The W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) is in the midst of a special election. If you’re reading this then you probably know that this is something of a pet topic for me, and that I think that reforming the TAG and AB is critical to real change in web standards. Generally, I explain who I think the candidates we need are and ask for developers to help make some noise, reach out to anyone they know and help get them elected. If you’re only interested in who I think is the best choice, I suppose you can cut to the chase, but I have some more to say in this election too, so as long as you’re here….

Why an election

First, why are we having an election at all? What makes it “special”? A special election is held when a seat opens up for some unexpected reason, off the normal cycle. In this case, it’s made necessary by the change of employment by one of it’s elected members. According to the rules, no member organization may have more than one representative in each of the elected bodies (TAG and AB). I’m pointing this out because on several occasions throughout the history of these groups, this same thing has happened: Elected folk change employers. Why? It’s simple really… Because the biggest employers with focus on standards belong to W3C and because we tend to try to elect smart folks who are well-respected in the community, it’s plain to see why this occasionally happens. This time, at least it’s led to some good discussion about whether the rule is actually what’s best for the Web, or whether we should make changes. I think we should. In the very least, a simple ‘confirmation’ vote should precede a special election: the rules are there for the people, and when they have implications that make virtually nobody happy, that’s a bad rule.

But that’s where we are: An election to fill a single seat. We have 4 nominees to fill the seat of Alex Russell, who, ironically, isn’t the one who switched employers but rather the one who had the shortest duration of term remaining with that member org (Google).

The nature of TAG is, at least theoretically, such that all nominees are technically qualified, and that the task is rather to choose who you think is the best choice for TAG at this time. There is a reason I’m bringing this up as well: How votes are cast and counted has been a topic of discussion for some time, and this election provides a perfect illustration of why it matters….

Travis Leithead

Mark Nottingham

I believe that two candidates are much better choices at this juncture in time than the other two, namely, both Travis Leithead and Mark Nottingham seem like excellent choices to me. They are well known to developers, have good cross-interests with important groups that we need in discussions and seem like they bring the best set of necessary assets as we work to flesh out an extensible platform with a long term vision of standards development that helps them compete and evolve with changing pressures.

But wait, there’s more!

The benefits that any nominee brings to the table can be subtle, but very real. Each AC gets only one vote, and that doesn’t have a lot of expressive power. I think that Travis Leithead has a slight edge in terms of what he brings, but I think that Mark Nottingham stands a slightly better chance of election by merit of his past service and visible social presence. So if I encourage ACs to vote for Travis, because, for example, bringing an inspired Microsoft player to the table is a great thing at this juncture and has virtuous ripple effects, each AC who does is potentially a vote Mark doesn’t get which he otherwise would. The number of ACs who cast votes in the first place is incredibly small, so losing just a couple can easily mean that neither of my preferred candidates get elected, a result that makes me notably less happy than if my “just barely second choice” candidate won. This is the case for preferential voting, it allows me to say ”I prefer this guy most” and “then this guy above others” and so on. The net result is that generally, more people are more happy with the results and spend less time agonizing over the choice.

In a funny way, while the system itself doesn’t work this way, it’s possible to achieve a similar result by way of a compact amongst ACs. If 5 or 6 like-minded ACs discussed who to vote for, and voted together you could avoid most of the incidental effects where neither our collective first, nor second (nor maybe even third) choice is elected.

So, please, encourage any AC you might know to vote responsibly and not only support the candidates I mentioned, but the reforms discussed above as well.

On September 11, 2014, Berlin will host the second ever Extensible Web Summit. You can get a (free) ticket from Lanyard and it’s scheduled to coincide with JS Conf EU 2014, so if you are going to be in the area I’d highly encourage you to attend if possible for something very different and important.

A little over a year ago, we sat down and authored The Extensible Web Manifesto which observes failings in how we historically create Web standards and proposes an alternative vision to correct these and make/keep the Web a compelling, competitive and adaptable platform for decades to come. Key among these ideas is the need to involve developers and harness the power of the community itself. 9 months later we held the very first Extensible Web Summit in San Francisco, California.  Unlike many conferences, the summit sets out with a different goal: To bring together developers, library authors, browser implementors and standards writers to discuss and solve problems, hear perspectives, help set priorities, etc. While there were a few quick lightning talks at the opening, the agenda, groups, etc were entirely decided by participants and run bar-camp style.

If you’re curious about how the first one went, here are a few links to posts which themselves have some additional links you can follow.

If you write or use libraries, if you have ever had thoughts, ideas or complaints about Web APIs, if are interested in standards, or you’d like to meet the folks who write the specs or implement in the browsers, if you develop for the Web in any significant way – you should come. Not only that, but I’d encourage you to really participate. At the first summit, several people seemed a little intimidated at first because of the presence of “giants” like Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Don’t be.  These people are all pleasantly human, just like you.  Several good things came out of the first one and with some practice and increased attendance and participation, we gain even more. So, go if you can – and tell someone else about it either way.