How to run a Community or Business Group

NOTE: This content now a CG page. Ian suggests not editing this page but updating that one.

Meetings

Community and Business Groups may (but are not required to) hold both face-to-face meetings and teleconferences. If a group holds meetings, the following are required per the Community and Business Group process:

the meeting is announced to the group in a timely fashion so that people can schedule attendance;
an agenda is posted;
meeting minutes are published, including topics discussions and decisions.

Teleconference services

For teleconferences, Business Groups have access to W3C teleconference services. Community Groups may use external teleconference services.

Business Group Chairs that do not have W3C Member access may request information on team-community-process@w3.org. Business Group Chairs with W3C Member access have information on setting up a teleconference.

Note: Incubator Groups that transition to Community Groups may also use W3C teleconference services. Contact team-community-process@w3.org for more information.

Tools to Facilitate meetings

W3C provides a set of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) tools to help manage meetings.

Quick start guide for setting up tools for managing an agenda, generating minutes, and updating issues lists
Scribe 101: Taking meeting minutes using W3C IRC tools

W3C makes it easy to manage the speaker queue, record actions, keep an agenda, etc. using IRC tools (called "bots"):

Zakim for management of agenda, queue and teleconference bridge (the latter for Business Groups only)
RRSAgent for minutes management

Issue tracking

Tracker issue tracking tool (which integrates with both IRC and email)
Trackbot for issue management (using Tracker) during an IRC-based meeting

Decisions

A Community Group may adopt operational agreements (recorded, for example, in the form of a charter) that establish the group’s scope of work, decision-making processes, communications preferences, and other operations.
Community and Business Groups are not obligated to achieve decisions by consensus, but it is strongly recommended.
You can use a WordPress poll to help in the decision-making process.

Publications

@@draft requirements for publication registration Team-only for now.@@

Community management

Managing disruptive participation

In general, W3C participants interact in a constructive fashion. In rare cases of disruptive participation, the Community and Business Group process includes some tools to help keep a group on track. While the Chair does not have the right to ban participants, the Community Development Lead is so empowered. Discussion among the parties involved should take place before any person is banned. For more information see general communications policies.

Communications and Branding

Refer to the Community and Business Group Process on: