This repository, associated with the W3C Community Group Program CG is used to track issues and improvements with the W3C Community Groups and Business Groups program.
The W3C Team uses this repository to reflect the history and status of policy files that govern Community and Business Groups.
In April 2024 the W3C staff who manage the Community Group program began a project to enhance it.
Community Groups have become a credential entry point to Web standardization, both at W3C and at other organizations such as the WHATWG, IETF, and ECMA. Through discussions with many Community Groups and the overall W3C community, the staff has identified several objectives:
- When a CG specification has traction and there is community support for standardization, lower barriers to advancing to standardization (at W3C or elsewhere).
- When a CG is just getting started, provide additional support and training for Chairs to help them run the group successfully.
- At all times, foster clear communication about the status of CG specifications and do more to help the community distinguish community-driven work from W3C's standardization activities.
We anticipate that each objective may involve multiple changes. For example, lowering barriers to standardization may involve changes to the participation model, changes to IPR policies, and changes to other elements of W3C process.
Changes may affect a number of aspects of the program:
- CG-specific Process and IPR agreements
- Integration of general W3C policies (e.g., code of conduct, competition guidance)
- Training materials
- Tooling support
- Visual design and information architecture
The group's issues related to revamp 2024 capture some of the themes and challenges that we have surfaced through our discussions.
To address the above objectives we are developing a series of proposals, listed here.
- CG Specification Lifecycle
- Community Group Lifecycle
- Handling standardization ambiguity
- Support for continued participation in a Working Group by CG contributors
- CG Process
- AC Meeting 2025 (Member-confidential)
- Breakout at AC Meeting 2025 (Member-confidential)
- Breakout at TPAC 2024