OASIS TC Guidelines: DIscussion Groups

This wiki is part of the TC GUIDELINES provided by the OASIS standards consortium, as a information resource about operating rules and best practices for OASIS technical work. These TC Guidelines are a branch of the STAFF-STDS-WIKI pages, which are public-readable, but write-restricted. This read-only page is paired with the member-editable Discussion Groups: Member Comments.

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How and Whether to Start an OASIS Discussion Group

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Should I start a discussion group first?

Before proposing a new TC proposers should have determined the TC's purpose, scope, schedule, deliverables, and leadership, as well as be certain that there is sufficient interest in participation. If you aren't sure about some or all of these issues, you may wish to consider starting a discussion group first to determine these things. A discussion group is an email list hosted by OASIS for up to 90 days for the purpose if fostering open dialogue on a specific topic area. The deliverable of a discussion group is a proposal to start a new OASIS TC.

Starting a discussion group requires the sponsorship of three eligible members, just as an OASIS TC does, but are open to the public so that all interested parties may provide input.

A request to form a discussion list, that includes all of the information required by Section 2.1 of the OASIS TC Process, must be submitted to the OASIS TC Administrator (See StandardsDevelopmentStaff).

Creating a discussion list lets you raise additional support for your proposal and gain valuable input into the charter of a new TC. Conducting a discussion, however, does require additional time and so could result in loss of momentum. If you feel you already have sufficient interest and support for starting a TC and a clear idea of what the TC charter should be, then a discussion group may not be necessary.

Within 15 days of receiving a valid proposal to start a discussion group, the TC Admin will create the list and announce it to the OASIS membership, as well as to other applicable public mail lists. Discussion may begin seven days after the list is announced, in order to give all interested parties the opportunity to subscribe. The role of the discussion leader is to get the discussion started by seeding the discussion with a few questions or statements, then guide the discussion towards a conclusion (i.e. creating the proposal for a new TC).

The discussion list is not to be used for technical work; that must wait for the official formation of the TC. The deliverable of the list is a decision whether to start an OASIS TC and what the charter of that TC should be; any other discussions are out of scope. The list is publicly archived.

If you have any comments on this page, we would appreciate hearing them. Please add them to Discussion Groups: Member Comments, or advise our StandardsDevelopmentStaff.