Meeting minutes
Review AC Feedback on Process 2025
florian: No additional feedback to handle since we made the Agenda
… we have 3 pending PRs in response to comments
… Hoping we can land them both in the ED and in the eventual Process 2025 adopted by the Team
… Let's also keep some time to discuss the Guide article requested by one commenter
Pull Requests to Review
Fix typo
github: w3c/
florian: If Team is happy with fixing the typo, we should take this
Ian: Sounds great
RESOLUTION: Merge PR 1075 to fix typo
Editorial reorg of text defining REC statuses
github: w3c/
FLorian: Main point of this one is, one sentence (Defining "recommendation track document")
… That used to be below an informal summary of 4 statuses
… The core of this change is to move this sentence to the start of the list of maturity stages
… A REC trackd document being one in any of those stages
… The rest of the PR moves paragraphs around without changing them, to make things more readable.
… (No text changes to any other sentence.)
… I feel confident this is editorial
Ian: [projects and asks some questions about the PR changes]
Ian: It occurs to me that the happy path and diagram are valuable
… but they don't capture all the states
… I'm wondering with an additional tweak to this section might be
… instead of "consists of", but "the steps to Recommendation"
… "consists of" is overconstraining
florian: "In summary, the main steps along the Recommendation Track are ..."
<plh> +1
florian: I'd be happy with that. plh? Brent? fantasai?
fantasai: wfm
brent: Makes sense to me
florian: OK, I'll make in GH the suggested tweak, and if we like it we can resolve to adopt the whole thing.
<Ian> "In summary, the W3C Recommendation Track consists of:" -> In summary, the main steps on the W3C Recommendation Track are:"
florian: Proposed change is that like 3462 changed to "In summary, the main steps on the W3C Recommendation Track are"
<Ian> Ian: +1
<plh> +1
<florian> +1
RESOLUTION: Adopt PR 1079 with additional tweak above.
Editorial tweaks collection for AC Review
github: w3c/
florian: This is a pile of unrelated small tweaks that ppl suggested during review
… I think they're all fine, and would like to accept all of them
Florian: One unresolved question, which is comment from TallTed
… In the midst of this we have a list of 3 items
… If it was just a sentence, I'd prefer one "or" but since it's a list having multiple it seems multiple "or"s are fine
Ian: Any precedents?
<Ian> (No preference for "or" handling)
Brent: Lean slightly toward Ted's interpretation
fantasai: I don't particularly care either way with the number of "or"s
florian: Ok, since most ppl don't care, and Brent and Ted want it, let's do it
fantasai: Any other comments on this PR?
<Ian> +1 to 1074
RESOLUTION: Adopt PR 1074 with removal of excess "or"s as noted.
Adopting these PRs
florian: It's the Team's decision whether top adopt these changes, but since I'm preparing the draft, would be useful to know if Team wants this version
plh: Sounds good to me. Don't have a date for you. How about preparing for 31st of July?
Ian: ??
plh: Yes, with the PRs merged.
Guide to Member Submissions
florian: plh made a first attempt at updating the Guide, largely taking bits from old Process and adding to existing Guide
… I made a few suggestions on top of that, which he accepted
… My take is this is good enough for version 1
… I think we also do v2, which reduces the amount by which it duplicates the new Process
… But I think this is good enough to ship, we can iterate later
<plh> +1 to Florian. I'll try to do an other iteration later this week
Ian: Sorry, just went to Guidebook to look for PRs, not seeing it?
florian: Not prepared as a PR yet
plh: The document is not in the Guidebook repo. Maybe need a separate conversation with Coralie to move it into the Guidebook, but don't want to block on that.
->
https://
florian: My preference would be to land this together with or before Process 2025
… and then keep working to make it better
plh: Yes
… Having said that, I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. It's rare to receive Member Submissions these days
Review of AC Review
florian: Most of the comments from our AC commenter were addressed with our editorial PRs
… though a few weren't; we responded by email to those
<florian> https://
florian: I don't feel the need to say anything more, does anyone want to add anything?
Brent: Response made seems sufficient.
Ian: +1
<plh> +1
florian: In that case I think we're done. :)
^_^/
Ian: Should we point at the guide draft?
plh: I sent a link yesterday
… I can check with him since he's also in Madrid
fantasai: In that case, we're done with this cycle!
お疲れ様でした
Future Work
florian: Next meeting scheduled for August
plh: AB is meeting next week, so up to them
fantasai: Question is, what do we think should be for the Process 2026 cycle?
florian: 2 piles of things
… One is simplification to REC track, particularly REC maintenance
… We've received complaints over the years
… Some ideas to make it simpler (though not radically simpler)
… Other pile of things is related to TAG/AB chairing and discipline etc. and CEO discipline
… There's a whole side-topic branch.
… Assuming the new AB continues to care, should progress on this
… but that assumes the new AB wants to continue
brent: Preliminary conversations I had was there was interest in simplifying the process
… but I'm waiting to see what happens next week
florian: I'm also expecting since this is a very new AB, might be new large projects, but that'll take a little while to come to Process CG
… so if there are non-controversial things to work on, we should move on them
… simplifications is non-controversial goal, so we should give it a go
Ian: I haven't put thought into it, but love idea of simplifying the Process
… When I look at Table of Contents, some things could live on their own.
… E.g. definition of TAG and AB lengthen the Process doc, maybe could live elsewhere
… For ppl who are chairs of WGs working the W3C Process, what are the things they need to know?
… They don't need to know workshops and liaisons
… Etc.
florian: I've tried to remove some of these for Process already, but so far we've only simplified, not removed
… we can try to do more
… TAG/AB, that's complex
<Ian> fantasai: Goal should not be "to shorten" (even if nice) but "that it be clear"
<Ian> ...if we could split into chapters that might make it easier to read
Brent: That'll also simplify updating it, can say we're just update one chapter
florian: Cross references...
… but still, it'll help readability
<Ian> (Ian notes it was originally in chapter form :)
florian: The refactor we did several cycles ago should help, since the chapters are now much more self-contained
… But that's also gated on tooling. Bikeshed doesn't maintain multipage documents well.
fantasai: Tab was supposed to work on that this year, I'll poke him about it.
florian: But the complexity is what we're trying to reduce. That's correlated with the length, but isn't the length as such.
… E.g. we could reduce the length by deleting subsection headings and notes, but that's not an improvement
Ian: I like fantasai's suggestion that it be clear
… two axes, one is language, other is focus
… so yeah, let's chapter-ify
Brent: In the long run the Process could even be a collection of documents.
florian: It kindof is, since Patent Policy is a separate document, maybe Code of Conduct...
… it could be more, but I'm not in a rush to do this
brent: Let's see where next AB wants to go with it
plh: One thing, we have to keep in mind WGs chairs, still have to know a lot of things
… so splitting it won't simplify work of WG chairs
fantasai: Yes, but it might make it less overwhelming and easier to focus on things
florian: But in any case we've had an issue "we should simplify process", not helpful because too vague
… but specific proposals that help make the Process more understandable or easier to operationalize or less distracting/less overwhemling, all of this is good
… but specific proposals is what we need.
Thanks!
Ian: I want to thank you all!
… Though I'm a long-time Process guy, I'm somewhat new to this instantiation
… I really appreciate the dedication of everyone and also the quality of work.
… It's enough to make me want to come to the meetings!
… I know how much work it takes, but everyone here has been really thoughtful and diligent and open to discussion.
… Lots of voices out there, some less diplomatic than others, but you somehow managed to hear them all, and that's really great.
florian: One regret I have is the limited participation in this group.
… Brent, if you end up chairing it, if you can increase the number of AB people and not-AB people who participate, that'd be great.
… I'm otherwise largely satisfied with our work style.
Meeting closed.