[cooperation-wg] time-lines for co-chair appointments

> On 11 Jul 2016, at 16:35, Meredith Whittaker <meredithrachel at google.com> wrote:
> 
> So, what do you suggest?

It’s not up to me (or anyone else) to say how you should run your WG Meredith. That’s for you and your WG co-chairs to decide in consultation with the WG.

However given where we are, here’s what I would do if I was in your shoes.

Just reset the co-chair appointment process and start again.

Neither of the two suggested time-lines has been met. The WG is confused and uncertain how to proceed. The agreed process wasn’t followed and things have gone off the rails. The best thing for everyone now is to pretend that never happened and start from scratch once more. There’s no point apportioning blame or playing “he said, she said” about what happened since that would not help.

I think the way to proceed would be for the WG Chair to announce on the mailing list that 1? 2? co-chairs need to be appointed and invite candidates to step forward or be nominated. The WG chair should not go beyond that by naming any personal preferences or “qualified candidates”. This is for the WG and the candidates to decide for themselves. Anyone who wants to be considered must also make that known on the list. Discussions then take place on the mailing list about suitability of these candidates and the WG hopefully converges on consensus. If/when a consensus emerges, the WG Chair makes a judgement about that and announces their decision on the list. This is pretty much what the agreed appointment process says.

That agreed process allows 2 weeks for volunteers to come forward. Then there’s two weeks after that for the WG Chair(s) to announce on the list who the candidates are and invite the WG to express their approval or otherwise of the presented candidates. Two weeks after that the WG has hopefully arrived at consensus and the WG Chair(s) announces the result. If the process is followed, it should produce a happy outcome. Famous last words...

Starting this process right now is probably unwise because this six-week long exercise would run until the end of August while most of Europe is on holiday. OTOH, starting things once the summer holidays are over means nobody could be appointed until mid-October at the earliest. So it may be an idea to first ask the WG if it wants to wait that long or get things under way sooner. This will determine when to open the floodgates for nominees.

When that announcement is made on the list for interested parties, it would be helpful to clearly state the dates when “nominations” close, when the announcement of the candidates is due and when a final decision is expected from the WG. This should hopefully concentrate minds.


hope this helps