Closing a group prior to the date specified in the charter should be a "Team Decision", not a "W3C Decision"

[koalie]

Section 4.6 "Chartered Group Closure" covers the cases to close a group before its chartered end date but mandates that:

"[...]the proposal must be confirmed by an AC Review as a W3C Decision."

The cases to close a group early, as covered by the Process, range from "Insufficient resources", or "PAG outcome", to "Considered detrimental". But not "Finished early". And the Process no longer instruct that an announcement must be sent when a group has closed, either. So if a group closes because its charter end date has passed (that is, for a reason other than those listed in section 4.6) should the Team not send an announcement? or should the Team seek an AC Review to do so?

Requiring an AC Review (which is a requisite to get to a "W3C Decision") seems overkill when a "Team Decision" might very well work.

"Decisions made by members of the Team in connection with this Process, based on their own individual or collective judgement, are called Team Decisions." (cf. section 5.1)

The circumstances covered by the process are ones that can easily be documented as part of a Team Decision. In which case we would not force AC Reps to participate in a formal review. But the AC may appeal as per section 4.5:

"Advisory Committee representatives may initiate an Advisory Committee Appeal against a Team decision [...]"

This would allow the W3C Team to be more agile and the lifecycle of chartered groups to be more streamlined.

[koalie]

cc: @plehegar

[fantasai]

@koalie I'm a little confused from the description here. What problem are you trying to solve, like what's an example?

[koalie]

@koalie I'm a little confused from the description here. What problem are you trying to solve, like what's an example?

I'm sorry! There is an issue which I'm trying to surface and there are questions.

The issue is that requiring a W3C Decision means that we must put in motion the AC Review artillery which takes several weeks and takes AC Reps time to fill out a form (exercising the AC Review). I suggest that requiring a Team Decision would expedite the process of closing groups earlier, would be accompanied by rationale that may trigger review only the AC Reps appeal it.

The motives to close a group early are "Insufficient resources", or "PAG outcome", or "Considered detrimental"; all cases that can be made as part of a Team Decision and supported by documentation or evidence, which then can be refuted (AC Appeal).

What the Process doesn't cover (anymore) is simple group closure. Hence my related question: Does the Team need to launch an AC Review to close a group whose charter has expired and has not been deemed worthy of an extension or a re-charter? The Process before documented as part of the group lifecycle that there was a Director Decision when groups closed and the Team informed the AC.

I'm happy to meet on Zoom for live conversation; I have the impression I restated the same thing because I don't have a specific example.

[css-meeting-bot]

The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed #797.

The full IRC log of that discussion

<plh> subtopic: #797
<plh> Github: https://github.com//issues/797
<plh> fantasai: 2 issues: first, do we need AC review to close a group early. second, what do we need to close the group out of charter?
<plh> florian: in my view, trying to close a group early isn't a good idea
<plh> ... we need maintenance
<plh> ... having a group sitting around isn't harmful
<joshco> florian: we dont need to add reason "group is done" to the process
<TallTed> "charter expired" differs from "the group is done"; "the group is done" is "they've produced their documents"
<joshco> ... charter expiration means a group close
<joshco> plh: right now, if the charter has expired, there is no reason for an ac review decision. if it has not expired and the reason for seeking closure is lack of resources, then there is a need for review/decision
<plh> Resolved: Case 2 (closure after charter expired) is a discussion related to chartering and needs to be addressed as part of that discussion
<plh> plh: Case 1: closure before the charter expires. do we need an AC review?
<plh> florian: for PAG outcome, we ought to have an AC review because the Patent Policy itself also calls for one, and I don't think we should change that
<plh> fantasai: and for the others as well
<plh> ... we may get good feedback
<joshco> plh: when closing a group with an unexpired charter, the ac review can serve as a trigger to cause objection/agreement
<plh> plh: I wouldn't wait for a 5% threshold to get reached to close a group
<plh> fantasai: that's an issue for the team to decide
<plh> Resolved: case 1 (closure when the charter is not expired) still needs AC review

[plehegar]

Outlining the remaining part of this issue that still needs to be discussed:

Case 2 (closure after charter expired) is a discussion related to chartering and needs to be addressed as part of that discussion

[fantasai]

More specifically, "refusing to recharter a group" is the same conversation (Process-wise) as "refusing to charter a new group"; it's not related to closing an unexpired group...

[chaals]

@plehegar wrote

Case 2 (closure after charter expired) is a discussion related to chartering and needs to be addressed as part of that discussion

No it doesn't, except to be clear that closing a group when the charter expires is the expected thing to do (although my impression is that the expectation relies on ignoring reality). That's why the charter has a time limit. Spending time discussing that issue seems like a very poor use of resources. Maybe it would be better to discuss whether current charters are so short that rechartering before they expire is impractical even if it is desirable - which might in turn retrospectively make a discussion on closing groups before the charter expires worth the effort.

I am not sure how many groups have been shut down before their charter expired, but I don't recall an AC review on the topic in the last two decades.

Meanwhile, unfortunately, I note that multiple incarnations of the AB over a number of years have asked W3C Team to treat charters and charter reviews as meaningful - much as the Team ask the AC to treat them as if they were meaningful - and repeatedly that ask has specifically included end dates. I am not sure how many groups are currently operating out of charter, and how many are operating on an extended charter, but I suspect both of those are non-zero and at least the latter is a non-trivial percentage of all groups. My impression is that there has been an improvement from the abysmally bad situation of 5-10 years ago, but that this is still far from well handled.

[plehegar]

Meanwhile, unfortunately, I note that multiple incarnations of the AB over a number of years have asked W3C Team to treat charters and charter reviews as meaningful - much as the Team ask the AC to treat them as if they were meaningful - and repeatedly that ask has specifically included end dates. I am not sure how many groups are currently operating out of charter, and how many are operating on an extended charter, but I suspect both of those are non-zero and at least the latter is a non-trivial percentage of all groups. My impression is that there has been an improvement from the abysmally bad situation of 5-10 years ago, but that this is still far from well handled.

We have a board to look at the current state of W3C WGs and IGs charters. It tells you that 2 Groups are operating out of charters: DiD and Auto. Both reasons are documented in the strategy repo.