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                        <h2 class="entry-header">On considering the role of W3C Members in Working Group decisions</h2>
                           <div class="entry-body">
                              <p>On 29 November 2007, Dan Connolly, co-Chair of the
<a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/">HTML Working Group</a> pointed me to an <a
href="http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/html-wg/20071129#l-981">IRC
log</a> of discussion about HTML 5 which prompted this question: is it
acceptable to take into consideration the role of each W3C member
organization in the overall deployment marketplace when we make
decisions (in a Working Group)? The question led to a request for
interpretation of this phrase from
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/organization.html#Members">section
2.1</a> of the W3C Process Document: "The Team must ensure that ... no
Member receives preferential treatment within W3C." As editor of the
document, I forwarded the request to the <a href="/2002/ab/">W3C
Advisory Board (AB)</a>, the body elected by the W3C Membership that
manages the evolution of the W3C Process. Here was their reply, based
on the consensus reached at their 10 December meeting:</p>


<ol>

<li>Consensus is a core value of W3C (see
<a href="/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#Consensus">section 3.3 of the Process Document</a>). To promote consensus, the W3C process requires Chairs to ensure that groups consider all legitimate views
and objections, and endeavor to resolve them, whether these views and objections are expressed by the active participants of the group or by others.</li>

<li>Building consensus takes time, however. The AB's understanding of the current situation within the HTML 5 Working Group is that there are questions about whether some of the content of the current Editor's draft lies within the scope of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/03/HTML-WG-charter.html">charter</a>.  If a Participant has a legitimate reason to challenge whether a proposed feature is in scope, and requests additional time to determine whether to extend a licensing commitment to a feature the Participant had not viewed as being in scope, granting a modest extension for internal review is in order. The Chair is responsible for managing the competing tensions of rapid progress and greater consensus.</li>

<li>When the Chair has determined that all available means of reaching consensus through technical discussion and compromise have failed, a Working Group may vote on a substantive technical issue. In that case, each vote carries equal weight; see
<a href="/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#Votes">Process Document section 3.4</a> for details on votes.</li>

<li>There are questions that are not amenable to being resolved by votes. For example, W3C seeks to create interoperable standards, and what counts for being implementable or being interoperable is running
code that demonstrates the answer to the question being asked. Feedback from implementers plays a singular role in establishing interoperability, as illustrated by W3C's
<a href="/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#RecsCR">calls for implementation experience</a> at Candidate Recommendation.</li>
</ol>
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                       <p class="postinfo">Filed by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/">Ian Jacobs</a> on December 14, 2007 11:12 AM in <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/technology/html/">HTML</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/web_spotting/opinions_editorial/">Opinions &amp;amp; Editorial</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/w3cqa_news/w3c_life/">W3C Life</a><br />
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