00:57:07 RRSAgent has joined #ac-enable 00:57:12 logging to https://www.w3.org/2025/11/12-ac-enable-irc 00:57:29 amy has joined #ac-enable 00:58:02 mchampion has joined #ac-enable 00:58:32 bkardell has joined #ac-enable 00:58:36 florian has joined #ac-enable 00:59:49 ScribeNick: fantasai 01:01:05 present+ 01:01:18 naomi has joined #ac-enable 01:01:18 present+ 01:01:18 ydaniv has joined #ac-enable 01:01:20 Topic: Introduction 01:01:23 present+ 01:01:24 present+ 01:01:31 Mek has joined #ac-enable 01:01:32 jugglinmike has joined #ac-enable 01:01:32 mjackson has joined #ac-enable 01:01:32 present+ 01:01:32 brent has joined #ac-enable 01:01:34 Chair: Yehonatan Daniv, Tzviya Siegman 01:01:48 ydaniv: Yehonatan Daniv from Wix 01:01:59 hober has joined #ac-enable 01:01:59 tzviya: Tzviya Siegman from the Team 01:02:03 present+ 01:02:07 present+ jugglinmike 01:02:37 shiestyle has joined #ac-enable 01:02:42 ydaniv: This is discussion and brainstorming about how can we make AC participation and discussions more effective. 01:02:47 present+ 01:02:59 ... AC is a community that varies a lot in terms of members, company size, goals, interests 01:03:02 present+ 01:03:11 ... They also come from various technical backgrounds, cultural backgrounds 01:03:19 ... They converge currently only on the AC email list. 01:03:31 ... Which has several hundred participants and is not very effective. 01:03:38 Brentz has joined #ac-enable 01:03:51 ... We want to kick this off with an issue from Brian Kardell suggesting a tool that would allow the AC to poll itself. 01:04:02 hirata has joined #ac-enable 01:04:09 ... This could be the starting point for people to suggest issues, join in with a +1 or -1 (which is not doable on a high-traffic mailing list) 01:04:29 ... And then we also want to hear more issues, complaints, suggestions, on how we can get the AC to surface what they think and where they want to take this community 01:04:42 present+ 01:04:43 ... How to make people contribute more, discuss, and support W3C activities 01:05:00 astearns has joined #ac-enable 01:05:01 ydaniv: So this is the goal: concrete ideas on how to improve the effectiveness of AC 01:05:03 present+ 01:05:17 ... Agenda is start with bkardell's issue, and discussion of more ideas 01:05:30 tzviya: Let's hear from Brian 01:05:34 Topic: Bkardell's Proposal 01:05:35 Igarashi has joined #ac-enable 01:05:42 bkardell: Let's have some background context 01:05:47 present+ 01:05:53 bkardell: It frequently comes up that there's not alot of feedback on a whole lot of things 01:05:57 Link to Brian's issue is https://github.com/w3c/AB-memberonly/issues/295 01:05:58 ... question is how much is a feature ,and how much a bug? 01:06:01 q? 01:06:04 tantek has joined #ac-enable 01:06:08 ... we elect people to represent us, but those people don't have any power 01:06:13 present+ Michael Champion, Jennie Meier, Yehontan Daniv, Tantek Celik, hober, Chris Wilson, Christine 01:06:21 ... whatever they do is supposed to come back to us to ratify, to discuss, to agree upon 01:06:24 tantek-projector has joined #ac-enable 01:06:26 ... It's AC who is supposed to have the power 01:06:30 present+ Igarashi 01:06:31 present+ 01:06:32 q+ to comment on "we elect people" 01:06:37 RRSAgent, make logs public 01:06:38 ... A lot of time, it's a feature of the system that we don't ahve to worry about all the things all the time 01:06:46 RRSAgent, pointer? 01:06:46 See https://www.w3.org/2025/11/12-ac-enable-irc#T01-06-46 01:06:51 ... We have ~400+ members, can't pay attention to all the things al the time. 01:06:55 Christineg has joined #ac-enable 01:07:12 ... There are 1-person shops where they want to work on one particular specification, or because they want to be affiliated with W3C, all kinds of reasons people to join 01:07:23 ... Being an active AC is a lot of work that might not be part of their interest 01:07:30 ... one of the problems when we elect people 01:08:02 ... For example, I vote for a person because -- we have this STV system that encourages us to factionalize -- I vote for the one top representation that I want 01:08:19 ... Relevant to this because we cast one vote, and we vote for someone to represent in this one way 01:08:35 ... but if I vote for you for accessibility advocacy, but what does it mean when discussing transparency of finances? 01:08:38 ... Discussions are complicated. 01:08:53 bkardell: So my idea is that if we have simple touch points, when AC is having a discussion 01:09:07 ... has some positions, why not come back to AC and say "what do you think?" 01:09:18 anssik has joined #ac-enable 01:09:21 ... Can add words if you want, but simple sentiment poll: I agree with this position, I agree with that position 01:09:31 Present+ Anssi_Kostiainen 01:09:32 +1 01:09:35 q? 01:09:36 +1 01:09:39 ... May continue to be a small set of people (not necessarily a bug), but it will be a bigger group of people than currently 01:09:39 ack florian 01:09:39 florian, you wanted to comment on "we elect people" 01:09:41 q+ 01:09:54 florian: As a person who has been elected to bodies (previously AB, and now on Board), and now speaking as myself, I agree 01:10:00 ... I want to be doing the things that the Membership cares about 01:10:10 ... and it is extremely difficult to know what that is 01:10:14 +1 01:10:23 ... Knowing whether people love something, hate sometehing, care about something, or don't 01:10:25 q+ to ask brian to elaborate 01:10:26 q? 01:10:29 ... It would be immensely useful to know these 01:10:48 ack anssik 01:10:48 ... Especially from Board perspective, AC ability to poll itself rather than only answering questions I ask 01:10:49 jugglinmike has joined #ac-enable 01:10:59 anssik: Anssi, Intel AC rep (I took over when Eric retired) 01:11:10 JennieM has joined #ac-enable 01:11:10 ... I've been shadowing Eric many years, and now I'm in the sausage factor 01:11:17 present+ 01:11:22 ... I haven't been very vocal on AC Forum, because I wear too many hats 01:11:24 s/only answering questions I ask/only answering questions I ask, because I am mindful of orienting the debate by even asking 01:11:29 q+ 01:11:30 ... I would welcome ability to easily +1 / -1 on proposals 01:11:35 ... I'm very supportive of this proposal 01:11:42 cwilso has joined #ac-enable 01:11:50 present+ 01:11:59 Zakim, who is here? 01:11:59 Present: bkardell, florian, naomi, wschildbach, tzviya, hober, jugglinmike, shiestyle, mchampion, amy, hirata, Igarashi, Michael, Champion, Jennie, Meier, Yehontan, Daniv, Tantek, 01:11:59 ... A Japanese member also spoke up recently, he has many role sinternal and external, and he appreciates the forum but doesn't have the time to participate in the discussions 01:12:02 ... Celik, Chris, Wilson, Christine, Anssi_Kostiainen, JennieM, cwilso 01:12:02 On IRC I see cwilso, JennieM, jugglinmike, anssik, Christineg, tantek-projector, tantek, Igarashi, astearns, hirata, shiestyle, hober, mjackson, Mek, ydaniv, naomi, florian, 01:12:02 ... bkardell, mchampion, amy, RRSAgent, fantasai, wschildbach, Zakim, tzviya 01:12:02 ... so that is my feedback 01:12:09 ... I appreciate Brian putting forward this proposal 01:12:15 ... let's start with something simple and we can improve as we move along 01:12:17 q? 01:12:24 ack tzviya 01:12:24 tzviya, you wanted to ask brian to elaborate 01:12:30 tzviya: Before I was on the Team, I was on the AB for many years 01:12:31 ack me 01:12:50 ... It would have been very helpful to get a "tally" of what the membership was thinking 01:12:52 ... it might be challenging to implement 01:12:54 q+ to suggest we eat Brian's dogfood and do a quick poll on whether to ask the Team to provide the AC a polling mechanism 01:12:59 ... I would love to hear more about how you've done this at Igalia, Brian 01:13:10 phila has joined #ac-enable 01:13:15 ... and I think it would be great to get a pilot running 01:13:18 present+ 01:13:19 s/role sinternal/roles internal 01:13:30 q? 01:13:30 q? 01:13:49 bkardell: Igalia is a flat company. We don't have bosses, we collectively are the boss. 01:13:54 ... We vote on everything, literally eveyrthing. 01:14:04 ... We use a system called Lumio, which is a polling system. 01:14:09 ... Not everyone votes on everything 01:14:22 ... Some things require certain thresholds, but not everyone has to vote on everything 01:14:31 ... you can abstain on things, and that's a feature, not a bug 01:14:35 q? 01:14:37 ... We try to get a critical mass of feedback 01:14:38 q+ 01:14:44 qq+ to Igalia' vote 01:14:45 s/factor/factory 01:14:49 ... For many things we want to know, how do people feel about this? before we work on things 01:14:52 q+ 01:14:56 ... These aren't binding decisions, but they are ways to gauge the temperature 01:15:04 q+ to note multiple use-cases of AC polling itself, AB polling AC, and perhaps Board polling AC as well. also allowing "open-ended" polls, and polls with comments. GitHub issues seem more well-suited than WBS for this. Also enabling Membership to lead itself, not dependent on W3C-specific mechanisms. 01:15:19 ... Not unlike CSSWG or OpenUI where there's no right answer, and we have several options that could be good, and we do a quick poll e.g. emoji on github 01:15:20 +1 bkardell. GitHub emoji poll 01:15:29 ... Something simple, or maybe 3 options, let's not get too complicated with it 01:15:36 ack Igarashi 01:15:36 Igarashi, you wanted to react to tzviya to Igalia' vote 01:15:47 Igarashi: I have a question for Igalia, what is the voter turnout? 01:16:01 q? 01:16:14 bkardell: It's very high! You're highly motivated to vote on things. But occasionally get busy, and dont have time to follow thread. 01:16:19 ... So can abstain 01:16:35 ... You have to vote, but you can abstain. We get around 90% response, but maybe 30% abstain. 01:16:39 q? 01:16:40 ... You also have ability to add a comment. 01:16:49 ... A lot of those cases, I say, I trust my peers. 01:16:58 ... I have no desire to block this, sounds reasonable, but that's another level. 01:17:05 ack ydaniv 01:17:07 ydaniv: Putting my AC hat on 01:17:26 30% abstention would be multiplying our real vote totals by 3-4x? 01:17:45 ... As an AC for a smaller company, just getting the barrier lower to triage opinions, to gauge the temperature, to try out an idea 01:17:52 ... E.g. "soemthing about this felt off, want to see if others agree" 01:17:53 @asteans yes, that's correct 01:18:00 ... Lower the barrier to get that 01:18:01 ack mchampion 01:18:01 mchampion, you wanted to suggest we eat Brian's dogfood and do a quick poll on whether to ask the Team to provide the AC a polling mechanism 01:18:04 astearns: you don't want queue to say something there? 01:18:15 mchampion: I suggest that you just poll the zoom and IRC participants here to see if anyone disagrees 01:18:21 q+ 01:18:24 ... should we ask the Team to provide a self-polling mechanism? 01:18:30 qq+ 01:18:36 ack naomi 01:18:36 naomi, you wanted to react to mchampion 01:18:47 naomi: I agree with you. 01:18:53 ... Let me speak with my Member Relations hat 01:19:11 caribou has joined #ac-enable 01:19:21 ... Rather than technical discussions, I really would like to see AC members their +1 and -1 to boost member engagement 01:19:34 I'm logging. Sorry, nothing found for 'who's here' 01:19:40 ... The answer can never be reduced to +1/-1, but hearing the voices is necessary 01:19:54 q? 01:19:59 ... Creating a github issue and collecting +1 -1 from AC members for a week, might not be formal consensus 01:20:09 ... So how about gathering AC opinions via WBS. I would be happy to do that. 01:20:25 ... For better or worse, W3C have a ground for gathering opinions 01:20:26 ^ I q+'d to respond to that (among other things) for why "week" and "WBS" is insufficient for use-cases 01:20:35 ... But we may not always be able to shape that outcome 01:20:39 q+ 01:20:41 ... So I reflect on that. 01:21:08 +1 run mchampion's poll, since he's an AC 01:21:20 bkardell: So, we would create a new repository or ...? 01:21:35 loomio 01:21:40 bkardell, PROPOSE: create an github.com/w3c/AC repo where the AC can create issues for polls. 01:21:43 +1 run the poll 01:21:49 +1 run the poll 01:21:53 mchampion: My suggestion was to poll for whether to do this, and then follow up with a mechanism 01:21:59 +1 to the poll, the discuss furthure 01:22:00 https://www.loomio.com/blog/2022/09/19/igalia/ 01:22:09 POLL: Should W3C offer a way for the AC to poll itself? 01:22:12 +1 01:22:13 +1 01:22:14 +1 01:22:15 +1 01:22:15 +1 01:22:16 +1 01:22:16 +1 01:22:16 +1 01:22:17 +1 01:22:17 +1 01:22:18 +1 01:22:19 +1 01:22:19 +1 01:22:19 +1 01:22:22 0 01:22:23 +1 01:22:23 +1 01:22:26 0 01:22:28 +1 01:22:39 I can confirm the Team is happy to take this action to suggest a polling mechanism. 01:22:47 -> On Consensus and Humming in the IETF https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7282 01:22:52 anssik: I'd like to suggest another mechanism used in IETF, called humming 01:22:52 I'd prefer the AC propose a polling mechanism 01:23:13 anssik: If you agree you humm 01:23:47 florian: How do you hum on a mailing list? 01:24:00 q? 01:24:04 q- 01:24:08 anssik: I think this experiment did not succeed 01:24:16 q+ 01:24:22 q- 01:24:28 i/anssik/[ various jokes about this proposal ] 01:24:30 ack florian 01:24:31 ack fl 01:24:38 florian: I agree that we shouldn't spend whole meeting discussing details 01:24:49 ... but I want to briefly highlight that just doing GH won't cut it 01:24:58 ... Using it as a staging space to prepare the poll would work 01:25:04 qq+ to the result of poll 01:25:12 q? 01:25:14 ... But as we see already,using it to run the poll is not good enough 01:25:18 ack Igarashi 01:25:18 Igarashi, you wanted to react to fl to the result of poll 01:25:22 ... WBS is antiquated, but it is very accessible 01:25:24 q- 01:25:49 Igarashi: Regarding the poll, should we hear from people who didn't +1 what they think, if they have a reason to not support this? 01:25:58 tzviya: Nobody who objected 01:26:02 bkardell: Reasonable question 01:26:13 phila: I put 0 because I don't care. 01:26:15 q? 01:26:18 q- 01:26:25 ... I've been WG chair, staff member, AC rep, or whateer last 20 years 01:26:28 ... and I still don't care 01:26:33 ... I care about W3C a lot 01:26:43 ... but my job is to represent my employer, and my employer couldn't care less 01:26:47 brent has joined #ac-enable 01:26:52 ... If I vote in a poll it's because my employer cares about it 01:27:03 I do not like humming since we can not see view of -1 and 0 01:27:09 ... It's not that I don't want the thing, go ahead, I don't want to stop it and delighted making progress 01:27:10 +1 Igarashi 01:27:24 ... But it's really irrelevant to what we do. 01:27:37 ... CSSWG is super super important! But irrelevant to GS1. 01:27:57 ... I abstain passively by not answering on many things 01:28:04 ... because I represent a company and the company doesn't care. 01:28:06 vq? 01:28:09 caribou: Working for W3C, same thing 01:28:17 ... it's not that I don't care, but I think that the form is not going to reveal anything 01:28:33 ... OK to hvae one more tool, but we have diverse ways to get member feedback, e.g. on charters we have a GH repo etc. 01:28:59 q+ 01:28:59 ... There's always been the "usual suspects" crowd of AC, those who are actively involved in these discussions 01:29:00 q+ to talk about other ways of engaging members 01:29:05 ... It's their job to participate in this role 01:29:11 q+ to respond to caribou 01:29:19 disagrees with "usual suspects" framing and considers it unproductive (blaming humans instead of systems) 01:29:21 q? 01:29:23 .. Some others are paid only to read 1hr / week the maling list, can't expect the same level of participation 01:29:47 q+ to respond to caribou on bandwidth and the usual suspects 01:29:56 ... Let's not introduce solutions to problems that don't exist 01:30:00 q- 01:30:18 ... Introducing another mechanism for feedback isn't going to change anything 01:30:21 q? 01:30:26 vq? 01:30:28 ... That said, I think there are other things to fix than tooling for getting answers 01:30:30 q+ 01:30:33 q? 01:30:51 ack cwilso 01:30:51 cwilso, you wanted to respond to caribou on bandwidth and the usual suspects 01:31:01 ... The fact that it's a mailing list isn't the problem, it's the people that's the problem. 01:31:03 +1 01:31:12 cwilso: "The usual suspects" is a good framing of the problem. 01:31:15 strong disagree that it's the people that's the problem 01:31:15 angel has joined #ac-enable 01:31:19 xueyuan has joined #ac-enable 01:31:21 present+ 01:31:23 blaming the people is the problem 01:31:24 ... But that's the problem. 01:31:31 ... I woudl like to have other people's voices also. 01:31:41 ... I can write a 2-page response to mchampion's post on AC Forum any time! 01:31:53 ... But other voices are not present 01:31:56 +1 cwilso, on email, can't tell if lone voice or larger sentiment 01:31:59 ... So I think polling is a super useful thing to do for that reason 01:31:59 +1 01:32:01 +1 01:32:05 ack phila 01:32:08 ... Yes, our voting turnouts *are* very low, but still. 01:32:10 ack tantek 01:32:10 tantek, you wanted to note multiple use-cases of AC polling itself, AB polling AC, and perhaps Board polling AC as well. also allowing "open-ended" polls, and polls with comments. 01:32:13 ... GitHub issues seem more well-suited than WBS for this. Also enabling Membership to lead itself, not dependent on W3C-specific mechanisms. 01:32:21 tantek: I think there's a few important points here 01:32:33 ... Thanks Brian for identifying this as an important use case 01:32:46 ... I think enabling Ac to poll itself is key part of pushing W3C to be more Member-led 01:32:53 +1 01:33:03 ... Similarly, wrt AB, having beein on AB, there have been many times when we wanted to lightweight poll the AC, but had no mechanism 01:33:12 q+ to talk about balance 01:33:20 ... So in addition to AC polling itself (use case #1), I would also support the AB being able to poll AC quickly and trivially 01:33:21 +1 - this is actually the use case that brought it up for me 01:33:32 ... Lastly, I'd infer that there would be opportunities for the Board to want to informally poll the AC 01:33:38 ... rather than doing something more formal 01:33:52 ... Certainly from my experience as AB Liaison, I've seen scenarios where such a tool would have been useful. 01:34:08 ... I want to particularly emphasize that AC asking for ability to poll itself, should not be gatekept by Team 01:34:12 ... Should just do it, not wait. 01:34:37 ... Florian has some concerns wrt GH, but one of the nice things is that it works across standards orgs, doesn't require custom tooling, administration, etc. 01:34:53 ... All of those things have been sufficient barriers from my time on AB, so let's not use custom tooling 01:34:57 ... IMHO that includes WBs. 01:35:27 ... These are polls, not votes. WBS is great for purpose it has already 01:35:38 q+ 01:35:38 ... but gh is more accessible, so that's my suggestion 01:35:45 ... Let's try something and iterate. 01:35:47 ack next 01:35:51 +1 to poll,　not votes 01:35:59 florian: I fall on opposite side of Tantek wrt familiarity and usability. 01:36:05 ... I agre we should just try something and move on, whichever. 01:36:13 ... But I want to respond to "usual suspects" comment. 01:36:23 ... I'm in lots of communications in backchannels 01:36:30 q+ to also respond on the "usual suspect" and "people are the problem" comments 01:36:37 ... I hear from people who react and don't share their response 01:36:41 ... and that's what we're trying to surface 01:36:56 ack me 01:36:56 tzviya, you wanted to talk about other ways of engaging members 01:36:59 +1000 Florian, for every such "usual suspect", there are many, "quiet majority" who agree in private. that has been my experience as well 01:37:01 ... Finding and surfacing those opinions would let us hear what people really think 01:37:08 tzviya: We're more than halfway through this discussion. 01:37:17 ... saw general consensus in the room about doing polls, but not about how 01:37:28 q- 01:37:36 ... we don't have great communication among the AC, and maybe we can progress about how we can move forward with other ways of participating in AC 01:37:38 if only we could we could use a poll to choose between the 2 semi-obvious answers 01:38:07 ... We have overall problem of communication, and AC discussing together would be great. 01:38:12 bkardell, that sounds more like a vote among 2 semi-obvious choices :) 01:38:25 ... maybe we can offline the conversation about implementing? 01:38:30 q? 01:38:33 q? 01:38:38 florian: Sure, but with a bias towards action first and discuss later 01:38:42 +1 florian bias to action first and tweak rather than long discussion 01:38:49 q+ 01:39:03 ack fantasai 01:39:05 scribe+ jugglinmike 01:39:09 s/bias towards action first and discuss later/bias towards action first and discuss+tweak later 01:39:17 fantasai: Lets come up with one or two different options for how this could run 01:39:26 fantasai: and then poll that and then run a pilot 01:39:27 +1 fantasai, specific concrete actions 01:39:41 fantasai: I'd like to see concrete options this week rather than, say, next July 01:39:46 +1 01:39:48 +1 01:39:57 fantasai: And I think a specific concrete proposal is a necessity for that 01:40:28 ack wsh 01:40:32 ack wschildbach 01:40:42 what I don't want to see: long GitHub issue discussion, forming a task force to spend weeks to understand the poll and come up with a proposal, then appeal to some existing authority to evaluate the task force proposals etc. etc. 01:40:44 wschildbach: The ask also was, let's talk about how to better particpate in the AC Forum 01:40:54 ... As someone new to W3C and AC Forum, I came into this with the charter of some technical stuff 01:41:04 ... and I found myself on AC Forum 01:41:09 ... But I don't feel I'm part of AC 01:41:12 ... because I didn't come here for that 01:41:19 cwilso: Well you are now! 01:41:34 wschildbach: Yeah. But I think AC doesn't feel that it's a team. 01:41:39 +1 to wschildbach 01:41:39 ... and maybe this is part of the problem of participation 01:41:41 ack anssik 01:41:42 anssik: Let me riff off of this 01:41:46 vq? 01:41:57 ... I'm in small group that participates together, and we become friends 01:42:02 ... But AC is a huge group of people 01:42:15 ... But if we find the interest groups within the AC, maybe we can create this type of personal connection 01:42:16 q+ to also +1 fantasai bias to action. do not want issue discussion, then task force to study and make a proposals etc. 01:42:18 vq? 01:42:57 ... Personally my leadership goal is to do this. I try to delegate to my WGs, trust my people, focus on high-level strategy 01:43:02 I think we need a single person to volunteer to take the lead on the polling thing, to make sure next steps are taken, but otherwise we should move on to other topics. 01:43:06 ... I set the charte,r direction, and things move on 01:43:17 q? 01:43:19 +1 anssik: let's empower the AC to self-drive. 01:43:22 q- 01:43:25 +1 brent 01:43:36 ack phila 01:43:36 phila, you wanted to talk about balance 01:43:57 phila: Around October I got automated emails from "Alex" reminding us aobut dues 01:44:07 ... I would like a phone call or discussion about why I should give to W3C 01:44:14 s/aobut dues/about paying W3C/ 01:44:23 ... That's where that engagement needs to happen 01:44:31 ... We ask 2 million ppl for money 01:44:48 ... It's the job of Team, maybe through regional offices, to engage with the Members 01:44:50 vq? 01:44:51