How will you improve transparency and accountability in Nix governance?

[nyabinary]

Question

What specific steps would you take to enhance transparency and accountability within the Nix governance structure? How would you ensure that decisions are made openly, and that community members have clear insight into the processes and outcomes?

Candidates I'd like to get an answer from

No response

Reminder of the Q&A rules

Please adhere to the Q&A guidelines and rules

[mschwaig]

When it comes to accountability, I think what I said about the safety, inclusion, and voice of minorities in https://github.com/NixOS/SC-election-2024/issues/7#issuecomment-2379616089 applies to this question as well.

In terms of transparency, the meeting minutes for board meetings are published, so I think the SC should publish the decisions it made as well, in so far as that's practically possible. What exactly that will look like, I think we will have to see when we have an SC. If someone raises the issue that some specific process outside the SC is not transparent, the person in charge (or ultimately we) would have to look at that and see what they can change about the process.

[tomberek]

A specific responsibility of the SC is "ensuring that decisions are made explicit, along with their origins" ref. There will be the standard mechanisms, such as meeting notes, open meetings, Q&A, published decisions, announcements. I'd go further than transparency and say I think there is also a duty to be available, thus hosting office hours and being generally active would prevent a breakdown in communication.

Another responsibility is "Creation and Management of Teams". So the SC should be aware of what they are doing and help disseminate information about what they are doing as well as create accountability regarding allocated resources.

[getchoo]

As I said in a previous response, I would like to continue and grow the efforts in https://github.com/nixos/moderation to both log the decisions made by the moderation team and document the processes behind them. Further, I believe SC meetings should regularly invite and include community members to listen in and voice their concerns, as well as have set points of contacts for individual Committee members (similar to the NCA's office hours) for one-on-one conversations; teams created by the SC should take inspiration from this as well in order for it to be truly government-wide

[nyabinary]

I would like to advocate for several ideas that I have to make decisions open and keep the community informed.

I would advocate for publishing SC voting records and key reports, which would give a clear picture of why decisions are made. In my opinion, regular and transparent SC meetings, where contributors and community members can observe or participate, will also facilitate inclusion and transparency.

I would advocate for introducing formal mechanisms for gathering input, such as surveys, open forums, and an anonymous feedback channel where contributors can voice concerns without fear of retaliation. This would allow all voices in these governance processes.

I would also support the use of collaborative decision-making tools like Loomio, to allow broader participation in discussions. This would be paired with a Q&A session where people can ask questions about important decisions made by the SC. Moreover, an open decision log would allow the community to keep track of key decisions in a transparent and accessible way.

I am interested in setting up whistleblower mechanisms and holding more frequent community meetings to promote accountability. Open office hours for SC members, where they are available to the community for direct conversations, would also be a valuable step in ensuring transparency in my eyes. Regular transparency reports is also something I would like to see, keeping the community up to date with the SC activities and decision-making processes.

Finally, to safeguard the community’s interests, I would advocate for clear guidelines on sponsorship and partnerships, ensuring contributors’ priorities are respected over corporate interests. Maintaining a high bar of trust and accountability within the Nix ecosystem requires transparency in donations and funding, assuring contributors and the wider community knows how funds are distributed and spent.

[roberth]

This thread already has good suggestions. I would be careful not to generate too large an amount of information for the community to consume. For instance, while I like the office hours idea, this runs a risk of "losing" information because it is either not recorded at all, or the recordings aren't worth listening/watching because they take too long.

I think it is important not just to record everything, but also to produce good notes and to document its decisions in a concise, up to date and accessible way.

In fact, this is the most important output of the SC, so I would encourage a culture that values this. I want this to be felt as the purpose of each meeting.

[proofconstruction]

Transparency and accountability are important ideals to hold as guiding lights in our work. I'd quickly publish notes following Steering Committee meetings (as I have done for Documentation team meetings), work to establish the Executive Directorate and develop a reporting structure along the lines described here to bring better visibility into the organization's activities, publish guidelines and processes by which decisions are made, and hold regular open community calls to deliver updates, answer questions, and generally be present and visible in the community, as noted in my answer to #7.