[template] Add a DB link for current charter status

[samuelweiler]

I often see that the validity dates in charters get out of date. Unlike naming chairs, I don't think we can remove dates from charters, but can we add a link to the current status, e.g. as shown in https://www.w3.org/Member/Groups

[svgeesus]

@samuelweiler do you mean the charter approval dates on that page, or something else?

[samuelweiler]

https://www.w3.org/Member/Groups has four things: charter start dates, charter end dates, charter extended end dates, and a single summary date range of overall beginning and end. The first three have links to the relevant doc and/or announcement. It provides a way to see if a group is in charter.

The failure mode I have seen is that a charter gets extended but the charter does not get updated, so the group's charter appears to be expired.

[svgeesus]

This proposal seems to contradict the existing policy on charter extension which requires the Team contact updating, in place:

1. the end date
2. the charter history section
3. Any update to the Chair(s), Staff Contact(s), etc.

[samuelweiler]

Thanks for flagging that the guide will need to change, also. Given the responses I've gotten to #259 and #261, I suspect this idea isn't going anywhere, unfortunately.

(And, at this moment, I see fewer mismatches of these dates between the charters and the DB than I saw for chairs and for team contacts.)

[samuelweiler]

Looking at this again, months later, I still think it's a good idea. Specifically, without removing anything, add a link to https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/eowg/charters (for the appropriate group).

[svgeesus]

Checking up on the status of this old issue, I see that the charter template now has

Charter Status See the group status page and detailed change history.

where group status page links to the DB-backed charter page for the relevant group.

So it seems this was done at some point and we forgot to close this issue as completed.