RE: [oasis-member-discuss] Rewarding effort...

["Peter F Brown" <peter@justbrown.net>]

David (and a couple of others offlist):

appreciate the feedback. I'll admit that any attempt to "reward effort" is
likely to backfire and defeat the purpose it might have been introduced to
defend...at the end of the day, the "peer group pressure" and peer review
pressure are the two most convincing arguments: my rant possibly reflects
the frustrations of being a nearly anonymous individual member who feels
screwed over occasionally by the "big corps" (and, not the ones you might
think) but I guess you pays your money and takes your chances...
That said, I would agree that the issue raised about "TC packing" is likely
to be both marginal in practice (no-one can really afford to put loads of HR
onto a TC) and probably counter-productive if the organisations concerned
are caught "in flagrante"...

Peter

P.S. The weather is fine for the time of year ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: David RR Webber (XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info] 
Sent: 25 October 2006 22:56
To: peter@justbrown.net
Cc: oasis-member-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [oasis-member-discuss] Rewarding effort...

Peter,
 
No system is perfect of course!
 
We do need to strike a balance between someone who is a major contributor -
attends 10 meetings straight - and then has two back to back trips - so
misses 3 meetings out of 4....
 
Perhaps someway of accruing credit points (which of course is still open to
abuse) - based on actual contributions.  But this stuff is so tough.  For
example - I actually value someone who takes time to read closely a spec'
draft, load the XML samples and check them and then report back that
everything is fine.  But if you look at the document they actually added
nothing to it!
 
Somewhere, someone is keeping score it seems... ; -)
 
The real value is from the team.  A well run team produces a quality product
- and the customers should be able to discern that in the end product - how
good the XML itself is - the width of tool support emerging - open source
availability - and the follow-on occurring.
 
There clearly is way more to turning out a successful specification and
solutions based on that than just fixing the committee approval process and
getting Gartner to approve your marketing materials.
 
Actually I'd argue those who stack committees in this way shoot themselves
in the foot - because slick marketing and rubber stamping cannot hide the
fact that a narrow piece of work based heavily on some vendors pet solution
set - rather than a broad-based concensus solution with wide buy-in is
occurring.
 
I do see that the OASIS comment period is a vital time where issues can be
raised by the membership at large that are tough for a narrowly focused
effort to slough off?

So - are there enough checks and balances out there already?  Are some of
the people fooled all of the time to merit us worrying about this?
 
I'd almost prefer to actively encourage this behaviour because it is largely
self-defeating in the end!!!  
 
Please do stack your committees and run a shallow process with minimal broad
contributions.  Just globally search and replace in the specification on
/LARGE-CORP/ change to /OASIS-OPEN/ and hit save, and change the URLs in the
XML samples to be http://oasis-open.org  and then worry that all the help
and tutorial links served up by Google point to www.large-corp.com/support
... !
 
I'm not sure anyone is really fooled by that for very long.
 
Were you worried about anything else - or is it just raining hard there
again all week?
 
Cheers, DW



	-------- Original Message --------
	Subject: [oasis-member-discuss] Rewarding effort...
	From: "Peter F Brown" <peter@justbrown.net>
	Date: Wed, October 25, 2006 1:49 pm
	To: <oasis-member-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org>
	
	I must admit, I always thought there was a principle of one
organisation, one vote so it's a bit of a shock to learn otherwise.
	
	I write as an individual member who has been active in the complete
cycle of developing an OASIS standard. I already accept - albeit grudgingly
- that the big corporate sponsor members get a bigger say (more publicity
and profile in press releases and announcements of important TC milestones)
than ordinary company members; and that ordinary companies and organisations
get a bigger say (voting for the Board, at AGMs, etc) than us individual
members.
	
	The scenario in which companies enrol to a TC en masse just a couple
of meetings before a key milestone (such as adopting a spec) really sucks. I
have seen names of individuals and companies on the list of "participants"
for a spec whom I have never heard of or seen anywhere during the process. A
typical TCs work will be carried by a dedicated group of individuals (with
the support of their companies or through individual doggedness). It is
already irksome that sponsor members can trumpet their "participation" in
developing a standard or spec. (and have that reinforced by OASIS press
releases etc) just by keeping a voting member status on a TC but without
having to do a stroke of work, while often individual members (funding their
own participation and costs - travel and conf call fees, usually to a US
number) get no profile or recognition, except their name on the spec.
	
	In the work in which I've been involved, I have not noticed an
excessive "packing" of TCs by large numbers of people from some organisation
members, so maybe I've been lucky but I would say if that had happened on
any TC of which I was an active member, I would have become very quickly
annoyed if all they do is show up for the roll-call and then disappear
without a trace. If people want to join a TC to work, they should be
welcome.
	
	I would therefore prefer:
	- no change to the number of people who can join as voting members,
BUT a change to the eligibility criteria for maintaining voting level
membership.
	This could include (some combination of):
	- a higher participation threshold: two consecutive meetings is not
enough, particularly towards the end of the lifecycle of a particular piece
of work; maybe four consecutive meetings and/or 90 days, once a TC has
published a first draft of a proposed spec?;
	- give more credit to contributors: if a TC member has contributed
some piece of work, or is a co-chair, secretary or editor of a proposed
spec, the threshold should be lower;
	- requiring "substantive contribution" at a meeting to be considered
as present for the purposes of voting eligibility: this is certainly
controversial and could be subjective, but I think an approach to solving
this made in good faith would lead to some solution, particularly for conf
call meetings. At present, just be there for the roll-call every meeting and
then hang-up and you're credited with being a voting member and as being a
contributor to any spec or standard developed. Easy...but very unfair on
those who do the work;
	- more credit should be given to people who get off their behinds
and attend F2F TC meetings!;
	
	I'd be interested in comments about changing the eligibility
criteria
	
	Best regards,
	
	Peter
	
	-------------
	Peter F Brown
	Chair, CEN eGovernment Focus Group
	Founder, Pensive.eu
	Co-Editor, OASIS SOA Reference Model
	Lecturer at XML Summer School
	---
	Personal:
	http://public.xdi.org/=Peter.Brown
	www.XMLbyStealth.net
	www.xmlsummerschool.com