Community

Everyone who contributes to, or is using artifacts from, The Good Docs Project is considered part of our community. We encourage all community members to actively participate in our activities. This includes:

• Participate in our forums and vote on motions.
• Raise and comment on issues.
• Suggest fixes by raising pull requests.
• Comment on and review pull requests.

Access:

• Community members have read access to our GitLab repositories (by default).

Expectations of community members:

• Community members are expected to be respectful to each other, in line with our Code of Conduct.

Committers

A committer is a trusted community member who has additionally been given write access to some or all of our GitLab repositories.

Current committers

Access:

• Committers are granted triage, maintain and write access to the GitLab repositories which they have contributed to.

Additional expectations of committers:

• Understand and apply our quality guidelines.
• Understand and abide by our license requirements.
• Periodically contribute to our project over a one-year period.

Eligibility:

Before being accepted for this role, a person should display the following characteristics:

• Provide sustained, valuable contributions to the project, typically for three months or more. An example demonstration of this could be:
  • Submit pull requests which have been accepted and merged by other committers. Typically, one large, three medium, or five small pull requests over three months.
  • Or provide equivalent contributions to our community, such as outreach, contributing to our forums, or coordinating activities.
• Express an interest in ongoing participation.
• Acknowledge the committer expectations.

Project Steering Committee

The Project Steering Committee (PSC) is the official managing body for our project. The committee is drawn from the community and is based on merit and interest.

• We aim to attract a diverse mix of personal characteristics, reflective of the community we represent.
• We wish to avoid having employees of any one organization representing a controlling proportion of the PSC.

A PSC chair shall be selected from the PSC, with the only official extra duty being that they have a deciding vote in the case of a tie.

Current PSC members

Access:

• PSC members may be granted admin access to our GitLab repositories if they have a need for them.

Additional expectations of PSC members:

• Consider opinions from within our community, and advocate for the best interests of our community when making decisions.
• Vote according to your personal best judgment, as opposed to voting on behalf of your employer.
• Vote promptly (usually within days) to motions being raised.
• Regularly participate in project activities.
• Help with whatever unglamorous work that is required to keep the project moving forward.
• Monitor conversations within our forums and contribute constructively where appropriate.
• Optionally attend weekly meetings.

Eligibility:

Before being accepted for this role, a person should display the following characteristics:

• Sustained track record displaying the characteristics expected of PSC members, typically while acting as a committer within our project, typically for six months or more.
• Express an interest in ongoing participation.
• Acknowledge the PSC member expectations.

Mentors

Initiatives which are funded by The Good Docs Project should have a mentor.

Current mentors

Expectations of mentors:

A mentor’s responsibilities typically includes:

• Mentor a worker in developing a proposal.
• Facilitate making connections with other members within the community.
• Attend weekly meetings and provide guidance where applicable.
• If needed, escalate concerns to the Project Steering Committee.
• Review work done, and recommend the approval or rejection of the project based on work done.

Eligibility:

A mentor will typically be a member of the PSC, but may be an experienced person who is trusted by the PSC.

Any conflict-of-interest the mentor may have should be stated beforehand. This could result from mentoring managers, direct reports, relatives, or close friends. The PSC will need to decide whether the conflict will negatively impact the mentoring experience.

Treasurers

Treasurers are PSC members who additionally have been provided with admin access to our financial account with Open Collective.

Current treasurers

Expectations of treasurers:

• Notify the PSC of Open Collective funding requests by raising a motion.
• AFTER receiving approval from the PSC, approve funding requests.

Eligibility:

In order to limit the risk of misappropriation of funds, financial approval privileges should only be provided to a few long serving PSC members.

Selection of roles

• The PSC will review roles at least annually, in March, with the aims of:
  • Inviting active and eligible community members into relevant roles, based on our eligibility criteria.
  • Moving people who have been inactive for a year into a retired status, with thanks.
  • Selecting a PSC chair.
• Ad-hoc invitations may be initiated throughout the year, as needed.
• Retired members should expect to be welcomed back if they become active again.
• PSC discussions about membership will typically be conducted privately in order to respect the feelings of those being discussed.
• PSC selection decisions will follow our decision-making process.

Invitation email

This example email can be customized to be made personal.

Hi [Name],

We, the Project Steering Committee of The Good Docs Project, have been impressed with your contributions to The Good Docs Project, and would like to invite you to take up our official role of [Role].

To accept, could you please reply publicly to this email list confirming:

1. You would like to accept the role.
2. You feel you meet the eligibility criteria, including your intent to continue participating in this project for a while.
3. You accept the responsibilities associated with the role, as described on the Roles page.

Regards,

[Name], on behalf of the PSC

Next steps

• Wait until the person accepts the invitation.
• Add the person’s name to the Who We Are page.
• Update our decision register, as per our decisions process.
• Add person to appropriate projects in GitLab.