Automatic AB/TAG election when participation falls too low

[frivoal]

At the moment (other than the case 0, handled as part of #888), whether we call for an election to fill mid-term vacancies in the AB or TAG is up to the chair of the body. In https://github.com/w3c/process/pull/888/files#r1936639570 @martinthomson suggested that we may want to automatically trigger an election for the AB or TAG if participation falls below a critical threshold.

1. Should an election be automatic, regardless of what the chair thinks, at some threshold?
2. If yes, at what threshold?
3. Do we still want the chair to have discretion when we have lost some members, but less then than the threshold?

Suggestion:

1. Yes.
2. Half the full size of the group?
3. Yes.

[martinthomson]

Why is it that the chair decides and not the (remaining) group as a whole? I might prefer that the remaining group be given discretion, but I don't like the implication that chairs (who might be affected by attrition too) are the only decision-makers here. Maybe you could say that the group, using whatever decision-making process they have, can decide to ask for an election (or off-cycle appointment??!?) to replace vacant seats.

[frivoal]

Why is it that the chair decides and not the (remaining) group as a whole?

@martinthomson I would like to note that this ability for the chair to decide is not at all something new. This has been the case since (at least) 2005. I cannot tell you why, this is before my time.

[martinthomson]

Let's not fixate on that. After all, old does not necessarily mean good and this is about making the process better, not consistent with old decisions (a reason to include rationale in specifications, if you care about people respecting your reasons).

My suggestion is that we allow the group to request an election (using their established decision-making process, which will likely be consensus, which is perfect for this), but force an election if the group drops below 2/3 of their original size. I say 2/3 because there are a few decisions in the Process that require a 2/3 majority and making those decisions with 4/9 of the full body is probably not what decisions of that gravity depend on. (I could live with a lower threshold, on the basis that any reasonable group might decide to backfill sooner, but that's relying on people doing reasonable things more than seems necessary.)

[frivoal]

I think that I care about keeping the ability to make a deliberate decision about when the threshold is not reached. But I think I don't care all that strongly about whether that must be a chair's decision or a decision by the remaining members of the group. So I'd be OK with your proposal that it's a group's decision.

In terms of threshold, 2/3 also seems OK with me, though there are some nuances:

• for the TAG, do we mean participants dropping below 2/3 of the whole body's seat number, or elected participants 2/3 of the elected seats number? In other words, when we drop to 5 or less elected seats
  → I think it's best to keep that logic to the elected seats.
• the AB has variable number of members, between 9 and 11. Do we mean 2/3 of 9, or 2/3 of 11?
  → I'd go with 9, because otherwise, dropping below 8 would be sufficient to automatically trigger an election, and it seems to me that that's too close to 9 to get use out of discretionary territory, and into automatic territory.

[martinthomson]

For the TAG, appointments are a) mandatory and b) equivalent to elected seats. For those reasons, I would not do anything special about the distinction. There are 11 TAG seats, therefore dropping to 7 or less (< 7.333..) would trigger an election.

For the AB, I would also choose 2/3 of the minimum, or when the count of filled seats hits 5 or less.

[frivoal]

Ok, so we agree on the AB.

For the TAG, I don't think I'd object to what you're proposing, but it seems a little odd to me. Here's a scenario that shows why:

• start with a full TAG: 8 elected, 3 appointed, 1 timbl → total is 12
• 4 elected participants drop: we're now at 8, which is not below 2/3*12, so no election
• a while later, 1 appointed participant drops:
  • We're now at 7, which is below 2/3 * 12, so we have an election for the 4 missing elected participants
  • Also, as per bullet 2 of the second list of https://www.w3.org/policies/process/drafts/#AB-TAG-vacated, “When an appointed TAG seat is vacated, the Team appoints a replacement.”

(The logic doesn't change if you don't count timbl's seat)

That's kind of weird in two ways:

• it's the stepping down of an appointed participant that triggered an election to fill vacant elected seats
• if the appointment concludes fast (faster than the election), we're back at 8, so maybe we don't need to run the election after all?

It seems to me we'd have fewer oddities if we auto-triggered an election when elected participants fall below 2/3 of 8, and let the other existing mechanism worry about replenishing appointed seats if/when missing.

Then again, as I said above, I find this a little odd, not the same as unacceptable.