governance-issues

Issue Summary 2007-02-28

Editor

Ernest Prabhakar

Contributors

• Andy Mabbett
• ... Please add yourself.

Preamble

Over the last year, several people have expressed concern/frustration/confusion about how the Microformats wiki, mailing list, and community are governed.This page is here to discuss ideas for documenting, formalizing, and/or improving our collective governance.

Abstract

Governance has been defined as "the traditions, institutions and processes that determine how power is exercised, how citizens are given a voice, and how decisions are made on issues of public concern." In the context of Microformats, it covers:

• Rules (both written and unwritten) expected of community members
• Who the various Admins are
• What powers Admins have
• Rules for how/when Admins can/should use those powers
• How to questioning/appealing a decision by an Admin
• How to become an Admin
• How to question/change any of these

While not all of these need to be explicitly spelled out, a healthy community our size requires a broad shared understanding of these facts -- as well as acceptance of them as "legitimate."

Prior issue

• 2007-01-04 raised by DrErnie on microformats-issues, before this page existed, and moved from there
  1. As discussed in [1], there exist various concerns about the lack of clarity regarding governance of the list, wiki, and the specifications themselves. While agree that there does need to be some form of strong leadership to preserve the integrity of the community, I agree with Colin Barrett when he said:

"I think there should be bit more visible superstructure around just who is in this "cabal". It seems to me like the Editors/Authors of the various specs form the majority it of it, but perhaps that should be made a bit more apparent, and the "powers" of an editor (essentially, the ability to veto changes to the wiki, it seems) outlined a bit and some information about how to become an editor (AFIACT, make numerous, quality edits to the Wiki that the other editors approve of)."

An entry has been added to the FAQ regarding Who controls microformats?.Dr. Ernie 08:48, 2 Feb 2007 (PST)

Examples

Note: This is not to take a position on whether or not any of these decisions were appropriate or inappropriate. Rather, the existence of these events demonstrates the need to document why and how such decisions were -- or should be -- made and/or appealed.

• Labelling microformats schema discussions as off-topic
• Mailing list user's censure
• Issue rejection governance
• Negative, PoV and derogatory edit summary content such as "smelled of excessive political correctness worrying" and "removed non-productive comment".
• listing of items as "rejected" when requests for evidence of said rejection reveal none.
• Despite an assurance that "all of the admins will be apropriately (sic) listed on the wiki page [2]", the list given in FAQ is prefaced with the qualifier "including".
• Removal of controversial edits
  • mailing-list-unmoderation (16:12, 19 Mar 2007)
  • governance (12:50, 19 Mar 2007)
  • mailing-lists (12:42, 19 Mar 2007)

Proposal

1. Create a microformats-admin mailing list, for easily contacting all admins
2. Create a microformats-meta mailing list, moderated by a non-Admin, to capture discussions that do not fit into current lists, plus act as a "court of appeals" for Admin decisions.
3. Create and maintain a governance page that captures and describes

• the identity of current Admins
• how to contact them
• the kinds of behavior warranting Admin intervention
• how to appeal an Admin decision/action

Resources

• http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html