Proc Doc: time to Slash and Burn, Divide and Conquer, or what?

[ Sorry for the cross-posting, especially to a Member confidential list. 
My hope/expectation is public-w3process will eventually replace 
w3c-ac-forum as a place to discuss W3C's Process Document. ]

Hi All,

I just scanned the Process Document's (PD) Table of Contents [ToC] and 
it seems like it could use some refactoring to enable more frequent 
updates and clarifications - you know, in case we want the Consortium to 
be more "agile", and in case we don't want to wait another 8 years for a 
PD update ;).

Here is my first off-the-top-of-my head pass at a refactoring ...

First, differentiate information that should be continuously updated 
versus information that needs to "stable" where a course "stability 
test" would be something like "gee, if I change X, it's really going to 
screw up what WG Y is doing so we need to be really careful about 
applying X without seeking broad consensus on the change".

Sections that should be moved to a collaborative editing environment to 
facilitate continuous updating:

* 2. Members, AB, AC, TAG - could move most if not all of the stuff 
about the AB to its home page and same with the TAG (and eliminate the 
TAG info when it is morphed into an IG)

* 3. General group policies. Since the last PD was published 2005, 
Incubator Groups have come and gone and now we have CGs and BizGs. 
Within the next 8 years there are likely to be more changes to group 
structures so we might as well just combine all of the group stuff into 
one "living document" that we continue to update.

* 4. Confidentiality - I'm sure I'm missing something because I don't 
understand why this information is included in the PD. Perhaps this info 
should be placed in a standalone doc and charters could refer to it, or 
the info put into the Member Agreement?

* 5. Activities - this can now be deleted, right?

* 8. AC - just move this info into a new doc in 
<http://www.w3.org/wiki/AdvisoryCommittee/>

* 9. Workshops - move this info to some other location like 
w3.org/Workshops

* 10. Liaisons - move this info to some other location like w3.org/Liaisons

* 11. Member Submission process - given this is rarely used, just move 
all of this into <http://www.w3.org/Submission/>

* 12. Process Evolution - this should become something like "goto the 
public-w3process CG"

Sections that should require consensus before updating:

* 7. Tech Reports process.

Wow. So based on this quick exercise, the only part of the current PD 
that requires consensus before updating is the Tech Report process.

Although I think the TR process desperately needs a graphic or two to 
help illustrate the document flow process and the loops in the process, 
I don't see a need for major modifications. Yeah, there are some pain 
points related to time/scheduling but I think they can mostly be handled 
by some good old-fashioned "elbow grease". That is, if people want 
things to progress more rapidly, they simply need to "put more skin in 
the game".

-Cheers, AB

[ToC] <http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/>

Received on Thursday, 23 May 2013 12:36:24 UTC