Change from recusal to dismissal/renunciation

[dwsinger]

Tracking the current experimental practice, as derived from the conversation in the AB as recorded in various meetings and repos.

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Preview | Diff

[frivoal]

I wonder if this list belongs in /Guide more than in the Process.

[dwsinger]

I had a lot of doubt whether it belonged here as well, but it was in the collated comment we started with. I also note that it's a weird mix of reasons ("the potential member is an avowed satanist") and meta-reasons ("the potential member offered a reason themselves").

[frivoal]

between "presents the list[…]" and "the potential council then votes[…]", I think we should make it explicit that council members get a chance to explain / rebuke claims made about themselves. This the list is non filtered, it is not guaranteed to be free of bias or spin, or even to be factual, and thus an opportunity react is appropriate.

[frivoal]

Should the report also include (either in positive or negative form) the list of those who attended the council meetings / participated in the deliberations (vs those who skipped)?

[dwsinger]

I suspect a Council member can ask to be reported as having abstained, and that "not present for the decision" should be reported as well, yes.

Dismissed: Mordred, Amalasuintha
Renounced: Ethelred the Unready
Potentially serving but voluntarily abstaining: Gaiseric, Merlin
Potentially serving but not present: Galla Placidia
Serving: Tamurlane, Pippin the Hunchback, Karl the Younger, Louis the Pious, Engelberga, Marozia of Tusculum

[chaals]

Suggested change

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[chaals]

Suggested change

They hold sufficiently strong pre-existing opinions in either direction

[chaals]

Suggested change

(e.g. a well-known proponent or objector) that their ability

[chaals]

Suggested change

to be open-minded may reasonably be in doubt

People who are elected to the TAG or AB are either considered by those who voted for them sufficiently able to be open-minded, or (less likely, given they get there through STV so typically have to convince a segment of those who preferred someone else) their super strongly-held beliefs are considered OK.

In any event having the council vote on who holds a belief so strongly that the rest of the council doesn't think they should express it formally where it matters strikes me as a particularly dangerous precedent.

In particular, a number of recent objections have turned on inter alia whether something is in the scope of W3C. This issue seems to have strongly held beliefs on both sides from many key stakeholders. Dismissing them from the council seems a pathway to losing important voices, not dismissing them begs the question of how to justify dismissing people for other strongly-held beliefs.

[dwsinger]

This was long-debated, and we mostly agree I think. It's not that they have opinions (who doesn't?) it's that for them on this subject the opinions are more on the level of a belief that blinkers their ability to to be open-minded. This rarely happens, IMHO. But people will want to say "so and so has always maintained that X is a great idea, they should be dismissed" and the potential Council should consider whether they are open-minded or not

[nigelmegitt]

We're setting people an impossible problem if we are asking them to understand within someone else's mind how open they are to change. They might persuasively appear to be open-minded whilst privately having a strong intention not to change their minds, or appear to have quite definite views but still in fact be open to change if the evidence is compelling.

Requiring as part of the Process that people correctly solve this impossible problem for each potential Council member seems unwise.

[dwsinger]

It's not that they have opinions; it's that the rest of the Council feels/perceives that the result will be tainted in the eyes of the community if that person serves for this question. We give the entire potential Council the opportunity to dismiss potential members if they feel that the result would be tainted by that person's presence. So they are judging a community perception, not the mind of the person.

[nigelmegitt]

It's not obvious that extending the requirement to mind-read to a larger group of subjects will lead to greater accuracy. If the requirement is to allow the community to express objections then we should be adding an explicit opportunity for that to occur, possibly gated by strict requirements on the permitted reasons for such an objection.

[dwsinger]

The entire community is invited to give reasons. The potential Council is supposed to assess the reasons and decide "if we keep so-and-so on the Council, will that 'invalidate' the opinion of the Council in the eyes of the community?". The Council wants a result that can be trusted, and they should know the community they are delivering the result into, and they see the objections.

[nigelmegitt]

I see what you're saying @dwsinger but it still feels very odd: the potential council is being asked to take a moderator role in reviewing the list of objections, received from the community, to each member of that same potential council. Even though no individual can assess the objections made to their own participation, my flawed mind-reading and future-telling skills suggest that there will nevertheless be a perception that the potential council is a club of people who know each other well and work with each other regularly and are therefore generally well-disposed to each other, biasing against the objectors.

The very process of assessing the objections is likely not to seem independent and fair.

I can't see a solution to that except to have some separate group of people who are already unable to participate in the FO Council: it would be that group's job to process the objections. Possibly there are other better models?

[frivoal]

Sorry, messed up this pull request by rebasing the branch it was based on. Will fix soon (or reopen a new one with same content if I cannot fix)

[frivoal]

This is now contained in https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/drafts/director-free/ and in #642

[chrisn]

The present text has removed what I see as an important principle in Council FO handling: "No one shall be both a party and an adjudicator". I'd want to see a stronger recommendation towards dismissal in those cases (relates to items 1 and 2 in the list of possible reasons for dismissal).

I appreciate that Council members are there to act in individual capacity, but this is one case where the wearing of multiple hats has the potential to be problematic. We need decision making to be, and seen to be, as unbiased as possible.

[plehegar]

@chrisn you should comment on #642 since it's now the bases for Council handling.

[dwsinger]

responding in #642