solid/authorization-panel

Process Point of Order in meeting 2021-09-29

Closed this issue · 15 comments

bblfish commented

The process we have been following during the meetings has recently been changed without agreement by the Panel. Until the 2021-09-22 session, the week @timbl was present, the meeting notes were pushed to a branch where they could be PRed on and reviewed. That week though the meeting notes for 2021-09-29.md were pushed directly by @csarven to the main branch even though that procedure had never been discussed before. Indeed the discussion about that only started in the past week, and as one can see from the PR on the Solid Community Group Guidelines there is serious pushback against that process change.

That is not the only unusual thing that happened on the 2021-09-29.md. The first thing that was discussed that week was a PR, as usual. The first thing on the agenda for the past year has always been approval of the meeting notes. But this time it was not meeting notes that were discussed, but the PR of the ACP draft proposal, which was something completely different and for which I would have at least expected some discussion of what it means to accept it.

We usually started the panel session reviewing the previous weeks meeting notes. This did not happen for some reason in the previous meeting 2021-09-22, but probably because @kjetilk came along and presented himself, and we proceeded to discuss Modes. It did happen the meeting before that.

So when were the meeting notes for 2021-09-22 approved? As the git log records show those were committed half an hour after the meeting where @timbl appeared, in commit fdf2080 !

This looks like the process was changed to effect two things:

  • Not discuss the status of the ACP draft proposal that has been developed in parallel of the panel
  • Doing it during a meeting when Tim Berners-Lee came, in order to make it look like that PR had his blessing Perhaps it has, but Tim did not say anything about that in the meeting. Indeed the above change of procedure made me think we had just agreed to the minutes, not to the ACP proposal, which we were trying to discuss.

Acceptance criteria

  • Potentially revert the merging of the ACP Proposal, as this seems to have been done surepticiously.
elf-pavlik commented

I believe @justinwb brought up PR with the ACP draft and we all agreed to merge it.

bblfish commented

The ACP draft was a completely different thing that should have been discussed on its own, not merged together with the minutes.

csarven commented

Happy to take up this issue in a meeting if you feel strongly.

Henry, what you wrote above comes across as if there is some deep state conspiracy..

So, I'll just respond to this:

Potentially revert the merging of the ACP Proposal, as this seems to have been done surepticiously.

No.

In 2021-09-15 meeting topic: https://github.com/solid/authorization-panel/blob/main/meetings/2021-09-15.md#draft-specification-proposal-for-acp , Matthieu asked:

Matthieu I think it's in a good state. Can you see something still needed before we merge it?

(that's in addition to vague interest in showing merging in past discussions but not an actual "PROPOSAL" until the one I've put in 2021-09-29)

There was nothing in particular that was raised in the remainder of the discussion that would prevent a proposal to be accepted as a work item. Accepting it does not entail all technical details are worked out or even have received group agreement. It is at most an Editor's Draft.

Using the W3C Process as guidance, IGs/WGs accept Editor's Draft if the proposed item is within scope, group has bandwidth, has assignees to work on and so fort.

Editor’s drafts (ED) have no official standing whatsoever, and do not necessarily imply consensus of a Working Group or Interest Group, nor are their contents endorsed in any way by W3C.

Again, we use that as guidance in context of CG since there is no better one for our panels.

Second:

I've proposed this template/agenda which has been in fact mostly in practice: https://gitter.im/solid/specification?at=600eda39ac653a0802df61f7 which states:

PullRequests: Review open pull requests

(so that PRs can move forward - with the intention of "getting stuff done")

Since the ACP PR was the only open PR, I've added that to the agenda.

Lastly:

https://github.com/solid/authorization-panel/blob/main/meetings/2021-09-29.md#draft-specification-proposal-for-acp has the following on record:

See also: https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solid/authorization-panel/main/proposals/acp-specification/index.html#agent-matcher

SC: Anything outstanding? Consideration for merge. Any objections/feedback?
Matthieu: +1 merge
Elf: +1 merge
Justin: +1 merge
Henry: +1 merge
Sarven: Is Matthieu continuing as Editor?

PROPOSAL: Matthieu to continue as Editor.

RESOLUTION: Matthieu as Editor of ACP work item.

Does that clarify?

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csarven commented

One more.

In 2021-10-06 meeting: https://github.com/solid/authorization-panel/blob/main/meetings/2021-10-06.md (which I've pushed without PR) there was no discussion on the approval of 2021-09-29 meeting minutes (which I've also pushed without PR, HOWEVER, you have created a PR #264 against that 2021-09-29 minutes, and so in essence acknowledging the existing content - but hey, one can argue that patches to somewhere else in a document doesn't entail acknowledgement of content elsewhere.. yawn).

I wasn't present at that the beginning of 2021-10-06 meeting.. I've only joined perhaps midway into the meeting (if memory serves me well). You can verify this by checking with the Editors team where I was still in discussions with Kjetil and TimBL.

Perhaps one may consider the possibility that I've manipulated the 2021-10-06 meeting minutes in that I've removed the discussion on approving the minutes of 2021-09-29, e.g., possibly people taking up the topic of responding to or rejecting the "RESOLUTION: Matthieu as Editor of ACP work item."

So, one way to resolve would be to ask those that were present (and yourself?) at the beginning of the 2021-10-06 meeting to see if there was a discussion on that RESOLUTION or not. I don't get to vote on this particular matter as there is a conflict of interest.

bblfish commented

@csarven wrote

Henry, what you wrote above comes across as if there is some deep state conspiracy..

@csarven you changed the rules unilaterally without first talking to the panel about those changes, and the day you changed the rules something else happened that was not proper.

The proposals you are making in your PR 319 on draft community guidelines is an attempt post-facto to justify these actions. Those guidelines it seems are designed to create an easily subvertible process, as we are seeing in the first use of it, where oversight of the process is as small as possible. Essentially you are trying to make it normal to commit to main without oversight from anyone. That is just a process for reaching sham consensus.

elf-pavlik commented

@bblfish If you have really compelling reason to revert the merge of ACP, please propose it during the meeting today and we all can 👍 👀 👎 that proposal.

bblfish commented

@elf-pavlik the problem is about process being broken first of all without group agreement.
It may suite you now, but will you be ok with that if it happens in the future?

csarven commented

Do you have a response to the four data points that I've outlined above?

I didn't change rules when those weren't "rules" to begin with. We had practices and they varied across the CG. I've stressed this point so many times now to you in private and public (PR 319) - trying to codify a process. Second, if PR 319 shows anything, I've taken all of your considerations into account - just short of literally accepting your preference as is. At what point of this discussion will you consider a compromise? At what point will you acknowledge other considerations to come up with a solution that can work for the CG? I've created PR 319 taking several concerns into account, yet, you are still insisting on how that's wrong - all meanwhile you completely skip over specific considerations that I've outline in which your preferred solution doesn't even address or acknowledge - and all that is to cover up something.

Can we take a step or two back? I know we can work better.

bblfish commented

I didn't change rules when those weren't "rules" to begin with. We had practices and they varied across the CG.

Regularity of practices are what rules are built on, at least in Common Law based systems, and organisations such as the W3C are based on those.

You were very familiar with our process. Indeed your major claim against it used up too much time. This It did not suite you, so you decided by yourself to change it. That is unilateral decision making, and now you are just scrambling to find justifications for your decision.

elf-pavlik commented

@elf-pavlik the problem is about process being broken first of all without group agreement.
It may suite you now, but will you be ok with that if it happens in the future?

I understand @csarven having good intentions, but I also understand that @bblfish might find the way things were done somehow intrusive. Can we all take it as a lesson and all do our best that improvements we want to propose are presented with appropriate caution?

I admit that few times I had also the experience of @csarven acting in an IMO intrusive way when in the past he would just start acting as a meeting facilitator while a specific panel has been facilitated by a specific person already for quite some time. I think we just need a quick and effective way to resolve any glitches in the process without accidentally obstructing work on deliverables.

Let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume good intentions. At the same time, we should recognize that we are a diverse group of individuals with different characters and cultural backgrounds. I don't say we should ignore anyone frustration, let's just do our best in resolving process issues in effective way.

csarven commented

Irrelevant. You've brought up vague accusations and I've responded with four data points to clarify. Whatever part of the practice was changed or requested to be a legitimate process is orthogonal to what actually happened. I've simply responded to the suggestion on possibly reverting a group agreement - the one that you didn't raise an objection to until now.

Tell you what:

Is there anything else that needs to be worked out in this issue or can we close?

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csarven commented

I admit that few times I had also the experience of @csarven acting in an IMO intrusive way when in the past he would just start acting as a meeting facilitator while a specific panel has been facilitated by a specific person already for quite some time.

  • There was no "assigned" meeting facilitator even if you have favourites and general discomfort of me facilitating anything - that has always been clear. You see that as being "intrusive", I see that as CG chairing. notifications-panel is the only one that actually has an assigned chair/moderator/facilitator or whatever you want to call it, and it is in fact superfluous.

  • The "facilitators" that you may be favouring lacked experience (on a number of fronts), and for the record, have not been attending the panels regularly. I won't dive further into this as the panel makeup changed over time for different reasons.

  • I've regularly asked unless there are objections to me moderating or scribing or whatever.. I can, without trying to impose things.

  • I've invited different individuals - including you! - to moderate or scribe so that the CG as a whole matures over time.

But you did not note any of that.

elf-pavlik commented

Acceptance criteria
Potentially revert the merging of the ACP Proposal, as this seems to have been done surepticiously.

We took our time and addressed it during tast meeting #272 I hope there's nothing more to do here.