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w3c / AB-public

Advisory Board repository for materials not meant to be restricted to W3C Members
https://w3c.github.io/AB-public/
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emphasis on industry #75

Closed FabienGandon closed 10 months ago

FabienGandon commented 1 year ago

In the Vision for the W3C there is this sentence

The W3C is an association where diverse voices from around the world and industries come together

While I agree with this emphasis on diversity I wonder about the emphasis on industry as opposed, for instance, to public sector actors.

frivoal commented 1 year ago

Would rephrasing this as "verticals" help?

michaelchampion commented 1 year ago

"Verticals" is a bit jargon-y for my taste. "Areas of expertise"? Maybe enumerate "diverse voices from industries, academia, interest groups, and governments around the world?" Or just say "diverse voices" without mentioning any specific axes of diversity?

FabienGandon commented 1 year ago

IMHO, the enumeration emphasises the idea of diversity so that would be my preference.

fantasai commented 1 year ago

@michaelchampion I think we do need to enumerate axes, because otherwise “diversity” will be interpreted by many as meaning “from different demographic categories” only.

michaelchampion commented 1 year ago

So what are the axes of diversity to enumerate? Not sure if all these are worth mentioning, but they all come up in W3C context:

frivoal commented 1 year ago

Industry , Academia, Government, Interest/Advocacy groups

Having people from each of those is a form of diversity, but "industries" or "verticals", as a plural, was trying to hint at something else. Car manufacturers, and payment providers, and browser vendors, and book publishers, and media distribution…

"fields of activity"?

... ?

Also: entity size: from governments and multi nationals to SMEs or individuals.

TzviyaSiegman commented 1 year ago

@michaelchampion and @fantasai we have attempted to enumerate axes of diversity in the past, but it is not necessarily a productive task, Many people "check off" multiple boxes, and this can lead to a tokenist approach. Not all items are visible.

CEPC lists the following as areas not to discriminate "socio-economic status, sexual orientation, religion, race, physical appearance, neurotype, nationality, mental health, language, indigeneity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, and gender expression, ethnicity, disability (both visible and invisible), caste, body, or age", but this does not include issues like company size or skillset.

michaelchampion commented 1 year ago

I guess we should step back and ask "what are we trying to accomplish with this sentence?" Clearly affirming that we want to hear from "different voices" is critical, and the very notion of a "World Wide Web" implies we want to hear from people across geographical/linguistic/cultural boundaries. Beyond that maybe just reference the CEPC list?

cwilso commented 1 year ago

The purpose of this sentence was specifically calling out two critical axes of diverse voices:

cwilso commented 1 year ago

For more detail: I could see expanding this to something like "...diverse voices from around the world and across a broad array of industries come together" - but I would not like to remove industries, would CERTAINLY not change this term to "verticals", which I don't think is accessible jargon, and would not be particularly excited to add academia, interest groups, governments et al here. But perhaps we should discuss.

chaals commented 1 year ago

I think it is crucial that W3C has participation from the industries that "produce" the Web - software developers. I don't think that's controversial.

I also think it is important that W3C has participation from governments, content producers who are consumers of the software used to create and manage the Web as well as "User Agent" users (and non-user agents such as crawlers, indexers, and learning models), and academia - but particularly those who study the effects of the web, and can provide perspective to discussions on issues such as privacy and governance.

Framing this somehow as bringing a range of voices together with industry from around the world seems reasonable for brevity. The core vision should be short enough to read and remember - although it might be worth having an expanded version that explains what we really mean.

jwrosewell commented 1 year ago

Following the conversation during the 25th May meeting I offer the following amendment.

"The W3C is an association where diverse stakeholders from academia, government, industry, and society come together to create global standards for web technologies which succeed or fail based only on their merits"

This not only addresses the original issue but also addressed another related to use of the word "voluntary". The reason for changing this is that very few "User Agent" vendors implement changes which are voluntary for other stakeholders even when they could be considered standards. However if that is a separate issue I can raise it.

frivoal commented 1 year ago

I think keeping the word "industries" plural is key to what this is trying to say.

agreiner commented 1 year ago

I think the word "industry" is essentially plural, as it applies to all industry rather than just a specific one. See definition 1a, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/industry

dwsinger commented 1 year ago

I agree that we're trying to document diversity of reason-for-engagement, and I would agree with James' list but add something like "including" so that if we leave someone out, they don't feel excluded.

diverse stakeholders such as those from academia, government, industry, and civil society…

mnot commented 1 year ago

Saying "industry" or "industries" sends a strong message that the Web is primarily commercial.

Noting that there's a bullet point immediately following that explores diversity in more detail, removing "and industries" is appropriate -- leaving it in priviledges commercial interests and sends the wrong message. If we need to expand upon diversity more, the bullet point is the right place to do it.

agreiner commented 1 year ago

Yes, I am very much in agreement that we shouldn't say "industry" without mentioning other types of stakeholders in a way that gives them equal weight.

frivoal commented 1 year ago

we shouldn't say "industry" without mentioning […]

I think we could do better than the current phrasing, but some of the proposals here seem to miss or dismiss what the current phrasing is trying to achieve.

Industry, in the singular, seems unhelpful to me. Yes, it encompasses all of industry, and so it is not exclusionary, but all it does is insist on the commercial nature. And indeed, as has been pointed out, that's not helpful, as there is more to the web than that.

Industries, in the plural, is trying to do something different. It's saying: Not just browsers; also publishing; also music; also cinema; also retail; also education; also healthcare; also video games; also banking; also tourism…

If we insist on having "industry and public sector actors", then it feels like if we have some commercial players (say browsers) and some government representatives, then we're doing a good job, because industry as well as public sector are covered. Industries points to the fact that no, it isn't good enough, and the private sector itself is hugely diverse, and that we're missing something important if we don't have breadth in that area.

Now, I do agree that this is not only about the private sector. But in my view, private sector, or industries, is only worth mentioning at all if it is to speak to the fact that it is diverse and that this diversity needs representation. I am not especially tied to the word "industry/ies" itself (as can be seem from my earlier ill fated suggestion to talk about verticals instead), but plurality is the whole point of that sentence.

Noting that there's a bullet point immediately following that explores diversity in more detail

That bullet point focuses on aspects of diversity that relate to personal characteristics. That is very clearly important, and it absolutely needs to be stated, but this point about "industries" is trying to say that also need institutional diversity, and that individual diversity, while necessary, is not sufficient. I wouldn't muddle that bullet point, because individual diversity is important to highlight. Whether the other part needs to stay where it is, or become a new bullet point, I am more neutral about.

Now, if we could find a term that kept the plurality that "industries" is trying to point at, and expanded to also cover non-profit or public sector fields of activity, that would work for me. Actually, I'd be even happier if we could find a term or set of terms that also hinted types and sizes of organizations. Multinationals and small businesses and NGOs and government agencies and… , in all sorts of fields of activity.

mnot commented 1 year ago

@frivoal you might be looking for “multi-stakeholder”.

mnot commented 1 year ago

See also https://github.com/WebStandardsFuture/Vision/issues/28 which is #10 here.

FabienGandon commented 1 year ago

reviewing the latest version (BTW thanks a lot for this work) I realise that al equivalent sentence appears in the Mission

(...) where diverse voices from around the world and from different industries work together (...)

my suggestion in both cases would be something like

(...) where diverse voices from around the world and from different organizations and industries work together (...)

opening the participation to W3C to more than enterprises that produce or supply goods, services, or sources of income.

koalie commented 1 year ago

reviewing the latest version (BTW thanks a lot for this work) I realise that an equivalent sentence appears in the Mission

(...) where diverse voices from around the world and from different industries work together (...)

Thanks for flagging this, Fabien.

my suggestion in both cases would be something like

(...) where diverse voices from around the world and from different organizations and industries work together (...)

I would like to counter propose three things: 1) Removal of the first paragraph of the section "Vision for W3C". (Like the section "Vision for the World-Wide Web", start with the bullet list.) 2) Then, the section "Mission of W3C" is where appears what we do and the critical axes of diverse voices. 3) Building on Fabien's suggestion above and the entire thread, I propose: (...) where diverse voices from around the world, different organizations, civil society and industries work together (...)

avneeshsingh commented 1 year ago

This statement was written from high level point of view. It is obvious that world wide web needs voices from around the world. The "industries" was included to emphasize various applications of web in different industries. If we achieve world wide participation, from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, but we end up having only one industry in W3C for example publishing industry, then it defeats the purpose. We need to ensure that different industries are represented, browsers, publishing, automotive, payments and so on.

To clarify it further: If a university creates a web browser, in my understanding it should be considered as a part of web industry, though it is created under a university.

Some additional points:

fantasai commented 1 year ago

+1 to @FabienGandon’s edit.

Wrt @koalie's suggestion, I agree that some de-duping is necessary between those two paragraphs (though I might go the other way around); but I think that should be a separate issue. :)

dwsinger commented 1 year ago

I wonder if 'sectors' would be a way of expressing that we want varied areas of interest including diverse commercial areas (which is what 'industries' suggests a restriction to)?

dwsinger commented 1 year ago

If we are to add a word, it seems to be a word 'parallel' to 'industries', that speaks about sectors, spheres of interest, areas of activity, etc. 'organizations' is not that

frivoal commented 1 year ago

It's not obvious to me that the suggestion from @FabienGandon at https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/issues/75#issuecomment-1578772035 solves the issue, but I don't find it objectionable either, so if enough people like it, I could live with it. That said, @avneeshsingh has suggested flipping the order ("different organizations and industries" -> "different industries and organizations"), and I agree that would be better.

As to @dwsinger 's https://github.com/w3c/AB-public/issues/75#issuecomment-1582658568, maybe "different industries and sectors" (as it "public sector", "non-profit sector", "private sector"…) would work?

fantasai commented 10 months ago

The most recent rewrite has indeed flipped the order as @avneeshsingh suggested, and I think it does seem to address the issue.

TzviyaSiegman commented 10 months ago

Edits have been made. Agreed to close on 10/26/23