Finalize list of Editors, Authors, and Acknowledgements. #1579
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msporny
requested review from
dlongley,
iherman,
TallTed,
David-Chadwick and
brentzundel
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I object to being removed as an editor at the last minute. I vigorously contributed to the editor's calls and working group calls on a regular basis. I provided intellectual leadership to ensure consistency within the specification. And I contributed edits to the specification.
Yes, many of my contributions resulted in edits not happening to keep things simpler and more consistent, which in my view, is just as important as adding edits to the document. Advocating for architectural consistency was a primary goal of mine in my contributions as an editor of this specification.
I would view it as being ungrateful and hurtful on the part of the working group if they were to remove me from the editor's list when I've been an active editor throughout the entire VCDM 2.0 journey.
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The issue was discussed in a meeting on 2025-01-15
View the transcript1.3. Finalize list of Editors, Authors, and Acknowledgements. (pr vc-data-model#1579)See github pull request vc-data-model#1579. Brent Zundel: This PR updates the authors and editors list based on how folks have contributed the the spec. Ivan Herman: Never know what the right thing to do for former editors and authors and their affiliations. Brent Zundel: For former editors, it makes sense to me to keep affiliation when they were editors. Manu Sporny: I agree with that. Michael Jones: I am surprised to see a proposal to remove myself as an editor. I am going to make a change request to the current PR to add me back in. Brent Zundel: Chair hat off, the habit of maintaining a list of former authors and editors to the spec isnt something I think we need to do. I don't mind if my name goes. Manu Sporny: On selfissued taking offence to the suggested changes. We try to make this data driven. selfissued did not contribute as much as others on the basis of the data. Michael Jones: I understand desire to be data driven. But this doesn't include in the important ways that people contribute. Including attending calls and TPAC to contribute to the discussion etc. Manu Sporny: one last thing. The job of an editor is to edit. To raise PRs. To modify the document. To make changes to the document. The other types of contributions are valid, they are made as working group participants. Michael Jones: I want an apology. Brent Zundel: not going to come to a conclusion on this call. lets have a conversation privately with selfissued and manu. Manu Sporny: I would like this to be a public discussion. Brent Zundel: spending 5 more minutes on this. David Chadwick: In my own case, not objecting to being listed an author. But the count of PRs for myself is less than it could have been as manu did some of my PRs. Dave Longley: Just want to make the point that the group agreed to follow this data driven process to decide whose name would be on the spec as authors and editors. I think it is unfair to put the burden of that onto manu. Brent Zundel: that matches my recollection. Michael Jones: That does not match my recollection to sign up to be an editor. Brent Zundel: making a suggestion. manu, selfissued and gabe regularly attended the editor call for an hour each week. Has this time commitment been taken into account. Manu Sporny: No, it hasn't been taken into account. Brent Zundel: wondeirng if we can account for this time. The editor call is work. Manu Sporny: I don't have an opiniob on this, the group needs to figure this out. Michael Jones: thanks for raising that point brent. I agree it was a substantial time commitment to be on the editor calls. I engaged in these calls. Ivan Herman: for the last issue it is more complicated. There are many documents that we are editing. The editors call covers all of them, this discussion is just the VCDM.
Ivan Herman: Whats the judgement on the rule around adding authors.
Benjamin Young: This is just for the VCDM. The editors call is general. selfissued is still and editor on other documents where his editorial contributions have been recognised.
Benjamin Young: I don't see this as a personal affront. Just edits where not made to the VCDM, so in that sense selfissued would not be listed as an editor but still be acknowledged. Michael Jones: yes, editors call was a union of editors of all the specs. I went to that assuming that those listed as editors would remain so.
Joe Andrieu: I dont find the arguments that those who commited personal time and wealth should be an editor or author. An editor in my opinion should be editing. They should be actually making edits to the spec. Manu Sporny: Answering around what makes an author. Historically it has been significant contributions to the specifications that resulted in new sections to the document. David Chadwick: question to manu, in the PRs on the commits person A raises the PR. Person B makes a lot of comments. Who gets the credit? Manu Sporny: No person B gets the credit. When person B makes a change suggestion, we make separate commits that make them get the credit for it.
Brent Zundel: not leading to resolution. |
I think it's worth mentioning that others who are also not listed as editors also attended working group calls on a regular basis, provided intellectual leadership, attempted to ensure consistency within the specification (or provided other important architectural / design contributions), and some contributed many direct edits and hours of their time per week to the spec work. In other words, there were a number of contributors who provided multiple hours of work per week that included various intellectual contributions and / or leadership without attendance on the editor calls. Some of these contributors may have provided more time and effort on a particular specification than someone who attended the editor calls. It might be odd to try and compare attendance and contribution on the editor calls with this other kind of contribution since they aren't of the same sort. Similarly, attendance and contribution on the editor calls is not of the same sort as producing the actual text for the specification and all of the effort and hours of time that goes into that -- which can easily, in the aggregate, be an order of magnitude more than weekly attendance and contribution on any given call. There are at least three groups I think being mentioned here:
Of course, there might be overlap in participants in these groups. This Working Group (and previous iterations of it) have used the "editors" field in the specification to list those individuals who fall into group 3. Notably, we haven't, in the past, made a distinction in the kind of work between people in groups 1 and 2, they are all listed as "contributors" in the spec. Sometimes we have had special acknowledgement paragraphs covering people who the group agreed contributed significantly more effort or were members of important liaison groups or things of this sort. Importantly, how to handle acknowledgements wasn't a personal decision, but rather one that has, I believe, tried to capture various contributions and the difference in level of effort as best as the group could. It has been important to the group that "volunteering to be an editor" not be considered sufficient to be listed as an editor on the specification, but rather, some level of significant effort that the group understands and recognizes also be required. What rises to that level of effort is a decision for the group to make (or to change from what it has already decided). My understanding is that, perhaps, you'd like regular attendance and contribution during the weekly editor calls to be considered sufficient to be listed as an "editor". The main purpose of the editor calls is for people acting in the role of editor to coordinate their future editing actions (concrete changes to the specs); these actions are rooted in carrying out the decisions of the WG. It is in the WG that the intellectual contributions (and so on) occur as people play the role of WG member. Again, that these calls were called "the editor calls" and therefore any regular participant should be listed as an "editor" on the spec has been rejected by this group in the past, because the "editor" fields means: "Those who bore the brunt of the editorial work that did land in the specification -- the very many weekly hours of effort of creating, editing, and updating the actual text that landed in the specification, without which there would be no spec at all." and not "those who regularly attended and contributed to one hour weekly editor calls". That is just how this group as operated, based on a belief that it is a more fair expression of attribution. Also of note is that the group has decided previously that contributors that substantially authored entire sections or architectural components in a specification (though perhaps not the direct text as editors) be as "authors". It was an intentional split from listing them as "editors" since this is a different kind of effort. However, I don't expect that regularly attending and contributing to weekly editor calls fits the "authorship" grouping either. But, perhaps there's another way to capture this such that it differentiates those that regularly attended and contributed on editors calls from those that didn't but who otherwise contributed in other ways? It's important to understand what those other contributors would consider fair attribution as well. As an example, suppose we have these areas of contribution:
Supposing these three hypothetical contributors (relative to each other):
Would it strike the WG as fair that Person C be given nearly the same attribution for "editing" as Person A? Similarly, what about Person C being given preference or nearly the same attribution as Person B? What if Person B contributed significantly more hours of their time per week than Person C? How do we appropriately give attribution for "3" without inappropriately slighting others? Perhaps we should have a separate section, prior to the more general contribution area, that acknowledges regular attendance and contribution in the editors calls -- as that would most directly cover that particular type of contribution. |
Co-authored-by: Orie Steele <orie@or13.io> Co-authored-by: Ted Thibodeau Jr <tthibodeau@openlinksw.com> Co-authored-by: Brian Campbell <71398439+bc-pi@users.noreply.github.com>
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Editorial, multiple reviews, changes suggested and made, one objection (overruled by WG discussion), merging. |
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I have reviewed our initial conversations as a group about editorship and work mode. This is what I said at the time
The algorithmic approach was for adding editors to the list set by the chairs. I am reverting this PR |
This PR finalizes the Acknowledgements, Authors, and Editors lists based on the following data.
For the Editors, their contributions since the beginning of the v2.0 VCWG are visible here:
https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/graphs/contributors?from=6%2F1%2F2022
For Authors, I'm a bit on the fence -- there is an argument to add Orie, Ted, Brent, Ivan, and Joe (who are already acknowledged as going above and beyond in the Acknowledgements) if we can point to significant concepts or content in the core specification that were contributed by each of them. For example, adding Ivan made sense because he single handedly authored all of the vocabulary documents and build tool, which was a significant effort. Ted's contributions were more editorial in nature, which is where his credit went. I don't know if Brent, Orie, and Joe's contributions are "Author"ial in nature -- we definitely call them out separately as "above and beyond" contributions, and also thank Brent as Chair and Joe as RWoT leadership in Acknowledgements. In any case, looking for further input on whether/how they might be considered Authors, or if the other acknowledgements are adequate?
For Acknowledgements, the tally of total comments made since v1.0 are here:
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