As a user of many web standards, and a reader of this list, the deeper question is why the election of members isn't open to all members of the web development community. It feels a little _old school_ to have members elected by anyone other than the people who do the actual work of building the web.
I don't doubt that it's very naive, but it's a question that might as well be asked... since "voting" and membership has been brought up. Bad? On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 7:50 AM, Arthur Barstow <[email protected]> wrote: > [ Bcc public-w3process ] > > On the one hand, as long as some set of TAG participants are elected by > Members, I suspect some see (marginal?) value in limiting the number of > participants from an organization. OTOH, I think Consortium processes > actually retard the growth of the Web when those processes prohibit or > limit willing and capable people from directly contributing to Web > standards. > > I realize at least some (small?) set of TAG members have a personal > preference to work in a small group (and of course there are some > advantages to doing so), but besides the issue with the current structure > restricting the set of qualified participants, I think the TAG's current > structure is suboptimal for a number of other reasons. Here are some of > them, and I believe all of them could be addressed by the group being a > `real` Working Group. > > * Publication hacks - since the TAG apparently can't publish `real` > Recommendations, they get WGs to publish their specs (NB: WebApps' draft > charter includes two specs that are being led by TAG participants and > proposed to be jointly published <http://www.w3.org/2014/06/ > webapps-charter.html#coordination>). > > * Term limits - as the group does more and more spec work, having a 2-year > limit can be disruptive to the completion of a document. > > * Voting - instead of spending time and energy on voting, we could divert > that energy to getting the `best` people involved and actually doing work. > > * Charter with clear scope and deliverables. > > * IP clarity - extending IP commitments to the participants' organization > (rather than the individuals) would be clearer and broader and this is > especially important as the group produces `real` Recommendations. > > * Eliminate a 1-off group - using a WG structure would simplify the > Process Document (i.e. eliminate all text related to the TAG). > > TAG members - would any of you stop participating in your areas of > interest of this group was a Working Group? > > -AB > > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: Forced Resignation > Resent-Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:51:15 +0000 > Resent-From: [email protected] > Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 05:50:17 -0700 > From: Alex Russell <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] List <[email protected]> > CC: www-archive <[email protected]>, Tim Berners-Lee <[email protected]>, > Chris Wilson <[email protected]>, Ian Jacobs <[email protected]>, Jeff Jaffe < > [email protected]> > > > > Hi all, > > As you may know, Google recently had the good sense and taste to hire > fellow TAG member Dominic Denicola. W3C rules insist that, despite being > /individually elected/ as representatives of the membership, our employment > situation is more important to the membership than our capacity to make > meaningful contributions at the TAG. Therefore one of us must resign. > > As my term ends soonest, I will be stepping down from my position so that > Dominic can continue the good work of helping to encourage extensibility in > the web platform. I will, however, continue to attend meetings through the > end of my elected term (Jan '15) in protest of what, frankly, is > appallingly poor organizational design. Evidence of this piles up: last > year we also lost productive TAG members to vagaries of employment > interaction with W3C policy. > > If the AB's goal with this misbegotten policy were to prevent multiple > individuals from a firm from influencing the TAG's decisions, I invite them > to bar me from meetings post my removal. Were it not so, I invite them to > change the policy. > > Regards > > > >
