This content originally appeared on Hidde's blog and was authored by Hidde de Vries
AC members can vote via the voting form (AC-only). They can also contact me for questions. I'd be happy to chat more about anything mentioned in this post or my statement.
What are the challenges facing W3C as an organization in the next two years, and what skills and interests will you bring to the AB to help with addressing them?
As a web standards organisation, we're not immune to general issues that the technology sector faces. I see:
- technology that's too rapidly rolled out, in ways that don't benefit everyone, sometimes while inclusion budgets are explicitly cut.
- private interests that are are increasingly put before the greater good, resulting in more web activity happening inside silos and walled gardens, usually not in the interest of users.
Both issues apply to the web and work against the W3C Vision and the Ethical Web Principles. We must help address them, with a focus on what threatens the web, its users and the wider web community. With my academic background in ethics, professional experience in inclusion and in writing (see my blog) and personal passion for the indieweb (see my site), I hope to contribute to that effort. How? By giving input towards conflict resolution (like W3C Council) and by contributing to new documents or updates to existing ones.
The AB has been discussing its role in the community and how it may need to be updated to reflect the new governance structure. What do you think the AB's role is, and what do you believe the AB needs to do to fulfil it?
There is the role as described in the process: to provide “ongoing guidance to the Team on issues of strategy, management, legal matters, process, and conflict resolution”, as well as tracking and helping resolve issues, managing Process, and participating in the W3C Council.
As a newcomer in W3C governance, I don't have a strong opinion of whether any of that should change… a lot of what I know and think about the AB was influenced by what I learned reading various AB issues on GitHub and talking to current AC and AB members (thanks everyone who made time to talk to me). From that, my working conclusion is that a large part of what the AB does is inspiring effectiveness of the W3C, in the specific ways W3C and (especially) its members want it to be effective, by producing documents like the Vision, Code of Conduct and Process, and aligning W3C work with others, like the Ethical Web Principles and Privacy Principles.
With these documents in existence, I would like to see the focus shift more towards trying to fulfil the consensus we got to in those documents. I think we should find ways talk to policy makers more, and advocate more within our own communities. And then take our advocacy to outside W3C Groups, as widely as possible, including into the larger web development community.
What do you think of the W3C Strategical Roadmap reported on at AC 2025? Which parts in it do you think W3C should prioritize in the coming year or 2?
The roadmap seems solid to me, the priorities are already a list of what we should prioritise, that can effectively work together.
I personally think W3C should prioritise the impact framework, global outreach and policy engagement… three priorities out of six may seem like a lot, but I believe these particular three can strengthen one another, and be effective together.
Which AB priority projects do you want to personally spend time working on?
I'd love to work on the Vision and on collaboration with TAG and Team. There seems to be room for more priority projects, including wider policy alignment.
Apart from that, I could also help with other priorities, including AC Forum Facilitation. I would also want to follow Process more closely from the sidelines, to learn, and try and prepare for maybe getting involved with it in a later stage.
What do you as an AB candidate believe W3C should be doing about the impact of AI or other emerging technologies on the Web?
The W3C needs to continue to ensure we are not surprised by emerging technologies and prepared to adapt to changes, I welcome efforts like the Team's AI & the web report and the APAs's work on accessibility and XR. I am convinced we can. Contrary to how some of these technologies are marketed, they have not come out of nowhere, especially if we zoom out from the latest news. For instance, the term ”artificial intelligence” was defined in the early 1950s. Many technologies grouped under the term have developed over decades. It's impossible to predict the future, but feasible to stay on top of developments and their possible impacts on the web.
While we cannot influence whether or how companies or people will use these technologies, we can and should help shape consensus on the right way to do so, aligned with our values and vision. If that sounds vague, what I mean is we can recognise harms early and find agreement on what mitigation looks like, so that these technologies, or their web based manifestations, truly are safe, interoperable and designed for the good of all people. We can also collaborate with other SDOs on the specific threats, like the IETF's AI Preferences group.
Our output should be such that policy makers can make use of them in their work, like they were able to do with other W3C standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Thanks
That's all my answers, thanks for reading and, if you're able to, considering your votes in this election. As mentioned, feel free to get in touch with any questions.
Originally posted as Running for the AB (2): meet the candidates on Hidde's blog.
This content originally appeared on Hidde's blog and was authored by Hidde de Vries
Hidde de Vries | Sciencx (2025-05-19T00:00:00+00:00) Running for the AB (2): meet the candidates. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/05/19/running-for-the-ab-2-meet-the-candidates/
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