Proposal to revise TAG Charter

[stanblum]

The Technical Architecture Group (TAG) is proposing some changes to its charter. These changes emerged from discussion at its 23 March meeting. (See the meeting notes if you would like to review the discussion.)

To review the proposed changes directly, please see:

• the text of the recommended revisions and rationale for changes; and/or
• a "diff," which makes the changes visible either side-by-side or as in-line markup.

This proposal was submitted to the Executive Committee (2022-04-22). With the announcement of this proposal, TDWG has opened a four week period for public comment. Please add any comments below before 23 May. If you prefer to make a comment anonymously, please send it to secretary@tdwg.org, who will post it for you here while keeping your identity private.

Also, please note that some comments are being posted here.

[asimpson-usgs]

This comment was also left in the 'dif' section)

My interpretation of these proposed changes (correct me if I am wrong):

• it is proposed that there no longer be a minimum/maximum number of members to TAG nor a required quorum for voting (I don't think a quorum should be dropped).
• the private GitHub repository will be abandoned (I'm OK with this).
• the formal requirement that agendas be distributed 2 weeks prior will be dropped (too busy, are we? Then delay the meeting date).
• agendas will no longer be publicly posted (sounds like someone is 'agenda-averse').

[rondlg]

These all make a lot of sense.

[jar398]

Dropping the quorum requirement implies, to me, that the TAG can never make any decisions on its own at all, including its own operating procedures or the decision to publish any document or email in the name of the TAG, even if it is only advisory. This is because one or two people could get together and claim they've had a TAG meeting and decided something, without adequate representation, transparency, or process, and the group would have no identity or reputation. I'm not saying this is likely, but it would be possible and anyone reviewing the TAG's structure will see this.

Similarly I think agendas should be prepared ahead of time and archived after, and at least some advance notice of meetings would be in order, maybe probably 48 hours, so that members can prepare adequately. I know this is a burden on the convener, but it is important to the broader TDWG membership. If it's too hard just don't have a formal committee.

As in any organization the purpose of quorum, notice, and archiving rules is to establish the legitimacy of the entity. If other committees don't have these I think that is a problem too. I'm not saying procedure for procedure's sake, and I'm not proposing anything onerous, since the measures I'm suggesting (minimal quorum - 5 people??, basic notice, simple archiving even if just in an email list archive) are common sense measures that are probably going to respected anyhow. But in my opinion, without specific rules to create a bare minimum of identity and legitimacy for the group you might as well just disband the committee, retract the charter, and do everything informally in the names of the individuals involved.

If you want to have meetings without notice or quorum that's fine and perhaps even to be encouraged. Those meetings just shouldn't be done in the name of the TAG or make decisions or communications on its behalf.

Sorry I missed the 3/23 meeting.

[baskaufs]

This discussion has been taking place both here and on the diff page. I believe that for the purposes of maintaining a historical record of the conversation, it would be more easily found here, so I am going to attempt to move the comments here.

[baskaufs]

Comment by @hlapp

The rationale document says The minutes are the important thing to be archived and usually the minutes are a reflection of the agenda anyway. It is very common to post both agenda and minutes for public meetings of public organizations. The minutes may or may not be a reflection of the original agenda, but the actual effort is in the minutes, not the agenda, so I'm not sure on what effort or clutter not posting the agenda is supposed to reduce.

Having said that, I mean my comment to pertain only to public meetings. So I in fact agree that the wording merits changing, but the change I'd make is this:

Agenda and minutes for all public meetings and all requests, decisions and responses will be posted to the TAG repository.

[baskaufs]

Comment by @asimpson-usgs

My interpretation (correct me if I am wrong): 1) it is proposed that there no longer be a minimum/maximum number of members to TAG nor a required quorum for voting (I don't think a quorum should be dropped). 2) the private GitHub repository will be abandoned (I'm OK with this). 3) the formal requirement that agendas be distributed 2 weeks prior will be dropped (too busy, are we? Then delay the meeting date). 4) agendas will no longer be publicly posted (sounds like someone is 'agenda-averse').

[baskaufs]

Comment by @baskaufs

@asimpson-usgs Just for perspective, I've convened at least three TDWG task or interest groups and this is the first time the charter has micromanaged things like how many days ahead the agenda should be distributed. At the first meeting when we discussed these changes, there was general agreement that 14 days ahead of the meeting was an excessively long amount of time and that generally several days ahead was enough time.

As far as the quorum and number of members are concerned, please read the rationale document. As things currently stand, we have 13 members because there's a large backlog of business and many pending draft standards for which we need expert input. Do I boot 4 people out of the group because we are over 9?

As far as the agenda is concerned, the common practice in most TDWG groups in which I'm involved is to have a combined agenda/notes document that's distributed in advance to group members by email or link through other messaging systems. Notes are taken in that document and then the document is posted as a record in GitHub. See the notes for the first meeting as an example: https://github.com/tdwg/tag/blob/master/meetings/2022-03-23-tag-meeting-notes.pdf . I'm not "agenda-averse", I'm averse to specifying how present and future conveners have to manage the administrative aspects of running the group -- something that does not belong in a charter.

Keep in mind that the TAG is not a legislative body of some sort. It's primarily a body that offers advice on best practices based on the expertise of the group. Given that, I think it's going to be rare that anything gets "voted" on because the general mode of operation within TDWG has been consensus.

[baskaufs]

Comment by @gkampmeier

@asimpson-usgs (my perspective of your list)

1. Given that TDWG works by consensus and the TAG is there to recommend actions to the Exec, there is rarely the need for a formal vote, even at the Exec level. Requiring a quorum to attend any given meeting to make progress (rather than otherwise polling the entire membership if something is that important) could end up impeding progress. With time zone issues and busy schedules even virtual meetings may miss crucial constituencies, so while semi-annual meetings are still in their mandate, providing multiple avenues of discussion is probably more productive than requiring a quorum (plus this is not defined for the purposes of this group https://www.wikihow.com/Determine-a-Quorum
2. Note that specifying that the TAG has a public repository does not mean that it cannot have a private one if needed, it is just not requiring it.
3. 14 days ROTFL!
4. Publicly posting an agenda is useful when actively inviting outsiders to meetings. Requiring this in the charter when it is not a core principle (inviting outsiders), is additional work if the notes/minutes of the meeting are being posted publicly anyway--there you see what was actually done.

[baskaufs]

Comment by @gkampmeier

@baskaufs regarding the number of members, TDWG's constitution states "Each [functional sub]committee shall operate with more than three and fewer than 15 members." so there is already a proscribed upper limit on actual membership. Do you actually openly advertise TAG meetings? Is there any benefit to doing so?

[baskaufs]

Comment by @tasilee

It has been over 16 years since @stanblum, @tucotuco and I wrote the TDWG governance texts. I am happily surprised at the small changes. I still remember @tucotuco saying something like "If we don't need to say, don't say it".

Membership: @gkampmeier's point seems to cover it. Public only repository: OK. I'm unsure why we opted for a private as well, but suspect it was for reasons similar to the recent discussions on reviews. Agenda in advance: OK. Agenda public: I would urge the use of @hlapp's phrasing: "Agenda and minutes for all public meetings and all requests, decisions and responses will be posted to the TAG repository."

[baskaufs]

Comment by @asimpson-usgs

I now concur with @Tasilee and @gkampmeier. (I also confess to having written my comments after looking at the dif page without first reviewing the justifications for the proposed changes.) I'd also like to express my gratitude to @Tasilee @stanblum and @tucotuco for having written the governance texts so well in the first place.

[baskaufs]

Comment by @ghwhitbread

The charter intended to distinguish between formal meetings, as convened within the TDWG conference and open to the membership, and TAG business meetings. The 14-day notice was included to assist TDWG participants with planning attendance at the annual meeting.

The idea of a separate private repository was to respect the confidentiality of communication with the executive. But only this one was created and opened in response to calls from the membership. That does mean that where there is a need for privacy, communication happens out-of-band, and there is no archive available to an incoming TAG.

[baskaufs]

Comment by @gkampmeier

Thanks @ghwhitbread for the context clarification of the charter's original intent. I think the pandemic accelerated more on-line meetings, which also make them more accessible (aside from time zone issues and busy schedules that plague them). The revised language gives better flexibility in the charter and recommendations about timing, agendas, notice (aside that such will be given), could be part of a best practices or "accumulated lore" (h/t @baskaufs ) document.

[baskaufs]

Some responses to previous comments:

• @asimpson-usgs supposes that the revisions remove the limits on group size. @gkampmeier is correct that the TDWG constitution establishes an upper limit of 14 and a lower limit of 4. The group as currently constituted stands at 14.
• I strongly believe that the wording "Agenda for formal meetings will be prepared by the chair and distributed to members at least 14 days in advance" needs to be changed. The word "will" is used -- what happens if the agenda is not distributed 14 days in advance? Is the Executive willing to enforce that by banning the group from meeting or firing the convener (if that is even possible)? I think not. I agree that it is a best practice for a group convener to prepare an agenda or meeting notes and make them available to the members in advance of the meeting. That's why the proposed changes still say "in advance of the meeting". But if there is a best practice for this, why not put it in a "best-practices for conveners" document and suggest a more reasonable time like about a week. It does not make sense to write this in the group's charter. I can tell you right now that if the 14-day requirement remains in the charter, I plan to ignore it.
• With respect to the quorum issue, I would be fine with keeping that as long as it is clarified that a quorum is required to vote, but not to actually have meetings. If the quorum requirement remains, it should also be stated what constitutes a quorum. I think people assume "more than half of the members" but that isn't stated anywhere. My feelings on this were based on my experience with Audubon Core. There were cases where the group desperately needed to make progress on work and only three people showed up. Fortunately, it was the three people who needed to be there to get that particular work done. I certainly hope that more than half of the members will show up to every meeting, but if we had work that needed to be done and less than half of the membership showed up, I would not cancel the meeting. It's just too hard to organize meetings with that many people. But I also wouldn't make any important decisions without consulting the rest of the membership. That's why we have email and Slack. I've lost count of the number of TDWG task and interest groups I've been involved in and I can't remember a single instance where there has been a vote about anything. Given the advisory nature of the TAG, I can't imagine that we will be having a lot of votes. But I suppose voting is possible and the quorum requirement could make sense in that context.

With respect to the issues related to the posting of agendas and public meetings, I would say that it is not clear from either the charter or past precedent the extent to which TAG meetings should be public. That the charter mentions a private GitHub repository implies that it might sometimes be appropriate for the group to have meetings that aren't public. Prior to this year, it's been a moot point since there has never been any actual published list of who is a TAG member, so who would be excluded? My personal opinion is that the group should be as open as possible and I'm having trouble envisioning circumstances where we would or should exclude anyone who's interested enough to show up. The way I am planning to handle meetings is similar to what I've done in previous groups for which I've been convener: email reminders and agendas to an regular attenders and to post meeting announcements in the group's GitHub issues tracker (which I've already done here for the upcoming meeting) with an invitation for anyone to attend.

Given that outlook, removing the requirement to post the agenda in GitHub is not implying that there won't be an agenda (or a meeting notes document as I prefer to structure them) distributed to the members. My issue is the requirement to post the agenda in GitHub. In my experience, I usually have to waste about an hour for every meeting I organize, with setting up the Zoom link, checking out all of the time zones involved, making sure that I've included everyone in the reminder, writing the email, posting the notice to the Issue tracker, etc. So to add on the extra requirement that I have to export a PDF from the Google doc and push it to GitHub is just a stupid extra irritation that is unnecessary administrative overhead given that anyone who's indicated an interest in attending the meeting can be included in the distribution list for reminder/agenda/zoom link. It's a stupid degree of micromanagement that doesn't belong in a group charter. The agenda/notes document will be posted after the meeting for anyone to see who want's to know what happened at the meeting.

[baskaufs]

In order to address concerns raised in the comments above about a small subset of the TAG forcing through decisions without larger input, a revision was made to the proposal requiring a majority of members to participate in any official votes. See this diff for the recommended change and the revised proposal for the rationale. This change was supported by TAG members present at the 2022-05-09 Zoom meeting.

[baskaufs]

The revisions described here were approved by a vote of the Executive Committee on 2022-06-24 and will be made to the charter listed at https://www.tdwg.org/about/committees/tag/