Comments on: W3C Change: Working Groups

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:46:53 +0000

Parenthetically:

"Whenever a major organization develops a new system as an official standard for X, the primary result is the widespread adoption of some simpler system as a de facto standard for X. In the original statement, which is reprinted below, I illustrated the hypothesis with four failed attempts to develop widely accepted standards" "The Law of Standards" by John F. Sowa

By: bza

bza — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:54:14 +0000

The problem with a membership with required productivity is the risk of loosing continuousity in the work. A system like that would have resulted in a lot of substitutions, with no string attaching the previous members work to the new member. In the long run you could end up with a brand new WG with a completely different direction than the original group. This again would result in a slower and more uncontrolled process. Allthough a lot of WG-members are inproductive and silent, they might be the string that ensures that the group does not wander off into unrealistic terrain.

By: Asbjørn Ulsberg

Asbjørn Ulsberg — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:00:23 +0000

I think the scheduled voting process sounds like a good idea. It could be more like a survey that asked several questions to all of the WG’s members, including what they thought of the WG chair. Having that question as one of many would not only give the W3C more input on how the WG works, but it would also in an anonymous and “safe” way allow members to vote no confidence in the WG chair.

Having it as a standard procedure repeated every 6 or 12 months would de-mystify it and it would be something ever WG had to do, no matter if the WG chair was celebrated as a genious among the WG members or not.

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:26:24 +0000

Reading “participants in a Working Group should be productive, or else leave the group” this came to mind (Perhaps too lateral … sorry.) One NGO I worked with in the 70s used a successful concensus-based process. Part of it’s principles was that all action items (including spending) had to have a quorum not only present but actively participating in the decision, i.e. if less than, say, an absolute majority took part then the decision was not operative. This could, of course, be easily applied in a setting that used votes. Just a thought.

By: James Asher

James Asher — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:19:51 +0000

I guess the thing I don’t get is why your suggestions have to be made in the first place. These seem like common sense things. As you state, this isn’t a radical idea or anything like that.