Re: [chairs] Gentle reminder to all TCs regarding acknowledging comments during your feedback

[Robin Cover <robin@oasis-open.org>]

> Lately I have received some complaints from people who
> took the time to provide comments during public reviews...

Excellent reminder below about professional etiquette
in taking time to "thank those who take the time to send
you comments."

This may be a good time also to remind TCs about the
professional courtesy in providing a published summary
of all comments and dispositions at the end of a public
review period.  The following complaint has also been
heard, increasingly, from parties who simply want to
know what happened in a public review event:

"I looked for the disposition log following the public review
of the specification, and could not find any document/record
summarizing the disposition of comments."

The public review "disposition log" is not labeled with
that descriptor in the TC Process, which says in more
general terms that a final record (viz., "at the end")
is required:

  "The TC must acknowledge the receipt of each comment,
   track the comments received, and post to its
   primary e-mail list its disposition of each comment
   at the end of the review period."

http://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process#publicReview-comments

Historically, it's become common practice for TCs
to present a final (rollup) summary using a spreadsheet
or similar publication which compiles (logs) the comments
from the two lists (TC Comment List, TC Discussion
List), removes duplicates, isolates discrete issues
from compound/aggregated statements, documents
the TC's disposition for each comment, and links to
the list archive sources for each atomic comment.
TCs sometimes also refer to issues in a JIRA
project (component), if triage of comments has been
done using the JIRA issue tracker facility.

Such summary presentation in a published disposition
log (also called a "Comment Resolution Log") makes it
easy for any member of the TC, OASIS, or external
party to examine the key facts about a public review.

I have suggested to the TC Admin team that we
initiate a practice of including the disposition log
(summary) or a pointer to it in the OASIS Library
with each public review document/stage, so that
it may always be be found in a predictable location,
even if the summary is "no comments received".

Further discussion about the role of a Disposition
Log (aka Comment Resolution Log) as a means of
providing the summary "at the end of the review period"
is presented in the TC Handbook (under "Feedback"):

http://docs.oasis-open.org/TChandbook/Reference/PublicReviews.html#commentResolutionLog

Cheers,

- Robin

Robin Cover
OASIS, Director of Information Services
Editor, Cover Pages and XML Daily Newslink
Email: robin@oasis-open.org
Staff bio: http://www.oasis-open.org/people/staff/robin-cover
Cover Pages: http://xml.coverpages.org/
Newsletter: http://xml.coverpages.org/newsletterArchive.html
Tel: +1 972-296-1783

======

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012, Chet Ensign wrote:

> Chairs,
>
> Just a short etiquette reminder that I ask you to share with members
> of your Technical Committees as appropriate.
>
> Lately I have received some complaints from people who took the time
> to provide comments during public reviews only to have their offerings
> seemingly disappear into the electronic void.
>
> The OASIS TC Process places only the most minimal of obligations on
> TCs regarding the handling of comments however it does say in section
> 3.2, Public Review of a Committee Draft that "The TC must acknowledge
> the receipt of each comment..."
>
> Please, if you do nothing else, acknowledge and thank those who take
> the time to send you comments. It may be easiest if one TC member is
> tasked with the responsibility of processing comments back in to the
> TC, including acknowledging receipt. But however you do it, if someone
> makes the effort to provide you with feedback, it is just common
> courtesy to let them know that their comments have been received.
>
> Thanks & best regards,
>
> /chet
> ----------------
> Chet Ensign
> Director of Standards Development and TC Administration
> OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
> http://www.oasis-open.org
>
> Primary: +1 973-378-3472
> Mobile: +1 201-341-1393
>
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