How to create a Working Group or Interest Group Charter

The W3C Process describes the lifecycle of chartered groups.

Note: Group closures are addressed in other documentation.

1. Overview of charter development

W3C creates charters for Working and Interest Groups based on W3C community interest. W3C fosters awareness of charters, improves their quality, and gauges Membership support in phases:

  • Preparation
  • Charter refinement to help ensure charters are mission-aligned, reflect community input and consensus, and have been well-socialized and widely reviewed.
  • Review by the W3C Advisory Committee, followed by a W3C Decision (including handling of any Formal Objections).

In this document we describe the operational aspects of these phases.

Note: Organizing discussions and reviews, building consensus, and handling of Formal Objections all require time. People working on charters should expect the entire process to take multiple months.

2. Team Decisions

Within the chartering process, the following are Team Decisions:

2.1 Technical Strategy Team role

In practice, the Team delegates these Team Decisions to the Technical Strategy Team, which manages the charter development process, including allocation of staff resources.

The Technical Strategy Team tracks charters through the process via the W3C Technical Strategy Pipeline (or “pipeline” in this document). A dashboard of Charters in development is also available.

2.2 Chartering Facilitator

The Technical Strategy Team Lead chooses (and may replace) a Chartering Facilitator to shepherd a given charter through the process. The Chartering Facilitator is typically from the Staff but is not required to be from the Staff. In the case of rechartering it is common to name the group’s Staff Contact as the Chartering Facilitator.

Note: If the Technical Strategy Team Lead cannot identify a Chartering Facilitator, there may be delays in advancing the charter through the process.

2.3 Charter assessment criteria

The Technical Strategy Team considers the following when deciding whether to initiate charter refinement or AC review of a charter. The more these criteria are not met, the more likely it is the Technical Strategy Team will not initiate charter refinement or AC review. In any decision not to initiate refinement or AC review, the Technical Strategy Team grounds its rationale in these criteria.

  • Does the charter align with the W3C mission and/or principles (and in particular W3C Statements)?
  • Does the charter align with established web architecture?
  • Is there sufficient support for the charter?
  • Is there significant consensus for the charter? One example of lack of consensus is when there are two competing charters and the community has not yet converged.
  • Are there clear signals within the W3C community that the W3C Membership will participate in the work, or that organizations will join to do the work?
  • Does the Staff have adequate resources for the group in light of current W3C priorities?

Please note:

  • Some of these criteria will be easier to evaluate after charter refinement (e.g., once there has been horizontal review).
  • The Technical Strategy Team may still decide not to initiate refinement or AC review even if the criteria are met, but must provide rationale for the decision.
  • The Technical Strategy Team may still decide to initiate refinement or AC review even if the criteria are not met, otherwise W3C might not be able to make progress in some scenarios (e.g., when there are multiple competing charters). Similarly, the Technical Strategy Team must provide rationale for the decision.

3. Chartering new groups

Discussions for new work happen in a variety of venues, including Member discussions, Workshops, Working / Interest / Community Groups, and within the W3C Staff.

3.1 Preparation

Any party preparing a charter for a new Working Group or Interest Group follows these steps:

Verify transition readiness
For a Working Group charter, review: W3C Recommendation Track Readiness Best Practices, Tips for Getting to Recommendation Faster, and How to transition work from a Community Group to a Working Group.
Draft a charter
Use the charter template to create a public charter draft, ideally on GitHub. This is where substantive discussion of the charter should take place, including issues and pull requests.
Inform the Technical Strategy Team
When ready (e.g., after sufficient discussion among stakeholders has taken place), inform the Technical Strategy Team by creating a new charter issue in their pipeline. The Technical Strategy Team uses this issue to provide updates on the charter’s progress through the process. Discussions of the charter’s content should continue to take place in the charter’s own repo.

Note: Even prior to the initiation of charter refinement, it is common for the charter proponents and Technical Strategy Team to work together to help prepare charters for broader audiences.

3.2 Initiation of charter refinement

An Advisory Committee representative may formally request that the Technical Strategy Team initiate charter refinement. Such request must be sent to the Technical Strategy Team (team-strat@w3.org), copying (member-charters-review@w3.org).

An existing Working or Interest Group should request their Staff Contact to work with the Technical Strategy Team to initiate charter refinement.

Community Groups interested in transitioning to a Working Group are encouraged to review Considerations when transferring a CG Specification for Standardization and to contact the Community Group Leads (team-community-process@w3.org) and/or the Exploration IG.

After consideration of the charter assessment criteria and a determination that the charter is well-formed (per the template and per Process section “content of a charter”), the Technical Strategy Team Lead decides whether to initiate charter refinement.

3.2.1 Technical Strategy Team decision to initiate charter refinement

If the Technical Strategy Team decides to initiate charter refinment, it follows these steps:

Select a Chartering Facilitator
The Technical Strategy Team Lead selects a Chartering Facilitator and records that appointment in the pipeline.
Request announcement of initiation of charter refinement
The Chartering Facilitator then sends a request to the W3C Communications Team to announce the initiation of charter refinement; that document lists requirements for the announcement. In practice, if the announcement would precede the call for AC review by only a short delay, we skip the refinement phase.
Record start of refinement
Once refinement has been announced, the Technical Strategy Team Lead records the initiation of charter refinement in the pipeline issue.

Any Formal Objection to a Team Decision to initiate charter refinement is not considered registered until the close of any Advisory Committee Review of that charter, and is registered against that W3C Decision.

3.2.2 Technical Strategy Team decision not to initiate charter refinement

If no Advisory Committee representative formally requested that the Technical Strategy Team initiate charter refinement, then no further action is required of the Technical Strategy Team.

However, if an Advisory Committee representative formally requested that the Technical Strategy Team initiate charter refinement, the Technical Strategy Team may deny such a request if it thinks the proposal is insufficiently mature, does not align with W3C’s scope and mission, or otherwise does not meet the charter assessment criteria. The Technical Strategy Team must reply with its rationale in the same forum where it received the request (or simply back to the AC representative in the case where only the Technical Strategy Team received the request).

This rejection is a Team Decision. If the requestor so wishes, this decision can be appealed only by 5 or more Members, through their Advisory Committee representative, formally objecting to the decision within 8 weeks of the decision being announced. In this case the Technical Strategy Team must start an appeal vote on whether to overturn the Team Decision. (No action is required to be taken when fewer than 5 Members object.)

Note: We do not expect to include operational details for handling these Formal Objections until we have gained experience.

3.3 Activities during refinement

The Chartering Facilitator ​is responsible for seeking community consensus among those participating in the refinement process and making decisions reflecting that consensus. The Chartering Facilitator follows these steps during refinement:

3.3.1 Request horizontal review

Shortly after the initiation of refinement, request horizontal review from the horizontal groups. This is done by adding the “Horizontal review requested” label to the issue in the pipeline. Horizontal reviewers will usually respond within two weeks, though it is wise to allow for additional time. The Chartering Facilitator may use the team-horizontal list to reach all the horizontal reviewers. Horizontal reviews are not required for Groups that do not hold technical discussions, such as the Patents and Standards Interest Group.

3.3.2 Ensure issues are formally addressed

All issues filed against the charter draft during refinement must be formally addressed by the Chartering Facilitator.

3.4 Requesting a TiLT decision

Before the end of the announced duration for the charter refinement phase, The Technical Strategy Team (represented by the Technical Leadership Team, or TiLT and informed by the work of the Chartering Facilitator) must decide which of the following to do:

  • Complete charter refinement by initiating AC Review of the charter draft.
  • Abandon the proposal.
  • Extend the charter refinement period.

The Chartering Facilitator proposes an option in a request to TiLT. In all cases, the request to TiLT must include the following information:

  • The status of horizontal reviews (including the list of completed reviews and timeouts).
  • Issues formally addressed and their resolutions. Track these in a disposition of comments highlighting significant changes to the charter and any issues not resolved by consensus.

The request to TiLT must include additional information as follows:

  • To start AC review: proposed Chairs (per the W3C Process).
  • To start AC review despite weak community consensus for the charter: rationale for pursuing this path.
  • To abandon refinement: rationale for abandoning the charter.
  • To extend refinement: rationale for the extension and a new end date.

The Chartering Facilitator records in the pipeline issue that a TiLT decision has been requested.

TiLT informs the Chartering Facilitator of their decision. This may take up to 2 weeks (but is frequently faster); see Timing of responses from TiLT for details.

3.5 Announcement of the TiLT decision

The Technical Strategy Team must announce the TiLT decision with the same visibility as the notice of initiation of refinement, and must include a rationale if they are not initiating AC Review. In the case of initiating AC review, see the next section for steps.

Objections to decisions pertaining to the content of the charter, as well as objections to initiating the AC Review, are considered registered at the close of the Advisory Committee Review of the charter, and are registered against that W3C Decision.

Objections to abandoning the proposal or to extending the refinement period can be appealed only if 5 or more Members, through their Advisory Committee representative, formally object to the decision within 8 weeks of the decision. In this case, the Technical Strategy Team must do one of the following:

  • Abide by the objectors’ request, if they all agree on the alternative course of action (e.g., to abandon, extend, or complete charter refinement).
  • Initiate an AC Review to formally solicit the input of the community and take a W3C Decision on the subsequent course of action.
  • Convene a Council to decide the subsequent course of action.

Any other objections are processed normally (see Addressing Formal Objections).

3.6 Advisory Committee Review

The Chartering Facilitator follows these steps:

Prepare for AC Review
Work with the W3C Communications Team to organize Advisory Committee review of a charter (see implementation details for the review).
Monitor AC Review
Once the AC Review is underway, monitor responses and manage any Formal Objections. Ensure that the charter receives sufficient support from the Membership.
Timing:
  • Per the W3C Process, the review period is at least 28 days.
  • Any Advisory Committee representative may request an extended review period of any new or substantively modified Working Group charter as part of their response to the Call for Review. In this case the existing charter may need to be extended (see extension template). In case of extended review period, the Staff must ensure that the Call for Participation for the work group occurs at least 60 days after the Call for Review of its charter.
  • The handling of Formal Objections to a charter adds more time.
Manage changes resulting from review
As a result of review, make any requested very minor changes (in place) to the charter. If substantive changes are proposed, then initiate review of those proposed changes. In either case, the Technical Strategy Team follows a process for managing changes to charters after review.
Request approval from TiLT
Once the review has ended and Formal Objections are addressed, the Chartering Facilitator requests approval from TiLT and records in the pipeline issue that a TiLT decision has been requested. TiLT informs the Chartering Facilitator of their decision. Allow approximately 2 weeks, but see timing of responses from TiLT for details.

If approved, the Chartering Facilitator then works with the W3C Communications Team to announce the decision.

4. Existing groups

In this section we describe the operational aspects of extending or modifying the charter of an existing group. In these processes, a group’s Staff Contact typically plays the role of the Chartering Facilitator.

4.1 Request for short-term extension

The W3C Process describes the charter extensions and when they may occur. No Advisory Committee review is required for short-term extensions.

Advisory Committee representatives may initiate an Advisory Committee Appeal against a Team decision regarding the extension of a Working Group or Interest Group charter.

The Technical Strategy Team expects a charter extension to be no more than 6 months. Otherwise the Group must recharter or justification must be provided to explain the delay.

Short-term extensions cannot exceed a total of one year from the original charter end date.

For a short-term extension, the Chartering Facilitator roles are:

Request approval from TiLT
The Chartering Facilitator requests approval of the short extension by TiLT.
Timing: Allow approximately 2 weeks, but see timing of responses from TiLT for details.
Request extension notice
If the decision is positive, request that the W3C Communications Team announce an extension.
Let the group know
The W3C Communications Team inform the group that its charter has been extended.

4.2 Request for rechartering

A group recharters when it wishes to change its charter or needs long-term extension.

In these processes, the roles of the Chartering Facilitator are:

Record group decision
The group should discuss and record a formal decision to request extension or to recharter.
Follow process for creating a charter
The handling of rechartering is almost the same as for new charters. Note that, in addition to any content changes, the charter may need to be updated if the charter template has changed. Furthermore, the template tool will prompt for the inclusion of Patent Policy language and otherwise help you meet the list of charter requirements in the Process. For existing groups, the charter assistant helps in producing the list of exclusion drafts.

5. Implementation details

The following sections are mostly intended as instructions to the Technical Strategy Team and are included here for transparency.

5.1 Sufficient Member support for a charter

Generally, the Technical Strategy Team will expect to receive reviews for Charter proposals from at least 5% of the Membership. If the 5% threshold is not met, the Charter may still be approved, but additional scrutiny is warranted, and resource allocation may be limited. Additionally, the Technical Strategy Team will continue to consider the number of declarations of intent to participate or implement the output of the work group.

Given the diversity of work underway in the Consortium, including groups that focus on horizontal reviews (e.g., accessibility, security, and internationalization), as well as technologies that are initially focused on by some segment of the web’s stakeholders, there are times where exceptions to this practice may be considered. In those cases, the Technical Strategy Team will document reasons why the exception is made.

5.2 Tips to speed up the process

Parallelize where possible:

  • Work with the W3C Communications Team to send advance notice to the AC as soon as you have something to point to, and update the pipeline.
  • Start the horizontal reviews of the charter as soon as the scope, deliverables, and dependencies parts of the charter are stable enough. Ping the horizontal reviewers on a weekly basis.
  • Start working on resolving Formal Objections to a charter as soon as those are received. Don’t wait till the end of the AC review period.
  • Prepare a draft of the W3C Decision announcement before getting the approval from TiLT.

5.3 Organizing the Call for Review

Note: Staff Contacts should ensure that their work group participants are aware there is a review in progress.

The Staff Contact:

  • Reuses an existing Team-only mailing list (e.g., w3t-archive@w3.org) for the Advisory Committee review (or creates a new Team-only mailing list.)

    • If new, the mailing list should be named team-xxx-review@w3.org (in accordance with the list name policy).
    • The mailing list must be Team-only.
    • The mailing list must be archived.
    • The mailing list must have at least one subscriber to monitor traffic: the Staff Contact.

  • Sends a request to the W3C Communications Team (w3t-comm@w3.org) asking that a Call for Review be sent to the AC. The request should be sent at least three business days before the anticipated start date of the review. The request must include:

    1. A w3.org URI to the proposed charter (not a github.io URI). This charter is public, and must not be altered, during the AC review.
    2. The list of significant changes to a revised charter (per “Advisory Committee Review of a Working Group or Interest Group Charter” of the Process Document). It is useful to include a diff between the current and proposed charters (you may wish to use the HTML diff tool).
    3. In case of renewal of an existing charter, whether the group scope has changed. I.e., are there any new deliverables with licensing obligations under the W3C Patent Policy? The current group participants would need to re-join the group once the revised charter is approved.
    4. A recommended review start date and duration (at least 28 days according to the Process Document)
    5. A URI to the review of the proposed charter in the Strategy GitHub repository.
    6. A URI to the disposition of comments if comments were received prior to the AC Review (following the Charter Review Notice).
    7. The name of the Team-only mailing list for comments.

The W3C Communications Team encourages the Chartering Facilitator to include as part of the request, a draft Call for Review, created by using this template (even if the URI to the questionnaire may not yet exist).

The W3C Communications Team (or the motivated Staff Contact) builds a Call for Review questionnaire. The URI for the questionnaire is added to the Call for Review announcement to members. In case of renewal of an existing charter, it is also useful to include a diff (you may wish to use the HTML diff tool) between current and proposed charters in the Call for Review questionnaire.

Note: We should assume some AC Reps may not read email announcements and will only review the questionnaire. Therefore, all unique information relevant to the review that appears in the email announcement must be duplicated in the Call for Review questionnaire.

Once the Head of W3C Communications (or delegate) has approved the Call for Review and the questionnaire, the W3C Communications Team:

  1. Sends the Call for Review to w3c-ac-members@w3.org.

  2. Sends a version of the announcement to public-new-work@w3.org (archive). Use this template (and see the example). The announcement must include:

    • The URI of the (public) charter.
    • The end date of the Member review.
    • That W3C invites public feedback on public-review-comments@w3.org (archive).
    • That we make no guarantees of replying to public comments.
    • That people who work for a Member organization should coordinate their comments through their Advisory Committee Representative.
  3. Send the same email to new-work@ietf.org. Note: public-new-work@w3.org used to cc new-work@ietf.org but due to mailing list configuration issues, we stopped that practice.

5.4 Managing changes to charters after review

If there are only very minor changes to a charter resulting from the review, the (future) decision includes the original charter URI and an explanation of the changes and their rationale.

If substantive changes are proposed in response to charter review, the Staff Contact must request a review of the proposed changes to the individuals and organizations who responded to the Call for Review, copying the member-charters-review@w3.org member-archived mailing list. The request must contain:

  1. an explanation of the changes and their rationale
  2. a deadline for response (minimum of one week) if reviewers have concerns or if the changes would alter their reviews
  3. the URI for the questionnaire open to the AC

If the work continues or derives from an existing group or community effort, the Staff Contact should also send the HTML diff and a public rationale to that group or community.

These communications should note that W3C has not yet approved the charter.

Suggested wording: Please let us know by [date+1 week] if you have concerns or if this change would alter your review.

If anyone expresses new concern in response to the re-review, the Technical Strategy Team may attempt to resolve the concern (with re-review), formally open a new AC review, or the W3C Council may treat it as an objection and overrule it.

If there are substantive changes, before any announcement, the Staff Contact:

  1. Mints a new URI for the version of the charter that includes the changes. In the “Charter history” section of the charter, please link to the original (reviewed) charter.
  2. Modifies the original charter in place with the following status sentence at the top:
      <p class='todo>This charter has been replaced by <a href="@@@">a newer version</a>.</p>

5.5 Announcement of W3C Decision, Call for Participation

5.5.1 Preparation by the Chartering Facilitator

The Chartering Facilitator ensures that the following are done and the following documentation is available before asking the W3C Communications Team to announce a group:

  1. TiLT has approved the group, whether or not preceded by an AC Review.

  2. The group exists in the Groups DB.

    • If the group does not exist:

      Contact the W3C Communications Team to create the group by sending a mail to w3t-comm@w3.org. Note that this requires:

      • group name
      • group shortname
      • charter URI
      • homepage URI (only if you want to use a page different that the automatically generated group pages)

      Creating the group will list the group in the drop-down for db-backed groups in the mailing list creation form.

    • If the group already exists:

      • For WGs and IGs that are more than mailing lists:

        Simply reuse the existing join form; all join pages are available from the list of groups.

      • If the group is an IG that is just a mailing list:

        Document on the group’s home page that to join the group people simply subscribe to the list.

  3. All relevant mailing lists exist. If not, the Staff Contact may create the mailing list(s).
  4. The main mailing list is associated with the group via the Group Service Management interface.
  5. Make sure the charter is public (since 2007, charters are public during AC review) and any final edits (e.g., addition of link to page for joining the group) have been made. If the group already exists, the new charter and the old charter should have two different URLs.
  6. Customize the “onboarding” message that will be sent to participants as they join the group.

All Working Groups and Interest Groups appear in their respective group list and have a public list of participants (except for Interest Groups that are not managed under the W3C Patent Policy).

The W3C Communications Team should try to minimize the number of messages sent to the Advisory Committee, while ensuring that each message is clear. In general, the W3C Communications Team sends one email combining the group approval (W3C Decision) and the Call for Participation.

Timing: this takes a week at most.

5.5.2 Organizing the W3C Decision, Call for Participation

The Chartering Facilitator sends a draft announcement (combining W3C Decision and Call for Participation) to the W3C Communications Team (w3t-comm@w3.org) (using the template as a starting point, or sample announcement). The announcement must indicate:

  • Whether the group is approved and its charter end date.
  • The URI of the final charter.
  • Any substantive changes from the charter that was reviewed. Note: In case of charter renewal, it is useful to include a HTML diff between the approved and previous charters.
  • A link to the group’s public home page.
  • A link to a page with information about the mechanism used to join the group (e.g., a URI to the “join” page for a group under the W3C Patent Policy).
  • Name and contact information for the Staff Contact(s).
  • AC review results of the proposed charter.
  • If applicable, the rationale for approving the group despite objections, or despite the fact it did not receive reviews from at least 5% of the Membership.

In case a charter has new deliverables in-scope, it is useful to include a notice that a 45-day grace period is granted to existing participants of the group under the previous charter, who will then need to re-join the group.

In case the new charter doesn’t have new deliverables involving new patent commitment, it is useful to clarify that existing participants under the previous charter will not be required to leave/re-join the group.

Note: Per the 2021-01-13 W3M resolution (team-only), the calls for participation should include guidance to consider diversity (available from the template):

Please consider diversity when proposing people to participate in W3C groups. Representation from a wider group of people, especially people from under-represented groups, is vital for creating web standards that meet the needs of the wider web community.

The announcement must also indicate when applicable:

  • For a newly created group, information about the dates of the first face-to-face meeting.

The Head of W3C Communications (or delegate) must approve the W3C Decision and Call for Participation draft announcement before the W3C Communications Team sends it to w3c-ac-members@w3.org.
Timing: The W3C Communications Team SHOULD announce the W3C Decision within two weeks after the end of the AC review (or send an email setting new expectations). An announcement is sent whether the proposal is approved or rejected.

If the group is approved, it is a good practice that the W3C Communications Team also:

  • forwards the Call for Participation to the work group’s primarily public mailing list (to notify the group, including Invited Experts). The Results of the Call for Review and any member-only information should be elided. See example.
  • follows-up on the Advance Notice in public-new-work with a pointer to that announcement. See example.

If the group is rejected, it is a good practice that the W3C Communications Team follows-up on the Advance Notice in public-new-work to close the loop for the public record.

5.5.3 After sending the W3C Decision, Call for Participation

After sending the W3C Decision and Call for Participation:

  • Make sure that the Groups DB has the latest charter link (the W3C Communications Team searches the group and edits information to add a new charter).

    • 2021-07-12 update: associate with a charter the ‘W3C document license’, the ‘W3C software and document license’ or both. Which license to be selected is found in the section ‘Licensing’ of the charter. (Rationale: we need to record that bit in the charter admin interface to expose it in our API, in order to check that a document produced by a WG/IG is using the right document license.)

    • 2022-07-19 update: For recharters, deactivate the previous charter when a new charter is valid:

      1. add a note to the previous charter indicating:

        This charter has been replaced by a newer version.

      2. if the previous charter hasn’t expired when a new charter is installed, deactivate the previous charter by changing its end date via the Groups DB interface.
  • For groups managed under the W3C Patent Policy (formerly IPP), the W3C Communications Team uses the Groups DB interface to record that a Call for Participation was sent (so that all links via the Groups DB, including the charter one on the join page, are actually live).
  • If the group was “staged”, the W3C Communications Team unstages it.
  • The public list of groups is automatically updated from the Groups DB, including a 1-paragraph description.
  • Staff Contact marks the chair(s) as such in the Group’s admin view (this automatically adds the chair(s) to the Chairs’ group which subscribes them to the chairs@w3.org mailing list).
  • Function Lead or Staff Contact(s) update the Team’s effort tables.
  • For existing groups, Staff Contact(s) ensures that Invited Expert statuses are being reviewed in coordination with the group chair(s). Staff Contacts with questions about how an Invited Expert joins a group should consult the Team Policy for Invited Experts.

Staff Contacts should look at how to setup a new group once the call for participation is out.

Note: When we recharter a work group and the charter scope has changed, we enter the CFP into the Group DB, which triggers messages to the group participants that they must rejoin. If the new charter doesn’t have new deliverables involving new patent commitment, do not register the new CFP.

5.6 Announcement of extension

When requesting that the W3C Communications Team announce a charter extension, use the charter extension template. If the group is developing a new charter, link to the GitHub repo where a new charter is being developed and to the issues link to raise comments.

The W3C Communications Team then:

  • Sends extension announcements to w3c-ac-members@w3.org
  • … and later forwards the announcements as FYI to chairs@w3.org
  • It is a good practice to forward the extension announcement to the public list of the group, and to follow-up on public-new-work.
  • updates the list of groups accordingly.

The Communications Team modifies (or asks the Staff Contact) the Charter in place as follows:

  • The “End Date” in the table at the top.
  • Any update to the Chair(s) (e.g., a Chair resigns or their affiliation changed), Staff Contact(s) (e.g., names, FTEs), etc.
  • The changes including extension history are documented in the “About this charter” section at the bottom and lists each extension dates and the pairs of from/until dates. (Note: If the group is developing a new charter, link to the GitHub repo of where the new charter is being developed).
  • The text “Note: The group will document significant changes from this initial schedule on the group home page.” is updated with a link to the group’s updated milestones (e.g., on the group’s site) to say something like “Note: See changes from this initial schedule on the group home page.”
  • Fix broken links.

When a group Chair is (re)appointed or resigns, shortly before/after the announcement to w3c-ac-members@w3.org [then forwarded to chairs@w3.org] (sample emails [1][2]), The W3C Communications Team (or the Staff Contact) modifies the charter, including:

  • Update the “Chair” in the table at the top.
  • Document changes in “About this charter” section at the bottom.

6. Revision history

  • 2025-08: Overhauled to integrate charter refinement introduced in the 2025 Process Document.
  • 2024-01: Public comments and Formal Objections (including from Members) are now to be sent to public-review-comments@w3.org; various editorial changes.
  • 2023-10: Updated following Process 2023 and reorganized to separate high-level processes from implementation.
  • 2012-08: Added section 3.4 Horizontal Review following discussion at May 2012 AC meeting on better integration of horizontal working groups and discussion within the Team and Advisory Board.
  • 2015-05: Added pointer to Policy on W3C Group Charter End Dates in “Charter Extension” section.
  • 2015-09: Updates to Process Document section numbers and titles. Removed “Activities” and “Coordination Groups” which are no longer referenced in the 2015 Process Document.
  • 2016-02: Updated mostly to reflect that the Groups DB interfaces with IPP and that systeam creates new WGs/IGs; pointed to most recent sample announcement for Director’s Decision and Call for Participation; updated workflows to match current practice; further removed or clarified that “Activities” are no longer in Process..
  • 2018-01: Took latest process into account

Related content

Charter related

This document lives in GitHub, where changes can be tracked and pull requests are welcome. Feedback and comments are welcome. Please use GitHub issues.