06:43:36 RRSAgent has joined #spec-maintenance 06:43:40 logging to https://www.w3.org/2023/09/13-spec-maintenance-irc 06:43:44 RRSAgent, do not leave 06:43:44 RRSAgent, make logs public 06:43:46 Meeting: Tracking spec maintenance 06:43:48 Chair: Jeffrey Yasskin 06:43:50 Agenda: https://github.com/jyasskin/spec-maintenance/blob/main/meetings/tpac-2023-agenda.md 06:43:52 Slideset: https://jyasskin.github.io/spec-maintenance/meetings/tpac-2023-slides.html 06:43:54 clear agenda 06:43:56 agenda+ Pick a scribe 06:43:58 agenda+ Reminders: code of conduct, health policies, recorded session policy 06:44:00 agenda+ Goal of this session 06:44:02 agenda+ Discussion 06:44:04 agenda+ Next steps / where discussion continues 06:44:08 Ian has left #spec-maintenance 07:01:13 Ian has joined #spec-maintenance 07:01:20 Ian has left #spec-maintenance 07:12:58 Ian has joined #spec-maintenance 07:13:00 Ian has left #spec-maintenance 10:17:36 fantasai has joined #spec-maintenance 10:19:38 Scribenick: fantasai 10:22:01 jyasskin has joined #spec-maintenance 10:22:01 astearns has joined #spec-maintenance 10:22:01 hober has joined #spec-maintenance 10:22:01 present+ 10:22:44 jyasskin: Preface: I haven't done all the homework to get this right 10:22:44 plh has joined #spec-maintenance 10:22:44 florian has joined #spec-maintenance 10:22:44 jyasskin: Basic problem I'm hoping to adress 10:22:44 ... is we work on specs, and then editors move on to other things 10:22:44 ... but then issues come up, or osmeone starts implementing 10:22:44 ... and editor doesn't notice 10:22:51 ... even if we notice, don't always have allocation to respond 10:22:59 [slide 3] 10:23:22 jyasskin: [presents numbers] 10:23:22 ... e.g. mean time to update is 2 years 10:23:26 ... mean issue age is 3 years 10:23:32 ... what do we need in order to address this? 10:23:34 [slide 4] 10:24:50 [slide 5] 10:24:50 jyasskin: We need to triage, distinguish by priority 10:24:50 ... unblock implementers 10:24:50 slides: https://jyasskin.github.io/spec-maintenance/meetings/tpac-2023-slides.html 10:24:50 [slide 6] 10:24:50 jyasskin: need to report problems 10:24:54 ... chrome team has internal tools 10:25:04 ... chrome bugs, pretty graphs of which teams are doing well or poorly about managing bugs 10:25:13 ... so I'd like to integrate specs with that system 10:25:18 ... I'm guessing other orgs have similar systems 10:25:28 ... also if we have a public description of "this spec is having trouble" 10:25:41 ... maybe someone will volunteer from community rather than just browser vendors 10:25:44 [slide 7] 10:25:48 jyasskin: People have built some tools 10:26:26 ... foolip built a tool called "spec Reactions" 10:26:26 caribou has joined #spec-maintenance 10:26:26 ... shows how many ppl have reacted across browser specs, baed on recent or total 10:26:26 ... to help prioritize action 10:27:00 ... W3C also has a list of recommended labels 10:27:00 ... mostly about horizontal review, but also bug vs enhancement, help wanted, etc. 10:27:00 [slide 8] 10:27:06 jyasskin: What did I miss? I want this to work for whole community, not just my company 10:27:16 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sVuuxIawZdPaT5Fbc_9nM6k7rC0nnf0N_khdM7tyqNs/edit#heading=h.3t624fypqsd3 10:27:23 q+ 10:27:31 jyasskin: Open floor for discussion 10:27:38 plh: Thanks for organizing this session 10:27:44 ... spec maintenance has been discussed for many years 10:27:52 ... tried to solve, but mostly failed, so glad you're picking up 10:28:33 ... big +1, we have many repos, so if we want to help triage the first thing is 10:28:33 ... we need to tell repos what to do to help triage 10:28:33 ... you mentioned list of labels on github.io, glad you're aware of it 10:28:33 ... big +1 to sending PR to update 10:28:33 ... but there also needs outreach effort 10:28:41 plh: What I do find is that training is a constant effort 10:28:53 ... haven't talked about horizontal review in awhile, and new people don't know what they mean and misuse them 10:29:13 plh: For the problem itself, if an editor is not responsive, talk to Team 10:29:20 ... then, idk who is Team 10:29:38 q+ about teams 10:29:38 ... consider SVG. Who is Team? Not only is editor unresponsive, we don't have an editor, don't have a WG 10:29:49 ... Maybe "good first spec to maintain"? But SVG isnot a good example for that 10:29:49 q+ jyasskin to answer about teams 10:29:52 q- about 10:29:54 q- teams 10:29:57 ack plh 10:29:58 ... but how can we attract editors to maintain abandoned specs? 10:30:12 ack jyasskin 10:30:12 jyasskin, you wanted to answer about teams 10:30:30 jyasskin: Wrt Team, Chrome as a team that's tasked with maintaining implementation of any particular feaure 10:30:32 xueyuan has joined #spec-maintenance 10:30:34 ... not sure who that is for SVG 10:30:42 npm has joined #spec-maintenance 10:30:42 ... we think that the Team should be maintaining spec also 10:31:24 ... I was thinking is that, we could link from repo to Google team responsible for that feautre 10:31:24 ... maybe put in W3C metadata 10:31:24 hober: Chrome metadata in W3C metadata? 10:31:29 jyasskin: Each company to put implementer metadata 10:31:39 ... e.g. for Chrome, here's the ID for the responsible team. For Safari, same thing 10:31:50 plh: W3C data doesn't work for WHATWG 10:31:58 jyasskin: We should have one schema for this 10:32:05 plh: maye not call it w3c.json in the first place 10:32:11 s/maye/maybe/ 10:32:16 ... but I welcome more data into those files 10:33:00 ??: when you have a spec, whose responsibility is it ultimately to triage the GH issues? 10:33:00 q? 10:33:00 s/??/nicolas/ 10:33:00 ... is it all the participants in teh group, or the editor? 10:34:03 hober: depends on the group. E.g. in ??? editors are expected to triage their issues, but other groups it's different 10:34:03 s/???/the WHATWG/ 10:34:03 nicolas: If no-one thinks they're responsible, then won't get done 10:34:03 q? 10:34:03 --> https://w3c.github.io/w3c.json.html W3C.json documentation 10:34:03 jyasskin: I think saying editor is good default. If editor is not responsive, then can go to implementer teams and ask for new editor 10:34:03 q+ 10:34:09 hober: Chairs have responsibility of appointing editors at W3C 10:34:16 ... implies chairs should notice if editors are unresponsive 10:34:18 --> https://w3c.github.io/validate-repos/report.html Report on W3C Working Group repositories 10:34:24 ... I think presumption of current process is chairs wil notice 10:34:27 ... in practice they don't 10:34:45 ... in particular, for CGs etc., there isn't necessarily that expectation at all 10:34:48 ... I trust Alan in CSS, to notice if a spec is abandond 10:34:53 astearns: I was nodding when you said this actually 10:34:58 jyasskin: chairs need help finding editors 10:34:59 astearns: yes we do! 10:35:12 hober: plh, you asked earlier, how can we attract editors for abandoned specs 10:35:22 ... and as we just learned, everyone agrees it's hard 10:35:24 astearns: I like idea of implementing team registries 10:35:43 ... because that's a narrower group of people I can go to and say "something needs to be done, let's figure out who's the victim" 10:35:48 ... much harder than going through WG 10:35:52 q+ 10:35:57 ack florian 10:36:04 florian: I'm wondering how this might tie into fact that at certain publication points 10:36:10 ... people are expected to produce a disposition of comments 10:36:17 ... to say which comments received, which addressed 10:36:21 ... that is infrequent, so not sufficient 10:36:29 q+ jyasskin to talk about spec lifecycles 10:36:38 ... but sometimes this will require editor to notice where they didn't do the job 10:36:51 ... but many years in between DoCs, so not idea 10:37:00 ... idk if we have a strong expectation, practice varies by WG and editor 10:37:06 ... but maybe we can try to tie two together 10:37:50 ack hober 10:37:50 ... the more we track what's happening, easier to report when you have gone through the issues 10:37:50 hober: wrt finding editors, there are some things we can do 10:37:50 ... I really like direction you're going, jyasskin 10:37:52 ... but no matter what we do, it is going to always be challenging to find editors 10:37:56 s/so not idea/so not sufficient/ 10:38:03 ... general economic incentives of the world are that engineers don't have much time 10:38:22 ... if have to choose between fix bugs (and get metrics improved) or to fix some spec (and not have bosses notice and give raise) 10:38:40 ... I don't know if, as an industry, we have a good story for rewarding this work, recognizing and elevating it 10:38:48 ... I would love ideas how to change that, but outside of that 10:38:54 ... I don't know what to do to attract people to it 10:38:57 ack jyasskin 10:38:57 jyasskin, you wanted to talk about spec lifecycles 10:39:15 jyasskin: On florian's comment, transitions on REC track happens much later than this problem 10:39:18 ... a lot of this happens in CGs 10:39:26 ... a lot of that is Chrome's fault 10:39:34 q+ 10:39:34 ... but within WG, it's too late for this problem 10:39:51 ... but reporting bit, scanning and saying which issues are out of SLO 10:39:56 ... my attempt to fix economics 10:40:04 ... to show managers if people doing a good job 10:40:17 ... if we can show the metrics, our management systems can reward people for making the number go down 10:40:26 ... we need management to buy into idea that these bugs are as valuable as implementation bugs 10:40:34 ... but if they could see it, then they could reward ppl for improving it 10:40:35 ack florian 10:40:46 AB issue on appreciating standards work: https://github.com/w3c/AB-memberonly/issues/53 10:40:49 florian: I want to mention that AB has longstanding issue, without an answer, about appreciating/recognizing/elevating standards work 10:40:58 ... if we can find good ways to make that happen, that's a known gap 10:41:16 plh: I'm very supportive of this work, expanding our tooling 10:41:22 ... doesn't just have to be in W3C 10:41:28 ... e.g. our horizontal tooling works with WHATWG as well 10:41:38 ... our horizontal groups work with WHATWG specs as well 10:41:46 ... so supportive of adding info 10:41:54 ... E.g. in specs, you find link between the spec and WPT! 10:41:57 q+ 10:42:03 ... maybe the link should not point to team, but within the spec 10:42:13 ... my principle is put the info close as possible to the people who can move it 10:42:25 ... one of problems with W3C is only Team can edit website 10:42:34 ... so that's why w3c.json were created in GH, so that ppl in GH can edit those files 10:43:19 ack caribou 10:43:31 caribou: wondering about tooling etc. 10:43:40 ... if nobody actively maintaining something because editor went away 10:43:45 ... adding more tooling is not going to solve the problem 10:43:52 ... ok to add tooling to help continue work 10:44:02 ... but problem to tackle here is to find a way to avoid editors dropping work 10:44:14 ... if they are already absent tooling won't solve 10:44:38 ... maybe we need some kind of rescue task force to help those cases 10:44:41 q+ to mention service workers 10:44:59 ... OK as well to drop some specs, if they are not progressing 10:45:20 ... currently we have no way to signal specs that are no longer very active 10:45:36 ... in some cases not limited to one WG, specs can have interest in several WGs, so maybe find ppl from outside join WG and fix it 10:45:40 ... or taking over 10:46:04 [audio cut] 10:46:35 ack plh 10:46:35 plh, you wanted to mention service workers 10:46:45 plh: One thing I wanted to mention, another spec which may become unfortunate case 10:46:51 ... is service worker core spec, nobody is maintaining it 10:46:56 ... or pushing it to a more stable state 10:47:08 ... actually a breakout on that, we don't even have a WG chair 10:47:18 q+ to talk about finding new editors 10:47:21 ... but there is interst in new stuff! But nobody interested in core spec 10:47:32 jyasskin: On finding new editors, Google has an internal policy 10:47:34 I was suggesting something like a "spec rescue" guideline or procedure to decide how to fix a stalled spec (find new people, stop work, or punt to other group) 10:47:39 ... that implementation teams are responsible for their specs also 10:47:54 ... for service workers, we'll have to discuss with director if he's planning to follow that policy 10:48:07 ... but W3C, and ppl looking for maintainer, that's a route they can take that hasn't been visible before 10:48:12 ... Tess, would that work for Safari? 10:48:24 ... if there was a Safari editor that left Safari and not active 10:48:25 agrees with caribou that "spec rescue" guidelines for chairs (and the team) would be good to have written down 10:48:32 ... is it appropriate to come to you or some team to ask for an editor? 10:48:35 hober: yes 10:48:39 jyasskin: that's the next thing to try then 10:48:46 ... we've been assuming editors to volunteer from the community 10:48:48 q+ 10:48:54 ... but we can ask the rich corporations to provide an editor 10:48:58 ack jyasskin 10:48:58 jyasskin, you wanted to talk about finding new editors 10:49:20 ack npm --init 10:49:20 q- 10:49:31 ???: Is it fair to say if there's an implementer, if Google or Apple is an implementer, it's OK to ask for an editor/maintainer of the spec? 10:49:34 ack npm 10:49:41 s/???/npm/ 10:49:43 ... that seems reasonable if you're implementing something, you should do some basic maintenance 10:49:51 ... but don't know if that's often the case 10:49:52 q+ 10:49:59 myles: usually not the case 10:50:06 npm: Something to look at, implementers why don't you edit 10:50:29 ... giving specific people ... once they have formal responsibility, easier for that person to say "manager, I am formally responsible for that, give me credit for it" 10:50:36 ... at least at Google we give credit for spec work 10:50:42 ... though more for getting things to ship 10:50:46 ... maintenance is much less rewarded 10:50:50 ... we need to improve on that 10:50:59 ... that can be a route towards having better incentives 10:51:12 ack florian 10:51:44 florian: if noticing and assigning editors is solution, it works where there's interest and resource 10:51:53 ... but also we have interest but no resource 10:52:02 ... in some WGs we have invited experts who have ability to do work 10:52:06 ... they just might not have time 10:52:11 ... so maybe we can make a match 10:52:25 ... While pinging to a well-resourced corp to provide editor 10:52:32 ... might not need to be your own personnel 10:52:36 jyasskin: contractors exist 10:52:43 jyasskin: OK, talked about finding new editors 10:52:51 ... I sketched the sorts of labels i think we need in the Google doc 10:52:55 q+ to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sVuuxIawZdPaT5Fbc_9nM6k7rC0nnf0N_khdM7tyqNs/edit#heading=h.k9bqpmce10qt 10:53:21 ... how do pppl feel about these labels? 10:53:25 q+ 10:53:39 ack jyasskin 10:53:39 jyasskin, you wanted to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sVuuxIawZdPaT5Fbc_9nM6k7rC0nnf0N_khdM7tyqNs/edit#heading=h.k9bqpmce10qt 10:53:40 q- 10:53:48 scribe+ jyasskin 10:53:50 ack fantasai 10:54:03 fantasai: blocks-implementation is useful, but I haven't seen it before. 10:54:25 ... CSSWG has several types of needs-feedback depending on what's needed. commenter-response. needs-data. needs-proposed-text 10:54:34 ... Don't know how many we need to make standardized. 10:54:36 q+ 10:54:38 q+ 10:54:40 marek has joined #spec-maintenance 10:54:44 ack astearns 10:55:35 astearns: implementer priority would be helpful, but issues being implementer or not don't want to prioritize like that. All issues are valid 10:56:20 fantasai: most issues in the CSSWG aren't immediately blocking an implementer. Lots are clear problems that will prevent people form getting it right. If someone's actively implementing and runs into something that needs fixing, it makes sense to prioritize those. 10:56:30 s/If/But if/ 10:56:36 astearns: [didn't hear] 10:56:53 ack hober 10:56:55 ... would be helpful to get implementer feedback on what they prioritize 10:57:05 ... but want other than implementers to be able to communicate priorities, too 10:57:13 hober: One of the most interesting sets of labels are blocking labels 10:57:20 ... so I can tell, this issue is stuck until something happens 10:57:39 present+ 10:57:44 ... I woudl like to suggest that should be clear from the label 10:58:03 ... who are we blocked on? what are we blocked on? 10:58:15 CSSWG labels -> https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/labels 10:58:17 I'm logging. Sorry, nothing found for 'who is present' 10:58:29 ... blocking CR or blocking implementations from advancing or... 10:58:34 ack florian 10:58:49 florian: Issues from anybody can be important 10:58:55 ... but implementer issues have more time-sensitivity 10:59:05 ... e.g. if we miss window of opportunity, they will ship something else, and it will be harder to do something about it 10:59:22 ... also if team is focused on this area, it's an opportunity for rapid progress if we schedule it right 10:59:35 ... not at the expense of recognizing that anyone's issue can be imprtant 10:59:40 implementer actions create time-sensitivity, but that can make non-implementer issues more important too 10:59:48 jyasskin: My thought was that the priorities would not care about if implementations 10:59:51 ack fantasai 10:59:54 ... but impelmenters can boost SLO by marking 11:00:12 fantasai: General prioritization I'd leave to implementation teams. If they need issues addressed, talk to the chairs. 11:00:26 ... chairs in CSSWG are very responsive. Just need to say what the implementers are. 11:00:27 q+ 11:00:44 q+ 11:00:45 ... Might have different opinions on the generic pile of issues. Different WGs might want to develop their own priorities. 11:01:01 fantasai: Can't necessarily standardize, except for "this is blocking an implementer" 11:01:04 ack jyasskin 11:01:06 q+ 11:01:20 jyasskin: CSSWG is unusually functional at W3C, doesn't mean other groups don't need 11:01:31 ... maybe the CSSWG wouldn't adopt some pieces of system, or wouldn't feed into tooling 11:01:42 ... but because CSSWG gets things done, they don't need this as much 11:01:50 ack plh 11:01:51 ... we could still propose this for CGs and less functional WGs 11:02:00 plh: My experience with new things and propagation across groups 11:02:14 ... we need to have this successful in one group first 11:02:23 ... e.g. horizontal tooling was based on experience of i18nWG 11:02:24 q+ 11:02:37 q+ to offer pilot groups 11:02:40 ... I took their tools and applied it to the all the HRGs ... TAG is still a bit fuzzy 11:02:46 ... groups each have their own culture 11:02:58 ... if something works well in CSSWG, and want other groups to adopt 11:03:12 ... if not adopting, maybe didn't know it was possible 11:03:17 ack florian 11:03:26 florian: We've been speaking about triage in terms of priorities 11:03:35 ... but e.g. in CSSWG, we have a lot of specs 11:03:41 ... part of triage is assigning issue to spec 11:03:49 ... that probably doesn't occur in WG with 2-3 specs 11:04:00 hober: CSS uses a mono-repo which causes this problem 11:04:05 plh: very few groups do this 11:04:12 ... model is usually one spec per repo 11:04:32 ack jyasskin 11:04:32 jyasskin, you wanted to offer pilot groups 11:04:33 florian: there are upsides and downsides, that's one downside 11:04:40 jyasskin: You mentioned groups to try out 11:04:51 ... initial plan for doing this was that I would figure something out and try it in a Google CG 11:05:09 ... realized I shoudl bring to community so that we can adopt as community, but we can pilot on a Google editing group 11:05:18 plh: grassroots efforts work etter 11:05:22 s/etter/better/ 11:05:33 ... e.g. wpt 11:05:35 q? 11:06:02 q+ 11:06:08 plh: Another group to reach out to is spec-prod 11:06:19 -> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/spec-prod/ 11:06:25 fantasai: or chairs@ 11:06:28 ack astearns 11:06:33 -> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/ 11:06:48 jyasskin: WICG, PATC, etc. 11:06:59 astearns: agree working out in a group 11:07:34 ... I suspect WICG needs more than others 11:07:34 q? 11:07:34 ... I'd like to be informed on progress 11:07:43 ... e.g. I didn't know spec-reactions tool existed 11:07:48 jyasskin: hasn't been publicized yet 11:08:20 jyasskin: I think we're done! Thanks everyone for contributing 11:08:30 ... I'll announce and discuss on spec-prod 11:26:05 RRSAgent, draft minutes 11:26:07 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2023/09/13-spec-maintenance-minutes.html caribou 11:27:09 caribou has left #spec-maintenance