– DRAFT –
Positive Work Environment CG

<Ralph> [confusion about the actual time of today's meeting]

<Ralph> [Liz acknowledges the timezone confusion; she intended this time, though that's not what her email said]

Progress on updating the reading list

<jeff> preesnt+

Tink: Jemma has been working on adding some tools to our repo

Jemma: yes; I worked on the group library

Jemma: there is a library named "W3C PWE" with subcategories Awareness and Resources for Implementation
… in Zotero

<Jemma> https://www.zotero.org/groups/2864452/w3c_pwe/library

Jemma: I migrated the GitHub [reading] resources to here
… Tzviya, Liz, and Léonie are also admins for this library
… Tzviya and I reviewed the accessibilty of the tool

éonie: sorry; I have the email but haven't yet had a chance to look at it

Jemma: you can click any web resource to add it to the group library
… you choose the subcategory

Judy: looking at the agenda, I was able to peek at Zotero
… thanks, Jemma, for doing the Zotero magic
… it looks like the readings and references have been reorganized
… I'm wondering what else we can do with it
… maybe for the next meeting we could ask people to look through the compiled readings and discuss whether these are the right resources to carry through our work
… and also whether we might be able to select any resources to talk about in more depth
… I'd love to see what more we can do with the reading list

Liz: given that it's a big list, I imagine we could review it over time
… and incrementally improve it

Léonie: makes sense to review it in chunks
… Lola was instrumental in putting together the list so we should reach out to her as well

Liz: maybe once a month or every two months we review a selected set of readings
… decide if they're useful and what else people might have found

Barbara: I like the list and agree with breaking it up to make it more manageable
… we could take a topic, find our favorite articles or books, and communicate that to the community to make it more interesting to read
… we've also been talking about making Diversity cultural; something that the AC needs to do
… and some type of Call to Action
… unless there is some mechanism to talk about it it tends to stay on our to-do lists
… some way to make it actionable
… either in discussion or for chairs to bring up in one of their working group meetings to discuss
… extra credit if there are times where there are themes
… e.g. this past month was International Women's Month
… we could dovetail off some activity, celebrating women in W3C
… or some LGBT activity
… some highlights of celebrations there

Judy: if we want to add to the list, how do we do that?

Jemma: [Zotero] members have permission to add resources to the library

Judy: without curation?

Jemma: yes; just become a member of the group
… we could agree, for example, that Barbara can become a member of the library and then she can add resources
… Tzviya might choose to approve library members

Léonie: you can also send to one of the four of us and we can take it from there

Jemma: Zotero can export in multiiple formats
… we're thinking that maybe we can dynamically update GitHub
… it can also import other libraries
… as CSV, JSON, Bibtex
… XML, and even Evernote

Thank you Jemma.

<sheila> thanks Jemma!

scribenick tink

[Ralph departs]

LJW: We talked about how we can understand the makeup of the community we have
… conversation was turning toward holding a survey.
… The idea emerged that we should not just ask about diversity but expand to find out other things about our community - how many front-end developers / product managers / etc do we have?
… Talk about using questions from Stack Overflow…

Tobie: I was involved with OpenJS and W3C wondering about the same set of questions, and someone brought StackOverflow's set of questions.

<tink> tink: We want to know more about our community and at the last call talked about a survey of W3C participants

Tobie: Should I share them on the mailing list?

Action: Tobie to share stack overflow's demographics questions.

<trackbot> Sorry, but no Tracker is associated with this channel.

<tink> ... We thought that the survey should not just ask about diversity, but also about other aspects of our community

<tink> ... Like geo-location, job title etc.

Tobie: They are a nicely phrased set of questions. When we discussed them in openJS, including with attorneys, we were concerned about handling the data. We looked for 3rd party to do so, and the numbers were far too expensive.
… Talked to people I know, and got more reasonable figures (under 5000 moneys)
… Trying to organise a meeting between people in this group and in OpenJS who are looking at the same things.
… Important is that if we go through the hassle of a survey, it makes sense to ask more questions including what we can usefully do.

LJW: If we define and host questions, maybe NoMensa can help. They have experience in managing user research and diversity. (But they cannot design the survey for us).
… They can check the questions to see if they are well-framed.

Jeff: +1 to have asurvey. Gives us some data, which is helpful to energise people.
… Bigger +1 to use the survey to find out ideas about what would make us more inclusive.

<tink> +1 to @Tobie's suggestion that the survey ask for suggestions on how we can improve our diversity.

Jeff: Could be a primary deiverable. I hope we don't slow down effort waiting for the outcomes of the survey - we already know there are significant problems on many diversity axes.

<Zakim> jeff, you wanted to comment on surveys

Liz: Who would pay the 5k?

LJW: W3C, or members contribute, or we ask to spend some of the TPAC diversity fund

JJ: I would support any of those options.

[chaals: I am not sure this is a fair use of the TPAC fund]
… I imagine W3C could find that itself.

<jeff> [fair enough, Chaals, as a minimum we would need to ask the donors.]

Barb: Sensitivity that isn't 100% diversity. Think this is an opportunity to find out what members like about, want from, or don't expect from W3C.
… So you can set the tone on making W3C more open, including diversity but also structures, etc...
… Then you ca slice data based on demographics. E.g. how many people in Asia want to be in meetings at 2.30 am
… Like the idea of synergising with another group, to get more breadth.
… You are probably familiar with how stack overflow categorises developers.
… Who participates in development of specs, and who is a user of the spec? These are different groups...

Liz: We do a survey on people with a braod range of questions, and it is annual - that is important. Being able to track the changes matters
… if we get it right the first time that is good, so you get a longitudinal data set.

WendyS: Often a series of data is more valuable than a one-off survey. I would caution against reading too much into a specific survey, and instead look at the change.

Liz: Sounds positive…

TPAC diversity funding

Liz: Will try to pull people together and get a process for people to be engaged through groups, through twitter, …
… Think we have a discussion about using the fund retroactively. We have a fair bit of money, and we can plan knowing in advance if money raised is for next year.
… But haven't yet done anything. Anyone want to help

WendyS: I offered to help work with TPAC diversity funding from Team perspective - how we can use the diversity fund for a virtual meeting.
… noted some stuff in the issue. Have we had more conversation about where spending is most useful.
… Offer honoraria, help participants, …

Liz: Yeah, was going to think about it and come back with some thoughts. Last meeting nobody volunteered to take this on.
… So that would be helpful.

Jeff: Wanted to put timing into the discussion. TPAC is 6 months away, but these things sneak up and we haven't been able to do things as we wanted for timing issues.
… We need to figure out what we are doing before we ask for money, if we are going to do that. The process has lots of steps, so it would be good to get moving.

Liz: Idea was to use exiating funds for this year, and the callout would be for money now to be spent next year. We might amend reasons...
… But having it lined up to go, with money collected the previous year, might make that a lot easier.
… Bug challenge is always getting the message out

LJW: +1 to getting a plan we can re-use. A regular timetable makes things simpler to do.
… one thing that has always been a problem is getting money to recipients because of a lack of time, so being able to work from last year's money as an ongoing process will simplify a lot of that.

JudyB: Once we know what kind of funding we want to support, need to make sure accounts are set up properly to do that - last year we couldn't, and that was a problem.

Liz: An account is another thing to make regular.
… please let me know if you want to read what I am going to write.

[chaals would like to read it]
… Who can apply, what is the process, for granting, …?
… We have a fund in our org, and we find it is good to have a process that streamlines the decisions.
… Drop me a line if you have thoughts.
… Probably will send this after the next meeting, in time for the following one.

WendyS: Should we use the fund by identifying people and topics and solicit participation, instead of an open application process?
… Can we seek people for topics we know are generally not presented?

Liz: We can use it to help people particpate or to fill the gaps

LJW: Last year we included some information on ways the fund might be used. Applicants last year were not participants in the community, asked for assistance with equipment funding.

Ombuds description

Judy: This is actually going to be about Ombuds' tasks

<Judy> * There is a list of action items on the PWE Roadmap: https://github.com/w3c/PWETF/wiki/PWE-Roadmap

<Judy> * The first section is "Ombuds Program," and the first item is: "Confirm current MIT (possibly other hosts) Ombuds, and ensure that role is limited but not eliminated."

<Judy> * Ralph and I discussed propose the following language for the MIT portion (wording is from MIT): "The MIT Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response (IDHR) Office [1] is available to "all members of the MIT community ... and anyone impacted by someone in the MIT community.""

<Judy> [1] http://idhr.mit.edu/

<Judy> * Still need to check with the other three W3C hosts. Question if people have input: Placement of this language could be: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/pwe/#Procedures ; or a new section on ""Ombuds Resources provided by the W3C Hosts"

Jeff: MIT offices are limited in what they do. Language in IRC didn't clarify the limitations, and I don't want to set wrong expectations.

Judy: Do you have a suggestion?

Jeff: You would know better, but if an MIT staff violates MIT policy they are more likely to be involved than if a non-affiiliated member of the community did so. The latter describes most of our community.

<Zakim> Judy, you wanted to (after sheila) suggest a way to address that

Judy: A way to address this would be to describe the different affiliations, so people can interpret correctly. I can take that back to Ralph and come back with fresh language

<Judy> [JB will take the concern back to discuss updated language with Ralph]

Jeff: W3C's setup applies to everyone in W3C community. MIT's help is basically limited to issues touching the people that they employ - about a dozen out of thousands.

<sheila> https://github.com/w3c/PWETF/blob/main/DraftOmbudsJobDescription.md

<chaals> Sheila: Talked to Tzviya about a job descripiton for ombuds, shared at last meeting, and hope to get feedback in time for next meeting.

<chaals> Liz: This is likely to be discussed often.

<chaals> [meeting adjourned]