On Jul 30, 2009, at 11:33 AM, Ben Adida wrote:
Sam Ruby wrote:
This is dangerous territory. I represent Creative Commons, which
pays
W3C dues. As of a few days ago, I'm a member of the HTML WG (after
having been encouraged to join by you). How does anyone get to say
that
my vote doesn't count? Who gets to decide who votes as a block?
Does the
WHATWG vote as a block? Probably, and probably with a lot more
sway than
any other group.
Ultimately, and in order: the chairs, the Interaction Domain Lead,
and
then the Director of the W3C.
Are you referring to my question "who gets to decide who votes as a
block?" I don't think *anyone* should get to decide. We have rules for
membership, and we should follow them. If the Director wants to
override
a working group's vote, well okay that may be his prerogative, but the
public record should show the invididual votes, and the process until
then should be the same for all.
I don't think Sam is talking about voting or polls here. I'm not sure
I am totally on board with his process for new Working Drafts, but
I'll try to explain my understanding. The idea is that any new Working
Draft should have at least 3 independent contributors - where
"contributor" can be interpreted quite loosely. Someone making a
concrete technical comment on the list that leads to a spec change
would be a contributor for example. I think the idea here is to ensure
that any Working Draft has the potential to be a genuine work product
of the Working Group as a whole, and not just a one-person exercise.
And blocs of single-issue voters might not provide the needed
confidence.
Let's use a hypothetical example. Suppose the MathML Working Group
felt really strongly that MathML in HTML5 should be strict XML, and
made a draft with that change which no one had contributed to but
MathML WG Members. In this hypothetical scenario, there is no evidence
of outside interest beyond the core group. Now, on the other hand,
let's say a MathML WG member produced a new draft with some changes
totally unrelated to MathML, all of which were suggested by people who
coincidentally happen to be members of the MathML WG. That, I imagine,
would be much less cause for concern, since it's not a single group
working to advance their own interests.
Now, I'm not really sure if this is a sane way to work, but I think
it's clear that what is being proposed is a viability test based on
having a sufficiently broad contributor base, not a vote as such. Sam,
as I understand it, proposes that a draft meeting such conditions
could advance to WD even without full consensus. I'd hope there would
be a vote, or at least a nonbinding poll, before FPWD, and that's the
domain where Process-defined Member-granularity voting would be the
relevant consideration.
Regards,
Maciej
