Chair should be required in charter

[cwilso]

The list of information required ("MUST include") for a WG or IG charter does not currently include the Team's selection of Chair. Particularly for initial (new group) charters, this seems like an oversight; also as many of the required information pieces are significantly impacted by the Chair. (Meeting mechanism and expected frequency, etc.)

I think an additional bullet should be added, probably as the fourth item:

• Chair(s) selected for this group

(This issue is somewhat related to #281.)

[cwilso]

Also related to the item in the Guide: https://github.com/w3c/Guide/issues/185.

[frivoal]

That's an easy addition if we want to make it. Anyone has a reason not to? Not knowing who the chair will be until fairly late in the process can happen, but by the time we get to the AC Review, we're trying to launch the group, so we need to know anyway.

[samuelweiler]

Anyone has a reason not to?

Yes. Two different ones.

Publishing data in two places - in this case publishing the chairs both in charters and in the database - creates redundancy that leads to inconsistency. We would get better consistency by publishing the chairs in only one place.

Additionally, while I generally support the efforts to give the community more input into the chair selection process, there may be some advantages to not having personnel discussions in public fora. So long as chairs serve at the pleasure of Team, as they do now, perhaps we should continue to enjoy those advantages and continue to allow a charter to be reviewed without naming chairs. Perhaps not listing chairs continues to only happen in exceptional cases, but I prefer the option exist.

[nigelmegitt]

continue to allow a charter to be reviewed without naming chairs

I don't think I've ever been involved in a TTWG rechartering that didn't name chairs. Is it normal for charter reviews to omit chairs?

[nigelmegitt]

Responding more directly to the issue: if the Team can change the Chairs independently of rechartering, and no AC review is needed to do so, then we should not even state Chairs in the Charter, let alone require them - in that case no Process change is needed but the charter template should be modified to remove the Chairs and possibly the Guide would need checking to ensure that it doesn't suggest they should be included.

That's a big "if" though! Given that current working practice is to include Chairs in Charters, I suspect that most AC reps consider that they do have the option to object to a Charter based on the selection of Chair, at least in principle.

[plehegar]

There has been an unwritten expectation that Chairs be named in proposed charters. The Team has sent however a few charters without proposed chairs in the past. I believe the latest example is the PAT WG charter in 2022, which generated several formal objections because of lack of chairs/team contact.

[cwilso]

Indeed.

Particularly for initial group charters, I think it helps engender confidence to know who the chair(s) are intended to be. Yes, the Team could theoretically change them at any time - but this is still a Team Decision that can be Formally Objected to (IIUC), so why not just get it out of the way all at once and make this a requirement?

[samuelweiler]

Responding more directly to the issue: if the Team can change the Chairs independently of rechartering, and no AC review is needed to do so, .... That's a big "if" though! Given that current working practice is to include Chairs in Charters, I suspect that most AC reps consider that they do have the option to object to a Charter based on the selection of Chair, at least in principle.

@nigelmegitt, you have identified the crux of the conflict. The Process is clear: "The Team appoints (and re-appoints) Chairs for all [chartered] groups." Section 3.4.1 Yet, as you observe, most charters sent to the AC have chairs listed. And as you suspect and PLH confirms, there have indeed been complaints when chairs are not listed.

[csarven]

As I see it, a more suitable "crux of the conflict(s)" comes down to W3C Team transparency. Whether the Process requires charters to list proposed chairs or not is minor in explaining why the AC and others raise an issue, let alone avoiding them in the first place. One important goal is to reduce potential objections and the back and forth between different stakeholders. There are existing issues/discussions touching on these matters.

I would even go as far as to posit that greater transparency from the W3C Team regarding the decision-making process and rationale for the choice of proposed chairs is likely to reduce potential objections.

See for instance: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/281#issuecomment-1982997454

[css-meeting-bot]

The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed Chair should be required in charter.

The full IRC log of that discussion

<fantasai> Subtopic: Chair should be required in charter
<fantasai> github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/823
<fantasai> plh: I'm open to to this additional requirement
<fantasai> ... for Team Contacts, I would have a different position, but for chairs makes sense to me
<nigel> q+
<plh> ack nigel
<fantasai> nigel: I mentioned on the issue, I think what's important is we have alignment on who gets to choose and what we require
<cwilso> q+
<fantasai> ... if it's not an AC option because Team has authority, then doesn't make sense to put it in
<plh> ack cw
<plh> q+
<fantasai> cwilso: Sure, but you can formally object to any Team Decision--including chair choice
<fantasai> ... so you can FO a chair, and easiest to do this all at once
<fantasai> ... it is still a Team choice, but it would be easiest--and I would have the highest confidence that has chairs listed for a new group
<nigel> q+
<fantasai> ... it would be best to align that
<plh> ack plh
<fantasai> plh: +1 to cwilso
<fantasai> ... if we have an FO against a particular individual that gets tricky
<fantasai> ... haven't had that case so far
<florian> q+
<fantasai> ... recent charter with lots of feedback on proposed chairs
<fantasai> plh: Team should also update /Guide wrt picking chairs
<plh> ack nigel
<TallTed> meeting: Process CG Call
<fantasai> nigel: I think at this stage, I think we should remove chairs from charter reviews
<fantasai> ... deciding whether work should go ahead
<cwilso> q+
<fantasai> ... separate explicit communication from Team wrt chairs
<fantasai> ... then really clear what the decision is
<fantasai> ... so separate, but parallel
<fantasai> plh: At time, and I think we won't have time to solve today
<cwilso> q- MUCH later
<fantasai> florian: We also have had problem that we put someone as chair in the charter, but they didn't become the chair because their company didn't join the group
<cwilso> q-
<fantasai> plh: ok I'll add to agenda for next call
<fantasai> ... see you all next time
<fantasai> Meeting closed.
<RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2024/03/13-w3process-minutes.html fantasai

[nigelmegitt]

I think Charter reviews should be about checking things like: the work is described adequately; it is worth doing; and W3C resources should be spent in support of that work. It should not be affected in principle by the choice of Chairs. Allowing AC review comments to be objections only because of the choice of Chairs, when AC doesn't choose the Chairs, but the Team does, feels out of place.

Proposal:

1. Remove Chairs from Charters
2. Add a new expectation that whenever Charters are proposed the Team should go through its process (whatever that is) and separately communicate to the AC who their proposed Chairs are likely to be, ideally as soon as possible after the Charter review period begins.
3. Add a new requirement that after Charters are approved by AC the Team MUST announce their Team Decision for who the Chairs are.

If anyone in AC doesn't like the Team's choice for whatever reason they can make their feelings known in response to the proposed Chairs, or if necessary, by raising an objection to the Team Decision.

This decouples the two distinct decisions in principle and makes it clear what any objection relates to.

In practice, one potential problem could be is that a newly chartered Group finds itself with no Chair because there is an objection to the Team's choice. In that case it would be useful to say what status the Group has, and if its work can commence before the objection has been resolved, and if it can, if it's acceptable for the objected-to Chair to act as Chair temporarily, or if they should be recused from that role.

[cwilso]

It would certainly be possible to do that, and personally I would prefer a process for changing chairs at any point that required explicit AC approval - but it would slow things down, and the requirements for a charter (particularly a brand new group) are designed to help it hit the ground running*. I agree that it should be clear in a formal objection to a new charter what is being objected to - but I don't see the benefit of separating out chairs, since to be fair I would say that such a chartered group would not have a chair, and they should pause until the chairing issue is resolved.

Conversely, I have experienced a rise in confidence in charters by seeing who has agreed to chair a group, and I'd like to have that confidence be the norm.

• the Charter MUST include (https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/Drafts/#WGCharterDevelopment) things like meeting mechanisms and expected frequency, possible first FTF, communication mechanisms to be used or other voting procedures - all things that a chair would likely be engaged in.

[nigelmegitt]

One adjustment to my proposal could be that Charters cannot go for review unless the Team has a proposal for the set of Chairs for the Group, to go alongside the Charter.

[cwilso]

But then how is that any different than simply putting that proposal in the charter?

[nigelmegitt]

Because it's clearly a parallel approvals track, and any objection to the Chair proposal or Chair decision is transparently only about the choice of Chair. It also allows changes of Chair to happen asynchronously with Charter updates, without diminishing the AC's ability to scrutinise and object.

Possibly related, I also think there's a strong temptation to confuse the Charter with the Group homepage, or the group tool. For example TTWG:

• Charter: https://www.w3.org/2023/04/timed-text-wg-charter.html
• Homepage: https://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/TT/
• W3C Working Group Page: https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/timed-text/

There's duplication of information across those pages, more than there needs to be, and more than is helpful when it comes to maintenance. From a Chair perspective, only the Homepage is under my control.

I'd like to see something like:

• AC-decided things in the Charter
• Team-decided things, and a link to the Charter and the Homepage on the W3C Working Group Page.
• WG-decided things, and a link to the W3C Working Group Page and the Charter, on the Homepage.

Perhaps the small refactoring to arrange the information this way could make it easier for AC Reps to navigate the decisions they have to make when Chartering.

[plehegar]

I don't think we need to introduce more process or send more emails to the AC. Requiring the proposed Chairs to appear in the charter seems a simple fix without adding additional times or layers.

Btw, a lot of groups have stopped using their own group pages, so you may want to retire https://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/TT/ and simply rely on https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/timed-text/ . /groups/* are automatically maintained.

[nigelmegitt]

Requiring the proposed Chairs to appear in the charter seems a simple fix without adding additional times or layers.

@plehegar if the Chairs need to be changed, then you have to reissue the Charter and get approval again, in that case? That seems like a lot more work than issuing a single topic message to AC saying "here are our proposed Chairs for XYZ WG" and then another "here is the Team Decision for the Chairs for XYZ WG", which can be done asynchronously with any Charter update.

Do we have data about how often this scenario occurs in practice?

[plehegar]

Requiring the proposed Chairs to appear in the charter seems a simple fix without adding additional times or layers.

@plehegar if the Chairs need to be changed, then you have to reissue the Charter and get approval again, in that case?

No. While the Charter is a legal document, we do allow a limited set of changes: [[ Announcement of extension

The Communications Team modifies (or asks the Team Contact) the Charter in place as follows: [...] When a group Chair is (re)appointed or resigns, [...] ]] https://www.w3.org/Guide/process/charter.html#announce-extension

That seems like a lot more work than issuing a single topic message to AC saying "here are our proposed Chairs for XYZ WG" and then another "here is the Team Decision for the Chairs for XYZ WG", which can be done asynchronously with any Charter update.

Currently, we notify the AC (Team Decision) and update the charter in-place. You are proposing to open a poll, send an email, get a staff member to monitor the results, send an another email to the AC, and then issue a new charter?

Do we have data about how often this scenario occurs in practice?

See w3c-ac-members.

[nigelmegitt]

You are proposing to open a poll, send an email, get a staff member to monitor the results, send an another email to the AC, and then issue a new charter?

@plehegar no, not if you can change the Chairs listed in the Charter in-place in the way you describe. But, I think others would reasonably assume that should be the process since the Chairs are listed in the Charter, and they were asked to approve it.

Maybe a simple way to deal with that expectation is to mark up a section of the Charter as being "Subject to change by the Team without further review", and put the Chairs and extension dates into that section. A bit like an "informative" section in a specification.

[chrisn]

I don't think we need to introduce more process or send more emails to the AC. Requiring the proposed Chairs to appear in the charter seems a simple fix without adding additional times or layers.

I agree with this, and with @cwilso's original comment in this issue. I've commented in reviews on the few occasions where chairs haven't been listed, as I've interpreted it to mean that the charter and group isn't ready. I don't think we want to decouple things.

[plehegar]

Maybe a simple way to deal with that expectation is to mark up a section of the Charter as being "Subject to change by the Team without further review", and put the Chairs and extension dates into that section. A bit like an "informative" section in a specification.

We have a "About this charter" section in every charter where substantive changes are documented, and the Guide does ask for those sections to be updated for extensions/chairs updates. Isn't that good enough?

[nigelmegitt]

where substantive changes are documented

Are Chair changes substantive though? I think I'm arguing that they're not, at least from the perspective of AC review.

If the conclusion here is that AC Review needs to include approval of the Chairs, then I'd suggest that for consistency it is not made a Team Decision. We seem to have a weird hybrid at the moment.

[frivoal]

I am cautiously leaning towards @nigelmegitt 's point of view, and do wonder if it might be simpler to decouple the choice of chair and the approval of the charter. Charters would go through AC review as they do now, chair decisions would need to be announced but without review period and WBS Poll, as they are now in the case of a change of chairs. Being (Team's) Decision, that would still be subject to formal objection.

Alternatively, if we feel AC-Review is needed for appointment of chairs, it is unclear to me why it isn't needed for change of chairs.

Maybe a simple way to deal with that expectation is to mark up a section of the Charter as being "Subject to change by the Team without further review", and put the Chairs and extension dates into that section. A bit like an "informative" section in a specification.

That makes sense to me, though I'd suggest a tweak: s/without further review/without prior review/ People can review and can object, just after the fact.

[chaals]

I think we are getting lost in the process here. TL;DR:

• Chairs are appointed or changed by Team decision
• Chairs need to be named in charters for review
• W3C should ask openly for volunteers when a chair position needs to be filled, but handle responses in confidence
• The AC can appeal if they think a particular appointment (or non-appointment) is egregiously bad

The long-winded version:

Charters are an agreement about where the W3C and its membership invest resources, having consulted the AC to determine whether the members think this is an appropriate use of their and W3C's resources.

Some of the discussion is about what the group will do - what is in and out of scope. Since this matters to many members, and is often contested, it tends to be something we negotiate in detail and members expect to have significant impact on.

The chairs of a group are important to how it functions. When a group is proposed, it's much harder to make a sensible decision, for people peripherally involved like most of the AC, without knowing who will chair the group.

Chairs are also a scarce resource, often require direct investment from W3C in support in the form of Team time, can be hard to find, and can disappear without notice.

I think the general expectation is that W3C Team will look for chairs. Because it is in effect a sensitive personnel matter (especially if people are rejected) it is mostly handled confidentially, meaning the AC trust the Team to manage the obvious potential for conflict of interest, and so on.

The AC retains the ability to scream if they think that there has been a conflict of interest or other untoward or unfortunate circumstance that leads to poor chair selection. This is not part of the normal process, it's an exception-handling procedure.

The appeal procedure means conversations can take place in the smoke-filled corridors about whom a member might object to, or refuse to work with as a participant. This happens already. More formal transparency will probably just increase the frequency of informal side-conversations that drive the real decisions, and the amount of work the AC does in the formal process. In the end, we can make chair selection an open popularity contest where members vote, campaign, and lobby, or we can trust the Team to do the back-end work to ensure reasonable outcomes without fear or favour.

I'm happy to trust the team (but check - and maintain the emergency brake). It seems @nigelmegitt is leaning toward a more directly member-driven approach.

[cwilso]

To keep this focused down on the original issue I reported, the situation as it is today as I interpret the Process:

• The Team appoints Chairs. Those appointments do not require approval (from the AC or anyone else), but are effectively a Team decision that may be Formally Objected to.
• The Team can change chairs at their discretion. (This does not appear to be captured directly, other that "the Team appoints (and reappoints) Chairs", but I don't think it's in contention.) Likewise, this can be Formally Objected to.

I would say the following are true in practice in my experience:

• For a new WG or IG charter, it increases confidence that the charter and the group are ready to go if the Chair(s) is(are) identified. (See comment from @chrisn, and various comments from me.)
• Several of us have taken this in the past as something that must be listed in the charter, despite it not technically being listed in the requirements - to the point that I cannot remember a charter for a new group that did NOT list a prospective chair.
• Additionally, required information in the charter DOES include information that a prospective chair should really be included in developing - decision-making process, first FTF meeting, meeting frequency, etc.
• (In general, recharters don't contain significant changes to chairing, as the recharters don't necessarily align with the personal events that cause chair resignations, etc.)
• The Team has generally done a good job finding and selecting chairs for WG/IGs, and I'm not looking for significantly more oversight than the ability to FO already gives us. Also, the Team has the power currently to change chairs if required.
• Also, as a chair (and proposed chair) in the past, I recognize the delicate balance of chairing, and I absolutely would NOT want to open this up to anything that looks like "we're gonna have a WBS Poll to elect our chairs now". I believe this would likely degrade our chairing quality.
• Pragmatically, a group cannot be started and begin work without a chair to chair it.

All this sums to: the shortest possible path to ensuring increased confidence in new group charters, and pragmatically ensuring new groups can get off the ground as smoothly as possible, is to mandate what is generally already common practice: require listing an initial chair.

[dwsinger]

I am also leaning towards Nigel's view. As I understand it, it would mean that the charter sent for approval does not list the chairs, but instead the email that is sent says something like

"Your review of the proposed charter (linked) for the XYZ WG is requested. The deadline for responses is XX/XX/XXXX. If the charter is approved, the team expects to appoint Ms. Freda Bloggs as the chair." The AC then has the info but the chair is clearly not part of the charter review.

[nigelmegitt]

It seems @nigelmegitt is leaning toward a more directly member-driven approach.

No, I didn't mean to give that impression. I'm more concerned that members have clarity over what they are, and are not being asked to review and giving them the information they need. The current practice of including Chairs in Charter Reviews seems actively misleading, at least in the way that it is presented, if the current Process arrangement is retained.

However it may be that members want a more member-driven approach - another option would be to adjust the process in that way, but that's not my proposal.

@dwsinger's suggestion matches what I proposed.

[cwilso]

I'm still unclear as to why that is preferable. The Process effectively enables Members to review who the Chairs are - because a Member can formally object to the team decision that appoints the chairs. If you are going to be announcing the chairs at the same time anyway - and I think you need to, as per previous mail, so the group can get off the ground quickly, why would you not want to also take the opportunity to increase confidence by saying who the chairs will be? (The counter proposal would logically lead to "chairs should not be listed in a charter up for review" - even for re-chartering - which I think would be a bad idea.)

I think you are saying "we should be purely reviewing the group charter, not the chair selection" - but pragmatically, those things have to work together to get a group off the ground, and most of the time having a chair listed increases my confidence, at least, and I expect it does for others.

[dwsinger]

right, my text was predicated on the assumption that the AC does not get to review or object to chair appointments; I think Chris is right and this assumption is wrong. It's rare but formally possible for the team 'decision' to appoint a chair to be objected to. I suppose we could separate out the way to object to chairs from the way to object to charters, but why?

[nigelmegitt]

I suppose we could separate out the way to object to chairs from the way to object to charters, but why?

They're already separated. Merging them would be a change.

[chrisn]

Proposing a charter to the AC and selecting group chairs are indeed two distinct decisions, but I don't see any practical reason to change for how the AC give its input. In practice, objectors make it very clear in the AC review ballot what they're objecting to.

[nigelmegitt]

I think this is the source of the problem @chrisn - if an AC review ballot response says "I object" and the only thing being objected to is the selection of Chairs, I would argue that's not a valid objection, because it's not in scope of the review. Maybe there should be an option "I support the Charter but I intend to object to the Team's proposed choice of Chairs when that becomes a Team Decision"?

[chrisn]

Again, I don't see the distinction you're making being a useful one.

[cwilso]

I will point out that in practice, they are NOT two distinct decisions; the chair(s) have been part of the charter in every new charter I can remember except one (and I don't remember what charter it was, but I remember objecting to a charter until the chair was listed. :) ).

[nigelmegitt]

@cwilso Would you similarly object to a lack of Chair(s) if you were to receive something like what @dwsinger wrote at https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/823#issuecomment-2004377408 ?

[cwilso]

If there were no chair mentioned in the introductory mail, yes, I expect I would. If there was a chair listed in that mail, I just don't understand why you wouldn't put it in the same "this is the WG manifest" document.

[css-meeting-bot]

The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed #823.

The full IRC log of that discussion

<plh> subtopic: #823
<cpn> Fantasia: Higher is better, also need to allow a certain amount of time
<cpn> s/Fantasia/Fantasai/
<plh> github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/823
<cpn> Florian: Nigel said maybe the info shouldn't be in the charter. The decision that changes a chair isn't the same as the decision to change the charter
<cpn> ... Changing the charter requires AC review, changing chair doesn't
<cwilso> q+
<plh> ack fan
<cpn> Fantasai: Not sure I agree with that, now we've clarified what team can change and what requires AC review
<florian> q+
<plh> ack cw
<cpn> ... This is where people expect to find the information, it's where the AC expects to find it
<cpn> +1
<cpn> cwilso: It would create two separate places to have FOs, don't want to do that
<plh> (+1 tocwilson)
<plh> ack flo
<cpn> cwilso: I'd rather it be in the initial review
<fantasai> s/tocwilson/to cwilso/
<cpn> Florian: We already list chairs in other places, e.g., WG pages. They may not be in sync
<plh> q+
<plh> q-
<cpn> q+
<plh> ack cpn
<cpn> cpn: how big a problem is maintaining these in sync?
<cpn> PLH: Not a big problem, but can take a while to resolve who the chairs will be in some cases
<cpn> ... But when the team nominates chairs and there's some delay, the information may not be reflected
<fantasai> +1 to the requirement
<cpn> Florian: I'll write a PR to add chairs to charters
<RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2024/05/08-w3process-minutes.html fantasai

[css-meeting-bot]

The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed #874.

The full IRC log of that discussion

<plh> subtopic: #874
<plh> --> https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/874/files Require listing chair(s) in charters
<plh> Github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/pull/874/files
<plh> Github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/823
<plh> plh: any objection
<plh> Resolved: Let's mergeg #874