Meetings, feedback & decision records

Meetings help people understand and challenge the work. Persistent channels make participation possible between meetings. A durable issue-and-disposition register—not a meeting, chat thread or reaction count—preserves the standards decision record.

Status — ratified facts, evidenced practice and proposals

The AGM and Board requirements and the 10-year Board/Executive Committee decision-record baseline come from OPDA's governing documents. Archived meeting cadences are evidenced practice, not formally codified rules. The standards feedback, consensus, public-review and record-keeping model comes from proposed ADR-0068 and is not yet operative.

Five operating principles

Questions are welcome during meetings. A live session is for orientation, scrutiny and discussion—not automatic approval.
Decisions remain open asynchronously. A proposal first discussed in a meeting receives at least five working days for confirmation under ADR-0068.
One issue, one durable record. Related discussion from Teams, the website, meetings and email is linked to the same issue.
Reply in threads. Persistent channels should keep one subject per post and subsequent discussion beneath it, so participation can scale.
Participation is not authority. Attendance, message volume, reactions and AI agreement do not establish consensus.

Where discussion and decisions happen

flowchart LR M["`**Meetings** orientation · challenge`"]:::infra T["`**Teams** persistent threaded discussion`"]:::infra W["`**Website review** exact candidate · public feedback`"]:::infra E["`**Email / GitHub / evidence** other inputs`"]:::infra I["`**Canonical issue record** source · affiliation · impact discussion · disposition`"]:::data A`**Route by authority**`:::warning D["Domain Working Group *domain meaning*"]:::service X["Interoperability Working Group *boundaries + mappings*"]:::service G["Technical / risk gates *independent checks*"]:::process R["`**Stage + decision record** exact proposal · reasons · result`"]:::success M --> I T --> I W --> I E --> I I --> A A --> D A --> X A --> G D --> R X --> R G --> R

Discussion may begin anywhere, but substantive standards work is routed through one issue record to the body with the relevant authority. Stage decisions and release manifests are maintained separately by the proposed Standards Secretariat.

Channels and their purpose

Surface	Use it for	Do not treat it as
Teams channels	Working-group updates, questions, evidence requests and discussion of candidates. Use one clear topic per post and reply in its thread.	The sole decision record or a vote by reaction count.
Meetings	Orientation, demonstrations, domain explanation, challenge and working through difficult issues.	A venue where absence becomes consent or a live decision is instantly final.
Website	The exact candidate, definitions, diagrams, data dictionary, glossary, shapes, generated outputs, evidence citations, open questions and change diff.	Proof that a candidate has advanced or become normative.
Public-review discussion	Comments on a clearly identified Public Review Draft during its published window.	The canonical issue-and-disposition register.
Email and GitHub	Access problems, private procedural matters, technical reports and other inputs that need routing.	A parallel, invisible decision path.

Known cadence and proposed additions

Body or activity	Cadence	Status
General Assembly / AGM	Annually, no later than 31 October	Ratified · Articles arts. 24–34
Board of Directors	At least four meetings each year	Ratified · Article 10
DPMSG Steering Group	Monthly in the archived 2025–26 record	Evidenced practice—not formally codified
Engagement Working Group update	Monthly in the archived 2026 record	Evidenced practice—not formally codified
Domain Working Groups	Defined in each charter; asynchronous work continues between meetings	Proposed standards operating model
Interoperability Working Group	Defined in its charter and aligned to domain hand-offs	Proposed standards operating model
Public review	Event-driven by a candidate's maturity, not a fixed meeting cycle	Proposed in ADR-0068

Meeting frequency should be set by workload and participant capacity. A busy calendar is not evidence of good governance; clear decisions, timely dispositions and broad participation are.

What every standards meeting records

date, purpose, convenor, attendees, affiliations and declared interests;
the agenda and exact artefact or issue versions discussed;
evidence presented, material alternatives and unresolved questions;
proposals to take to asynchronous review—not simply “agreed in the room”;
actions, owners, due dates and links to canonical issues; and
recording and transcript details where participants were notified and the use is lawful.

Recordings and transcripts are evidence inputs. They are not decisions, and they do not authorise AI to infer agreement from tone, attendance or silence.

The canonical issue and disposition record

Every substantive question should contain:

a stable ID, title, bounded context and affected artefact/version;
proposer, affiliation, date, evidence links and rights classification;
the problem, options, candidate change and interoperability/compatibility impact;
links to relevant threads, meetings and reviewer comments;
declared interests and disclosure of material AI assistance;
a reasoned disposition: accepted, needs evidence, deferred, duplicate/out of scope, or not accepted;
any dissent, Formal Objection, remedy, response or appeal; and
the eligible decision set, result, Chair, date, implementation link and validation result.

Tool-independent governance

Teams, Artalk, GitHub or another interface may make discussion easier. None should be allowed to become the only copy of the formal record. The register must preserve stable identifiers, provenance, dispositions and decisions even if a discussion tool changes.

Consensus calls

ADR-0068 proposes a default 10-working-day call identifying the exact proposal, diff, evidence, open risks and deadline. Silence is abstention. Unless a charter is stronger, advancement needs explicit support from at least three independent organisations across two materially affected stakeholder categories. Voting is an exceptional deadlock route, not the default way to settle technical meaning.

Public review

Review event	Minimum proposed window	Required outcome
First Public Review Draft	30 calendar days	Every material comment acknowledged, linked to an issue and given a reasoned disposition.
Material change after review	15 calendar days for the affected material	The changed material is reviewed again before advancement.
Editorial correction	No restarted public-review window	Independent review and a change-log entry.

Closing the review window does not authorise release. Comment disposition, consensus, independent technical and risk gates, conformance, implementation evidence and formal ratification still follow. See standards lifecycle & ratification.

Decision records and retention

Article 16 requires Executive Committee and Board decision records to be kept for at least 10 years. ADR-0068 proposes using that as the baseline for standards stage-decision records as well. The proposed Standards Secretariat maintains charters, rosters, notices, minutes, issue and disposition records, stage registers, review windows, release manifests and appeals; it verifies completeness but does not approve content.

Useful operating measures

age of untriaged evidence and unresolved blocking issues;
time to acknowledge and dispose substantive comments;
participating organisations and affected stakeholder breadth;
coverage, validation, conformance and implementation results;
appeals, overdue reviews and decisions without complete records.

Raw message volume, meeting attendance, reaction counts and model agreement are not quality measures.

Operational decisions still required

the initial Standards Secretariat, accountable sponsor and named role holders;
approved Domain and Interoperability Working Group charters and their cadences;
the issue/stage register implementation and public consultation interface;
service targets for triage and disposition that reflect volunteer capacity;
recording, transcription, retention and access rules; and
contribution, IPR and confidentiality terms before first public review.