Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

[template] Make Invited Expert status more inviting. #598

Open
wants to merge 1 commit into
base: gh-pages
Choose a base branch
from

Conversation

jyasskin
Copy link
Member

Say that Chairs should look out for potential Invited Experts, and point to how aspiring Invited Experts can apply.

This is in response to https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem/113158694744132049 worrying that relying on the Invited Expert program will disenfranchise useful contributors and is meant as input to w3c/cg-council#18. It's possible that this paragraph should also encourage non-Members to join as Members, but I want to make sure that's worded in a way that it doesn't discourage any self-employed people from asking to be IEs.

Say that Chairs should look out for potential Invited Experts, and
point to how aspiring Invited Experts can apply.
@@ -334,10 +334,10 @@ <h2 id="participation">
To be successful, this <i class="todo">(Working|Interest)</i> Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the <i class="todo">(Working|Interest)</i> Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.
</p>
<p>
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.
Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

It may be appropriate here to briefly suggest that submissions for consideration should follow the same guidelines for "incubated to reasonable maturity" as outlined in https://www.w3.org/Guide/standards-track/#criteria ? Along the lines of:

Suggested change
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration (provided they are <a href="https://www.w3.org/Guide/standards-track/#criteria">incubated to reasonable maturity</a>) upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.

Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I would prefer to stay with @jyasskin wording but change s/submissions/contributions/. I believe we should encourage contributions to the ongoing technical specifications and not encourage submissions outside of those (those should go to incubation instead).

Copy link
Member Author

@jyasskin jyasskin Nov 5, 2024

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

"contribute technical contributions" is a little repetitive...

Suggested change
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to make technical contributions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.

or

Suggested change
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to offer technical contributions upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.

? (This was pre-existing wording, but the idea that a "submission" is a larger piece of work that ought to be incubated makes sense to me.)

Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

If the intention of "non-Members to make technical contributions" is limited to existing or ongoing work, as opposed to new input documents (still within scope of the charter), then that works. But I'm not sure if that actually jumps out from the text (which is why I've attempted to distinguish between ongoing work and the incubation path).

Is this closer to what's intended:

Suggested change
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in <a href='#communication'>Communication</a>. The group also welcomes non-Members to make technical contributions for ongoing work, provided they agree to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.

</p>
<p>
The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/">W3C Patent Policy</a>.
The Chairs should periodically look through the non-Members who have contributed to the Working Group <i class="todo">or the [name of an associated Community Group, if any]</i> and consider whether each one should be invited to participate as an <a href="https://www.w3.org/invited-experts/">Invited Expert</a>. If a non-Member contributor would like to participate in meetings, they are encouraged to <i class="todo">[update this link] <a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/TODO/instructions/">apply to be an Invited Expert</a></i>.
Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

This takes "assurances in place" into account as mentioned in w3c/cg-council#18 (comment) but a stronger language may be necessary. It also acknowledges that the charter relies heavily on significant contributions from those original contributors.

Suggested change
The Chairs should periodically look through the non-Members who have contributed to the Working Group <i class="todo">or the [name of an associated Community Group, if any]</i> and consider whether each one should be invited to participate as an <a href="https://www.w3.org/invited-experts/">Invited Expert</a>. If a non-Member contributor would like to participate in meetings, they are encouraged to <i class="todo">[update this link] <a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/TODO/instructions/">apply to be an Invited Expert</a></i>.
The Chairs and the W3C Team contact are expected to invite non-Members who have contributed to the input documents under <a href="#deliverables">deliverables</a> to participate as an <a href="https://www.w3.org/invited-experts/">Invited Expert</a>. The Chairs should periodically look through the non-Members who have contributed to the Working Group <i class="todo">or the [name of an associated Community Group, if any]</i> and consider whether each one should be invited to participate as an <a href="https://www.w3.org/invited-experts/">Invited Expert</a>. If a non-Member contributor would like to participate in meetings, they are encouraged to <i class="todo">[update this link] <a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/TODO/instructions/">apply to be an Invited Expert</a></i>.

Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I don't think we can set an invitation expectation on Chairs and Team Contacts. There are other factors to take into consideration, such as the contributor affiliation.

Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Fair enough but then how can one set / expect / suggest any level of assurance or be more inviting?

Wouldn't any factors that should be taken into account already be part of the invitation process or criteria?

Copy link
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

To clarify, the main point of my suggestion is to better acknowledge and elevate significant contributors of original work. After all, without these contributors incubating the work, neither the charter nor the Group would exist in the first place. Would it?

I'm not fixed on the word "expectation". If another word or phrasing better captures the essence, that would be fine.

I'd like to comment on the following sentence regarding contributions to ongoing work:

The Chairs should periodically look through the non-Members [...] and consider whether each one should be invited.

This statement also sets an expectation. If the distinction between the first and second statement is about ensuring they are invited vs. considering inviting them, then the first sentence could at least use "consider" as well. However, I find that a bit awkward. Why would the Chairs or Team Contacts consider (rather than directly invite) those who have been significant contributors to the foundational documents?

@ThisIsMissEm
Copy link

I wouldn't necessarily have something against becoming a W3C member, however, the current fee structure does not make this possible as a self-employed software engineer, where it is currently geared towards only allowing corporate participation, when so much of the Fediverse is built by self-employed people or small startups working towards a better web.

@simoneonofri simoneonofri changed the title Make Invited Expert status more inviting. [template] Make Invited Expert status more inviting. Oct 3, 2024
Copy link
Member

@tantek tantek left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

These are good improvements, and I also welcome and support the improvements suggested by @csarven. Thanks for your attention to these concerns, appreciated.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment
Labels
Projects
None yet
Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

6 participants