Meeting minutes
What's next for this group?
<wendyreid> +1 to giving Tzviya more authority :)
<Jem> Would it be beneficial to summarize what we have accomplished/discussed as a group?
Ralph: I know this group has discussed training for a variety of folks, and development of resources.
<wendyreid> https://
Ralph: Might there be resources to continue that?
<Ralph> Inclusive Design Research Centre
Wendy: I had a meeting last week with folks at the link above, and they're doing a project called "All Standards" with us. It's researching the processes for getting people with disabilities involved, the barriers getting into standards. They're conducting interviews with a variety of standards orgs.
Wendy: They asked if I would be willing to review, and I said I'd love it. Anything they find should be hugely beneficial to our work. They asked if we did any training, and I pointed to the running better meetings training. Which I think was successful but didn't get the reach we hoped for.
<Ralph> Running Better Meetings
Wendy: We have other training we'd like to do for members, chairs, etc. We rely on the establishment of the ombuds program.
Tzviya: I know the center for democracy and technology is looking for info on inclusiveness.
Tzviya: I'm attending my first call tomorrow.
Tzviya: the default now is to give people a ton of info and have them figure it out.
tzviya8: There's a lot more we can do.
… Wendy do you want to talk a bit about what you and Max have worked on with AC facilitation?
wendyreid: Yes, we're call it AC facilitators, there'll be an email soon, the goal is to facilitate conversation, improve tone and usability of the lists. I sent a summary of the votes in progress and got some pretty good feedback.
… we want to make sure the conversation is productive and positive. We get a lot of ideas but nothing happens, so we want to try to take it to an appropriate destination.
<dbooth> +1 to metrics idea!
<Zakim> amy, you wanted to discuss metrics
<dbooth> Could also measure talking time
Amy: Raised a question about how to address some voices predominating conversations and new voices are frequently met with negativity. Wondered if there is a way to use metrics to support the conversation.
<tzviya8> +1 to sheila
sheila The amount of time a person is speaking may not be the measure, it may not be that we only hear from the same people, but sometimes the nature of conversation is alienating.
… I don't know if that's the exact solution.
<dbooth> I'm fantasizing about each listener rating the helpfulness of each contribution
wendyreid I agree with what Sheila said, there's likely a balance, where someone is contributing a lot, but they're doing so in a constructive manner vs someone who talks a lot but is not constructive. It's something we're concerned about and watching. We may collect metrics and see if they can validate our feelings.
… there's definitely some nuance to it, but figuring out how to do it effectively.
<Jem> as the AC, I am very confused about so many on going topics. I think the positive part of Amy's suggestion is let other participants like me, who is very quite- know who were not part of
<Jem> the core discussion.
<dbooth> Compute the ratio of the value contributed by the total talk time. ;)
JenStrickland: As someone with experience participating in a group where I got questioned but had facts to back it up, I felt bullied
… they dismissed it, told me to write a ticket, but writing a ticket creates an opportunity to be dogpiled
… there's a tendency for people to push people around in this way. There needs to be a compassionate way to handle this behaviour, the pushiness.
… there needs to be some way to condition contributors to recognize different ways to communicate, to participate
… maybe some kind of training, or mentorship from seasoned members who participate productively
<cwilso> +1 jem
<tzviya8> +1 to reflecting on what we've accomplished/not accomplished
Jem First, congratulations to Tzviya on her new position. Then, I was thinking about what we have accomplished as a PWE. We've been doing diversity awards, and then we couldn't accomplish the ombuds program. That kind of discussion will be helpful. I don't think that metrics are as relevant, and am not sure it's about how much people talk, need
some kind of institutional knowledge to understand a point to be more active in the discussion. Jen, you mentioned AGWG, that culture is really tough, culture, moderation, those variances. Hearing those comments maybe we can help those working groups.
<Zakim> amy, you wanted to ask Jem about her participation in ac-forum (or other lists)
<dbooth> I also like Jemma's suggestion of focusing on the WGs that are the most problematic
Amy I wanted to ask if you've posted in the AC forum, and what you've seen in the characteristics of messages you've been tempted to reply on or not. I'm curious to know what the differences are.
Jem Good question. If many people are participating, then I presume it must be an important question, so I feel I should. However, I may not have the important context which can be difficult to rebuild from the emails.
Amy I'm sure there are things that you can bring to the conversation, where you don't have to be an authority.
JemI can see the logic, but there's so much for me to hash out all the points.
tzviya8 Let's take a minute or ten to think on what PWE has accomplished or what we've had trouble moving forward with.
cwilso Jemma said one thing that I think is really important: we haven't been able to get the ombuds program running. One challenge is that any forum can become toxic, and I try to call out those who keep their cool and do a good job to steer the conversation to be productive, steer their energy into being inclusive and listening to other people.
I'm not sure how to best do that, but it doesn't seem like as a culture we have it engrained to do that.
… Brandon Jones in the immersive web space, will respond in a welcoming fashion to criticism, structuring conversations to make them positive. I'm not sure how we move forward. The CoC is a great place. I'm not always the most inclusive / welcoming, and there are people I trust to call me in.
tzviya8 I see Jen on the queue, and I think the best way to do this is to lead by example.
JenStrickland: I often think about the difference in meetings I attend that's lead by positive leaders versus not.
… I'm thinking of how important it is to get the ombuds underway is that chairs need support, addressing when people are not following the code of conduct
<amy> +1 to positive leaders
JenStrickland: asking for change and not seeing it leads to me not bothering to report anything
… what do we need to do to make ombuds happen?
tzviya8 What I'm hearing is we need leadership to model this behavior, calling in, demonstrating inclusiveness. That's a tall order, not every chair can do this. AGWG is an enormous group and there are challenging personalities. ARIA changed culture. Ombuds can help but they can't fix things. We still need strong leadership.
… We have a great CoC, but we need to figure out how to improve the leadership skills of those in leadership positions.
<amy> I will note that i've noticed Wendy's gentle but consistent replying has seemed to allow others I don't hear from as much to reply to her (maybe that feels "safer"? these kind, mediating messages can be a safe place for ppl to enter a conversation
<amy> +1 to leadership skills and positions. i wonder what if anything for eg: the Chairs guidebook might be changed for this
<Zakim> dbooth, you wanted to say I like Chris's idea of putting more emphasis on helping chairs and other leaders to promoting inclusion. Most of the Code of Conduct is negative -- don't do a, b, c, d, e, etc. -- but would be really nice to have more positive-oriented effort, like mentoring
dbooth I really like the idea of positive effort, maybe mentoring to guide chairs and other leaders toward a more inclusive kind of way of running groups. I think it could be helpful to reword the CoC to be positive, helping language instead of "Do not" type wording.
<dbooth> +1 to rewarding good behavior!!!
Ralph Can we come up with ways of rewarding good behavior, cleverly? Not just having the ombuds to address things.
<amy> +1 re: commending good behavior
tzviya8 I think we can do that, commend positive behavior out loud more often.
cwilso Agree with that point.
<Zakim> amy, you wanted to talk about praise
Ralph So, how do we teach people to identify those people who don't get the hint that that was a really positive thing.
<Jem> Maybe this is a good segway to Wendy's training discussion in a more structured way?
Amy I think in general people don't get enough praise, and it's really worth doing. I think taking that time is really good. I wanted to call out Wendy for doing a really good thing to have people come to her, which is really good and humanizes us.
<Jem> compliment is the basic principle of evaluation. you start with positives and compliments...
<Zakim> dbooth, you wanted to suggest requiring a minimal ongoing chair training
Amy For a while I did a gratitude journal, which sounds so hippie-dippie thing but it was really powerful.
<dbooth> Ongoing chair training might consist mostly of reviewing recente examples of great chairing
dbooth What about an ongoing chairs training, and have it be mostly reviewing examples of great chairing?
<amy> +1 to working w/ chairs
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to recommend thanking
tzviya8 Training is more complicated with coordination, but worth coming back to. David Singer told me he's been focused on thanking people more consciously. He doesn't want to end his career without thanking people. It's contagious.
<dbooth> Very nice comment about David Singer thanking people!
JenStrickland: Regarding training the chairs, I'm thinking of chairs I've interacted with
… chairs have so much work going on chairing their groups, adding something to their schedule may not work
… maybe we send them emails with commendations they've received
… or get people to send in examples of great contributions
<dbooth> +1 to the idea of email recognition of positive chairing example
JenStrickland: I often send emails to individuals to let them know, but putting it out there to create positive contagion
<amy> +1 to acknowledgements. we've been discussing this internally as part of how we show value for W3C and how we make sure employers see positive feedback
<Ralph> [survey question: "Think about the best chairs of groups in which you've participated. What characteristics of those individuals made them good chairs for that group?"]
Jem I have a high level question re Tzviya mentioned training. We've mentioned training a lot. What is the hold up for training.
wendyreid The hardest part is getting people to participate. The work to prepare it, there's some lift. We don't have any way to compel people. I sent lots of reminders, accommodate time zones.
From JenStrickland - can we give the training at TPAC?
wendyreid Chairs have a lot of work, but this isn't like compliance training at work, there's no compulsion.
Jem We could do some campaign on the training. We could highlight the training recordings, and then require it for the chairs.
… you have to take this training to act as a chair. Campaign and training requirement.
<amy> I think Jem's idea of linking training w/ Chair position is good. I wonder if looking at the Chair guidebook with training or encouraging positive behaviors in mind
sheila Before the end of this conversation, I have a professional update.
<Zakim> dbooth, you wanted to disagree that we cannot compel chair. I think W3C can place requirements on them as condition of chairing.
<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to comment on requirements to be named as a Group Chair
dbooth I would disagree with the assertion we can't require, as we require compliance with the COC and the patent policy. I also want to address that chairs don't have time for this, but this is important and people can make time for things that are important.
<sheila> I agree, it could be a requirement for being a chair
<amy> I find a page from maybe 2014? https://
Ralph Concur with David and Jemma. All of these trainings are recorded. We can require that chairs assert they have taken these trainings. I think we'll soon be doing that for our anti-trust and competition policy. But, my question to the rest of you, asserting that we can require it, do you think this would be a good thing to do? Would it limit
people who are good chairs, would it fail to eliminate people who took the training and didn't understand it?
… what are the graduation requirements?
wendyreid You'll receive an assessment six months from the training date…
<sheila> the training would have to be effective enough to make it worth their time. we'd have to put real effort into the training development
Ralph that's a good idea.
<amy> It's interesting to consider if we were trying to set up Groups and Chairs now, that this kind of requirements wouldn't make us blink
wendyreid Half joking, having it as required would probably increase the … when I became a chair I didn't feel prepared, here's a guide but it's very hard to get through. I learned most of what I did from co-chairs. I think about this re COC, related to process.
JenStrickland Yeah, without tzviya8 I wouldn't be able to chair the Equity CG.
<dbooth> Thank you Sheila for your wonderful contributions!
<Zakim> dbooth, you wanted to suggest a (perhaps automated) periodic survey of group participants about the good points of the chair and suggested improvement
<Jem> +1 to David's suggestion
<Jem> survey is a good feedback mechanism.
<dbooth> Thank you all for everything I learn from you!
What's next for this group?
<Ralph> I/+1 to giving Tzviya/topic: What's next for this group?