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Reorganize the Process document#529

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merged 3 commits into from May 26, 2021
Merged

Reorganize the Process document #529

merged 3 commits into from May 26, 2021

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frivoal
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@frivoal frivoal commented May 11, 2021

@dwsinger proposed reorganizing the structure of the Process Document in https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2021Apr/0001.html so opening this Pull Request to propose doing just that.

The easiest way to review this is to just look at the built result, but for those curious about how we got there, here are some explanations.

For reference, the top-level sections of the current process are:

  1. Introduction (see Rewrite the introduction #520 for a rewrite of this)
  2. Members, Advisory Committee, Team, Advisory Board, Technical Architecture Group (defines all of these groups and their participation)
  3. General Policies for W3C Groups (participation of individuals, meetings, decisions, resignation)
  4. Dissemination Policies (team publication responsibilities, confidentiality levels within W3C)
  5. Working Groups and Interest Groups (composition of such groups, charter development/approval)
  6. W3C Technical Report Development Process (REC track, etc.; we reorged this last year)
  7. Advisory Committee Reviews, Appeals, and Votes (defines these three things)
  8. Workshops and Symposia
  9. Liaisons
  10. Member Submission Process
  11. Process Evolution (how the Process is amended)

Combining proposals from @dwsinger, @frivoal, and @fantasai yields the following proposed high-level changes (pull up a copy of the Process and read through each item one by one as you look at the relevant section to get a sense of what's happening):

  • Rename Ch3 “General Policies for W3C Groups” to “Groups and Participation”
  • Split off the consensus/votes/appeals half into a new top-level Ch5 “Decisions” (discussed further down)
  • Shift the definitions of the AC, TAG, and AB to under “Groups and Participation”, with AB and TAG forming their own “Elected Groups” subsection.
  • Give the text directly under the AB and TAG definitions their own subsection headings, “Role of the XXX”
  • Pull out AB and TAG comm provisions into their own dedicated subsections, “Communications of XXX”.
  • Shift the first half of “Working Groups and Interest Groups” under “Groups and Participation” as “Chartered Groups”
  • Split off the second half of “Working Groups and Interest Groups” (all about charters) as Ch4 “Lifecycle of Chartered Groups”
  • Assemble Ch5 “Decisions” by collecting together Types of Decisions, Consensus, Managing Dissent, Votes, Formally Addressing an Issue, Reopening a Decision, AC Reviews, Formal Objections, Appeal by AC Reps
  • Shorten Ch6's title “W3C Technical Report Development Process” to “W3C Technical Reports”
  • Give 6.1 “W3C Technical Reports” its own subsection “Types of Technical Reports”
  • Raise “General Policies for Technical Reports” up one level to parent its siblings.
  • Give the current contents of “General Policies for Technical Reports” its own subsection “Publication of Technical Reports”
  • Pull “Dissemination” down to right after “W3C Publications”
  • Give the contents of “Dissemination” its own subsection title, “Public Communication”

At a high level, the ToC would look like:

  1. Introduction

  2. Members and the Team
    2.1 Members
    2.2 The W3C Team

  3. Groups and Participation
    3.1 Policies for Participation in W3C Groups
    3.2 The Advisory Committee (AC)
    3.3 Elected Groups: the AB and the TAG
    3.4 Chartered Groups: Working Groups and Interest Groups

  4. Lifecycle of Chartered Groups
    4.1 Initiating Charter Development
    4.2 Content of a Charter
    4.3 Advisory Committee Review of a Charter
    4.4 Call for Participation in a Chartered Group
    4.5 Charter Extension
    4.6 Chartered Group Closure

  5. Decisions
    ...

  6. W3C Technical Reports
    6.1 Types of Technical Reports
    6.2 General Requirements for Technical Reports
    6.3 The W3C Recommendation Track
    6.4 The Note Track (Notes and Statements)
    6.5 The Registry Track
    6.6 Switching Tracks
    6.7 Further reading

  7. Dissemination
    7.1 Public Communication
    7.2 Confidentiality Levels
    7.3 Changing Confidentiality Level

  8. Workshops and Symposia

  9. Liaisons

  10. Member Submission Process

  11. Process Evolution

The patchwork sections 3.3 and 5 would become:

3.3 Elected Groups
3.3.1 Advisory Board (AB) [was 2.3]
3.3.1.1 Role of the Advisory Board [new title for 2.3.0]
3.3.1.2 Composition of the Advisory Board [was 2.3.1]
3.3.2 Technical Architecture Group (TAG) [was 2.4]
3.3.2.1 Role of the Technical Architecture Group [new title for 2.4.0]
3.3.2.2 Composition of the Technical Architecture Group [was 2.4.1]
3.3.3 Participation in Elected Groups [was 2.5]
3.3.3.1 Expectations for Elected Group Participants [new title for 2.5.0]
3.3.3.2 Elected Groups Participation Constraints [was 2.5.1]
3.3.3.3 Advisory Board and Technical Architecture Group Elections [was 2.5.2]
3.3.3.4 Verifiable Random Selection Procedure [was 2.5.2.1]
3.3.3.5 Elected Groups Vacated Seats [was 2.5.3]

5 Decisions
5.1 Types of decisions [2nd paragraph of 3.5 + 2nd sentence of 7]
5.2 Consensus Building [new grouping, no need for intro text]
5.2.1 Consensus [old 3.3]
5.2.2 Managing Dissent [old 3.3.1]
5.2.3 Deciding by Vote [old 3.4]
5.3 Formally Addressing an Issue [old 3.3.3]
5.4 Reopening a Decision When Presented With New Information [old 3.3.4]
5.5 Chair Decision and Group Decision Appeals [the rest of old 3.5]
5.5 Recording and Reporting Formal Objections [old 3.3.2]
5.6 Advisory Committee Reviews [old 7.1]
5.6.1 Start of a Review Period [old 7.1.1]
5.6.2 After the Review Period [old 7.1.2]
5.7 Advisory Committee Votes [old 7.3]
5.8 Appeal by Advisory Committee Representatives [old 7.2]

The pull request also reassigns various misplaced paragraphs, merges a few of them with nearby text, and rewrites some introductory sentences.


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@frivoal frivoal added Type: Editorial improvements Agenda+ Marks issues that are ready for discussion on the call labels May 11, 2021
@dwsinger
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very nice. Not sure why "life-cycle of chartered groups" isn't a sub-section of chartered groups...

@frivoal frivoal force-pushed the reorg branch 2 times, most recently from fc8a707 to d5472ef Compare May 12, 2021 07:18
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frivoal commented May 12, 2021

Not sure why "life-cycle of chartered groups" isn't a sub-section of chartered groups...

It could be. I have a few reasons for the proposed approach:

Section 3, under which it would be nested, is already very large. Keeping sections at a reasonable size helps with keeping them approachable for those who need to read them.

The intended audiences are a little different: section 3 (Groups and Participation) in general, and 3.4 (Chartered Groups) in particular cover all aspects of participation in the various kinds of groups, which should be relevant to most people in w3c. Section 4 (Life-cycle of chartered groups) is only concerned with starting and stopping groups, which isn't something most people do most of the time. In effect, one is "how to be involved in existing work", and the other is "how to start new work". I thought keeping them separate help each stay focused on these different topics.

Also, I noticed that by coincidence, having it there meant the (largely) unchanged sections 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 would keep the same number after the reorg. This numbering stability, while fortuitous and comparatively unimportant, is kind of nice (especially for section 6 on technical reports, given how frequently is is being referred to).

No substantive change, and hardly any editorial ones, besides titles and
a few introductory sentences.
@frivoal frivoal merged commit 9331676 into w3c:main May 26, 2021
@frivoal frivoal deleted the reorg branch May 26, 2021 15:40
@frivoal frivoal added Closed: Accepted The issue has been addressed, though not necessarily based on the initial suggestion and removed Agenda+ Marks issues that are ready for discussion on the call labels May 26, 2021
@frivoal frivoal added this to the Process 2021 milestone May 26, 2021
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