Multi-point Multi-FO Councils

[fantasai]

The Council Deliberations section is written as if there is only one objection, which creates some oddities when there are a) multiple FOs and/or b) FOs with multiple points.

Two possible approaches to cleaning this up are:

• Rewrite to say that the Council upholds or overturns a decision.
• Rewrite to say that the Council upholds or overturns individual points in the objections.

(A third approach of upholding or overturning individual FOs would mean treating 6 points filed as a single FO and 6 FOs on different points differently, which seems bad.)

Functionally the Council is either upholding or overturning a decision. However its rationale (and therefore the expected follow-up actions) depend on which objections the Council felt were worth upholding or overruling.

What makes sense to do here?

[nigelmegitt]

I think it should be based on a decision.

[dwsinger]

Interestingly I think it's a minor re-write and a plausible improvement:

Otherwise, after sufficient deliberation, the W3C Council decides whether to uphold or overturn the original decision. The W3C Council may uphold the original decision even if it agrees with some of the supportive arguments in the Formal Objection(s).

When overturning a decision, it should recommend a way forward. If the overturned decision…

[frivoal]

Decisions can be unambiguously identified, and so can Formal Objections. Points in an objection, on the other hand, are a more subjective division, and having a requirement to individually address something we might not be able to all agree about how many there are seems to invite trouble to me. We could unambiguously go with rulling on each each objection, but that sees to miss the point of judging them together and of having a per-decision council. It may very well be that several objections make good points, which individually, while valid, would not be strong enough to justify blocking/overturning a decision, but do in aggregate. In such cases, it seems odd to pick any particular objection to say that that's the one sustaining (causing the decision to be overturned), and much more sensible to talk directly about the decision being overturned (due to reasons in the objections).

I agree that the current text is a little incoherent in the way it's phrased, so a tweak of the language is likely in order. I think something along the lines of what David said seems about right.

[frivoal]

@fantasai and I made #1045 to address this

[css-meeting-bot]

The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed Multi-point Multi-FO Councils.

The full IRC log of that discussion

<fantasai> Subtopic: Multi-point Multi-FO Councils
<fantasai> github: https://github.com//issues/1041
<fantasai> PR: https://github.com//pull/1045
<fantasai> florian: This is *essentially* editorial, but heavier side of editorial.
<fantasai> ... Council has always been about a decision, all FOs handled together for that decision.
<fantasai> ... Most of the section is fine, but some paragraphs are written as if only one FO.
<fantasai> ... so the question was, do we clarify this to say that the Councils a decision per decision being objected to, per FO filed, or per point in the FOs.
<fantasai> ... This PR adjusts text to describe Council decision as "confirming" or "overturning" a decision.
<cwilso> q+
<fantasai> plh: It's a proposed decision, not a decision yet.
<fantasai> fantasai: That's only for AC Review that the decision is not yet completed. In other cases it's completed.
<fantasai> cwilso: I don't like the direction this is going. It's a mistake to change it to only say that you are confirming or overturning the original decision.
<fantasai> ... Feels like the role of the Council is to examine the decision, not examine the objection.
<fantasai> ... That is dismissive of objections in a way that's unwise.
<plh> ack cw
<fantasai> ... Looking at how we've done this, what we've generally done is to uphold or overturn individual objections; and I think that's important to maintain.
<fantasai> ... Even though Council handles them together.
<fantasai> ... What Council should be doing is to examine the objections, not the decision.
<plh> ack fa
<florian> fantasai: I see cwilso 's point, and I wonder if we can maintain that sense of evaluating individual objections
<florian> fantasai: while still fixing the text to fully embrace that there might be several objections
<florian> fantasai: there's also something strange about the fact that one objection with several points in it or several individual objections could be treated differently
<fantasai> plh: I think I agree with Chris, that we should focus on upholding or overruling objections.
<fantasai> cwilso: Hear fantasai saying that role of Council is fundamentally confirming or overturning the decision
<fantasai> ... but current wording implies that Council is reviewing the decision, rather than investigating the objection.
<fantasai> florian: How much do we care about 1 FO with 5 points vs 5 FO with 1 point? If we handle objections, we treat them differently. Does that matter or not matter?
<fantasai> ... fantasai finds that problematic
<fantasai> ... Personally I am if each argument or objection, individually is not strong enough to overturn, but together they are
<fantasai> ... which one do you flag as the one that matters?
<fantasai> cwilso: That is what swayed me towards decision is the thing you're overturning
<fantasai> ... but decision of Council needs to list each individual point.
<fantasai> ... they should be carefully considered and responded to in that decision
<fantasai> florian: I think we have that, as a should.
<fantasai> ... reason for should is that "how many arguments there are" is subjective
<fantasai> ... so I think that's why it's a should
<fantasai> plh: OK, let's move on

[nigelmegitt]

Reading through today's discussion I recall having extensive discussions with e.g. @dwsinger about this when we introduced the idea of Councils, and my recollection is that the intent was always to uphold/overturn a decision, rather than an objection. The intent was also to be efficient and organise one Council per Decision rather than one per Objection.

I don't agree with the distinction @cwilso seems to have made: you can't uphold a decision without overruling all the objections to it, and you can't uphold an objection without overturning the decision. They are unavoidably two sides of the same coin, and the only thing we're really doing here is dealing with the 1:many relationship of decision:objection in as elegant and efficient a way as possible.