Meeting minutes
<plh> https://
Slideset: https://
plh: Am responsible for technology strategy at the consortium
… What we are experiencing right now with AI and Digital Wallets for example is that they are happening really fast
… by best advice is not to panic
… W3C needs to navigate that in a strategic manner
… The Task Force (TF) initiative is really about *how* do we decide and not *what* we decide.
… Our mission is to provide guidelines on when to address the changes and when to ignore changes
… and also to figure out opportunities to investigate
… A number of the TAG are part of that TF. Some are here. Sarven, Jeffrey. And welcome to talk to any of them.
… What are our criteria. "I have an idea". Is it within scope? Our scope is web. If you ask me to give a definition, it is hard.. but at least there is a URL to that.
… The other is about global impact of the technologies. If you come with an idea and whether everyone would be interested.
… Community involvement is important. Only you interested or how others interest do we need before we even start doing that.
… If not implemented, it may be useless. And we have some history there too.
… Aligned with our vision and principles as well. Assuming not doing evil.
… Ability to make changes. Not doing changes or the risks involved in making changes.
… In TAG, there is a societal impact as a principle. Another risk is that we last year we created Digital Credentials API...
… So how do we actually gather the ideas?
… We created Community Groups (CG) to allow people from this planet... and others to create a group for your idea.
… The biggest CG we have is Credentials?
… It has been very successful to have an open conversation there.
… We knew of some issues but it has been extremely successful to gather ideas. Most of the work happening at W3C is in CGs.
… Workshops are also happening, like Authentic Web, Smart Voices Agents.
… Also Age-Based Restrictions on Content Access. What's interesting about the workshops is did we do it too late? To that I answer, 2-3 years ago or before, a lot of people were complaining baout privacy, and so we haven't done that before.. and others did and we now have to deal with the consequences of that and it is a mess.
… With Interests Groups, we focus on use cases.
… WinterCG for example led to the creation of ECMA International's TC55
… Web Payment Security for example is with ??? and Fido, so not just one group that's interested.
We also use the W3C Team strategy pipeline. When someone is interested in a charter, we ask them to share it in the strategy repo, and work it through there.
… ??? my answer was that TAG needs to work on the principles to help us make decisions
… So for once they listened, they published two: Ethical Web and Privacy Principles.
… W3C places the user first. Now we point to the Ethical Web Principles (EWP)
… We need your input.
… So what new tech are we missing and more importantly why are we missing it.
… Is it b/c we don't have the vehicle to discuss those ideas? Supposedly we need to know everyhting happening on the we =)
… I mentioned Societal Impact before.. perhaps pushed to a Statement one day.
… How do we prioritise?
… How do we measure success? WG have charter of 2 years usually and reviewed by AC. Is there a way to measuring their success properly?
… You're welcome to raise issues at https://
… I think that's it, I should stop here. I talk too much =)
… If I was to tell you that I wrote a draft and to show you, what would be your expectation.
… As you were talking about the criteria, I think you really well captured the ethical and moral and stategic side of things but I think we are missing the technical.
… Not something we should think in isolation, but that people are doing things and maybe identify what doesn't belong here. And we don't want to rubber stamp either. It would help to have a criteria how does this build on the existing web, it might not be a deal breaker but at least to talk about it to include that information.
Dom: To navigate the future when/where you want to go and to steer away from the obstacles. Sometimes we are too late or early, but it feels like it is an important consideration.
… In the mechanisms you described both of them. A bit more top-down not an idea of things but gaps we have on the platform so it can be more of ??? for use cases, and for the solution space.
… In hopes of what I would hope to see from the TF and how to make technical decisions. Something like a manual on given what we know about W3C putting resources and maybe won't be dramatically different between years.
… Beyond that prioritisation and success, I hope we'll be providing input, measuring success, part of the impact format, matrix, and having impact with it.
… In terms of, we say the web needs to change this way or that way, but also to get the work actually deployed. That'd be another area where I think that'd be good part of strategy.
PLH: Igarashi came to me and said we need to work on robots.txt and AI
… so that wasn't a nice gift to give to IETF =)
… We tried to put protocol as much as possible to IETF
… JavaScript API is at the language level so we hand over to ECMA
… The team has been trying to navigate that. We don't always do a good job but that's one of the things
hadley: You talked about very good faith and somewhat ambiguous examples. I'm saying perhaps less faith is okay.
… Sometimes people come to us and want to work on things that's not part of the web. Sometimes there is fuzziness in the middle we agree and sometimes accommodate
… Completely unrelated: how this is used and the process to use - small 'p' process. Steps to put things into action.
… The TAG comes across a situation where it notices a hole and need to figure out where to make the decision
<Zakim> igarashi, you wanted to robot.txt
<dom> plh: the TAG can make use of the strategy repo or the exploration IG as anyone else
igarashi: W3C should work on not just strict boundaries but re robots+AI I thought W3C might be good because they have things to do with what's related or impact.
… The definition there might also have an impact on the web. My criteria would be how impact would be on W3C. Do we have good participation and that would also be a criteria on the target.
plh: Impact on W3C is also an impact web
… Every time there is a problem with the web it doesn't mean we are responsible either.
… Every 3 months we sit down with IETF to exchange where we can draft an agenda for liaison
… In Montreal I mentioned that TAG is working on Web User Agents https://
<Zakim> jyasskin, you wanted to look for minions
jyasskin: So we talked about top/down strategy, and Hadley mentioned to identify a gap and put it out there and find people to work on it. So I guess limiting the work that someone is willing to do is perhaps more practical option
plh: The best example I have is browsers extensions, and some time ago we had a discussion. We still don't have a WG for that yet but about to create it.
… So they have implementations and going to work on the specs in the WG
… Web Speech is another one. CG for many years and should move to WG
dom: I agree we shouldn't work on too many things but ??? might inspire people to work on it. So should be managed carefully. There may be missed opportunities that people have thought for years. If the TF can give more support that'd be useful. ??? having a repo for use cases to mark gap in existing work.
… We have lots of mechanisms for a bit more structure on the top-down hopefully it'll be good outcomes.
tidoust: perhaps old fashion but middle ground is for top/down is the workshop mechanism.
… The initially the team and someone else willing to push that usually is top-down, and then you go and reach out and they have solutions which is bottom-up you mentioned. Then put people in the room to align things and this has proved usefully for a number of years to build a community. It remains a good mechanism.
<dom> [+1 on workshop being a good mechanism for more of a top-down approach]
mvsamuel: Does audience fit into our target audiences?
… SO whether something is in scope and does the audience see it as X related or browser related, but also web developers are kind of are in scope, and graphic designer tool people are related, then you could say it is in scope but you're just trying to do something that you're going to use, that's cool but without somebody else that wants to build on is not something we do.
plh: Is that related to global impact?
mvsamuel: yea, that'd be
tess: My impression of the slide for 'we need your input': I started to think about what do we mean by 'we'
… 'we' as in the people doing the presentation
plh: W3C
tess: I imagine you have a way of prioritising. If we is W3C and that's all of us then how do we prioritise
… members have different things they're doing. things we keep wanting to get back to. but maybe someone else can take it.
… I got hyper-fixated on the pronouns and what they refer to
… most of the things we measure are ??? for success. Measuring X is better than nothing. A lot of things that got adopted may be awful. Adoption doesn't tell you that something is a good thing.
<hadleybeeman> Third party cookies
hadleybeeman: Like third party cookies
tess: I hope we end up with a diverse set of answers and we try them.
plh: We send proposals to the AC as a piecemeal.
tess: W3C is primarily funded by members, so you can say it'd be nice to get more members to do the work.
lola: We are focusing primarily on new technology, and I think there is benefit in identify areas that are in risk of being abandoned and find ways to work on them. I don't know if this is for us or TAG but... not being able to forecast but see the patterns that emerge.
plh: I can think of something like getting back to SVG
dom: Thanks for mentioning maintenance and also has to be prioritised. As a community we need to also make sure the platform is still working
… I also like about digging into the questions in 'We need your input'
… What is it that W3C wants to put its name on.
tess: We can learn from sister orgs
tess: Apple prioritises in whatever it needs to.
jugglinmike: #tf-technology-strategy ?
<Zakim> jugglinmike, you wanted to ask for the name of the IRC room
<jyasskin> w3ctag/
tess: maybe spend time on editing things that don't exist but everyone wants them
… time going into infra that we all need
<dom> jyasskin, https://
hadleybeeman: we may agree on but haven't heard it yet, the criteria you have may not be ranked but considered. we did this in EWP very deliberately. we wanted to pull up lessons from various lessons, and sometimes the principles conflict. and people opening issues about that. that' why we are not using them as a step by step criteria but in context of the advice we are giving.
… in some situations you want to prioritise but sometimes not.
<Zakim> jyasskin, you wanted to talk about coordinating spending
jyasskin: We have a gaps issue actually on hit testing.
… The commons and investment thing, we need an org to coordinate to pay for people to work. No one can sponsor one person to work but they can chip in. I'd like W3C to focus on that as well. Maybe the tech strategy is a way to figure that out
plh: We put a project in front and if someone wants to put money in there, the project can start if there is enough. That could be a solution to do that.