's links at the top.
... The goal was to reduce the number of sections, and make clearer what each section is.
… I reduced "How W3C Views the Web."
… This section talked about that the Web is for all humanity, etc.
… One of the comments about last version was that I had removed that section and was too aggressive.
... Most of focus in this was on how W3C views itself, and to operational principles.
... I'm not sure we want to go through each section or comments?
… Or if people want to talk about specific areas.
… It's a fairly major rewrite and incorporates a lot of guidance.

<koalie> preview

fantasai: I think that we should view by pull request not as total. There are some issues to be addressed one-by-one.  
I think it would help to split out the PR. Instead of asking for us to merge one big PR.
… There are many different independent changes here,
… we should discuss them separately.
… e.g. Mission statement is important to add, but needs some discussions.

cwilso: Some of it could be split out, yeah. The main motivation behind this was that the document we had before didn't have the impact we were looking for.
… And a lot of that was around the structure.
… This meant a lot of small changes
… and re-orienting  things.
… I don't want to split into small changes because you can't see the whole result.
… E.g. the paragraph about "this document not intended to be an operational strategy" deletion.
… If you have a separate PR, it seems like a question by itself, not related to overall goal of making the whole thing more readable.
… Particularly operational principles, you can't split out individually and see the result.

<amy> I would be comfortable pulling out the mission to work on but would be pretty happy to have the rest as one issue

AvneeshSingh:  A good thing would be to focus on structure and invest the time of this call in verifying that all of us are good with structure, or if we want improvement.
… I like this new structure.
… If we can focus on structure, it may take months or years to get the perfect text which can take months or years.

<amy> +1 to liking the structure

Tantek: I've also had a chance to review document, and new structure, and huge kudos to Chris for a much more smoothly flowing structure.
… It feels more approachable.
... And the contents feel true to prior revisions.
… I can tell this was a very difficult edit/rewrite.
… ig thumbs up

<amy>   +1 to kudos to Chris

<koalie> cwilso++

<koalie> cwilso++

<koalie> cwilso++

<koalie> cwilso++

Florian: I appreciate Chris' point about the intent being one reorganization and being hard to split.
… At the same time there are small changes, e.g. rename a title.
… This is an independent change.
… It's quite reasonable to see the entirety of it, and say that it's moving in the right direction
… but so many things are changing at once, it's hard to say that all are positive changes,
… but not losing anything that was good.
… To the extent that it can be split up, makes it easier to evaluate each chunk and say "this is definitely better, let's land it."
… Maybe we can land the whole thing, but then we need to open issues about reverting for where we lost stuff.
… So if it could be broken up, I would appreciate it as well.

Ralph: I appreciate that approach Elika and Florian said, but part of the struggle in this TF is that there are some high-level things that we need to get in place.
… We can refocus on specific sentences in specific sections.
... I would prefer to do adopt all the changes in one go, and acknowledge that we may discover that we lost some text that was important
… and go back and re-insert that text.
... We can still refine this, this isn't a technical spec.
... I also applaud Chris's efforts, and would like to incorporate in one fell swoop and tweak further.

<koalie> +1 Ralph

<tantek> +1 Ralph

<wendyreid> +1 Ralph

<tzviya> Proposal: Move forward with general direction of this revision

<fantasai> +1 to moving forward with the general direction of this revision -1 to merging this PR

<tzviya> +1

<igarashi> +1

<florian> 0

<AvneeshSingh> +1

<cpn> +1

<amy> +1 to moving forward with the general direction

<jrosewell> 0

<gendler> +1

<cwilso> +1

<Ralph> +1 to accept this PR

<tantek> +1

<wendyreid> +1

<koalie> +1

<florian> [my 0 = would have preferred a more granular approach, but accepts the arguments for doing it this way]

cwilso: I should be clear, none of this is final changes. I'm now going to consider this ground to be held.
… This was an attempt to refactor. 
… With the structure we had before, I felt like we were just continually bikeshedding each word, but not improving the overall document.
… We still have a lot of work to do to make it more understandable, especially to people whose first language isn't English
… but those changes should still happen.
… If there are individual changes here that are not a good idea, we should discuss those.
… There are a bunch of things commented in the PR that I have incorporated,
… and more I didn't see recently.
… Wrt the mission statement, if people feel we should do separate effort, we can talk about it.
... I don't think it's final either, but do think it's good to have that declared in this document.

<amy>  +1 to pulling out the mission but agree it's good to declare here

<fantasai> +1 to what amy said

<Zakim> fantasai, you wanted to react to cwilso

fantasai :  I'm not objecting because it's not split out. I'm objecting because going line by line I see recursions.
... There are already problems. If we do line by line we can land pieces but if we want to keep as one there will be regressions.

cwilso: You used the word "regression", and there are places where you commented on linguistic consistency.
… Those are still things I'd like to address.
… But clear regressions, that's a problem
… but other changes were intentional.

<Zakim> tantek, you wanted to note if folks see things missing that were in prior versions that we should have kept, I would welcome those being filed as individual issues/PRs. Similarly for language tweaks.

Tantek: I don't disagree that there are potential things that are not as good or may have left things out from previous draft
… but I feel comfortable moving forward with this with the explicit acknowledgement that we can file regression issues.
… I trust cwilso to treat those at a high priority.
… That's why I'm comfortable to make this the new baseline.
… I don't see anything that's blocking.
… fantasai, can you specifically iterate the things that are actually blocking?

<Ralph> +1 to Tantek's position

<tzviya> +1 to tantek

<Zakim> fantasai, you wanted to react to cwilso

fantasai:  I put comments in PR, we can go over them individually.

Tantek:  What are just those blocking?

fantasai:  Just restoring things which were lost, places where old wording was better or we lost something, or we introduced a new problem.

Tantek: Can we fix those later?
... Even among those I'd like to divide them into "fix in place" and "we must fix."
... I appreciate individual attention to issues.

<Zakim> cwilso, you wanted to react to fantasai

cwilso:   Some of the changes where I'm happy to put them back in and then tweak it, I was trying to reduce down the language as much as possible as well and still capture ideas.
… And still some things are missing.
… Also "use consistent horizontal review" being a phrase that shouldn't be here, but that's in the current document.
... What's the right balance of not dropping whole sections?
… I think thereonly one completely missing section.

<koalie> [Dan arrives]

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to recommend opening issues before merging

Tzviya: Can you open separate issues for each of your comments, and then we can merge this?

Florian: I voted 0 on the poll, and I'm still there.
… In general, an Editor's Draft should be just that and the thing from we we ask comments should be the thing we published.
… By that what I mean is if we land this PR it would be also appropriate to republish "this is our latest version, what do you think?"
… So one question of merging, if we merge it and republish, are there changes that will cause problems to Comm team?
… Or miscommunicate that we changed our minds about something?
… Alternatively, if we think this is worth presenting and asking for comments, then maybe it's ready to land.

<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to consider "open issues before ..."

Ralph: I disagree with the approach Florian just described; we have an Editor's Draft to to allow the group working on the document to think about regressions and refinements.
... We update an Editor's Draft to allow our conversation to proceed, and then periodically ask the question Florian just asked.

<tzviya> +1 to ralph

<igarashi> +1

<tantek> +1 Ralph

<cwilso> +1 Ralph

cwilso: I think that I've re-introduced all the parts that were deleted, so no complete bullet points are missing now.
… There's still language that was commented on, and some of that definitely needs to be added as issues to discuss.

fantasai:  No (I'm not comfortable with it) but I can live with it. I will file individual issues to make sure they are addressed.
... We lost consensus because it got merged.

cwilso: It got re-added. Half of what you filed was "you lost this". Reload the preview and you'll see it.
... I resolved most comments. Comment handling is a little weird.

Tzviya: Chris did a lot of edits yesterday.

cwilso: I did a lot of edits today.
... There weren't just fantasai's comments, there were others as well.

<koalie> [Tantek departs]

Tzviya:  Maybe Chris can wait until later today to merge this?

cwilso: I think I resolved by all of the comments, Thone question about "respectful of users" to discuss
… Thome other comments here about e.g. about word "ethical."
… We might want to discuss that.
… And some side issues from fantasai we should file issues on, and the two of us can walk through those to resolve.
… So the 2 things to discuss today, which is "respectful of its users" because there are differing opinions

DKA:   I want to discuss Dom's request to change, I support and agree with his point about the use of the word "ethical."
… You'd think I wouldn't want to remove, but I agree with him about removing this word

Tzviya:  Is there background?

<DKA> https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/pull/111/files#r1302738211

<Ralph> https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/pull/111#pullrequestreview-1591150781

cwilso: In the Mission statement, it says: "to empower an ethical, equitable, empowered, and interconnected society."
... Dom says our work should be ethical, but it's unclear what an ethical society is.
... I'm still a little concerned, because I think a large part of what we're doing with this and EWP is to ensure that we are acting in the best interests of the Web.
... But this is a Mission statement that I wrote, and it did build on other people's work, but I would say this needs a bit more honing anyway.
... If there is a general feeling that this word should be removed for now, I'm ok to merge during this merge and file an issue if I think it's important to re-add.

<koalie> [Florian and PLH depart]

<koalie> [Florian returns]

<amy> +1 to including a note that we ARE working ethically. that ethics for working to the good are part of our vision

<Zakim> DKA, you wanted to respond o that

DKA: I'm author of Ethical Web Principles, and think this doc should reinforce those principles.
… But I think the ethics here are the ethics of how we operate at W3C.
… Rather than creating a more ethical society, or importing ethics outward from our scope.
… I think it's better to remove, and unclear what it means in that context.
… We should be clear when talking about ethics what we mean.

AvneeshSingh: I understand Dan's point.
… Ethics are really subjective, we need to specify what are the ethics.
... If we have list of ethics we support, that's fine, but having the word can have many different meanings for different people.

<AramZS> perhaps we reference the Ethical Web Principles as the definition here?

<Zakim> amy, you wanted to ask how we might point to "the web for the benefit of humanity" or "public good" if not "ethics"

Amy: I do appreciate the points made here about use of the term ethical.
… Although there is a part of me that would like to find a different term we can use
… so that we are nodding to the idea that the web should exist for the benefit of humanity, or that the work we do is for the public good.
… So the slipperiness of "ethics" I can understand.
... But I think it's important to include something about this.
... The mission has been "leading the web to its full potential."
… This new mission is exciting, but we want one phrase for our mission (not a paragraph).

<DKA> "something something internationally recognised human rights"

<koalie> https://www.w3.org/mission/ states [Our mission] "W3C is leading the Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web."

AramZS: Ethics can mean a lot of things, but it seems we have a specific definition in (the EWP).
… so maybe reference them somehow here?

<DKA> +1

cwilso:  For the occurrance of ethics in the Mission, I suggest I remove that word, and I'll file an issue -something along the lines of "ensure ethical intent is well supported in the document."
… We may re-add the word, or do something different elsewhere.
… It's not necessary now.
.... We still do reference EWP as a basis, I would not want to remove that.

<Ralph> +1 Chris

<DKA> +1 chris

Tzviya: I use "ethics" professionally, and it makes people uncomfortable or they want more definition.
… So this heads in the right direction.

cwilso:  So unless there's an objection I'll remove for now.

<gendler> +1 chris

<amy> +1 to Chris removing that for now

<wendyreid> +1 Chris

<Ralph> [I note that it's good to remain in parallel with the first sentence of https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#intro ]

cwilso:  The other issue was around "respectful of its users."
... [quotes document]
… I changed this based on comment from Dom to "inclusive and respect the rights of all its users."
... Wendy pushed back on this change.

<Ralph> Wendy's comment

<amy> to echo Ralphs' point the first sentence of the EWP is "The web should empower an equitable, informed and interconnected society."

fantasai:  It should be "inclusive and respectful of its users."

Tzviya: [quotes text]

cwilso:  The original was "inclusive and respectful of its users."

wendyreid: The wording of "respectful of" takes a broader meaning for respect.
… If you respect users, you respect their needs, rights, autonomy.
… But saying 'respect the rights', that narrows it down in a way I don't love.
… Rights can be quite subjective
... so I prefer the original wording.

<tzviya> +1 to general respect

<fantasai> +1

<koalie> +1

<Zakim> DKA, you wanted to talk about rights

<DKA> From the EWP: "We need to put internationally recognized human rights at the core of the web platform [UDHR]" (with a link to https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/)

DKA:  I just want to point out in EWP, we have a sentence [quote].
… It links to the UN declaration of human rights.
… That was intentional, based on feedback that technologists need to put human rights at the core of what you're building.
… If you want one kind of definition, that, at least on paper, has a lot of consensus among nations, that's the place to go.
… If you're going to talk about rights, then you need to qualify that,
… and I would urge qualifying by referencing UNDHR.
… If not, then I support removing the word rights and going back to being "respectful."
... But I do encourage having a reference to human rights in this document.

<amy> <amy> +1 to including Human Rights

<cwilso> human rights++

<AvneeshSingh> +1 to point to human rights

<tzviya> ack jrosewell

jrosewell:  The need to define rights is important, and offers a good solution that.
… Stepping up a level, if the Web isn't something that people want to use because respect or any other reason, that's a problem.
… So in this sentence, trying to define usable, compelling, people want to use it.
… I would reword it entirely.
… So I support either defining what we mean by rights or if we are not going to do that, then respectful is a good word.
… But perhaps we should say something positive about the experience, persuade people to use the Web.

Florian: I think having a reference somewhere to human right somewhere would be good thing, but in this particular sentence I support rolling back to not mentioning rights.
… We want to respect rights, but also many other things.
… Nonetheless, an appeal to UNCHR sounds fine, but not in this sentence.

<Zakim> cwilso, you wanted to suggest original wording and filing issue

cwilso: I suggest the way to deal with this is for me to change this back to "respectful" text and file an issue based on Dom's comment,
... and discuss whether to point to UNDHR.
... I agree it's slightly awkard, but maybe we can spend a bit more thought on it.
... [explains history of the change]

<florian> +1

<Ralph> +1 Chris

<tzviya> +1

<amy> I think that we are trying to thread the point of "puts users first" and rights and respect. and that this can be addressed in the issue

Tzviya:  Ok, let's go back to "respectful of its users" text and then open a separate issue about UNDHR.
... Any other points to raise in this call?

cwilso: I don't think there are any other large issues.
… I need to review fantasai's comments, and we'll work out issues for those.
… I won't claim that I've absorbed all of them
… but I think that's it.

Ralph: Just to make sure I understand,  the proposal is that you'll work with fantasai to open additional issues based on having merged this PR as we've now discussed?
… So whether to merge first and open issues later or open issues before merge, the result is similar?
... This is a detail that the editor will work out,
… but we don't expect further changes in the pull request itself?

<DKA> Raised issue w3c/AB-public#115

cwilso: I believe that to be true.
… I'm not going to hit merge right now.

fantasai:  You said you had changes but there are no changes in 3 days.

Chris:  Do you not see commits at the bottom of the pull request?

fantasai: I'lll try again.

Chris: Chris: does anyone else see commits?

fantasai: I see it now.

Ralph: Ralph: those who refresh the diff will see the diff.

Tzviya: I'm glad you're seeing this now Elika. This might allay some concerns.
... The next meeting I see is the 7th. I'll work to figure this out w/ Amy. The next meeting is during the TPAC.
...I will not be at TPAC. I will chair remotely. Chris and others will be there. It's a 90 min meeting.

Chris:  We have two slots, 11th and 12th. It will be 5-6:30pm both days.

Tzviya: I have only one on my calendar.
... Feel free to reach out if there are issues to discuss or if there is issue bashing. Sorry I won't be there in person.
... Talking about how we move forward, the AB is thinking to have the TF only meet through TPAC.
... We should discuss that. I'm not sure I'll chair it going forward. That's up to the AB.
... Feel free to reach out to me or Chris. We don't want to work on this forever. We have some work but we don't want this to go on a year.
... My goal for TPAC is to have a finished product. Chris is skeptical.

<Ralph> Vision TF calendar does not show a meeting on the 7th and that should be authoritative, not whatever your local calendars may sya

Chris: I'd like to have a solid structure. We are at word-smithing and making things easier to read.

Tzviya:  Thank you.

fantasai: Chris when you fixed comments you had duplicate text.

Tzviya: you can fix it or I will.
... Thanks all.

cwilso, https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/pull/111/files#r1304466988