Largely Editorial Comments from Ian Jacobs
Comments, by section
1 Introduction
-------- "the W3C equivalent of a Web standard." This struck me as odd on this read; equivalent to what? Proposed: "the W3C expression of a Web standard." CMN: That seems equally awkward. I don't think this is a critical sentence, so I'll wait to see what happens in the general review before I think about this change. I'm tempted by "… W3C Recommendation</a> - a Web Standard". Accepted?
-------- "(e.g., Web services)". This feels like a dated example. Proposed: delete the parenthetical. Accepted
"who have individual persons" and "who have organizations as Members" Proposed: s/who/that Accepted
2.1.3.2 Advisory Committee Meetings
"The number of Full and Affiliate W3C Members." There are new Membership levels, so this feels a bit off. Proposed: "Number and profile of W3C Members" CMN: I think there should be some clearer wording, but in principle I agree that this should change to reflect reality. For next draft I currently have "The number of W3C Members at each level. Accepted
4 Dissemination Policies
"maintains a calendar [MEM3]"
That calendar is deprecated in favor of a public calendar. That is: the
W3C staff no longer maintains a "member only" calendar.
Proposal:
- Delete MEM3 in 12.2
- Add a new reference to the public calendar in the public
resources and update all references from MEM3 to the new one.
Public calendar: http://www.w3.org/participate/eventscal
Accepted
6.1.2 Maturity Levels
"Rescinded Recommendation" is defined but "Obsoleted Recommendation" is not. Meanwhile, 6.9 includes a definition of Rescinded Recommendation that may not align exactly with what is written here. Proposed: 6.1.2 include definitions for both terms, with enough explanation so one can see here how they differ. That may reduce what needs to be said in 6.9. I'm happy to provide a suggestion if you'd like.
Discussion
CMN: Makes sense. I'm happy to propose a definition.
Current proposal:
An Obsolete Recommendation is a specification that W3C does
not believe has sufficient market relevance to continue
recommending that the community implement it, but does not
consider that there are fundamental problems that require
the Recommendation be Rescinded. It is possible for an Obsolete
Recommendation to receive sufficient market uptake that W3C
decides to restore it to Recommendation status. An Obsolete
Recommendation has the same status as a W3C Recommendation
with regards to W3C Royalty-Free IPR licenses granted under
the Patent Policy.
I've raised an issue on this:
https://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/171
Accepted
6.2.1 General requirements for Technical Reports
"An editor must be a participant, as a Member representative, Team representative, or Invited Expert". I'm not sure of the value of spelling out the types of participant. Proposed: "An editor must be a participant (see section 5.2.1) in the Group responsible for the document(s) being edited." Accepted
6.2.5 Classes of Changes
s/Examples of changes in this class are/Examples of changes in this class include:/
s/such changes do not belong to this class../such changes do not fall into this class./
For the second edit note that:
- the first sentence of bullet 2 uses the phrase "fall into this class"
which I suggest repeating here.
- double period => single period
Accepted
6.7.2 Revising a Recommendation
"Such publications may be called a Proposed Edited Recommendation."
I am not aware that we call them anything else. Furthermore, I think
it would create confusion if we called the same thing by different
names, especially after a tradition of calling them PERs.
Proposed: Change to:
"Such publications are called Proposed Edited Recommendations."
Discussion CMN: In some cases I believe they are called Proposed Recommendations. I'm not terribly concerned about this, but I will seek the advice of the Comms team - if they are or promise to become consistent, your proposal seems OK. I'm waiting, but expect to make this change if nobody screams. SZ Assessment: the above use of "may" is not an RFC 2119 usage and needs to be fixed anyway. Being specific seems not to be harmful here. Accepted
6.8 Publishing a Working Group or Interest Group Note
"Working Groups and Interest Groups publish material that is not a
formal specification as Notes. ... as well as specifications ..."
This paragraph includes mildly self-contradictory statements.
Proposed: Change the paragraph (with new bulleted list) to:
"Working Groups and Interest Groups MAY publish Notes for a
variety of reasons, including:
* supporting documentation for a specification such as
explanations of design principles or use cases and requirements,
* non-normative guides to good practices, and
* specifications where work has been stopped and there is no
longer consensus for publishing them as Recommendations."
Discussion CMN: Something very close - "…publish work as Notes. Examples include:" is in changes for the next draft. Accepted, in principle
"may remain a Working Group Note indefinitely" This section is about both WG and IG Notes. Proposed: Delete "Working Group"
Discussion CMN: I actually added "or Interest", which I believe has the same effect. Accepted, in principle
6.9 Obsoleting or Rescinding a W3C Recommendation
Proposed: Change
"Note: the original Recommendation document will continue to
be available at its version-specific URL."
to:
"Note: W3C strives to ensure that any
Recommendation -- even obsoleted or rescinded --
remains available at its original address with
a status update."
(Notes: I've modified the text for consistency with similar text
in 6.2.1. The concept of "version-specific URL" is not defined
in the Process Document. Also, I think we should make
clear that we do intend to provide a status update.)
Discussion CMN: I suggest that it should be "Technical Report" not "Recommendation" - since as far as I know that is one of the core points of the persistence policy. What do you (the world) think? Accepted, with "Technical Report"
7.1.1 Start of a Review Period
"review form" This feels like an implementation detail to me. Proposed: s/The review form/The Call for Review/ Accepted
12.1 Public Resources
* PUB25: The link is 404. Should be:
https://www.w3.org/2004/10/27-tag-charter.html
Accepted
12.2 Member-only Resources
* MEM3: See earlier comment; this has been deprecated
* MEM4: Now called "Process, Patent Policy, Finances Guide"
Meanwhile, there is a different resource called
"Member Intro and FAQ" https://www.w3.org/Member/faq.html
Perhaps MEM4 should be updated to point there (with the current title)
* MEM9: This resource is now public and should be moved up to 12.1 Accepted