swicg / potential-charters

Discussion of potential CG and WG charters
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Committer status #48

Open evanp opened 2 weeks ago

evanp commented 2 weeks ago

There's a section in the "Decision process" about making decisions. It proposes a role in the group, "Committer", gives a light definition of how it might be granted, and then defines what role it would play:

This group will seek to make decisions where there is consensus. Groups are free to decide how to make decisions (e.g. Participants who have earned Committer status for a history of useful contributions assess consensus, or the Chair assesses consensus, or where consensus isn't clear there is a Call for Consensus [CfC] (see below) to allow multi-day online feedback for a proposed course of action). It is expected that participants can earn Committer status through a history of valuable discursive contributions as is common in open source projects. After discussion and due consideration of different opinions, a decision should be publicly recorded (where GitHub is used as the resolution of an Issue).

If substantial disagreement remains (e.g. the group is divided) and the group needs to decide an Issue in order to continue to make progress, the Committers will choose an alternative that had substantial support (with a vote of Committers if necessary). Individuals who disagree with the choice are strongly encouraged to take ownership of their objection by taking ownership of an alternative fork. This is explicitly allowed (and preferred to blocking progress) with a goal of letting implementation experience inform which spec is ultimately chosen by the group to move ahead with.

I think we should give this role its own section, since it seems pretty important. I think we should also switch the language about how Committers can get the role from an expectation to a more declarative form. Here's some proposed language:

Committers

A Committer is authorized to make changes to one or more GitHub repositories that are managed by the group. Participants can earn Committer status through a history of useful contributions. Granting Committer status is made through consensus, as discussed in "Decision process". There is no limit to the number of Committers in the group or on a repository. There is no time limit on Committer status. Each repository should have at least one active Committer. Chair(s) can revoke Committer status for any reason. A Committer can give up the role voluntarily.

If this section is added, we can take out the definitions from the "Decision process" section:

This group will seek to make decisions where there is consensus. Groups are free to decide how to make decisions (e.g. Committers assess consensus, or the Chair assesses consensus, or where consensus isn't clear there is a Call for Consensus [CfC] (see below) to allow multi-day online feedback for a proposed course of action). After discussion and due consideration of different opinions, a decision should be publicly recorded (where GitHub is used as the resolution of an Issue).