Tantek’s Thoughts 2024-5

[charter] SustyWeb IG charter should coordinate with IETF environmental efforts

The SustyWeb IG charter Coordination section says: “We will also monitor the work of and where appropriate collaborate with standards bodies (external to the W3C) such as those listed below…” and then lists two organizations.

The IETF should be added to this list of standards bodies, perhaps even their Environmental Impacts of Internet Technology (eimpact) group in particular.

The aspects of coordination could include each group’s email lists, meetings, and perhaps even collaborating on documents.

If it would help, I could start a Pull Request with a basic one-sentence group and coordination description, and invite the editor(s) to make further changes as necessary.

[charter] SustyWeb IG charter should state intended audience of guidance

The SustyWeb IG charter Motivation and Background says: “The Sustainable Web Interest Group will provide evidence-led guidance alongside methods to observe, measure, and improve the sustainability of digital products and services” and then states who will create that guidance.

Before stating who will create the guidance, the charter Background should state who the guidance is intended for. I believe the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) can answer some of this implicitly, however I think it would be helpful for the charter to explicitly state the intended audience. For example (not intended as a specific suggestion), the charter could state something like “This guidance is intended for …” and then perhaps a list of various roles like executives and other decision-makers, managers, designers, developers etc.

I suggest asking the editor(s) of the WSG for a summary of the intended audience, and incorporating that summary into the charter’s Background section. If it would help, I could start a Pull Request with a basic one-sentence suggestion, and invite the editor(s) to make further changes as necessary.

W3C Vision: wide and horizontal reviews tracking

This is primarily a project tracking issue for the Vision Task Force (VisionTF) editor and chair. There are a number of required and a few optional but helpful steps to take before taking the W3C Vision to the Advisory Committee for a vote for a Statement. Notably we need to ensure that proper wide and horizontal reviews have been explicitly requested, and any requests back for more time are properly incorporated.

Here are check-lists of explicit requests for horizontal and wide reviews for customary durations per the W3C Process, with issue links to be added to track each individual request. Checklist items are initially intended for keeping track of sending requests for reviews, without implying anything about the outcomes thereof. We should also track when we have at a minimum received review feedback from each group that can provide summary feedback from that group.

Before we send these requests for review, we need to publish an updated AB-approved (tracked in the AB’s Member-only repo) public Note based on the current Editor’s draft, for the reviewers to consider:

[x] Publish AB-approved updated public Note (AB-memberonly #242)

Horizontal Reviews Requests

[x] Accessibility (a11y) - Vision for W3C 2024-10-23 > 2024-11-20 a11y-request#93
[x] Internationalization (i18n) - Vision for W3C 2024-10-23 > 2024-11-20 i18n-request#243
[x] Privacy - Vision for W3C 2024-10-23 > 2024-11-20 w3cping/privacy-request#145
[x] Security - Vision for W3C 2024-10-23 > 2024-11-20 security-request#77
[x] Technical Architecture Group (TAG) - Vision for W3C: request horizontal architectural review and wide TAG review w3ctag/design-reviews#1008

Wide Reviews Requests

[x] public-review-announce list - https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-review-announce/2024Oct/0005.html
[x] Advisory Committee (AC) - https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-forum/2024OctDec/0074.html (W3C Member-only link)
[x] Board of Directors (Board) - largely same content as ^, addressed to Members of the W3C Board of Directors
[x] Positive Work Environment Task Force (PWETF) - https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pwe/2024Oct/0002.html

Wider Outreach

In addition, for such a foundational document, I believe its wide review can benefit from the following optional steps to reach an audience beyond W3C who may have feedback for our consideration:

[ ] Blog post on W3.org requesting wide review
[ ] One or more personal blog posts by editor and/or chair
[ ] Social media copies of or links to said blog posts

Label: Project Vision

I tend to agree with @github.com/manton’s comment and analysis. As Manton points out, there are many of us now, many implementers and publishers that are implementing and supporting multiple protocols, and thus it matters to us that we at least maintain the level of compatibility and interoperability that we achieved in the initial Recommendations of these specifications. I think we can continue to do that, especially if we scope the Working Group to being a maintenance WG for the existing specs. This is something that Evan has convinced me of, while previously I saw a renewed Social Web WG to work on new features. Given the progress with use of extensions, and the Fed ID CG/WG stages process (or something like it), that seems like a better way to pursue new features, in parallel in the Social CG. Another benefit of one Social Web working group is that its scope is easier to determine and explain, both to prior participants, and to W3C Members who will be voting on its creation. A renewal of a working group to do maintenance on all of its prior specs, both editorial and bug fixes, makes a lot of sense to W3C and to Members, who like seeing working groups that take up the responsibility of maintaining specs. This especially makes more sense when all those specifications have far more implementations now than when they were shipped by the prior working group! As I saw in another blog post about the social web, we are all here on “team open”, and I think we suffer, collectively, by attempting to draw lines with any “ActivityPub-only” approach. Both because it unnecessarily divides a very diverse, mixed, and broader “ActivtyPub supporting” community, and because it’s much fuzzier, to the point of overlapping with adjacent and aligned efforts. The rel=me specification is a good example of this overlap. Would that be included in an “ActivityPub-only” approach? Because it’s certainly used by communities beyond that. We have a whole task force on HTML Discovery in the CG where some of us (myself included) is working on improving rel=author support when interacting between HTML representations of profiles, yes, often with microformats, and retrieving the JSON(-LD) Activity Streams 2 versions of those profiles. That sort of interoperability benefits from a more inclusive approach. We have bridges (https://fed.brid.gy/) that have helped the “ActvityPub-verse” grow that we could only dream about during the prior Social Web WG, because that group put in the hard work of figuring out interoperability across protocols and formats. We already did that hard work so why squander it? A maintenance group for all our specs provides a venue for any marginal bits of small work we may (or may not) need to maintain the positive outcomes of all that prior hard work. Lastly, @github.com/gobengo brings up important concerns that I think merit explicitly addressing, regarding “experience in the SocialWG from 2013-2017” (actually 2014-2018 per https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg) First, in summary I will say as the saying goes “Don't fight the last war”, or I prefer a non-violent expression instead: “Don’t argue the prior debates”. We were in a very different situation at the start of the first Social Web Working Group, having emerged from an incredibly diverse “W3C Workshop on Social Standards: The Future of Business” (AKA osfw3c) in 2013. The first Social Web WG had to evaluate numerous prior group efforts (17+) and different approaches (~15) that were proposed by members of the group for consideration before narrowing down to ~3 approaches. Lots of time was spent doing this, which we would obviously avoid by sticking to maintenance of existing specs. We also found so much in common that we were able to leverage as building blocks and points of compatibility. HTTP & link rel discovery. URLs for profiles. Etc. the list goes on. All of that is pointing out how the first Social Web WG was very different than what a similarly scoped Social Web WG could be like today. Second, the other strong point of more recent evidence that we should use instead of fearing “the last war”, is how the Social CG has been conducted for the past 5-6 years, especially the past few years mostly chaired by Dmitri. Every Social CG meeting I have been to has been incredibly positive & productive. Even when we disagree, we do so in very civil, polite, informed ways that consider each other’s use-cases, perspectives, opinions, with folks working on different projects and protocols! It has been an incredible experience and I am grateful to be a part of it, and especially grateful for Dmitri’s stewardship. I mentioned this briefly in a post after a recent meeting https://tantek.com/2024/216/t1/socialcg-telcon. With the Social CG, under Dmitri’s chairing, we have found a new more harmonious rhythm, and frankly, broader inclusiveness of different efforts and communities than we ever had previously. We have proven we can have regular meetings that “continue[s] the work of the W3C Social Web Working Group” where agenda items are curated and prioritized in a manner that respects the time and interests of the participants. I would expect the harmony of the Social Web CG to continue in a similar renewed Social Web WG, and would support Dmitri as a co-chair of that working group to keep our momentum going. In addition, I would ask anyone else wanting to co-chair to learn from and adopt Dmitri’s chairing workmode accordingly. I believe that is our best path to success for this community, and for all our collective goals. References: * https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialCG * https://www.w3.org/wiki/SocialWG * https://indieweb.org/2013/osfw3c

W3C Vision needs adversarial reading analyses

Quoting from this comment on issue 113 to separate this into its own issue:

…we need to do an adversarial reading of the document, to anticipate how it will be understood and misunderstood by people outside the consortium -- especially those who may not be predisposed to be 'on board' with what we do.

This will likely require a section by section reading, and filing new specific issues per potential misunderstanding to consider how and if there is way to mitigate such potential misunderstandings. Such new issues should cite this issue and then we can make closing this issue dependent on closing all such specific issues.

We may want to consider a list of checkboxes in this issue to track completion of such adversarial reading analyses section by section.

W3C Sustainability meeting

Session description

The Sustainability Community Group (CG) identified a number of projects and work areas in its first meeting. Since then, two things key things have happened: First, the Sustainable Web Design CG has been forked off to its own in-progress Interest Group charter (on w3c-ac-members member only link) to focus on the Web Sustainability Guidelines. Thus this Sustainability meeting will focus on other areas listed. Second, the Ethical Web Principles (EWP) has been voted on by the W3C Advisory Committee, and there were no objections to the section on environmental sustainability, which provides an excellent forward-looking focus for a Sustainability CG meeting.

Session goal

The goal of this session is to discuss and pick a few of the Sustainability CG work areas that are most directly and actionably aligned with the EWP encouragement to “endeavor not to do further harm to the environment when we introduce new technologies to the web”, and identify goals and next steps towards those goals. For example, expanding on the Principles identified by the EWP, and how to do a sustainability (s12y) assessment of new and proposed technologies towards establishing a practice of Sustainability Horizontal Reviews to build on W3C’s existing accessibility (a11y), internationalization (i18n), security, and privacy horizontal reviews.

Additional session chairs (Optional)

No response

Who can attend

Restricted to TPAC registrants

IRC channel (Optional)

#sustainability

Other sessions where we should avoid scheduling conflicts (Optional)

#55, #59, #65, #68, #70, #77, #84, #87, #88, #89, #99

Instructions for meeting planners (Optional)

No response

Agenda for the meeting.

To be added to https://www.w3.org/wiki/Sustainability if this session is approved.

W3C Vision — Getting To Statement

Session Description

The Advisory Board (AB) published the W3C Vision as a Note earlier this year. The Vision Task Force (VisionTF) has processed most issues and a small number of Statement Blockers remain. This breakout session is an open session for working through the remaining Statement Blocker issues.

Session goal

The goal of this session is reach consensus resolutions on the remaining Statement Blocker issues for the W3C Vision, so the Vision Task Force can prepare an updated W3C Vision Note for publication as a proposed Statement for an Advisory Committee vote.

Additional session chairs (Optional)

@cwilso

Who can attend

Restricted to TPAC registrants

IRC Channel (Optional)

#vision

Other sessions where we should avoid scheduling conflicts (Optional)

#55, #59, #65, #68, #70, #77, #87, #88, #89, #99, #100

Instructions for meeting planners (Optional)

No response

Agenda for the meeting.

w3.org/wiki/AB/VisionTF/2024-09-25

Came up with and tried a three phase pomodoro technique yesterday for working thru tasks and projects. This three phase pomodoro cycle repeats and resyncs hourly. The three phases I came up with: * physical tidying/cleaning * physical processing * digital processing This worked quite well and I got a lot of things done, tasks completed or significantly advanced in ~6 hours. Many of these were “annoying” or “boring” but often not immediately “necessary” tasks that I had left undone (procrastinated) for many weeks, especially with all the travel I have had in the past two months nevermind first two-thirds of this year. I took the basic idea of a pomodoro 20-minute timebox^1, figured three of those fit into an hour, and picked three things that were cognitively different enough that switching from one to the other would use different cognitive skills (perhaps different parts of my brain), thus allowing a form of cognitive rest (rather than fatigue, and giving one part of my brain a chance to rest, while using others). This eliminated the need to take “pomodoro breaks”, whether 5 minutes or 20-30 minutes and it felt nearly effortless (actually fun at times) to cycle through the three phases, repeatedly, for hours on end. Before I knew it six hours had gone by and many tasks had been completed. The three 20 minute phases have the advantage of quickly determining at any time which phase you should be in by checking your watch/phone for :00-:20, :20-:40, :40-:00. If you happened to be “out of phase”, e.g. “run over” because you were finishing something up, rather than stressing about it, switch to the in-progress phase and pick-up a new task accordingly. A 20 minute timebox also has the advantage that tasks are less annoying or boring when you know that in less than 20 minutes you will be able to set them down and switch to something else. There was an iterative sense of expectation of novelty. The expectation of even only a little novelty was enough to make things go more quickly in the present, and even provide a game-like encouragement of see how far I can get with this boring or annoying task in the little time remaining. Could I even complete this one task in less than 20 minutes? I think repeating three phase pomodoro cycles worked particularly well on a Saturday afternoon when I had very few external interrupts. I think that was key. It gave a sense of momentum, if actual flow^2, that itself felt like it gave me a source of energy to keep going. I’m not sure it would work during normal work hours in any highly or even partially collaborative environment. Interruptions for physical needs, moving around, drinking, eating etc. were something that I allowed at any time, and that removed any stress about those too. I rarely set any count-down timers. A few times when I recognized I was starting or picking up a task that I might get absolutely lost in (such as many digital processing tasks like email), I set an explicit count-down timer for the end of the phase. These timer alarms certainly helped to give me permission to put down that task (for now) and switch, rather than feeling compelled to “complete” it which I know from experience can often take much longer, and leave me feeling more tired, perhaps even too tired to do anything else. There was also a sense of relief in knowing that even if I didn’t finish a particular task by the end of a phase, I would have the opportunity to pick it right back up in 40 minutes. Or maybe by then I would have decided to work on a different task in that phase. This three phase pomodoro technique worked well for tasks that are not very cognitively engaging (hence boring or annoying). Such tasks have low context, and thus low context-switching costs, but still benefit from taking mental breaks and resets. In contrast, any deeply cognitively engaging, thinking, or creative tasks, like inventing, coding, writing, typically have a much higher context-switching costs, and in my experience work better when you can set aside a longer block of time to allow yourself build up all the context and then joyfully explore the depths of whatever it is you’re creating. That being said, I think some creative tasks (depending on the person) could benefit from time-boxing. Like having a constraint to write a short blog post in the morning before a workout or breakfast. Worth trying such one-off timeboxes or even formal pomodoros and seeing if they help complete some creative tasks faster (or more often) over time. #productivity #pomodoro #pomodoroTechnique #gtd #gettingThingsDone #Saturday References: ^1 Apparently I misremembered 20 minutes instead of the typical pomodoro 25 minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique ^2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)