Re: Participation of civil society in the standardization process + Last Calls

Hi all,

There's a lot happening in this thread, but I do like the general 
direction in which this is going. I have read the entire thread, though 
not watched the talk yet (I'm actually planning to listen to the audio, 
since watching videos for a long time tends to tire me more; I hope that 
doesn't cause me to miss out anything too important).

Going back to Daniel's original idea:

> This leads me to a question: Can we kill two or three birds with one
> stone here? Can we either rephrase some of the questions in the Last
> Call or add new ones that explicitly invite feedback from "civil
> society" (for lack of a better word)?
>
> I just want to get the discussion started, so I don’t have a final
> list, but the questions could go in a direction like this:
>
> * Would you use this feature if it were implemented in the XMPP client
> you currently use?
> * Do you think an implementation of this feature could negatively
> impact your community?
> * Does this improve (make easier) the work you do in your community?

I think these are questions that would certainly encourage more 
participation among people who are following the list without 
participating. (How to get more people reading them is a different matter).

Personally, despite being an XSF member and also the developer of an 
XMPP client, I feel something of an impostor syndrome commenting on 
standards thinking that maybe I'm not well-versed enough. Strangely, I 
don't feel the same way about asking questions on the jdev MUC. This 
might be some kind of vicious cycle where only the most engaged people 
(and therefore the ones most well-versed in the technical internals) end 
up replying on the list, leading people to think that they have to be 
similarly well-versed, and therefore keeping silent while only 
well-versed people reply...

One way to break out of this could be to make it clear that more basic 
questions along the lines of "Will this XEP let me X in my client?" or 
even "How exactly is this XEP going to be used?" are also welcome. Some 
very rough ideas are:

  * Do you have any questions about how this XEP could be used in practice?
  * Is there a feature you would like to see that you think this XEP
    could help with?

And maybe a comment like "This XEP is a technical specification, but 
general non-technical discussion about how it would work are also 
welcome". If we have a template like this, it could be included at the 
bottom whenever a new XEP is announced on the list (we don't have to 
wait for the Last Call!)

Regarding Schimon's reservations about the term "civil society", I am 
okay with choosing some other term that doesn't have the connotations 
described. I think the main aim is to find a word that means "anybody at 
all who might use XMPP, not just tech people". So let's try to 
brainstorm some ideas for that?

I don't know the background behind the whole mailing list thing, but if 
it'll help reduce the barrier for people to post I can volunteer to 
reply with a few silly (or not) questions on the XEPs that come into 
this list ;-)

Finally, in response to Dave's proposed questions,

> Would it also be helpful to have a survey to find out why people don't 
> engage in Last Calls, why they wouldn't stand for Council, and why 
> they join (or don't join) the XSF?

This sounds like a good idea too! If there are people with "impostor 
syndrome" like me, even posing the question could encourage them by 
letting them know that we /do/ want them to engage/stand/join. Through 
hanging out at various XSF MUCs, I've seen the sentiment passed around 
once in a while about wishing there was participation beyond just tech 
people (or often more narrowly just spec people!) but that's not 
something one can pick up by just browsing the XSF website a few times.

Personally, the vague plan in my head was to start following the XEPs 
more closely first and then thinking of standing for Council. I'm not 
sure if that's how it's supposed to work. For Council specifically, a 
question that comes to mind is: since it's meant to be a vetting of the 
technical specifications, does it require people to be able to read and 
digest the entire spec? If so, that would require people on the Council 
to be at least somewhat comfortable with tech/programming. Or perhaps we 
are okay with Council members who go by discussing the functionality 
with others in the community and vote based on what they learn there? If 
the latter, that sounds like something which should be spelled out 
somewhere because by reading the lists today I'd assume it was the former.

I think I'm starting to ramble so I will stop here :-)

Looking forward to hearing what others think. And FWIW if it comes to a 
"figuring out what questions to ask and how to phrase them" session I'm 
willing to help with that!

Best,
Badri

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