Meeting minutes
anna: no concern from PSG on the change to proposed recommendation
florian: on charter refinement, definition of minor vs major changes during that phase
... increase of scope could not be considered minor
... I'll need to turn that into a pull request
anna: PSIG was supportive of giving more time to review, but on the definition of changes is ambiguous. example: new deliverable being added
... psig will work on its comments and send them next week
[discussion on timeline]
pull requests
Number of weeks to object to Charter Refinement rejection
florian: w3c/
… this is for when the Team rejects starting the phase
… and when deciding to abandon the work
… making it a longer period isn't a problem because this is a case where we're doing nothing, so we can continue to collect responses while we're doing nothing
florian: proposing to set to 8 weeks
Ian: We can change the time, just like for AC Review. Process can allow us to set the time period.
… Secondly, we're talking about Charter things, and AC review is only 4 weeks. It's a well-established number.
… This is a review.
florian: It's not a review.
Ian: It's charter-related. Review the situation to decide whether to object.
… This is not a more detailed or complicated review period than AC Review
plh: Ian, you're misguided.
Discussion of whether 4 weeks is enough ... might be if there was an announcement to AC, but currently we're not requiring that
florian: It's not just that nothing happens during the 8 weeks. Nothing happens at the end of it, either.
… the only point in bounding is to make sure it doesn't get silly, like the 5th person objects 2 years
plh: Ian, you're making parallel between AC Review and this. But you should be making a parallel between decision and potential appeal
… when we announce a new WG, we don't have to do anything unless someone objects
Ian: My assumption was that Team has to tell Members about refusing to do something
… my concern is about formal process of announcing Team decision to say no
florian: Announcement is that you have stopped, it's over.
Ian: Decision, starts a clock.
… Team remains responsible for monitoring, instead of closing the case.
… but I can live with this
plh: Can we agree to merge?
Ian: I can live with 8
RESOLUTION: Adopt 8 weeks in PR 994
Require Team to reply with rationale for rejection
<Ian> +1 to 995
github: w3c/
florian: We already allow Team to say no (for reasons) when AC asks to start Charter Refinement
… we didn't say the Team has to explain why
… This PR requires Team to give the rationale
… We use the verb "reply", which implies that you respond in the same forum that was asked.
… The reason for not needing to broadcast, if someone requests privately, and Team's response is "I'm sorry, your charter is quite terrible, can you try again", then the Team doesn't need to publicly embarrass them.
… they can make the response public if they want, but not required to
Ian: ...
Ian: If Team formally says no, it goes to Membership for their fuller consideration
florian: If an AC rep formally requests, in private, as an AC rep... you are requiring yourself to tell everyone in public that their charter sucks?
Ian: For me, "formal request" means "I'm asking you to do this, and you are obligated to do this"
… only reason to have in Process document, otherwise it's just people talking
… formal request means the answer has to be public
florian: Putting it in the Process is requiring an answer. It doesn't require it to be public.
plh: If we tell the AC that you can ask any Team member, and it puts into a formal process, that's not going to be good
… if having a formal process, there must be a burden on the Team to follow a formal process
florian: There's 2 things here: formal vs informal, public vs private
… It is currently possible for Members to make formal objections privately
plh: Yes, but in that case we anonymize the comment but publish it publicly
… Here you can send a request privately to the Team, and there is no obligation.
florian: We're not saying that any question is such. They have to formally request.
fantasai: it is possible to file a formal objection by ask the team
... this is not an issue about expecting people to ask privately
... a CG can do such request
... the reason we did not want to make a requirement to involve the entire Membership
... it is since the proposal will need to be refined becuase it can move further
... this will create noise that the AC can avoid
... so I don't think we should require to be public
.... if it needs to be made more public, it's always possible by the AC
ian I don't want to capture the full range of human interactions
.... the only case is the worst case scenario: someone strongly disagree with the Team
... and want to escalate
... the other cases don't need to be captured in the process document
... there is agreement a Member can escalate
florian: but we don't force Members to escalate in order to get a rational
... that would be shaming a Member
ian that's not reality
florian: I don't see a reason for Team to reply no without rationale.
plh: ...
plh: I'm fine with the PR as-is, but I might play with them being informal.
florian: If someone says "I'm AC rep of Q, and want to request the Team start Charter Refinement" ...
plh: Yes, would interpret that as a formal request
Ian: Gap that AC can register formal objection, which starts the next process
… I asked the Team to do something, they said no privately, I want to formally object. Other people don't know to object until the first objection
florian: If you have replied publicly (not required), any 5 Members can say "I hate this"
… if you reply privately, say no, then nobody else knows to object, but they can publicise and ask for help objecting
Ian: Only becomes an official decision unless it's archived decision, otherwise it didn't happen.
florian: Precedent: In the case of AC Appeal, an AC rep can write to Team asking to appeal. They don't have to CC anyone.
Ian: That request doesn't exist until Team records that they got a request.
Ian: Recap. There's a private formal negotiation, and ppl might be satisfied with that. Always good to provide rationale, whether in Process or not.
… AC rep can ask for more, but they have to request that the Team initiate that process by announcing this decision to the Membership.
florian: ok, I want to think about that. But continue to think that anything we do here is not in contradiction with this PR.
Ian: Sounds good.
Ian: I can live with this extra bit of requiring rationale.
RESOLUTION: Adopt PR 995
ACTION: Florian to work on Ian's concerns
plh: How are we going to finish if we're taking this long on each one?
Clarifying DoCs
github: w3c/
florian: Clarifying that it needs to highlight areas of disagreement
… We're adding this because Ian's proposal doesn't use "disposition of comments", but rather describes the necessary information.
… So we made a PR to clarify to the same level
plh: We've had "disposition of comments" for centuries... actually I guess we don't have it in the Process.
florian: Fuzziness makes it hard to know what happened, but this requires clarifying. Using "highlight" in the figurative sense.
RESOLUTION: Merge PR 996
Ian: For things we're already doing, some cases it's in the Guide, works fine, leave it in Guide
… for some others, I see the point of a minimal obligation, even though ppl do it today, communicate clearly about it
… in some cases will agree and others won't
Next Steps
plh: Next meeting in 2 weeks. I really encourage people to put comments in GH so we can move faster.
… otherwise we'll need to meet weekly instead of biweekly
plh: Thanks everyone, that was painful, but we did make some progress.
Ian: thanks for working to converge