This project should contain documents in its repository. This documentation could be used by current governance figures and others to understand the way Drupal happens.

This trail of commits would also be of value to future historians and other people with too much time on their hands.

But most of all, it would be a structured, versioned commit process to alter the form of governance. This recursive system would accomplish two things: 1) Allow the governance process to govern changes, and 2) be very amusing to consider.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#1 1493426.patch2.98 KBmile23

Comments

mile23’s picture

mile23
Primary language English
Location Seattle, WA
commented
StatusFileSize
new 1493426.patch2.98 KB

Some documents to consider and immediately patch bugs within.

rfay’s picture

rfay
he,him
Primary language English
Location Palisade, CO, USA
commented
Title: Project contains no file repository. » Create explicit version-controled governance documents
Status: Active » Needs review

New title... if OK with you.

If you look at Debian or Wikipedia or a number of projects, they have *very* version-controlled documents, and explicitly name and date their final versions.

I don't know for sure whether this is right for the Drupal community (or whether it's too aggressive for us right now) but it sure does bring to mind what those communities do.

The more I think about this the more I'm in favor of explicitly stating how Drupal works. Not sure it needs to be in git source control, but maybe it does.

coderintherye’s picture

coderintherye commented

Shouldn't our governance pages be wikis surely? Perhaps, permission controlled ones, but still that would be a better format no?

mile23’s picture

mile23
Primary language English
Location Seattle, WA
commented

Nice title change, thanks rfay.

Documents could be published in a fashion similar to api.drupal.org, using doxy formatting or some other markup system. People could file bug reports against the process with proposed changes. Discussion would be within issues, as is the Way Of Drupal.

Wiki/in-browser-editable documents might be more manageable for many users, of course. No need to exclude those who aren't proficient in git or making patches.

matthews’s picture

matthews commented

wiki +1

itangalo’s picture

itangalo commented

If the ideas of "curated docs" goes through (which seems to be the case), I think governance documents would fit very well into it.

The "curated docs" basically means documentation that is managed by a team, rather than open to anyone to edit. In this case it would be documentation about Drupal governance, and changes would be version controlled like any other documentation pages.

leehunter’s picture

leehunter commented

One key document would be the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the governance body (or bodies) which at a minimum should say:

  • Name of the body
  • Membership (who can be a member, number of members, responsibilities of membership)
  • Purpose
  • Scope (What areas are to be governed?)
  • Process (How is something brought before the body? Are the deliberations private or public? Are there regular meetings? How are they organized? How are decisions recorded and communicated?)

It's also a good idea to have a set of a broad principles (the fewer the better) which the governance body can use as guidance in their decisions. These might be incorporated into the ToR or stated separately.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented
Status: Needs review » Fixed

So I believe this has effectively been done.

The main working group charters are housed in Git in http://drupalcode.org/project/governance.git. Dries is the only one with commit access to this project.

The working groups themselves can follow a similar approach. We've created http://drupal.org/project/drupal-cwg for the Community Working Group, for example, and will check in and maintains policies like the DCoC there in Git as well.

Suggestions to wording, etc. can be filed as issues against the respective projects.

Also created http://drupal.org/governance as a future "jumping-off point" to community governance-related group descriptions + policies.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Also cross-linking #1516540: Develop a technique to mark (and group) policy pages on Drupal.org.

mile23’s picture

mile23
Primary language English
Location Seattle, WA
commented

Nice. :-)

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.