DRAFT Exploration Interest Group Charter

The mission of the Exploration Interest Group is to [do something cool and specific on the Web].

There are arguments to make it a Community Group instead of an Interest Group. Feedback would be welcome.

This draft charter is available on GitHub. Feel free to raise issues.

Charter Status	See the group status page and detailed change history.
Start date	[dd monthname yyyy] (date of the "Call for Participation", when the charter is approved)
End date	[dd monthname yyyy] (Start date + 2 years)
Chairs	[chair name] (affiliation)
Team Contacts	[team contact name] (0.1 FTE)
Meeting Schedule	Teleconferences: topic-specific calls may be held or something else Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year.

Motivation and Background

This Group is intended to address several use cases:

New ideas and dimensions: a new human step may impact the Web, e.g., "autonomous L4/L5 cars", "one continent forking the technology stack of the Internet and the Web", "sustainable blockchain", "6G Networks";
New people: a welcoming point for Members/people who are unfamiliar with our processes and systems, to understand the organization;
New workshops: a relevant topic needs alignment around the next steps for W3C, e.g., "generative AI", "Digital Identity on the Web";
Monitoring industry trends: monitor other SDOs by leveraging the knowledge of W3C Members and enrolling them to monitor outside organizations, and report back on regular basis;
Publishing Report: Create public analyses of trends that affect the Web, seeking rough consensus or presentation of competing perspectives. The analyses would summarize the trending topic, outline the promise and pitfalls that are being discussed, point to relevant W3C efforts, and indicate the degree of consensus in the group on the value of the topic for the Web;
Chartering: there is a charter but we need to measure the interest from the W3C community at large and make it fit in the larger picture, e.g., Real Estate IG.

Scope

The goal of Exploration Interest Group provides a platform to help the W3C community explore emerging Web-related technology trends, consider how the community could collaborate to shape these trends for the benefit of the Web users, accelerate chartering investigations and endeavors, and continually strengthen the innovation of W3C.

Work with W3C Members and the W3C Team to propose, prioritize, and assist in organizing Workshops or other events. Topics may come from discussions within CGs, TPAC Breakout Sessions, Workshops and Liaison Reports, etc.
Work with W3C Members and W3C Team to prioritize potential work areas, to facilitate creation of Community Groups, to coordinate among Community Groups, and to advise on how to transition work from CG to WG;
Work with W3C Members and the W3C Team to monitor W3C Liaisons, invite insightful SDOs experts, and provide a platform to report back on potential areas of investigations;
Discuss how to continue improving the exploration and investigation process, and propose improvements to the W3C Advisory Board and the W3C Team.

Deliverables

Updated document status is available on the group publication status page. [or link to a page this group prefers to use]

Non-normative documents may be created such as reports on exploration and investigations.

Success Criteria

How do we measure success ?

Coordination

This Group is expected to coordinate with any relevant group...

W3C Groups

[other name] Working Group: [specific nature of liaison]

Note: Do not list horizontal groups here, only specific WGs relevant to your work.

Note: Do not bury normative text inside the liaison section. Instead, put it in the scope section.

External Organizations

[other name] Working Group: [specific nature of liaison]

Participation

To be successful, this Interest Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration. The Chairs are expected to contribute a quarter of a working day per week towards the Interest Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.

The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute through its public communication channels.

Participants in the group are required (by the W3C Process) to follow the W3C Code of Conduct.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Interest Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed in public repositories and may permit direct public contribution requests. (Does the IG plan to write EDs and WDs?) The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Exploration Interest Group home page.

Most Exploration Interest Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work pick one, or both, as appropriate: on the public mailing list public-[email-list]@w3.org (archive) or on GitHub issues. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.1, Consensus). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress and consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email, GitHub issue or web-based survey), with a response period from [pick a duration within:] one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Interest Group.

All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 5.2.3, Deciding by Vote) and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Disclosures

The Interest Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Interest Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Interest Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Interest Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the licensing information.

Licensing

This Interest Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 3.4 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Charter History

Note:Display this table and update it when appropriate. Requirements for charter extension history are documented in the Charter Guidebook (section 4).

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 4.3, Advisory Committee Review of a Charter):

Charter Period	Start Date	End Date	Changes
Initial Charter	[dd monthname yyyy]	[dd monthname yyyy]	none

Change log

Changes to this document are documented in this section.