PWE/201603 AC

AC meeting, MIT, March 2016

Ideas collected at Birds of Feather (BOF) discussion over lunch and hallway discussions:

We asked: a) what could we do better? b) what improvements could we make that would make working at W3C *awesome*?

Would it be helpful to be able to vote comments up / down? In other venues, that technique helps surface ideas / comments that most like or agree with. (Gerald Oskoboiny / W3C Team)

It's hard to keep Spanish members engaged and participating. Many still don't really understand how the W3C functions, which then inhibits them from participating. Suggest the Offices each offer monthly meetings with their country's members to review and explain W3C groups / documents / processes / etc. (Martín Álvarez / Spanish Office)

It'd be helpful to have a "technology" buddy if you're new in a WG ... Someone to whom you could ask questions, without feeling shy in front of whole group. (Caroline Burle / Brazil Office)

Multiple people have mentioned problems of new participants, and those who are not native English speakers:
- Some are nervous about working in English ... Even if they are good English speakers, they might hesitate to ask a question or speak at the microphone
- Some are nervous to speak up in front of others who are "experts", for fear of looking dumb
- How can we balance the people with loud, insistent voices with quiet people and those whose culture is more reserved; etc.

I don't like having to use basic authentication to log in on W3C site; it doesn't work with my password-saver tool. (Kris Borchers / JQuery Foundation) (Note: Gerald Oskoboiny discussed this issue with Kris.)

It would be helpful to have translations of W3C marketing materials. (Jacques Durand / Fujitsu)

Note: in response to Jacques' comment, some others thought it would be also useful to have translations of Recommendations. This varied by country. Judy Brewer said it would be really valuable to have an authorized Chinese translation of the WAI recommendations, because there had been some confusion over unauthorized translations.