Re: [tab] Re: [chairs] Chairs: Requesting your feedback on comment resolution logs

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Jon,

On 05/05/2012 11:23 AM, Jon Bosak wrote:
> Thanks, Jamie.
>
> I've been reliably informed that OASIS gave up on the form I referred to
> earlier and now just accepts comments through the list; that gives me a
> better context.
>
> But now I'm having trouble understanding why we need to acknowledge all
> comments sent to a publicly visible, archived list.  They're in the
> list, right?
>
> And people who care to see what eventually happened have the publicly
> visible, archived record mandated by the process, right?
Well, but to use a non-OASIS example, being "open and public" may mean:

1) List visitors to the White House who had more than photo op 
appearances with the President on a separate list, or

2) List some subset of those visitors in the list of all the visitors, 
including thousands of boy/girl scouts, school children and sundry.

One of those I would term as meaningfully "open and public" and the 
other is not.


Here is a "pick three" test for whether OASIS TCs are in fact "open and 
public:"

1) Pick any three current TCs (of which you are not a member)

2) Locate comments from non-TC members and select a comment

3) Locate the resolution of that comment by the TC


The problem with the "any which way but meaningfully public" approach 
that Peter suggests means that even as an OASIS member for many years, I 
have no idea how TCs of which I am not a member track comments or their 
resolutions. I could spend hours trying to track down TC minutes (maybe 
there, maybe not), maybe tracked by JIRA number, maybe not.

In some absolute sense, if someone is willing to put in varying amounts 
of effort, the process is open, but not meaningfully so.

Let me put this another way:

What disadvantage do TCs suffer if comments are easy to track, along 
with whatever resolution is made? (accept, reject, modify, etc.)

> I hope no one is suggesting that a TC must act on any comment received
> beyond what's already specified in our (extremely open) process or
> worse, that it is under some kind of obligation to engage in discussion
> with the genral public; that would not only be insupportable, it would
> be quite unheard of in standards work conducted by experts, which is
> what we're supposed to be doing here. 

You must have missed the BSI link I posted earlier in the thread.

http://drafts.bsigroup.com/

You do have to create an account to login but BSI doesn't appear to 
discriminate based on your location or nationality.

So, public input isn't "unheard of in standards work" and no one has 
suggested a dialogue, merely a *usefully* public record of comments and 
their resolution.

As far as OASIS being "extremely open," I am sure that was true at its 
inception and by comparison to then existing standards bodies.

But email archives with comments that have no connection to TC 
resolutions so tracking any comment/resolution chain is like the White 
House visitor's list, it's public, but not in any meaningful sense of 
the word.

> A diplomatic regard for the
> tender feelings of some very significant stakeholder will naturally
> incline a chair with any sense to respond somehow (perhaps off the
> comment list), but trying to mandate this kind of thing is at best
> counterproductive.
>
> I trust as usual that someone will set me right if I am further
> misunderstanding the tenor of this discussion.

The value of "open" and "public" when OASIS was created were novel for 
its time. But the world has changed since then and unfortunately, OASIS 
has not changed with it. It persists in looking backwards for its values 
of "open" and "public."

Any eGov initiative will tell you than piling up email in a mound and 
then in some other mound having discussions of some of those emails that 
are then reflected without notice into a draft, may have qualified as 
"open" once upon a time, but not today.

If OASIS were to offer its members current technology for standards 
work, I suspect that TCs would vote with their feet and not require 
mandates to use better methodologies.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Patrick

> Jon
>
>
>
> Jamie Clark wrote:
> > +1 to Jon.
> > We have a public review mechanism, and Feedback License, for  comments
> > coming from outside the TC's membership.
> > We have TC members, who can contribute what they like subject to our
> > IPR Policy, and can even bring in material from others, by vouching
> > for its availability and contribution under that same policy.
> > That's it.  Nothing else comes in. Or at least, that's what our rules 
> > say.
> > I don't think there was a proposal to change that?
> > Cordially, JBC
> >
> > James Bryce Clark, General Counsel
> > OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
> > http://www.oasis-open.org/who/staff.php#clark
> >
> > On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Jon Bosak <bosak@pinax.com> wrote:
> > > Hello Folks,
> > >
> > > Sorry to be late in catching up with this thread.
> > >
> > > I agree that TCs should be able to use whatever tool suits them and
> > > still complies with the language already in place.  Spreadsheets are
> > > handy, and a couple of samples (like the ones already posted) will be
> > > helpful to chairs unfamiliar with the idea.
> > >
> > > But the bit about public comments puzzles me.  Are we no longer
> > > maintaining IPR control over contributions made by people who are not
> > > members of OASIS?  My TC has been operating under the instruction 
> > > given us lo, these many years ago that we cannot recognize comments 
> > > that don't go through the official comment form.  Is that form now 
> > > going to feed some comment management mechanism, or are we going to 
> > > accept comments from anywhere, or what?
> > >
> > > If we've stopped being concerned about the IPR status of contributions,
> > > my group would sure like to know about that.
> > >
> > > Jon
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Chet Ensign wrote:
> > > > TC Chairs,
> > > >
> > > > Recently, I have had several discussions with people on comment
> > > > resolution logs. As I'm sure you know from the TC Process, TCs are
> > > > required to maintain logs of comments received and their resolution
> > > > and provide them at several different points throughout the process.
> > > > Specifically, in section 3.2 Public Review of a Committee Draft
> > > > (http://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process#publicReview), 
> > > >
> > > > the process reads:
> > > >
> > > > "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."
> > > >
> > > > Our growing liaisons with other standards bodies is making getting
> > > > this right even more important.
> > > >
> > > > I believe it is becoming more and more important that we accomplish
> > > > both the letter and the spirit of this requirement in order to make it
> > > > easier for commenters to learn of the disposition of their feedback,
> > > > for reviewers to learn what has happened between one public review 
> > > > and the next, and for voters to get a full picture of the history of a
> > > > Committee Specification when it is advanced as a Candidate OASIS
> > > > Standard.
> > > >
> > > > I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on how best to accomplish
> > > > this, how best to provide you with the flexibility you need while
> > > > ensuring that the record of comments and resolutions is maintained 
> > > > and made available over time. For example,
> > > >
> > > > - Some TCs are using JIRA successfully to track, manage and report 
> > > > on comments. Would training in using JIRA for this process be useful?
> > > >
> > > > - Some TCs are using spread sheets to track and report on feedback.
> > > > Would template spread sheets help you adopt this approach?
> > > >
> > > > - Would a document on best practices help you and your TC put a
> > > > mechanism in place to successfully track and report on comments.
> > > >
> > > > Please take a minute to share your thoughts with me on how we can 
> > > > make this work conveniently and securely. I want to gather the 
> > > > fruits of
> > > > your experience and thoughts, as well as the feedback from your TC,
> > > > before making any proposals for next steps. I look forward to 
> > > > hearing from you and meanwhile, thank you for all the work that you 
> > > > do here at OASIS.
> > > >
> > > > 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: +1 973-996-2298
> > > > Mobile: +1 201-341-1393
> > > >
> > > > Follow OASIS on:
> > > > LinkedIn:    http://linkd.in/OASISopen
> > > > Twitter:        http://twitter.com/OASISopen
> > > > Facebook:  http://facebook.com/oasis.open
>
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--
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB) - member

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