Enable AB/TAG to remove one of their members #986
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frivoal
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Two concerns:
The combination of these two lead me to conclude that the authority of the CEO to remove an elected member is sufficient. The CEO is always entitled to solicit advice from any set of individuals and a duly elected member of the AB who obstructs the progress of that body need not become a showstopper such that Process has to grant special decision-making authority to the AB. |
| or to be acting in a way that seriously hampers the group's ability to function normally. | ||
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| A chair of the [=AB=] or [=TAG=] <em class=rfc2119>must</em> hold a hearing | ||
| on the potential [=removal=] of a participant | ||
| if requested by at least three of the participants in the group. | ||
| After giving the individual in question | ||
| an opportunity to defend themselves, | ||
| a vote on the proposed [=removal=] is held. | ||
| If at least three quarters of the participants in the group, | ||
| excluding the individual who is the subject of such vote, | ||
| then vote in favor of the proposal, | ||
| the individual's seat on [=AB=] or [=TAG=] is [=vacated=] immediately. |
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Is "holding a different opinion" or "preventing a Council from reaching a decision by vote" potentially something that could be considered "hampering the group's ability to function"?
If so, I'd be (a tiny bit) concerned about an in extremis potential abuse of this mechanism to evict an AB or TAG member in order to remove them from a Council (assuming that the opportunity for dismissal had passed) in order to unlock a Council vote.
It's complex to do the maths on this but I suspect that there could be a scenario in which a majority of a Council could not be found but a three-quarters majority of the AB or the TAG could be found to remove one of them.
For practical purposes, this is a highly theoretical, i.e. unlikely to ever happen, matter of minutia, so doesn't seem like reasonable grounds for blocking the PR, but it would be good to know if anyone did work through the voting numbers given this three quarter majority requirement, and other contexts in which AB or TAG might participate in votes.
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@nigelmegitt I'd refer you to the documentation on Councils, as the situation you describe would not really make sense in the context of how councils are run. It's entirely possible for a council to proceed if someone (or multiple people but not enough to amount to overturning a vote) holds a minority opinion. You can find the details here: https://www.w3.org/policies/process/20231103/#council-deliberations
If someone decided to be so disruptive to any AB/TAG process, council or otherwise, that the bodies couldn't conduct their expected responsibilities, that seems to be a valid premise to initiate this procedure. For it to pass, there is still the requirement of 3/4 of the group voting in favour, which is a significant bar. I'd add that in the case where someone is this disruptive, there is an impact on the membership as well, even if the membership did vote for them.
The minutes for today aren't available yet, but I will share what I said in support of this change: this is an edge case, and hopefully the most edgy of cases. There are a million steps that come before a decision like this, and I hope we never have to use it, but it is good to have it in the situation where we need it.
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Another observation:
Membership of each Council instance is fixed at formation,
Making someone not be a AB/TAG member anymore doesn't remove them from the council. Now, it would possible to form a new council without the excluded individual(s) by using the following provision:
However, if participation in a Council falls so low as to hinder effective and balanced deliberations, the W3C Council Chair should dissolve the Council and call for a new one to be convened.
but if that's just to get rid of a person or two, that wouldn't be a case of "falls so low as to hinder effective and balanced deliberations", and would be pretty solid grounds for escalation / appeal.
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It's entirely possible for a council to proceed if someone (or multiple people but not enough to amount to overturning a vote) holds a minority opinion.
@wareid Sure, but that's a slightly different scenario. I am considering if the Council is split, and removal of one person causes their opinion to become a minority opinion. And the point is that a Council has a different membership to either TAG or AB on their own, so TAG or AB could hypothetically remove someone even if their removal would not have happened had that decision been made by the collective members of the Council.
However @frivoal makes a good point that removal from TAG/AB doesn't imply removal from a currently operating Council, which has its own distinct removal mechanism.
Is it worth raising an issue to clarify that removal of a member from TAG/AB does not remove them from any Council of which they are currently a member? At the moment this is implied by omission, but it could be noted explicitly for the avoidance of doubt.
I completely agree this is an exceedingly edgy edge case, and as I noted, more a question of wanting to know someone thought this sort of scenario through, rather than blocking the PR. Which we now seem to have done in this thread 😀.
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Agree this is worth clarifying.
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Let's follow up about this aspect in #1006
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| or to be acting in a way that seriously hampers the group's ability to function normally. | ||
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| A chair of the [=AB=] or [=TAG=] <em class=rfc2119>must</em> hold a hearing |
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There should be explicit detail here about who is invited to that hearing; both who must be invited (I'd expect the relevant body, including the individual) and who is allowed. Also, whether this is publicized or not. (I would expect not, but it shouild be explicit that it's confidential, perhaps?
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Is it not the intent that this would replace the ability below (in lines 1362-1366) for the CEO to dismiss the participant? I would have expected those lines to be removed.
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I strongly object.
It's one thing to create a supplemental mechanism for one body to remove one of their members, to prevent a situation that has yet to happen, as a way to afford multiple paths to resolving problems so you aren't bottlenecked on one single path, and it's another thing entirely to strip the existing authority. This was presented in the 20 March AB meeting as a supplemental mechanism.
Furthermore, W3C has a Board of Directors who oversees the CEO and their actions.
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I'm not sure how this was presented as a supplemental mechanism - the minutes haven't been released yet so I can't link to them, but I said "I am def in favor of switching this to AB itself managing", and there were several others who I thought agreed.
How is the Board (who have precisely this 3/4-vote-of-its-own-membership-to-eject rule) and their oversight of the CEO relevant?
Or maybe more to the point: in what case would it be critical for the CEO to be able to eject an AB member, without the support of 3/4 of the rest of the AB?
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There is an issue of the math of such voting. It was suggested to be a positive thing to have “high bar” of 75% of the group for removing someone. In a group the size of the AB, it would take 8 people to remove someone. However, on the other side of it, in order for someone to stay, they would just need to convince 2 people not to vote them out.
This dividing of votes amongst a small group would not just be incredibly demoralizing and/or encourage cliques or factions, relying on this kind of voting requirements could make it even more political and difficult to remove someone, even for cause.
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On the issue of the AB proposal to removing a right/responsibility of the CEO:
The Process states: “The Advisory Board is distinct from the Board of Directors and has no decision-making authority within W3C; its role is strictly advisory.” (with an exception of serving on councils)
https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#AB
and "Oversight over the Team, budgeting, and other business decisions, is provided by the W3C Board of Directors, rather than managed directly by the Process.”
https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/#Team
Adding the power of decision-making so extreme as to reverse the elected decisions of Members and/or to change the role or responsibility of the CEO would be radical changes the nature and role of the AB (moving away from advising to deciding) and taking over part of the role and power from the Board.
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cultural differences and liability
Our Members come from a wide range of organizations but we know, often from business or global competitors. Our members also come from very different cultural and geographic backgrounds. How could the work or contributions of fellow members be judged by each other fairly when everyone comes with different skills or a different sense of duty? For fellow Members to remove someone from their elected role might open them to accusations of bias or competitor or even national retaliation.
It is because this that it is possible that someone who is removed by other members might even consider taking legal action for something like bias or career harm so there is also an issue of liability.
The neutral role of the CEO, as the Process currently assigns the responsibility, does mean questions of bias are greatly reduced (no burden of re-election, not a business competitor, acting for the W3C as a whole, not paid by one company, etc.).
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I strongly feel this is a radical, contentious and weighty proposal for a problem that has not happened.
No CEO has yet needed to remove an AB or TAG member so the problem this proposal seeks to address has not actually happened. However, we know that there are longstanding and repeated examples of business competition within W3C or attempts to stop or slow our work. Any new ability for factions to be able to block or remove potential competitors or to prevent differing interests from also serving on elected bodies should be tread very carefully. New methods which would make our governing bodies more contentious, factional or political should absolutely be avoided. Creating new processes to overturn elected decisions of Members in an increasingly disengaged Membership also seems injudicious at this time.
I would suggest that any addition to allow AB to vote on removing other AB members should be added to the Process, only after it has been shown 1. to be a problem that has actively happened that needs such a heavy solution and 2. with the very clear and direct support of Members for this removal their elected choices and 3. after a review which can identify the problem, what worked and what didn’t, legal risks (eg: wrongful termination or career harm) etc to find the best solutions- not before.
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Finally, and I think most concerning, there should be great care taken in using access to the levers of power. Judges and those in power are expected to recuse themselves from conflicts of interest. In other countries it might be said as a group "must not be judge and party". The AB has immense power due to their access to W3C Process through control of the Process CG.
It seems to me, any proposal by the AB to use it’s access to and functional control over the Process to increase its own power, change its role, or to suggest any adjustment which removes power from any other group or person must absolutely be done rarely, addressed with great seriousness and I would hope, great prudence. I do not see a compelling need for either adding to AB power (moving from "advising" to "deciding" in a more Board-like role) nor to remove from them, a CEO power which impacts all other Groups.
In this instance, there seems to be great pressure to impose this change by the next revision. I feel the benefits of this change are not at all demonstrated as urgently needed. This power has never been used, I would question the urgency to change it. I do not believe the AB should use its power over the Process to push this though while there are so many questions and it is not urgent.
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My position is this power should not be added to the Process at all until it can be demonstrated it would be:
- warranted (that AB need to be able to thus un-do the election choices of other fellow members)
- needed in practice, not just theory (a problem has happened but the current framework has failed to solve it)
- if needed, clearly defined (eg: “duties” “neglect” “hamper”)
- if needed, any issues of liability are addressed (eg: Board and Officers are indemnified but are AB?)
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To respond briefly to your last questions:
- One of the questions here isn't whether it should be possible to un-do the election choices of the AC -- we already have that ability in the Process, as the CEO has that power -- but by whom, how, and for what purposes that power is applied.
- We know there has been at least one instance of such a problem in the past. Further discussion of such cases is not a topic for a public forum, however.
- Agreed 100% that it should be clearly defined, and to be defined in a way so as to avoid abuse of the power.
- We were told that the TAG and AB are covered under W3C's insurance policies (since such questions have already come up regarding the Council).
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The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed
The full IRC log of that discussion<fantasai> Topic: Edits for Removing AB/TAG Members<fantasai> github: https://github.com//pull/986 <fantasai> plh: Added because AB resolved on adopting this mechanism <fantasai> florian: [summarizes proposal] <fantasai> ... unclear if the AB adopted specific text, or open to tweaking <cwilso> q+ <fantasai> fantasai: AB adopted the mechanism with 3/4 threshold. We can refine the wording, though. <fantasai> florian: Note that Council membership is fixed, not affected by this. <fantasai> ... would prefer to do that as a follow-up PR <fantasai> florian: Other point is whether this new ability comes in addition or instead of the CEO's ability to remove people (which until now was only way to remove people) <fantasai> cwilso: I stated that I was in favor of switching, and made clear that it was a replacement <fantasai> ... I believe the minutes will agree that several others were on board with that as the plan <fantasai> ... but it wasn't a major point of discussion <fantasai> ... I'm not sure why we would be adding more ways to remove members? <fantasai> ... If 3/4 of AB or TAG says "this member should be removed", pretty sure CEO would go along with that. So we would be saying we don't need CEO. <fantasai> ... leaving to CEO to decide, "This person is disruptive, I don't like their feedback", that's concerning <fantasai> plh: Was the CEO involved in the discussion? <fantasai> cwilso: He was not attending. Some Team were there. <fantasai> plh: Would want CEO to be aware of that change. <fantasai> plh: Not ready to merge this PR today... <plh> ack cwilso <plh> ack fantasai <cwilso> +1 that we could add this today, and I think we had support from the AB to do so. <fantasai> fantasai: I didn't think it was clear in the discussion that we were removing the CEO mechanism <cwilso> q+ to say I would like to address the other question in this version of hte process <fantasai> ... but I think it was clear that we are adding this one, so I think we should merge this PR <plh> ack cwilso <Zakim> cwilso, you wanted to say I would like to address the other question in this version of hte process <fantasai> ... unless we feel that this PR is not a good representation of that mechanism <fantasai> cwilso: I would like us to consider this at the same time. We should go back to AB and ask this question, not leave it open <fantasai> florian: Do you mean you don't want to merge PR and wait several cycles of Process, or <fantasai> cwilso: correct <fantasai> florian: but no problem with merging, and quickly following up with AB? <fantasai> cwilso: correct <fantasai> ... We agreed on this change, let's merge it. But we should follow up on the CEO question. <fantasai> plh: Proposed to merge PR as-is, and open issue of removing CEO ability and quickly cycle with AB on that front. <fantasai> cwilso: I thought when we discussed in the AB that we were agreeing to replace this ability. <fantasai> ... I think it's goofy to add rather than replaced, but certainly not opposed, since I think this is what we should be doing. <fantasai> plh: Any objection to merging? <fantasai> RESOLVED: Merge PR #986 <fantasai> ACTION: fantasai follow up with AB about whether we meant to remove the CEO removal powers or not |
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To make it clear:
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Note that the TAG did not get asked about this pull request: consensus on this point |
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I am likewise deeply concerned that giving this power to the AB is a bad
idea with very little upside (the AB can work around inattentive or
obstructive members, this is just adding a high-effort alternative
approach) and a lot of downside.
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Update from the TAG: |
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I tend to agree with @chaals comment above, and am also sympathetic to the TAG's response. |
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As discussed in #882 (comment), a dedicated topic branch was created for this issue and related ones: ab-tag-discipline |
frivoal
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See #882
Though they serve related purposes, individual removal by members of the same body and recall of the entire body by its electorate are procedurally distinct. Discussions in #888, which attempted to do both, show debates about each part. In particular, #888 has many comments about various part of collective removal.
To simplify discussion, this pull request isolates the individual removal by members of the same body, since it does not depend on the rest. Refer also to the comment thread at #888 (comment), which discussed this aspect in #888.
Discussion of collective removal can continue in #888