Whistle blower

[jwrosewell]

A whistle blower process should be in place to ensure that higher authority can be called in to deal with abuses and disputes concerning governance and an escalation on processes and governance should be available at a level above groups.

This will help to ensure that members follow the membership agreement, and that discussions do not veer away from the creation of competitively neutral standard making.

[chaals]

There are already several processes to do this - the set up of groups including charter reviews, the facility for appeal of decisions, the ombuds structure that provides a general avenue for relief.

It isn't obvious what problem this issue is addressing, nor what further structure would improve the ability to do what is asked - as far as I can tell that is already provided for in multiple ways.

[TzviyaSiegman]

In terms of human interaction all W3C groups, email lists, repos etc operate under https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/

[dwsinger]

We have various ways to escalate, as noted:

• Code of ethics, and the availability of people to help
• The ability to file formal objections, which can be team confidential
• The ability to appeal formal decisions

In addition, the team (including counsel), the TAG, and the AB all remain available to hear of concerns of any kind.

Can you be more specific, please?

[jwrosewell]

Thanks for the responses. The references to existing procedures are useful. They unfortunately don’t address the situation as required by modern governance. A standard whistle blower requirement means that the system needs to be updated so that the whistle can be blown on any wrong doing by anyone in the organisation. The need for independent oversight to ensure that if there is a problem at all level is manifest. This may be picked up in the reforms and moving toward a different form of governance - which people are talking about as “incorporation.”

[dwsinger]

Propose to transfer to the AB to consider what to do (if anything).

[TzviyaSiegman]

Note that this exists https://techworkerhandbook.org/

[frivoal]

This should probably move to the AB, or possibly to the Board once there is one, but it's out of scope for this CG. @TzviyaSiegman @cwilso, can you move this to an AB repo?

[frivoal]

The board has adopted a whistleblower policy. https://www.w3.org/Member/bod/policies/whistleblower

This issue should be closed. If there are any issues about the policy that the board adopted, those should be reported to the Board.

[css-meeting-bot]

The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed Whistleblower Policy, and agreed to the following:

• RESOLVED: Close 481

The full IRC log of that discussion

<fantasai> Subtopic: Whistleblower Policy
<fantasai> github: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/481#issuecomment-2065834813
<fantasai> florian: We previously wanted to transfer issue to Board, but they already adopted a policy so nothing to transfer
<fantasai> ... if their policy isn't good enough, should file issue against them
<fantasai> plh: +1
<fantasai> <fantasai> +1
<cpn> +1
<fantasai> RESOLVED: Close 481