Overview of the 2025 Process for the W3C Team

Work in Progress

Draft at: w3.org/policies/process/drafts (see changes section)

• Preview of the likely upcoming 2025 edition of the W3C Process
• Not yet approved by the AB nor the AC
• May still change…
• …but probably not much
• Likely completion date: late Q1 2025
• Presentation only focused on changes impacting the Team

Changes about /TR and publications

Registry Maintenance

See Issue 699

If the custodian of a registry table ceases to exist or to operate as a custodian (e.g., the relevant group is disbanded, or the custodian is unresponsive to repeated attempts to make contact), and the Working Group that owns the registry definition is itself closed or unresponsive, the Team should propose replacing the custodian, which must be confirmed by an AC Review as a W3C Decision.

Need to make progress between updates

See Issue 781

For such update requests, the Working Group:

• […]
• must obtain Team verification (a Team decision):
  • […]
  • may be withheld if the Team believes the Group is not making reasonable progress on addressing issues raised by individuals external to the Group.

Retire "Streamlined Publication Approval"

See Issue 856

In order to streamline the publication process in non-controversial cases, verification of an update request is automatically granted without formal review when the following additional criteria are fulfilled: […]

• publication has improved enough that this became unnecessary
• nobody was using it

Retiring “Proposed Recommendation” (before)

Retiring “Proposed Recommendation” (after)

Retiring “Proposed Recommendation”

See Issue 861

• Criteria to go from CR to REC unchanged…
• …but merged into one single step
• Tweak to charter template:

  In order to advance to Proposed recommendation […]

  In order to advance beyond Candidate Recommendation […]

W3C Council

Adjustments to the W3C Council

Issue 925

Deadlines for council formation now strict: 90 days

Issue 735

FOs must be made public by the time the Council is initiated

Issue 825

FOs on changes proposed after AC review processed by same Council as those raised during AC review

Changes to Chartering

Charter & Chairs

See Issue 861

Chairs must be listed in Charters

Charter Refinement (1/4)

Newly formal phase before AC review of Charters

See draft Process §4.1 and §4.2

Goals:

• Encourage early discussion
• Reduce FOs
• Reduce frustration / disengagement
• Improve discoverability

Charter Refinement (2/4)

• Still initiated by the Team…but Members have a formal right to ask
• Formal announcement to invite participation (from anyone)
• Chartering itself is explicitly chaired (by the “Facilitator”)
  
  • Address all issues
  • Consensus driven
  • Disposition of Comments
  • Decision to go ahead (preferably, but not necessarily by consensus)
• FOs raised during that phase processed together those raised during AC Review

Charter Refinement (3/4)

[The] charter review notice must include:

• A short summary of the proposal.
• The location of the charter draft, which must be public.
• How to participate in the discussion of this charter draft and where to file issues.
• The expected duration of the charter refinement phase […]
• Who the Chartering Facilitator is.

Charter Refinement (4/4)

Team TODOs:

• Decide how you want to pick facilitators
• Decide where to host charters during this phase
• Decide where to collect issues during this phase
• Develop consistent and clear messaging, as well as a dashboard/index
• Update /Guide

Other Changes

Member Submissions

See Issue 412

• Process on Member Submissions reduced to the essentials
• Remainder shifted to /Guide
• No immediate change in practice implied
• But Team has now discretion to evolve the parts not in the Process

Pending Changes

Issue 954

Elections (and some numerical votes) gated on Good Standing (in the bylaws sense)

Issue 953

Require documentation of how FOs get resolved