Created: Coralie Mercier (talk) 19:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The election for seven seats on the Board of Directors of W3C, Incorporated is open.

11 candidates have been nominated by at least one W3C Member. We invite you to read the nomination statements.

Candidate Q&A

Further to feedback regarding the approach to “meet the candidates”, and because there is no easy, perfect way to execute a completely fair and inclusive approach that also satisfies all the desires of our community in terms of engaging with candidates, the Team dropped the initial idea to make recorded answers available. Instead, the focus is ensuring as fair and inclusive an approach as we can that allows candidates to make the case for their fitness to serve.

A good board member should be able to think strategically, have a head for good governance, and be able to ask and address probing questions. You may read more about the skills and expectations of committed Board members. This includes questions which need not be formally conducted and intended to inform nomination and encourage self-evaluation. Some candidates have shared their answers.

Using the Candidate Q&A wiki as the forum for AC reps to learn more about candidates is the simplest, fairest means. This asynchronous approach will give candidates the time to think through and write answers, and also means that rather than a one-time event, the AC will have the opportunity to continue to engage with candidates all throughout the voting period.

Instructions

This wiki is for W3C Advisory Committee representatives who have any questions for the candidates and for the candidates to
Submit during the election voting period: 19 August 2024 - 16/17 September 2024

Please add a subsection (surrounded by ===, like: === Question ===) for each question with a very short summary of the question. Then:

A question starts with a "hash" sign.

An answer starts with two "hash" signs, and at a fresh line immediately after the question.

Question submitters may or may not identify themselves (although it's good etiquette); Candidates must identify their responses. To do that, use 4 "tilda" signs.

Examples:
=== My question ===
# My question here. ~~~~
## This is my answer. ~~~~

Candidates may not feel obliged to answer all questions that come through as they may not all be relevant to the role of a Board of Directors.

Questions and answers

Biggest problem facing web users

What is the biggest problem facing web users that W3C has the capability to help fix, and what will you do as a Board member to get W3C engaged in fixing it?. Michael Champion (talk) 20:53, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
1. I think that the role of the Board of Directors will not actually directly touch on user problems; the BoD is primarily responsible for ensuring that W3C is a healthy organization that is fulfilling its purpose (executing on the vision of the organization), not defining that vision or directing the technical agenda. As a Board member, my responsibility would be to ensure that the organization, particularly the Team, have the stability and support to address web problems; not to prioritize or direct that work. Separately, of course, I care very deeply about this question, and outside of the Board I have spent much work (in the Vision, particularly) over multiple years to identify problems that we (collectively, the entire W3C community) need to solve. I think the biggest problem facing web users is captured by "The Web must be safe for its users" - notably, that the Web must be secure, and must respect (and improve) its users control of their privacy. Chris Wilson (talk) 16:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
2. The Board is only indirectly responsible for this. Its focus is on ensuring that W3C as an organization is well run, but the technical agenda of the consortium is meant to be driven from elsewhere: AC, TAG, AB, individual WGs… However, there are a few areas where the board can have an impact: (a) Working with the CEO, through their goals and evaluations, to make sure that the Team (including the member recruitment efforts) stays focused on topics that are relevant to the mission and the membership's interests, and not chasing buzzwords, vanity projects, or on recruiting rich members from industries irrelevant to the web or in conflict with W3C's values. (b) Ensuring sufficient resources are allocated to horizontal reviews and related activities to enable W3C to effectively pursue its goals of making the Web safe for its users. (c) Pushing Management to prioritize improving dispute resolution, so that hard questions do not get bogged down by unresolved controversies. Florian Rivoal (talk) 07:45, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
3. Michael, thank you for your question. The W3C community is already actively engaged in several big problems facing web users including accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security. Resolving the tension between privacy and the utility (and performance) of the web will continue to be a major challenge. I think that web users would greatly benefit from increased participation from the web developer community in the W3C. Engaging with developers to ease their development efforts and costs, for example, by encouraging more consistent APIs across web implementations, would grow the web ecosystem and provide consumer choice. With the advent of AI, W3C should be driving work to identify and support AI use cases that are aligned to W3C values (e.g., real-time captioning and language translation). It is important that the community is actively engaged in how AI is deployed on the web to optimize its benefits while mitigating negative consequences. While I agree with Chris Wilson that the technical and standardization issues are beyond the scope of the Board, we can incorporate goals and objectives for the management to work with the community to address these issues in a timely fashion. Eric Siow (talk) 08:08, 28 August 2024 (US PST)
4. Very good question, Michael, thank you so much. In my view, one big problem the Web users facing is how W3C can catch the opportunities in the AI era to benefit Web users. Many AI topics that users are interested in or concerned about, such as easy access to AI via Web and identifying fake info generated by AI, are not covered by W3C activities yet. Also, privacy is another big concern of the users, and how to protect Web users from being tracked is an essential issue. To support W3C address these user needs, BoD should have related resources to develop strategy and oversee W3C management to make sure W3C is on the right track of doing good for the Web users. Specifically, if re-elected as a Board member, I would like to try my best to support helping related resources for W3C to explore Next Big Things such as AI. Also, I would like to assist seeking for collaboration with more stakeholders such as regulators, developers, etc., to better align the Web with user needs. More importantly, I would pursue for promoting globalization and diversity, to help diverse global perspectives are represented in W3C so that various user needs and industry requirements can be considered in the same time in W3C. Hongru (Judy) Zhu (talk) 11:00, 29 August 2024 (CST)
5. As a community, we need to work on greatly improving integrity of the web platform while reinforcing the existing work on existing horizontals : accessibility, internationalization, privacy and security. As a community we also need to be more proactive in analyzing effects of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and figure out how to leverage it. The role of board of directors here is to have these topics in the goals of the W3C Team and allocation of appropriate funds to it. Avneesh Singh (talk) 09:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
6. Chris sums it up very well - the Board's purpose is to exercise its fiduciary responsibilities so that the W3C Team and Members can work together to realise W3C's vision, not to involve itself in defining or directing the Consortium's technical programme. Florian makes a good point - that the Board can support W3C by making sure the CEO's goals are aligned with the Consortium's mission, but to answer your question more directly Mike, as a Director I would continue to do my best to work with the CEO and the rest of the Board to oversee the effective management of W3C Inc, so the W3C Community can continue to do what it does best - create technical standards that address real-world problems. Léonie Watson (talk) 10:48, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
7. I saved this question for last, as it is at the same time the most important question, the hardest to answer, and the one where the board's role is the least clear upfront. As I mention below, I believe the board's role isn't to set organizational direction but to facilitate a collective goal-setting exercise and hold the executive team accountable for executing on its outcome. Web users are central to W3C's mission and vision, their needs and issues should be central to such a goal-setting exercise. However, as a board director, my role wouldn't be to advocate for a particular set of web user issues, but to facilitate collective consensus-building that's aligned with our mission and vision and that is implementable. So as a board member, I would prioritize implementing such a framework. Tobie Langel (talk) 12:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
8. W3C is, and should continue to be, a member-led organization, so decisions about what technical work to undertake should be driven by the membership. The role of the Board is oversight of the management, ensuring W3C has the resources (financial, and people and skills) to be successful. That said, I think there are important areas to work on, and I'll give just one example: credibility of online content, where the web is being used today as a platform for misinformation and disinformation, particularly in the current era of AI generated content. The TAG's Ethical Web Principles [1] says: "The web makes it possible to verify information. Society relies on the integrity of public information. We have a responsibility to build web technologies to counter misinformation and to maintain the integrity of information for public good. The public needs verifiable source and context information to recognize trustworthy web publishers and content. The concept of origin and its relationship with information sources are core to the web's security model." The problem here is that the concept of origin, while foundational for the web, isn't enough to convey integrity of information, given how so much is distributed and shared through today's dominant social platforms. W3C could be coordinating efforts with other industry groups, which have been innovating solutions, e.g., to convey media provenance or to provide machine readable credibility signals that can be used by search engines. Chris Needham 19:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
9. As a Board of Directors, the primary role in my mind is to support our CEO, Seth, and his Team in working with the W3C Community to prioritize various existing problems and fix them accordingly. Without my Director hat, I've been working on security and privacy for users as Chief Security Architect at NTT DOCOMO and protecting users from phishing attacks and unauthorized access by attackers in various ways, such as deploying WebAuthn (passkeys). Through working on the agenda with key stakeholders, including governmental organizations, the Japanese Government has just recently addressed passkeys and the necessity to promote it in their formal announcement [2] in Japanese (It mentions about W3C as well). I now see that users are facing a critical problem how to with disinformation and need a technical resolution to resolve the issue. Those are obviously within the W3C Vision. Backing with my Director hat, I would like to assist the CEO, the Team, and the W3C Community to fix critical problems for users in various ways, including endorsing more approaching bodies that influence society. Koichi (Morimori) Moriyama (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
10. Thank you for your question, Michael. I agree with both Chris and Leonie, who do a good job of summarizing the role of the board in my opinion. I think as board members, our duty will be to ensure that the CEO, TAG, WGs, etc. have the support and strategic direction they need to solve the problems of web users. In addition to what they lay out, I believe that we should focus some of our efforts as the board on fundraising to ensure that we have adequate representation across the world. We also have a fiduciary duty to ensure that the organization is in good health and can continue to support web users around the globe for the foreseeable future.Andreas23 (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Andreas Efthymiou
11. As many responses have already pointed out, it’s not the Board’s role to set technical direction. W3C is Member-led; changes to its technical direction should come from within the Membership and be validated by the Membership as a whole via the AC. It’s the Team’s job to support the Membership in realizing its technical vision, the CEO’s job to hold the Team to account for that, and the Board’s role to, in turn, hold the CEO to account. That said, the Board does have a role in helping to facilitate membership and bringing new voices into the conversation. Something the Board can (and should) investigate is improving the involvement at W3C of other stakeholders in the Web—operators of websites, for instance, or rank-and-file web developers. Theresa O'Connor (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Key differences of role of W3C BoD vs other SDOs

My question is ... The document[3] describes the role of the W3C BoD. Do you think there are any key differences between the roles of the W3C BoD and those of BoD of other standards bodies? If so, what considerations do you have in mind in carrying out the role specfic to W3C if you were elected as a W3C Director? Tatsuya Igarashi 17:05, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
1. A few points: (a) Unlike many other standardization bodies, the W3C's BoD is not responsible for the technical agenda. The responsibility is therefore indirect: not tell the Team (or the Members) what to work on, but ensure that the Team and its leadership are evaluated on how well they work with the membership and its elected bodies, and on how well it responds to their needs. (b) W3C's historic structure through Hosts, now evolved into Partners, gives it a unique international foothold at the core of how it works. Though the specific details may evolve, it is important for the BoD to make sure that the strength and effectiveness of these relations is preserved and even enhanced over time. (c) W3C is an old standards-making body, but a new organization. It is still in the learning phase of how to run itself effectively and sustainably as a standalone entity. Board members cannot yet assume that all the checks and balances you would expect in a 30 year old organization are in place. More than in comparable organizations, there is a need not just to monitor how well we're doing, but to continue establishing the means through which we monitor, and when necessary, through which we course correct. Florian Rivoal (talk) 08:09, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
2. Igarashi-san, thank you for the question. There are certainly some differences that exist due to the unique culture and history of the W3C. The most obvious one is the scope of the W3C Board explicitly excludes defining its vision or directing the technical agenda. This contrasts with other standard bodies where the boards have more say and influence on the technical agendas. Other differences include guaranteed board seats for representatives of W3C partner organizations, with other seats being elected by members with equal voting rights. In other standard bodies, there are different classes of memberships, with those who contribute the major shares of the revenue getting to appoint their representatives to the boards. Other than these obvious differences, the role and responsibility of the W3C Board are like other boards. A board of directors in any organization is ultimately accountable to shareholders, regulators, the courts, accreditation bodies, clients, customers, members, donors, and financial institutions. There are some who advocate trusting and letting the management run the organization without interference or meddling. On the surface, it sounds reasonable and logical. As far as I know, almost all the existing board members and candidates have full time jobs and are too busy to meddle. However, trust should not be given lightly. It must be earned over time with consistent demonstration of competence, good judgement, and ethical behaviors. I believe in the adage of “trust but verify”. Board members should maintain a healthy degree of professional skepticism in observing and evaluating the management. This is very different from "meddling". To perform one’s fiduciary duties well, a good director must have the necessary skills or make the efforts to learn and understand the issues at hand. He or she must be willing to follow up on inconsistencies and errors to ensure they are adequately resolved. Board members should not hesitate to question and challenge the management and external service providers, if necessary. Finally, a good board member takes the responsibility to inform fellow board members so that they are aware and educated about the issues. This protects the organization and the board from liabilities. Eric Siow (talk) 08:29, 28 August 2024 (US PST)
3. Two very good questions, Igarashi. To the first one, I think there are two key differences in the role of the W3C's BoD - first, as both Florian and Eric identified (and as I mentioned in my answer to the first question), the W3C has a more specific scope; they are not responsible for the technical strategy. Secondly, most boards of companies and non-profits are carefully chosen for a blend of Directors; we rely on elections. To answer your second question, I intend to focus my work on the Board solely on trying to stabilize the organization in terms of financial model and structure (for example, I am still very concerned that W3C does not qualify as a 501(c)3) and in working with the CEO to ensure they are getting the support they need. Chris Wilson (talk) 19:24, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
4. Thank you for this question, Igarashi. Firstly, I ‘d like to share my thinking on the W3C uniqueness from other SDO generally which I had deliberation on myself a long time since I joined W3C 2 years from 2015. And during my 10 years serving as AB (8 years) and BoD (2 years) here, I think W3C has its own very clear unique value that W3C has created strength, meanwhile it also endeavors to meet the emerging needs of various users as an international SDO attracting stakeholders, industries worldwide. Very international org. Moreover, we all tried all best to make a good transition. As always, I think W3C’s key task is to promote long-term growth of the Web by developing standards, its membership structure that is more open and includes diverse stakeholders from developers, industry, academia, governments across the globe. This determines W3C BoD’s role of 1) setting suitable governance on finance and personnel to support W3C achieving its mission; 2) instead of direct involvement in technical standards, BoD works with W3C Management on supporting the community to develop standards that meet industry, developer and user needs, to ensure the power of evolving Web tech and standards are in the hands of members; 3) W3C BoD has is the multi-stakeholder structure, which might be slightly different than many other SDOs. The W3C BoD contains member elected Board members as the majority, and has Partner Director members to enhance global W3C cooperation, as well as the Appointed Members to include more stakeholders. This diverse and comprehensive combination of W3C BoD sets a very open and inclusive tone for the Board to heard various voices in the global Web community. Driven by my continuous passion for W3C, if re-elected, I will continue focusing on W3C’s globalization strategies, governance policies and team resources so that W3C can produce standards that meet the different user needs, are cutting-edge, benefit more people globally, and attract more stakeholders and industries join W3C. Hongru (Judy) Zhu (talk) 11:36, 29 August 2024 (CST)
5. Thanks for this question, Igarashi san. I would say that boards of organizations are greatly influenced by the purpose, the culture and the history of the organization. I would like to highlight two uniqueness of W3C board. 1. I believe that W3C board need to be accountable to the members and should maintain a good connection with the membership and the community. 2. As many candidates have mentioned, W3C board does not directly manage the technical agenda of the organization and the scope of the board is somewhat narrow. However, W3C has a good strength of valuable staff, supervised by the board. This has an indirect influence on the technical agenda, through formulation of the strategic goals, allocation of the funds etc. Therefore, I will work on ensuring that the board is well connected to the community, and our influence on the W3C team and resources is utilized in alignment with the direction set forth by the membership and the community. Of course we need to fulfill the regular duties of a board like ensuring financial stability, legal compliance, keeping management on the track etc. Avneesh Singh (talk) 09:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
6. Igarashi, my perspective is a little different to others. I think that W3C and its Board have more in common with other Standards Development Organizations (SDO) than we sometimes realise. For example, the Board of IETF Admin LLC "has no role in the oversight or steering of the standards process", just as W3C's Board does not. 3GPP has Organizational Partners based in Europe and Asia (as well as North America), just like W3C does. No two SDO are entirely alike of course, and Chris makes a good point about the composition of the W3C Board in comparison to the Boards of other not-for-profit organizations, but what the Board's of every SDO have in common is to operate within their Bylaws and to uphold their fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and obedience. If I'm re-elected to the Board, and as co-Chair of the Personnel Committee in particular, I would continue to ask the CEO for updates on his efforts to build stronger connections with the CEO of other SDO (as Seth is already doing). I would also continue to consult with members of the W3C Community who have ties with other SDO, especially at the Board level, because I believe that we can always learn from each other.Léonie Watson (talk) 10:48, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
7. No two organizations have identical governance structures, but a common denominator is that resource allocation drives outcomes. The board's role is to ensure resources—both financial and human—are aligned with the organization's mission and goals. For the W3C, a key challenge is the absence of clear, collectively determined goals and a structured framework for setting them. This contrasts with more mature organizations where such frameworks already exist. If elected as a W3C Director, I would prioritize facilitating consensus-driven goal setting among all governing bodies—AB, TAG, AC, and the board—while also incorporating input from the broader community. While the goal-setting process might be unique to W3C, the rest of the board's role (delegating execution to the executive team, approve resource allocation, holding the executive team accountable, and communicate progress transparently to stakeholders) aligns with standard good governance practices. Tobie Langel (talk) 11:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
8. I agree with much of what has already been said here: The Board is not there to set the technical program of work, but to provide oversight over how the organization is run, that it has the resources it needs to be successful, and is properly managing risks. In that sense, I don't think it is substantially different to other standards bodies. The W3C Board of Directors is slightly different to other standards bodies, as a consequence of how W3C is structured, with Keio University, Beihang University, and ERCIM as Partners. This geographic and cultural diversity is one of W3C's strengths. If elected, I see my role as being someone available to the CEO and the other Board members to give perspective and advice, to ask insightful questions, and to support the overall mission and vision. I believe my background in a public service mission-driven organization should complement W3C's new standing as non-profit. I share Chris's concern about W3C's 501c(3) status. Chris Needham 20:00, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
9. As Chair of the W3C BoD Governance Committee today (used to be a Co-Chair until January 2024), I respect all the current Board's decisions, including W3C Inc.'s Corporate Purpose and the AB Liaisons Policy. I will follow and support the determined role of the Board of Directors Igarashi-san referred to. I learned that the Board of Corporations has essential roles and responsibilities in general from my experience and some professional training programs for the Board of Directors at non-profit organizations. So, the key roles must be similar to those of other SDOs. Another organization I've been serving as a Board of Directors (determined by their Bylaws) focuses on governance. In addition to the differences other candidates have addressed already, let me address some unique aspects at the W3C Board:
  1. Structure of the Board: Consortium Directors elected from Members of seven (7) and other Directors of six (6) - it may bring some diversity to ensure a healthy and sustainable organization. I can bring some diversity within the seven (7).
  2. W3C, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and I've been serving a role at another organization that is a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization - I will be considering with other colleagues how we may reach the goals as 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
  3. The W3C Board comprises the BoD Committees, Finance, Personnel, Governance, Development, Emergency, and Audit. As I've been serving, I will contribute through Committees, including a Chair role. Koichi (Morimori) Moriyama (talk) 23:35, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
  4. P.S. See also a discussion regarding the evolution of the Board's activities and meeting cadence [4]. Koichi (Morimori) Moriyama (talk) 13:35, 4 September (UTC)
10. Thanks for the question, Tatsuya. I do believe there are some key differences between the roles of the W3C BoD and those of BoD of other standards bodies. One of the main differences between this BoD and others is that this one is relatively new and was initially focused on setting up the organization properly. Now it’s time to move the organization towards understanding of what things need to be done to ensure success and members get value from the organization that supports W3C’s mission and vision. The Board (and/or W3C staff) should be doing more outreach to understand membership needs. The W3C as an organization should focus on creating open standards and specifications should lead to an increase in innovation and competition. The organization is also different than other standards bodies, particularly from regulated industries, as there tends to be more flexibility in what can be done by the W3C. All of that said, given board members’ responsibilities around financial oversight, operational oversight, and policy / strategy decisions, as a board member I would want to focus on the big picture of what the organization can and should solve, while equipping the relevant parties with the tools to do so, rather than getting lost in the details of the day-to-day.Andreas23 (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Andreas Efthymiou
11. The Board is, in broad strokes, quite similar to the boards of other organizations, as Léonie rightly points out. And as Florian said, W3C is unique in that, while its current legal existence and the particular form that takes is quite young and new, the organization itself is thirty years old and operates in long-established patterns. I expect many of the apparent difference between our Board and the boards of other SDOs are due to that. Unlike older, more established boards of SDOs whose legal form has been stable for some time, our incoming Board needs to complete the excellent work of the current Board to put the organization on sound legal, financial, and organizational grounds. Theresa O'Connor (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

W3C top problems and fixes

W3C is (still) broken in a number of ways — which problems (top 5) would you focus on solving and with what fixes, or do you see no problems and expect this to be mostly a lightweight oversight role? Tantek Çelik (talk) 22:09, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
1. Tantek, this is a very good question. I would preface by stating that every organization faces challenges. They are a part of life. W3C is no different. Rather than responding to your question with a list of “top 5 problems” which will invariably lead all of us into the tactical solution space right away, I would like to advocate that we start with two strategic questions, “What has changed around us and within our community?” and “What are the implications of these changes?”. After we have addressed these two questions, then we can better proceed to the next two questions, “What should be done and what can we do?” and “How do we best go about doing them?” I believe that the AB, the Board, and the community can have significant roles in helping and supporting Seth and his team here. Please know that I am not avoiding your request for the top 5 problems, I am recommending that we address the causes and not the symptoms. It is time for a 30-year-old organization to tackle the questions I have outlined, courageously and honestly. In the process of doing so, we will get the answers you are looking for. Eric Siow (talk) 08;39, 28 August 2024 (US PST)
2. An excellent question. I think the two top most pressing questions for the Board to address are related: getting the financials in order, and figuring out the right long-term financial plan for W3C, Inc. (I believe that 501(c)3 status is unsustainable without drastic changes to W3C's funding model.) The first is a slog through cleaning up the past data, and using better accounting practices moving forward. The latter I suspect the answer is to move to a 501(c)6 consortium, though there are other possibilities. The third most pressing problem for the board is ensuring that W3C Inc steps up to manage its own process more effectively; this is a partnership between CEO and team, overseen by the Board. Fourth, the organization needs to be balanced across its commitments and investments in the community; this, too, is oversight. Finally, saving one of the most important for last, ultimately the Board is responsible for maintaining organizational metrics to measure against; I believe it would be in the organization and community's best interest to be more transparent about those metrics and how we are doing. Chris Wilson (talk) 19:25, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
3. In the longer run, I hope the board can move towards a more lightweight oversight role, though I will note that oversight require understanding, and understanding requires engagement. Even lightweight oversight does not mean passive support. But in any case, we're not there yet. Here are some of the top things I think need fixing (drawing a line at 5, but there are others): (1) Financial reporting. W3C has had years to prepare for the transition to a legal entity, and has now been running independently for almost two years. Yet we still do not have reliable periodic financial reports. Without this, the underlying finances may be doing fine, but we're flying blind. This needs to be addressed. I will drive progress in this area by pushing the Board and its Finance Committee to adopt relevant policies, by asking management to establish and document the accounting principles they follow, and by insisting that we stick to these policies and principles. (2) Responsiveness. The Team has a wide variety of responsibilities, overall does a reasonable job of fulfilling them. However, some things are taking way too long, and some responsibilities that the Process puts on the Team are routinely failing to meet deadlines. The board needs to make it an explicit goal for the CEO to improve our operating procedures, and to track the results so that they can be evaluated. (3) Organizational structure. Becoming an independent legal entity was a big step forward in terms of enabling W3C to take control of itself, so that it can work on improving its ability to fulfill the mission. But the transformation is not yet complete, and there is still work to do in term of org chart, or of how we structure our relationship with our Partners and Chapters. This needs to be driven by management, but the board needs to provide guidance and oversight. (4) Executional Excellence. Whether through software tools or through processes run by people, W3C exists as a place to come and write standards and provides frameworks to make that work, so we need to be great at it. We're not bad at it, but I don't think we're either in a situation where anyone working on a spec outside of W3C just wishes they could be in W3C as that would make them so much more productive. We should aim for that. The Board's not the place to design solutions to that, but it is the place to tell management that it matters and that they should strive for improvements. (5) Transparent Budgeting. Distinctly from Financial reporting, which tells us how well we're doing, we also need to improve how we do budgeting, which tells us how we allocate our resources going forward. It is management's job to balance the various demands on the organization against the resources we have, not the Board's, much less the Membership at large. However, without veering into micromanagement, we should still make sure that relevant information is surfaced in the appropriate form and at the right time to enable the Membership and its governance bodies to understand how W3C spends its resources, and to provide informed feedback at relevant times. The Board can encourage management to establish the healthy practices in this area, and review whether the allocations are consistent with the declared priorities. Florian Rivoal (talk) 02:13, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
4. Tantek, thank you for this question. In my mind, W3C is facing the following problems: 1) Lack of timely response to cutting-edge technologies like AI. As BoD, I would advocate to put more resources to support new tech insights and standard direction incubation, and in the meanwhile work with the management team to improve the efficiency and agility 2) W3C needs to pay more attention to the regulation aspect of the Web. I would assist to build cooperative relationship with regulators, and try to invite regulators to join our standard discussion and get their input to help W3C technical standards work well in different regions and countries. 3) Economic instability affects W3C member retention. I would share experience and provide input to help the W3C management team on developing engagement plan, enhancing member value propositions, improving team facilitation to the community, to better meet the member needs. 4) W3C needs to be more global and have more voices heard. 5) As for the tools, I think we need to consider more to facilitate global access to W3C resources under the situation that some tools are not accessible in some countries. As BoD, I would help W3C to increase its global footprint, especially in the underrepresented regions such as Africa and Southeast Asia, and to maintain a positive working environment and make W3C more open to different voices. Hongru (Judy) Zhu (talk) 11:44, 29 August 2024 (CST)
5. This is a good question Tantek. I believe that a mobilized and engaged board never gets into light oversight role. When the CEO and management start to run organization smoothly then also board need to be vigilant, while keeping away from interfering in the operations until and unless it is really required.
  W3C Inc is still in initial stages and we still need to fix important problems. Some of these are:
  * Complete the transition to the single legal entity. As per partners agreements, the process will continue for some months.
  * The board also needs to ensure that the various parts of W3C work together, the Team is structured and integrated well, and fair and trustworthy decision-making systems are established across W3C.
  * It is very important to ensure the financial health, and in longer term, achieve appropriate diversification of the income streams
  * Work towards ensuring that W3C is relevant in the changing environment and one of the pressing needs at this time is relation with the regulators.
  * Expanding global footprint is important, especially to the unreached parts of the world, and it needs good deliberation on balancing worldwide participation and the membership fee. At the appropriate time, we should also rethink about the existing membership model. In DAISY Consortium we worked on a five years project for spreading benefits of DAISY in developing countries (South East Asia, Africa and South America). We established focal points and established very fruitful partnerships. We learned a lot of good lessons and it changed our thinking about world wide expansion. I believe this experience will be very helpful for the W3C board.Avneesh Singh (talk) 09:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
6. Solving problems and being in an oversight role are not mutually exclusive, but I agree with Eric's reasons for not naming specific problems. As an Accessibility Engineer, I share your motivation for identifying and fixing problems Tantek, but as a Director I know it's important to "take a step back" in order to understand the cause of problems as well as the contexts in which they exist. Then, drawing on the diverse perspectives and experiences of the Board as a whole, we can offer both insight and oversight to the CEO, who can then work with the Team and members to solve the challenges facing W3C - because I believe that for W3C to flourish, each part of the Community needs to play its role, be that governance, technical, or operational. Léonie Watson (talk) 10:48, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
7. I believe that a lack of shared direction is W3C's top problem. As I mentioned above, the board's role is to facilitate a consensus-driven goal-setting process (that involves all governing bodies and considers broader community input), delegate execution to the executive team, and provide transparent oversight. As such, I see the board's role as an enabler and facilitator on one hand and as an oversight body on the other. It should strive to and move towards being as hands-off as possible. Tobie Langel (talk) 12:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
8. I'm not standing for election because I see problems that I want to fix and being on the Board is the only way to fix them. This would imply more of a "hands on" approach than I think the Board should have. This is not to say the Board should be passive, for me, the Board is about providing fiduciary oversight and accountability, alongside support, and guidance. I tend to concur with Eric and Léonie's responses. Collectively we should be reflecting on how to adapt to changing circumstances. This includes the Board, the management, the AC, AB, and TAG. There are challenges, of course, including financial stability, which is key to W3C's sustainability as well as supporting the CEO and management's allocation of people and finances in support of the mission and vision, through a team structure that enables them to best serve the membership. Some problems are a better fit for the AB and the community, like the development of the vision, or the Process we use to organize how we work, and in a member-led organization, that's seems appropriate to me. Chris Needham 22:25, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
9. Finally, I'm back to your question, Tantek. Thank you for your waiting. I was, and still am, terrified that I could describe specific top-5 problems because I still try to capture and identify problems - that was why I have consistently suggested within the Board and for Seth, once he joined us, to do a satisfaction survey. It's great that we are now in the process of the W3C Members Community Survey 2024. I thank them for all their effort on it very much. I was shocked at many things when I was seated as a part of the Directors (e.g., many unpaid fees, complaining to individuals, etc.); fortunately, all have spent a lot of effort to fix them through the transition. The new Board will work with Seth and his team to resolve various remaining (possibly hidden) problems and help our organization and community achieve the Purpose. I am committed to contributing to the new Board once elected. Koichi (Morimori) Moriyama (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
10. Thank you for the question, Tantek. Unlike many of the others who have been involved with W3C for a long time and are running for the board, I am relatively new to the group and do not have extensive experience in the TAG, BoD, AB, or AC. One of my main goals with my introduction to W3C is to hopefully bring a new perspective (I have recently been made Visa’s alternate for the AC). I believe this to be especially critical as I think about your question above. If elected to the board, I would like to come in as objectively as possible and evaluate the state of the organization (including through member outreach) and board to identify what we are doing well and where we still have room for improvement. With what I know so far, I do not believe that this will be a lightweight oversight role, especially given how nascent the board is at the W3C. That said, from what I understand, I do believe that the incoming board will have a more lightweight role compared to the outgoing board, who had much to set up and structure as the first board of the organization. From my experience thus far, I would still like to highlight a few areas where I believe there might be opportunities for improvement, though as stated above, I want to come in and evaluate objectively. When I look through the AC members, I’d say that we should focus on building out more diversity in membership, including global expansion to ensure adequate representation to allow the organization to flourish. I see this has to a Board function because the technical working groups aren’t going to solve it. Furthermore, I think there is more work to be done by the board to help bridge the gap between the business needs of our members and humans using the web + the technology behind it. We should not be in the details of the tech as the board, but rather should help be the voice of the industry and humanity to ensure we are designing the web for everyone.Andreas23 (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Andreas Efthymiou
11. W3C is not broken but there are many opportunities for improvement. Many of these opportunities are related to the technical program, both substantively in terms of scope and vision, and procedurally. Addressing these are the responsibility of the other elected bodies, the Membership, and the Team. (The Board has a role in overseeing how effectively the CEO rises to the occasion these opportunities present, of course.) Of the problems facing W3C where the Board bears responsibility, some that come to mind are (1) ensuring the financial health and stability of the organization, (2) taking a look at the space of possible improvements to our membership model, (3) increasing involvement from under-represented sectors of society (e.g. from different geographical areas, with particular attention to the global South), (4) strengthening our relationships with other SDOs which impact our work and who we in turn impact (e.g. Ecma, IETF, and Unicode), and (5) raising W3C’s profile on the global stage. Theresa O'Connor (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Board Transparency

What is your position on making board deliberations more member-viewable or publicly viewable? Do you have an opinion on AB liasons? Alan Stearns (talk) 21:14, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
1. I have a strong position that the Board's work should be much more Member-viewable. (I am less concerned about publicly viewable, but not opposed.) The current Board, after a year and a half of operation, offered Members the chance to observe part of a Board meeting back in July; I attended, but it was largely reduced to effectively a consent agenda, and there was little real discussion during this session. The only topic that might have been at all controversial was moved as a first order of business to the non-Member-observer session. I don't think this is transparent enough. Likewise, I'd like to have better accessible agendas and summaries sent to the Membership. The AB Liaisons were a reasonable start. Though that struggled with confidentiality issues for the first year, it has improved - but it is not a replacement for the Board itself ensuring its own transparency. The AB should not be the Board's only (or primary) conduit to the Membership. Chris Wilson (talk) 23:20, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
2. I have pushed for increased board transparency and improved communication ever since the board was seated and have offered concrete solutions to improve both. There's been unquestionable improvements over the last two years. Unfortunately, the board's default confidentiality level remains MEMBER CONFIDENTIAL. I believe the board's default confidentiality level should be NOT CONFIDENTIAL instead. While I obviously don't believe everything should be made public, the burden should be on justifying confidentiality, not on promoting openness. I favor stronger collaboration and communication between the different governing bodies. Beyond the AB liaison, I would like to see the Advisory Committee be more present as a governing body (as our Bylaws intend) and better supported in this role. Tobie Langel (talk) 10:14, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
3. Effective transparency matters, and there is room for improvement. Minutes of Board Committee have frequently been many months behind, and some are summarized to the point of barely saying more than the Agenda. For the Board itself, the formal sessions' minuting isn't too far off what we need, but those sessions have frequently enacted without much discussion decisions on topics which had been pre-debated in unminuted sessions. Making the formal sessions even more transparent won't help if that's not where the meat of the discussion is. I'd rather have all sessions be well minuted rather than have increasingly ceremonial sessions be broadcast publicly and the rest out of sight. The board does need to deal with some amount of confidential or sensitive material, so not everything can be released, but we should give the membership better insights on what the Board is doing and why (including individual directors' contributions and positions). As for AB liaisons, I think it is a very helpful system to help the board tap into another source of institutional knowledge and insights, and avoid becoming an echo chamber. As a director, I would encourage liaisons to speak their mind and share their insights, even or especially when it would go against the grain. The decision making and corresponding responsibility remains with the management and the board, but good decision making needs good information. More generally, this is also related to openness and engagement with the broader community. There are a number of board projects which could be run not just in member visible ways, but with active participation from the membership. PSIG's work on the Patent Policy, or the AB's work on the Process via a CG, or the initial drafting in public of the W3C bylaws by the former bylaws task force show that it's possible to drawn in expertise (and constructive scrutiny) from the community, even of on topics which require specialized skills. On select topics (bylaws revisions come to mind), the board should be looking to set up, as enabled by the bylaws, tasks forces to engage expertise beyond itself. Florian Rivoal (talk) 02:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
4. As I understand the Delaware non-profit law, W3C, Inc. is not considered to be a “public body” and is therefore not required to hold open board meetings. Personally, I am viscerally partial to transparency and believe in operating in broad daylight. Making the board deliberations more member-viewable or publicly viewable demonstrates a commitment to transparency and accountability. It allows members to observe and evaluate board members’ performances and the quality of their contributions. However, I would be remiss if I fail to point out that we need to be mindful of potential negative impacts as well. People behave differently to being in the spotlight. Some may be reticent in expressing their opinions openly, while others may be tempted to “play to the audience”. There are also sensitive matters that may require confidentiality. I am fully supportive of including the AB liaisons because it is very good step towards transparency and connections with the members. In summary, we will need to consider the composition and nature of the elected board members, the nature of the subject matter, and the potential legal liabilities when determining how open the board deliberations should be. Eric Siow (talk) 04:00, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
5. This is very important question, Alan. In my day job I work for a global non-profit, DAISY Consortium. We have members and network partners spread across more than 100 countries across the world. If I compare the current transparency of W3C board, it looks quite behind what is expected from a membership based non-profits. I have been participating in such discussions for a decade, and found that the following model works quite well for a membership based non-profit. The meeting should be divided in three parts:
  * Member visible: This should be the major part of the meeting. In this part the observers should be allowed and minutes should be shared with the membership. I would like us to take a step ahead for observers, they should not take part in the discussions of the board, but if they have an important point to convey, they should have option to connect with a board member or the chair in the breaks and convey the point through them. In DAISY Consortium we go even further and engage with observers in some specific sessions.
  * Board and management: In this part only board, CEO + key staff and some invited guests are present to have free discussion about confidential matters.
  * Board only: This session is mainly used to discuss performance review of CEO and other specific topics on staffing etc.
  Once we achieve this level of transparency, then the next step would be to start sharing decisions of the board publicly, and incrementally increase transparency in this way.
  Regarding AB liaisons, I believe that a connection between BOD and AB is important. Currently it is progressing forward through liaisons, In future we may find an even better way. Avneesh Singh (talk) 09:46, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
6. I'm afraid my answer is a bit on the lengthy side Alan, so please bear with me. Finding a balance between W3C's habitual transparency when creating technical standards and the Board's obligation to operate within a legal and fiduciary framework, was always going to be a challenge - and it will continue to be so as we try to find an appropriate compromise between these two perspectives. With regard to confidentiality, the Board is advised by Counsel, and generally speaking, legal counsel tends to be conservative. The Board has made the minutes of its meetings member visible since the beginning. Once the Board emerged from the challenges of its first few months, it took the decision to make Committee meeting minutes Member visible too. More recently, the Board opened its meetings to members for the first time, and will continue to do so. There is however a marked difference in the form and function of Board minutes, as compared to those from a WG, and this can seem strange at first. Where a WG meeting is transcribed more or less verbatim, the Board (and its Committees) strive to follow Robert's Rules of Order for conducting and minuting meetings because that's generally recognised as good practice. In its next term, I trust that the Board will continue to post informal summaries of its meetings soon after the meetings themselves. As for the timeliness of publishing minutes, when the Board only meets once every month or so, approval can take time. The Board can approve minutes asynchronously, but to do so the Board must, by law, have active and unanimous approval from every Director. If one Director is unavailable for any reason, an asynchronous motion cannot be passed, and W3C's "silence will be taken as consent to the proposal" is not an option, so the process of approving minutes is not simple. Can the Board do more? Yes, absolutely - I hope the Board will reconsider using Task Forces (as defined by the Bylaws) rather than Committees, so we can bring Members of the Community directly into the Board's activities, and I also hope that in time the Board will be ready to make its minutes available to the public. In the meantime, I trust that Members will continue to reach out to the Board with questions and comments.
  When I reflect on the reasons that the Governance Task Force (GTF) proposed the role of AB Liaison, it seems to me that it was a way to do two things - ensure a connection between the Board and Members, and protect the W3C from returning to the largely "hands-off" governance it had before. Two years on, the situation is not the same as it was, nor has it become what the GTF feared it might. The Board, as intended by the GTF, has a majority of Member elected Directors, and each of those Directors (as well as many of the candidates) has strong networks across the membership, so the connection between members and governance is strong. The Board is also active, and so the concern about lethargic governance has also not been realised. Something else that was not apparent to those of us on the GTF at the time is that the common link between the Board and the AB is the CEO. If the AB advises the Team on a matter that requires the Board's attention, the CEO will bring it to the Board; if the Board asks or suggests that the CEO do something that requires involvement from Members, then the CEO will ask the AB for its advice. It's also worth mentioning that the Chairs of the Board, AB, and TAG, meet informally about once a month to keep each other informed and, and that any Member including those elected to the AB, can contact the Board at any time to bring a matter to our attention. So my opinion on AB Liaisons is that the Board should consider the role in the context of the W3C today, decide if its intended purpose is still valid and, if it is, decide if an AB Liaison is still the best way to serve that purpose.Léonie Watson (talk) 10:48, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
7. I have advocated at AC meetings for greater transparency from the Board, and support developing ways to provide that to members, e.g., through more timely sharing of agendas and minutes. At the same time, it's important to recognize that some topics will need to remain confidential to the Board and the management. As a non-AB member, I have not observed that AB liaisons bringing significantly greater transparency to the membership in general. I agree with how Léonie describes the relationship between AB, CEO, and Board. I also agree with Tobie, that I would like the AC itself to be more active in governance. I have consistently tried to be an engaged and active AC member myself, and encourage others to do the same. This is essential, for W3C to be truly member-led. Chris Needham 21:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
8. I think the decision to make board deliberations more member-viewable involves balancing transparency with confidentiality and legal restrictions as well as outspoken discussion. During the last two years, we have established the transparency policy and make BoD Github, meeting schedules, minutes, and issues accessible to members, and we have re-designed the BoD meeting to include member-visible session so that members can observe the meeting, not just limited to the AB liaisons. I think AB liaison mechanism is a good starting point to improve transparency. In the long run, the purpose is to set up suitable transparency level to members. So, I sincerely encourage more and better feedbacks from members on current transparency and open dialogue channel, and I'd like to be quite open to more optimizing suggestions. Hongru (Judy) Zhu (talk) 16:30, 30 August 2024 (CST)
9. Board transparency is one of the significant factors of Board and corporate governance in general, and it is essential, of course, for non-profit organizations to create technical standards like ours. The Board is responsible for ensuring the organization is healthy and sustainable, and we should learn from other non-profit organizations and legal counselors. It's been a challenge, but I believe that the current Board has spent much effort on it from the beginning; the initial "Board Transparency" was adopted on 2022-12-01; updated 2023-05-12; updated 2023-11-07, updated 2024-01-17; and lastly combined with Communications Policy 2024-04-15 through listening voice from Members and AB liaisons, discussed many times, conducted with our Counsel (as Léonie indicated), and the proposed resolution was adopted unanimously by the Board. There must be room for improvement (e.g., minutes approved and becoming a Member visible in a month), and I will continue working on it with colleagues on the new Board once I am elected again. Just a quick note at the end: I agree with Avneesh that board meetings can be three parts: a.) Member visible, b.) Directors and management for confidential matters, and c.) Directors only mainly for performance review. They almost should be a.), but the Board needs b.) and c.), known as executive sessions. One example from my experience for b.) is about legal cases. Koichi (Morimori) Moriyama (talk) 6:13, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
10. Thank you for your question, Alan. I agree with Chris W.’s comment above, that the board should make its work member viewable, and quite like Avneesh’s suggestion for how to structure the meetings. I believe this will give the board the ability and flexibility to do the more sensitive work it needs to do, while making the vast majority of the work available to members and W3C management. As far as publicly viewable board work, I do not believe we need to do this. Our members can keep the board honest with the increased transparency we will work to introduce. I do not have a strong opinion yet on AB liaisons, but look forward to developing one over the coming months.Andreas23 (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Andreas Efthymiou
11. There are three bodies at W3C that are elected by the Membership via the AC, and it’s my belief that all three bodies need to be accountable to the electorate. If the AC has no access to or only a very limited window into the work an elected body is engaged in, that impedes the ability of the AC to evaluate the quality of that work and to make informed votes in the following election. That said, the Board is distinct from the other two elected bodies—it has specific legal responsibilities and Directors have fiduciary duties. There are many legal requirements on how the Board discharges these responsibilities. The Board should figure out, with the advice of counsel, how to maximize its accountability to the electorate within the various legal constraints and requirements it operates under. For example, while the Board currently makes minutes available to the AC, there can be a significant delay between when a meeting occurred and when its minutes are made available. Maybe there are some simple changes that we could make that would reduce that delay. I don’t think there’s any particular need for any of the elected bodies to have unidirectional liasons observing the operation of another one of the elected bodies. Nevertheless, the elected bodies should not be shy about working together on issues of common concern. I’ve had the pleasure of participating (as a TAG participant) in two joint meetings between all three bodies—the first in Hiroshima this past April, and the second in Seattle in July—and look forward to more joint meetings in the future. As a Director, I would look for other ways to increase collaboration between the various elected bodies. Theresa O'Connor (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)