Meeting minutes
<koalie> Previous (2020-07-02)
Finalising the statement
<tink> https://github.com/w3c/idcg/wiki/proposed-statement
LJW: Added Judy's text summarising the actions and taking up themes.
JudyB: We should talk about status
LJW: We are wordsmithing the statement, seems people are generally happy with it except we need to finalise the set of actions we would like to add - which is the next agendum
<Zakim> wseltzer, you wanted to add "privacy" to "accessibility, security, and internationalization"
WendyS: Would you like continued edits, if so, how?
<Judy> +1 to including privacy
<koalie> +1
LJW: By email is best, and I will try to work them in. Do you have something specific?
<dka_> +1
WS: Add privacy into horizontal review areas
LJW: Yeah we should do that live
<hober> +1 to including privacy
WendyR: I can do that
DKA: What happened with Amy's comments?
LJW: Didnt incorporate them. I disagreed with the first suggestion.
[Wendy reads out Amy's email]
<wseltzer> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/internal-idcg/2020Jul/0004.html
<wseltzer> [I thought we had previously made a different edit to address that first comment, but don't see it reflected on the wiki]
WS: Are there other texts, that are getting out of synch?
<Zakim> dka_, you wanted to ask about Amy's comments?
LJW: I haven't seen other replies so don't think we had agreed to any edits.
WS: Thought we had already agreed to an edit that would have addressed Amy's first comment.
LJW: I thought I put up the latest agreed version on the wiki
JudyB: I have deja vu on this too and think we had addressed it. We need to do some archaeology to figure that out
LJW: The phrase "who we are and what we do" was a change made by a meeting a couple of weeks ago - is that what people are thinking of?
… needed to talk about both us as a group of people as well as the work we do, as things we would like to change.
… I think we are trying to acknowledge that until we have a diverse community we cannot be confident that what we work on actually covers the needs of everyone.
… please propose edits via the list.
JeffJaffe: Amy raised some issues, Léonie you disagreed with one, do we have a consensus on the call about whether we recognise those issues
LJW: Odd question, we should definitely recognise them, and think the mechanism should be email.
JJ: OK.
Heather: Think the point of the statement is in support of Black Lives Matter, not to put a focus on W3C and the past, but to acknowledge we have issues with a lack of diversity that has had unintended consequeneces in what we have done and that we are only now undertstanding. I think the statement is reiterating the intention to create technology for everyone, but the point is that in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, we set out to be inclusive but to do that we need a new level of involvement.
… so to be successful this needs to be focused on supporting Black Lives Matter, not what W3C has done.
<tzviya> +1 to heathervescent
<wendyreid> +1
<wseltzer> +1 to heathervescent
<wendyreid> +1
LJW: Jeff, did I misunderstand your question?
<dka_> +1 to heather's comments.
JJ: I don't think so, I was unclear how we were going to address this. Moving to the mailing list is fine.
WendyR: Looking at the comments I agree with you Léonie, I don't understand the first comment. I have tried to keep this simple, and resist wordsmithing because we have the bad habit of complicating things.
<koalie> 0 to heather's comment, for the record
WendyR: think the final comment is great, agree.
[chaals: If I have understood correctly, I don't really agree with Heather's comment]
Tzviya: Should we take a minute to introduce new members?
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to recommended intro new members
Intros
WendyR: co-chair of publishing, work for Rakuten
Chaals: Chaals Nevile, have been various things around W3C in various organisations for a couple of decades including WG chair, AC rep, AB member, staff member, and participant in a range of groups
Coralie: co-chair with Léonie of this, head of comms at W3C
DKA: Dan Appelquist, work for Samsung, co-chair TAG
Heather: New co-chair of Credential Community Group, been around about 3 years, ran into someone who wasn't supportive of diversity. I am a futurist running a consultancy and I am very organised.
… Putting together a diversity plan for the credentials community group.
Jeff: Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. Interested in seeing Heather's strategic plan for diversity. My focus here is less on statements and more interested in hearing about the actions and whether we can take them across W3C.
<shawn> [ Shawn Lawton Henry, W3C Staff, Accessibility Education and Outreach. (lurking in IRC until her topic comes up : How we can make W3C more welcoming) ]
Killian: I am an archivist and counseloor for Europeana. I am here to listen - Europeana are looking to improve diversity from our network of privilege. We want to look to have discussion before taking approrpiate action.
Mel: Melanie Richards, Microsoft, been in different WGs at W3C, currently focused on some controls stuff. Excited to make web standards more inclusive and accessible.
Tess: Tess O'Connor, Apple, TAG member, and been in other groups for years.
Tzviya: Tzviya Siegman, Wiley, co-chair Publishing WG, am on AB, co-chaired the group workig on the code of professional conduct.
WendyS: Stragtegy lead at W3C, eager to help work on diversity
Judy: Judy Brewer, W3C director of Web Accessibility Initiative, interested in diversity and intersectionality and happy W3C is looking at being more aware of and taking more action on racial justice issues.
Léonie: On AB, co-chair of webapps WG and this group, happy to be chairing these meetings with a little help from my friends.
Koalie: Nice work Léonie, thanks for doing this.
Finalising the actions included in the statement
<wendyreid> https://github.com/w3c/idcg/wiki/Ideas-for-ID-CG-actions
<jeff> From Judy's email: "W3C commits to take actions in the areas of learning, messaging, outreach and inreach, creating a welcoming environment, supporting participants, technical development, governance, and continuous improvement."
Judy: I looked across proposed actions, and minutes from the meetings, to try capturing comprehensively the set of actions that it sounds like the ones we would take up, to fill in the blank on the statement we have been drafting.
… In initial message I had detailed examples of actions we have discussed or people have volunteered for. Jeff and Léonie both noted we shouldn't include things where we don't have a volunteer identified, and I support that.
… Think we do better being conservative in commitments. Since then I put a suggestion that we organise the action ideas page to match this taxonomy but didn't want to go in and do that without agreement. THink it would help scan and see where we have gaps that we should look to cover,
LJW: Sure, please make the edits.
JB: If we recategorise it that way, if we have a volunteer for each effort, would people feel comfortable with the less detailed but more comprehensive statement, or are we not there yet?
JJ: If we have a volunteer for each area that would be great. Named leads and example expected tasks would be a nice package.
<Zakim> dka_, you wanted to suggest moving quickly is important here.
<koalie> [I have a language-related issue: distinction between "less detailed" and "more comprehensive"?]
DKA: I am starting to lose track of what all the actions are leading up to. I think the focus should be on making a fast statement, because we are losing relevance to the community we are trying to reach. What are the actions we need before the statement comes out?
JB: An advantage of the generic list is we could agree on it today and get a statement out. Jeff's suggestion means we only need to confirm 7 or 8 people that we could achieve now, instead of many more.
JJ: Agree we should get moving. I have also seen many organisations produce vacuous statements. As a matter of personal taste, if we are serious more of the conversation needs to be about what we do, not just what we say.
<Judy> "W3C commits to take actions in the areas of learning, messaging, outreach and inreach, creating a welcoming environment, supporting participants, technical development, governance, and continuous improvement."
[chaals: +1 to being more focused on doing stuff than making a statement at the expense of it being correct]
<koalie> https://github.com/w3c/idcg/wiki/Ideas-for-ID-CG-actions
JB: We have an action ideas list - does someone have the link and can we see who has signed up for actions?
LJW: Agree with Dan, we have to ask the AC for consent and expect that to take 4 weeks. Doing both of these makes sense - come out today with a short list of actions with named responsible people would be good. Longer path of adding more detail as we work would serve us well.
JB: Can I read out the 8 areas and see if we have a volunteer for each?
LJW: Yep, that's the agenda.
JB: Learning - Tzviya and I have been talking about it, there has been a discussion on the IDCG internal list
TS: (that was an accident)
JB: Could you volunteer to lead on that?
TS: Yes.
JB: Messaging. Last time we asked Coralie if she could help - could you lead that one?
JJ: This has to be done through W3C commnuications, so it has to go through W3C in any case, so I don't see another way than making Coralie the lead.
Coralie: OK, I am volunteered.
JB: Outreach and inreach. I am willing to help, could lead if there isn't someone who wants to but would be delighted if someone would like to.
TS: The hiring issue is hard for people to volunteer, this has to be taken up by W3C staff.
… There's a lot of complexity in here to deal with.
WS: We have a bunch of volunteers on the wiki for a slightly different set of categories. Feels like we are repeating ourselves in a slightly different key…
… so I am losing the thread a bit too.
<Zakim> wseltzer, you wanted to discuss these categories
LJW: Can we map volunteers we have on the wiki to Judy's structure?
JB: Idea of taxonomy is to see if we can back a high-level statement and find someone responsible in each area. The disconnect I see is people may have volnteered for sub-level actions, but that's why I think we are doing this exercise.
<wendyreid> +1 Léonie
LJW: If we want to include a list of actions in the statement they need to be precise. Otherwise if we are describing general stuff it is hard to look at it and see what to expect in terms of outcomes.
<Judy> Coralie here is the list of higher-level actions I'd suggested: "W3C commits to take actions in the areas of learning, messaging, outreach and inreach, creating a welcoming environment, supporting participants, technical development, governance, and continuous improvement."
LJW: We can put the things we have into higher level categories, but I think we need to choose the right thing for the here and now first.
<Judy> https://github.com/w3c/idcg/wiki/Ideas-for-ID-CG-actions
Coralie: I was confused because I was reading from the wiki, and seeing stuff that didn't match. Now I think I got to the same page.
<Judy> [JB: yes we were in the middle of a re-mapping to see if we can back the proposed high-level action statement]
WR: I think I agree weith Léonie we should list the more concrete actions. No problem with broader categories, but need to have something people can see the outcomes in a reasonable amount of time.
… there are names attached to many actions. I can put my name on stuff to make it happen. I think we have a good list to start from. These can produce more things we will do, it isn't like this problem gets fixed with a few months of one-off actions.
<Zakim> Judy, you wanted to briefly state why I'd proposed this categorization for an action statement
JB: I had noted we still had a hole in our statement for what we could commit to. Looking like turning the list of actions into a stetement it looked piecemeal. Other organisations have made some principled statements of concern, not what re they giong to do.
… also looked at some organisations saying what they are doing and their comprehensive plans to address what they are improving, and I felt we were close to a situation where we can say we are trying to look at the whole organisation. If someone thinks they can turn the existing action list into something for a statement I would encourage that.
… I would prefer a statement that covers comprehensive change then backed by concrete actions.
<koalie> +1 to what Léonie is saying
LJW: think it is a question of how we get to something happening quickly. Incorporating the introductory statement describing thecomprehesive set of areas to work, but then we should identify the actual concrete actions we can be held accountable for in the short term.
… I think the world at large will expect us to produce more information further down the track.
TS: So, the proposal is to have the text that we talked about, and instead of the itemised list of actions we would have the sentence Judy proposed?
<tink> The version of the proposed statement here includes the suggested paragraph from Judy Brewer: https://github.com/w3c/idcg/wiki/proposed-statement
TS: and that means we have specific items, but not the detailed list of actions we will do? That speeds up the process and allows us to take further action…
LJW: Yes.
DKA: Yes.
<tzviya> W3C commits to take actions in the areas of learning, messaging, outreach and inreach, creating a welcoming environment, supporting participants, technical development, governance, and continuous improvement.
<koalie> +1
LJW: So in final 7 minutes, can we make a dash through the things where we have volunteers, and see how many can be added to the list?
<jeff> +1 to have diversity fund on the list
<wendyreid> +1
<hober> +1
LJW: more support with diversity fund; Dan and Wendy are leading it. Support or objections?
<melanierichards> +1
DKA: +1
<koalie> +1
<dka_> +1
<chaals> +1
LJW: Invited expert fee waiver. This already exists. Suggest we include it.
JJ: There are no fees for TPAC this year for anyone.
<chaals> 11
<Judy> 0
<jeff> +1
<tzviya> 0
<koalie> 0
<dka_> 0
LJW: let's leave that out.
… Making W3C more welcoming. No volunteers for group welcomes.
Tzviya: we have a group working on that, me, Shawn, Tess, Barbara, …
<wseltzer> [and I volunteered to be among that group]
JB: Matches a higher-level categorisation too
LJW: is that clear enough to add to the list?
TS: Think so
<koalie> +1
chaals: +1
<wendyreid> +1
<Judy> +1
<jeff> +1
<dka_> +1
<wendyreid> +1
<hober> +1
LJW: OK, add that one.
[resolved]
LJW: More outreach encompasses a number of different items
<Zakim> dka_, you wanted to opine that making a statement that includes even a partial list of actions is better than not issuing a statement.
Jeff: Previous includes CEPC and includes draft with more detail on racism. CEPC has more detail on all sorts of unacceptable behaviours. Prefer we don't just call out racism but be more inclusive about what is unacceptable.
LJW: Good point will update the wiki.
<hober> +1 to Jeff
LJW: happy for open office hours to be added, has traction.
<wendyreid> +1
chaals: +1
<dka_> +1
<jeff> +1
<Judy> 0
<koalie> +1
JB: I focused more on other stuff in the last week so I didn't synch up. I am gravitating towards the higher level categories -this is outreach and inreach. I think it will be a whole cluster of actions.
<melanierichards> +1 to outreach
LJW: Include outreach as a general action?
<koalie> +1
chaals: +1
<Judy> +1
<hober> +1 to outreach, -0.5 to inreach
JB: is term inreach too confusing
<dka_> +1 to outreach
<tzviya> +1 to outreach
<wendyreid> +1
[chaals: I don't love the term inreach: 0 for that bit]
LJW: Equity Review Board? Tess is leading - are you still up for it, everyone should we include it?
<koalie> +1
Tess: We should. We should work on defining it more clearly.
<tzviya> +1 to ERB
<jeff> Avoid discrimination: +1 to the concept; -1 on ERB until/unless ERB is better framed. Glad to hear that Tess is working on it.
<dka_> +1 to ERB
Tess: we can list it appropriately described
<wendyreid> +1 to ERB
<Judy> +1
<hober> +1 to ERB/governance
JB: I proposed governance as a category to cover this, couldn't find equity review board commonly
[chaals: +1 to ERB and think that is better than describing it as governance.]
<koalie> thanks chaals for scribing, tink for chairing
LJW: will share by email to try and get agreement on list and get to AC for review.
[Thank you Koalie for cleaning up the minutes]
<koalie> [you're very welcome]