AC Rep Alternates have all powers of AC Reps, except designating an alternate.

[hober]

While reviewing #937 today, I noticed an issue with this sentence:

The AC representative may delegate any of their rights and responsibilities to an alternate (except the ability to designate an alternate).

The use of the word "any" implies that the (main) AC Rep can, at their discretion, define some kind of bespoke subset of their powers to be delegated to their Alternate. But in practice (and given our current tooling) AC Rep Alternates have all of the powers of AC Rep, except the ability to designate an alternate.

I think the simplest remedy would be s/any of//; I'll post a PR to that effect later today.

[hober]

I've written #1166 to address this.

[nigelmegitt]

Is it important that tooling reflects any arbitrary subset of the rights and responsibilities of an AC rep, when used by the alternate?

The key point here for me is that some agreement has been made between the AC rep and the alternate about what the alternate can and can't do. That can be left to the two of them to sort out and enforce, without the Process having to get involved.

In other words, another resolution would be to add a note saying that it's left to member organisations to work out how to manage delegated rights and responsibilities. That could potentially be in addition to removing the words "any of", which seems reasonable to me.

[nigelmegitt]

By the way, the restriction on an alternate designating an alternate can easily be bypassed: the alternate can write an email to the member@ address designating themself as the new AC Rep for the organization. Then they can designate a new alternate.

[hober]

The key point here for me is that some agreement has been made between the AC rep and the alternate about what the alternate can and can't do. That can be left to the two of them to sort out and enforce, without the Process having to get involved.

In other words, another resolution would be to add a note saying that it's left to member organisations to work out how to manage delegated rights and responsibilities.

Internal policies of Members aren’t in scope for the Process document, so I’d rather it not say anything about that.

That could potentially be in addition to removing the words "any of", which seems reasonable to me.

Happy to hear you’re okay with the change in #1166! :)

By the way, the restriction on an alternate designating an alternate can easily be bypassed: the alternate can write an email to the member@ address designating themself as the new AC Rep for the organization. Then they can designate a new alternate.

Indeed. This issue wasn’t filed to address that, though. The restriction on who can designate an alternate is existing text, unchanged in #1166, and if we want to consider changing it, someone ought to file an issue.

[nigelmegitt]

Internal policies of Members aren’t in scope for the Process document, so I’d rather it not say anything about that.

Indeed, yet by raising this issue you seem concerned that the Process document is stepping into that territory.

Maybe another way to phrase that note that's more in scope would be:

"W3C applies the same level of permissions to AC Representatives and their alternates, when implementing working tools."

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This issue wasn’t filed to address that, though. The restriction on who can designate an alternate is existing text, unchanged in #1166, and if we want to consider changing it, someone ought to file an issue.

Understood, it was a bit of a drive-by comment. I don't know if we should change it: I guess there might be extreme scenarios in which it's a desirable loophole, i.e. if the AC rep unexpectedly and suddenly ceases working for the member organization and urgent steps are needed to instate a new AC rep.