Rewrite the introduction

[frivoal]

Based on https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2021Apr/0001.html

Started from @dwsinger's proposal in the mail, but reworked a bit further. Reassigned some bits of useful text to relevant sections, updated to current W3C practices, added links, simplified text…

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[fantasai]

This probably closes #423 fwiw.

[jeffjaffe]

I made some editorial comments in the Proces CG call today.

In addition, I see that you dropped the discussion of IEs from the Intro. Rather than drop IEs, I would bolster their description.

It is correct that the current introduction which merely enumerates the three types of Participants is low on information content.

But the IE program demonstrates our commitment well beyond the membership, indeed to all stakeholders of the web. That is an important W3C value. Consider text of the form:

"In addition to having participants from W3C Members and the W3C Team (who also ensure integration across W3C), we also include appropriate Invited Experts to bring the right stakeholders to our Groups, and we also demand extensive public review of our work by non-participants."

[dwsinger]

Sure, where we talk about membership and participation, we could add that

[dwsinger]

We agree in principle but are waiting for comments on the details to get the best result.

[frivoal]

@jeffjaffe

Consider text of the form:

"In addition to having participants from W3C Members and the W3C Team (who also ensure integration across W3C), we also include appropriate Invited Experts to bring the right stakeholders to our Groups, and we also demand extensive public review of our work by non-participants."

That seems reasonable to me. I'd suggest injecting it right after paragraph 3, or possibly after paragraph 4. Any preference?

[nigelmegitt]

we also demand extensive public review of our work by non-participants

This seems a bit strong: we require that there is an opportunity for non-participants to review, and that all review feedback is dealt with, but we don't demand anything from non-participants at all.

[dwsinger]

Yes, the demand is on our own groups that they have to make it possible

In addition to having participants from W3C Members and the W3C Team (who also coordinate across W3C), we also include appropriate Invited Experts to bring the right stakeholders to our Groups. We also mandate our groups to enable public review of our work by non-participants.

[fantasai]

@jeffjaffe Agree it makes sense to mention the makeup of our working groups (and IEs in particular) and our commitment to public participation, but I want to pick apart the proposed sentence a bit. :)

In addition to having participants from W3C Members and the W3C Team (who also ensure integration across W3C), we also include appropriate Invited Experts to bring the right stakeholders to our Groups, and we also demand extensive public review of our work by non-participants.

“In addition” is already used to start the paragraph “In addition, several groups are formally established by the Consortium...”, so want to avoid using it again...

“and we also demand extensive public review of our work by non-participants” is pretty much covered by the mentions of the public in first and second paragraphs, so maybe doesn't need to be mentioned again. (Also, as @nigelmegitt pointed out, "demand" might not be the best verb here.)

Wrt “we also include appropriate Invited Experts to bring the right stakeholders to our Groups”, some IEs are brought because they're representing missing stakeholders, but quite a lot of them are brought in merely because of their expertise in the area. (I, for example, am not really representative of any stakeholders of the Web, but I'm really good at writing CSS specs, so that's why I'm here.)

So I think we need to do a bit of rewriting, maybe bring the sentence closer to the original text that was removed:

There are three types of Working Group participants: Member representatives, Invited Experts, and Team representatives. Team representatives both contribute to the technical work and help ensure the group's proper integration with the rest of W3C.

The natural place for such a sentence would be probably somewhere in these two paragraphs:

The W3C Process promotes the goals of quality and fairness in technical decisions by encouraging consensus, soliciting reviews (by both Members and public), incorporating implementation and interoperability experience, and requiring Membership-wide approval as part of the technical report development process.

W3C’s technical standards, called W3C Recommendations, are developed by its Working Groups; W3C also has other types of publications, all described in [[#Reports]]. W3C has various types of groups; this document describes the formation and policies of its chartered Working Groups and Interest Groups, see [[#Policies]] and [[#GAGeneral]]. W3C also operates Community and Business Groups, which are separately described in their own process document [[BG-CG]].

Maybe like this?

The W3C Process promotes the goals of quality and fairness in technical decisions by encouraging consensus, soliciting reviews (by both Members and public), incorporating implementation and interoperability experience, and requiring Membership-wide approval as part of the technical report development process. Participants in W3C include representatives of its Members and the Team, as well as Invited Experts who can bring additional expertise or represent additional stakeholders. Team representatives both contribute to the technical work and help ensure the group's proper integration with the rest of W3C.

W3C’s technical standards, called W3C Recommendations, are developed by its Working Groups; W3C also has other types of publications, all described in [[#Reports]]. W3C has various types of groups; this document describes the formation and policies of its chartered Working Groups and Interest Groups, see [[#Policies]] and [[#GAGeneral]]. W3C also operates Community and Business Groups, which are separately described in their own process document [[BG-CG]].

Does that seem to work?

(Alternatively, maybe that sentence about the Team goes into the first paragraph of https://www.w3.org/2020/Process-20200915/#group-participation instead of in the intro?)

[frivoal]

The suggestion from @fantasai looks good to me. I've included it into this pull request. (You can see it in the build version). Hopefully that satisfies everybody.

[jeffjaffe]

Maybe like this?

The W3C Process promotes the goals of quality and fairness in technical decisions by encouraging consensus, soliciting reviews (by both Members and public), incorporating implementation and interoperability experience, and requiring Membership-wide approval as part of the technical report development process. Participants in W3C include representatives of its Members and the Team, as well as Invited Experts who can bring additional expertise or represent additional stakeholders. Team representatives both contribute to the technical work and help ensure the group's proper integration with the rest of W3C.
W3C’s technical standards, called W3C Recommendations, are developed by its Working Groups; W3C also has other types of publications, all described in [[#Reports]]. W3C has various types of groups; this document describes the formation and policies of its chartered Working Groups and Interest Groups, see [[#Policies]] and [[#GAGeneral]]. W3C also operates Community and Business Groups, which are separately described in their own process document [[BG-CG]].

Does that seem to work?

Wfm

[dwsinger]

The intro is editorial, the editor should merge when he feels he's had enough feedback (we can always improve more)