Policies

Who can propose a session

• TPAC registrants. It is ok for people who plan to register (but have not yet done so) to propose a session.

Session scope

• Sessions are intended to be for community discussion of topics, whether existing or new.
• Sessions should not be used for group meetings. For example, a Working Group should not use a TPAC breakout session to have another hour for group discussion. Similarly, a Community Group should not use a TPAC breakout session for a Community Group meeting.

Participation

Each TPAC Web site has pages devoted to breakout session participation policies; please consult that page first.

Note also:

• By default, sessions are open to non-TPAC participants.
• It is preferable but not required that the session chair participate in person (when a session is hybrid).
• There is no requirement that W3C staff participate in a breakout session.

W3C participation policies

• Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
• Antitrust and Competition Guidance
• See also the health rules specific to that year's TPAC.

Scheduling and Room Assignments

Scheduling order of preference

TPAC breakout organizers observe this order of preference when scheduling:

• Any reserved tracks (e.g., governance for TPAC 2023 starting with AC open sessions)
• TPAC sponsor proposals received before the proposal deadline.
• Proposals received before the proposal deadline and indicated timing constraints.
• Proposals received before the proposal deadline without timing constraints.
• Other proposals. These are considered when there are remaining slots, and we will do our best to schedule them based on the remaining slots.

Other scheduling considerations for TPAC organizers

• Avoid too many sessions in parallel; instead create more slots (e.g., 60- and 30-minute slots).
• Seek a "best fit" between sessions and room, given session description attendance estimates and other information.
• Avoid scheduling conflicts between related sessions (e.g., by requesting two very similar sessions to consider merging into a single session).
• Identify and communicate thematically related sessions (e.g., as "tracks") to make it easier for attendees to choose which sessions to join. Endeavor to schedule these in the same meeting space.

Session deliverables

• Each session chair is responsible for ensuring that session highlights (at least) are captured in (at least) text.
• Each session chair is responsible for ensuring there are minutes. The meeting planners will work with session chairs to ensure that the session descriptions include a link to the minutes.
• When a meeting record is not available on w3.org, W3C may create a copy on w3.org for persistence.