Role of the W3C staff and core process?

[iherman]

Although the proposal makes it explicit in a relevant section that the goal is not to rubber stamp, do see a possible problem with the lack of W3C staff presence. Indeed, at present, the staff is not supposed to spend much time in Community Groups. There is a danger that if the bulk of the spec work is done in the incubation period without staff participation than the genuine issues raised in that section will come "too late" for the proposers who would lobby against (some of) those (because "the job is already done"). Warning against such problems may be one of the jobs of the staff.

Maybe an approach is to set up a "early warning" mechanism whereby a CG would contact the W3C staff early enough in the process with the message that "we would like an extra interest from W3C because we plan to submit this technology for standardization in 6 months" (or something like that). That would allow early check/review against potential problems, staff participation in finalizing the proposals, etc.

(The situation does not occur with Interest Groups which do have staff contacts.)

[michaelchampion]

I believe I've resolved this as you suggested in 7d21e4b . Please re-open the issue if you disagree.