W3C Bars Public From Public Conference

xk0der writes "Danny Weitzner, one of the W3C's policy directors and event co-chair, repeatedly claimed in a follow up telephone conversation that, by "public," the W3C actually means "closed to the public." Weitzner was the person who personally barred my colleague from entering the conference." The story is worth a read- it's very strange. Personally I think this guy is just vying to replace Tony Snow at the White House.

Comments

public, who are invited

[Bizzeh]

its the same public as any other public thing like this... the general public can get an invite. but cannot walk in from the streets.

Re:public, who are invited

[Otter]

I was going to suggest that "public" means that discussions from the conference can be openly discussed afterwards, in contrast to some I've been to where the proceedings were confidential.

But maybe you're right. The article is so vague and makes so little effort to explain the W3C's side that it only really serves as a platform for flamebait, which is how Taco seems to have decided to use it.

Re:public, who are invited

[ShieldW0lf]

Maybe it's just your standard, plain jane corruption. It's in the right place.

Re:public, who are invited

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in most countries, public means that the public can just walk in. It means open for everyone. The other invitation-only "Public", as you describe it is just the same as the Davos Conference hosted by the World Economic Forum. I think most people agree is NOT a very public Conference, although, they anyone who gets an invititation is welcome and they try to invite all who are relevant.

Re:public, who are invited

[Zeinfeld]

I have an advantage here since I am actually in the meeting. For the reasons Declan in particular would be excluded, see my blog. Declan has a history of deliberately misrepresenting statements, in particular he was the origin of the myth that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. We are talking about using technology to support E-Government. Many of the speakers do not have permission to speak to the press. Others such as myself do have press speaking rights, but are not speaking for our companies. The history of why we built the Web 15 years ago are not something my employer would or should share. Anyone could attend the workshop, there isn't even an entry fee. All you had to do is to register in advance, to submit a position paper and to agree that the statements made are not for attribution. This is incidentally the press terms that the IETF operates on, we do not speak for our employers at the IETF.

Re:public, who are invited

[Wavicle]

I believe this conference was "public as in beer" not "public as in speech."

That should clear it up for everyone.

Re:public, who are invited

[hesiod]

Well, thank god you're here to tell us why you left! Waitaminnit...

Re:public, who are invited

[PoderOmega]

Although I do understand that this was actually "by invitation only" and only the results were public, I think your argument that the reporter was known for misrepresentations is irrelevant. If there is a truly public you can't selectively throw out people who may or may not be total liars.

Re:public, who are invited

[Zeinfeld]

True, "creating" isn't quite the same as "inventing", but it's still a highly over-inflated claim and it's very easy to see how people could get the two confused.

Gore appropriated the money for us. Without a legislative champion such as Gore the Internet would not exist in its current form. The NSF backbone would never have been funded.

Declan was fully aware that he misrepresented Gore at the time he did it. In Senate terms 'took the initiative' means that he was the lead person in getting the money into the bill.

Re:public, who are invited

[Zeinfeld]

Although I do understand that this was actually "by invitation only" and only the results were public, I think your argument that the reporter was known for misrepresentations is irrelevant. If there is a truly public you can't selectively throw out people who may or may not be total liars.

There are two issues here. First no press of any kind were invited so that people could speak off the record. Second the reason that no press was admitted was precisely because of journalists who follow their own agenda.

Declan failed on both counts.

If you are press, you are not the public.

Orwellian Doublespeak

[TheWoozle]

Weitzner, a lawyer and Washington insider before moving to the W3C, said making an event discussing government transparency less transparent was necessary because government officials could then speak more freely "without wondering how the press would interpret what they have to say." "There are times when in order to have an open exchange of ideas, you need to provide an off-the-record environment, which is what we did," Weitzner said.

So now we can add "Secrecy is Transparency" to the list.

Re:Orwellian Doublespeak

[UbuntuDupe]

Yes, so we have:

"public" means "non-public"

"secret" is "transparent", and, don't forget:

Weitzner was the person who personally barred my colleague from entering the conference."

"Personally barred" means "impersonally barred" ;-)

Re:Orwellian Doublespeak

[Kadin2048]

I can understand what they're doing, but calling it "public" is a load of crock. It's a closed session. They should call it that.

If you want to bar the press, bar the press -- but don't say it's a "public" meeting, because that's a bald-faced lie. (Anyone know how to translate that concept into Washingtonese?)

Re:Orwellian Doublespeak

[Aladrin]

"Bald-faced lie"? I think that translates to 'standard operating procedure' in Washingtonese.

Re:Orwellian Doublespeak

[Kadin2048]

That doesn't make sense.

You're confusing a "private" meeting with a "secret" one.

If I have a 'private function,' of any sort, then it just means that it's not open to anyone who wants to come in. Generally, this means you have to be invited, or there's some other precondition for attendance. E.g., a wedding reception is usually a private or semi-private event. A private meeting would be one where the doors are closed, and only certain people can get in.

This is different from a "secret" meeting, where the very existence of the meeting itself was not disclosed.

The W3C was engaging in a private meeting, not a secret one.

Re:Orwellian Doublespeak

[abb3w]

So now we can add "Secrecy is Transparency" to the list.

Can we add "Assassination is a Political Contribution" yet?

I warned them...

[eln]

This is the sort of thing that happens when you make announcements on Opposite Day.

Re:I warned them...

[sharkey]

Unless you're in a Boomerang Zone, whereupon the opposite'd announcement gets turned back to the original. Until someone bonks you with the Calvinball, anyway.

Single Paragraph

[AKAImBatman]

Weitzner, a lawyer and Washington insider before moving to the W3C, said making an event discussing government transparency less transparent was necessary because government officials could then speak more freely "without wondering how the press would interpret what they have to say."

And that pretty much sums up the entire event. As the invitations said, only the results of the event will be public. Thus the reporter in question is proving Weitzner's point by twisting the words to create this story.

Here's what the W3C page says:

Position papers received for the Workshop will be posted publicly on the Web. In addition, a final document summarizing the outcome of the Workshop and the suggested future actions, will be posted publicly. Conversations and results are public.

TFA quotes part of that and says, "SEE? SEE? It's a PUBLIC event!" No, it's an event about the public that will have its results published to the public. Nowhere does it say that the event is open to the public.

Sorry, there's no story here. Just lame reporters trying to make one.

Re:Single Paragraph

[shawnce]

It does state that the workshop doesn't require W3C membership but participants require registration... so did this reporter register? (note registration window closed on the 7th of June)

http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/eGov-policy

"Space is limited and priority for registration is given to those who have submitted position papers. If you request registration without sending a position paper we suggest that you wait to make any non-refundable travel arrangements."
"W3C membership is not required in order to participate in the Workshop."
"The total number of participants will be limited. To ensure diversity, a limit might be imposed on the maximum number of participants per organization."

W3C's purpose?

[jrumney]

Public or not, what exactly is the W3C doing organizing a conference on Government Transparency in the first place? Shouldn't they be working towards the next set of standards for the Web or something? Or are they losing focus and trying to become the regulators of everything that touches the Web?

Re:W3C's purpose?

[Kopretinka]

Public or not, what exactly is the W3C doing organizing a conference on Government Transparency in the first place? Shouldn't they be working towards the next set of standards for the Web or something? Or are they losing focus and trying to become the regulators of everything that touches the Web?

It was a workshop, not a conference - difference not only in size. The W3C organizes workshops in order better to judge where standards work should be going, or where the W3C should provide guidance.

The W3C is a standards body that thinks, as opposed to other standards bodies that just provide the name and a voting process.

Yawn. Power corrupts, next please.

[pla]

by "public," the W3C actually means "closed to the public."

Although I will completely agree this behavior sounds like an egregious example of doublespeak, I can't help but ponder...

"So what?"

All of my own web pages still start with "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">", which I consider just about the last thing the W3C did of any significance to the rest of the world outside their own little social/political clique. If they want to hold opaque conferences on government transparency, let 'em. No one really cares what they do anymore.

Should I also feel outraged that Calvin won't let Susie join the GROSS club? Ill-behaved little boys gloating in their personal positions of power, nothing more.

I, for one, welcome our...

[Will the Chill]

apparently-insane double-speak W3C overlords.

-WtC

Article is painfully vague

[Short Circuit]

The article...er...blog entry is painfully vague, and even the summary fails to include a link to the W3Cs comments. Am I supposed to take a blogger's comments at face value, with only a few choice out-of-context quotes?

There better be a Slashback article in response to this...

Weitzner is a bonehead

[woboyle]

Time to change the "guard" at the W3C methinks. Idiots like this don't help in the promulgation of what are supposed to be open standards, and if there are govt. officials that are reticent to speak up in a truly public forum I can only ask them "Who do you think pays your salaries?".

The Doctor sez:

[Tumbleweed]

"Inflammable means flammable? What a country!"

Re:The Doctor sez:

[jc42]

"Inflammable means flammable? What a country!"

Yeah; and by country I assume you mean Merry Old(e) England, since "inflammable" dates to the mid-1300s. The shortened form "flammable"
wasn't invented for five more centuries, in the mid-1800s.

Similarly, doctors treat inflammations, not flammations. And politicians
make inflammatory remarks about their opponents, not flammatory remarks.

And when something has finished burning, it has been incinerated, not
cinerated. This use of in- as a prefix meaning "in" or "into", goes
way back to Latin. English did make it a bit confusing by also using
in- as a negative. The two in- prefixes have different etymologies.

Not that this helps much. Pity the poor foreigner trying to learn
our insane language. ;-)

(And nobody has yet pointed out that we drive on parkways and park
on driveways.)

415 response

[trolltalk.com]

Actually, he got an rfc2616 415 response - "Unsupported Media Type".

The rest of us got a 417 response - "Expectation Failed"

Oh boy...

[Minute Work]

Personally I think this guy is just vying to replace Tony Snow at the White House.

Are the comments areas getting so full of Daily KOS 1-liners that they need to be spilled over into the headlines too?

I expect that kind of thing in the forums, but it doesn't belong in my RSS feed.

Article a little overboard? paranoid?

[hanshotfirst]

I can understand the director's point - to get government officials to speak freely, they need assurance that their words won't be twisted into something that kills their funding/votes/public image/whatever.
I can understand the point of the article - public!=not public. The description of the meeting was confusing at best, misleading at worst.
Where the article lost credibility for me was the rant on location (more than once). Yes, it is in a federal building, payed for with taxpayer dollars. That does not imply that it is open to the public merely by its purpose. The pentagon is a federal building, payed for with taxpayer dollars. Does that imply anyone can waltz in there and listen in on any-old-meeting-they-please? (I concede the difference: the pentagon never advertises its meetings as "public")
I sense a little over-reaction here.