Move decision-making agreements to AGREEMENTS.md & add decision making table #135

fr33domlover commented 2023年01月27日 20:59:17 +01:00

This PR makes the following changes:

1. Decision-making agreements are now in AGREEMENTS.md, so agreements are now in one place instead of a confusingly being scattered
2. DECISION-MAKING.md thus now contains only a guide for decision-making; I'll evolve it soon into more detailed and concrete instructions/docs/processes
3. In AGREEMENTS.md, in the newly added Decision Making section, there's now a "decision-making table` which is a primary piece of the governance system that helps us determine who decides what

I haven't yet added instructions for how to update that table. The basic idea is that if a team is started, to which we delegate some decision-making power, then we add an item to the table. I added 2 such items there, Security and Fediverse account, because when reading TEAMS.md, those are the the teams that seem to have/need freedom to make decisions in their domain on behalf of the whole organization.

So, Security and Social teams in particular, take a took and approve that the table entries make sense: @Gusted @Ryuno-Ki @dachary @fnetX @caesar (I think 1 from each team is enough)

We'll need to think about the exact process of editing that decision-making table. We might need to form a "general circle" to make it practical. Anyway, something to discuss further, probably in next meeting.

This PR makes the following changes: 1. Decision-making agreements are now in AGREEMENTS.md, so agreements are now in one place instead of a confusingly being scattered 2. `DECISION-MAKING.md` thus now contains only a *guide* for decision-making; I'll evolve it soon into more detailed and concrete instructions/docs/processes 3. In `AGREEMENTS.md`, in the newly added *Decision Making* section, there's now a "**decision-making table**` which is a **primary piece of the governance system** that helps us determine who decides what I haven't yet added instructions for *how to update that table*. The basic idea is that if a team is started, to which we delegate some decision-making power, then we add an item to the table. I added 2 such items there, *Security* and *Fediverse account*, because when reading `TEAMS.md`, those are the the teams that seem to have/need freedom to make decisions in their domain on behalf of the whole organization. So, Security and Social teams in particular, take a took and approve that the table entries make sense: @Gusted @Ryuno-Ki @dachary @fnetX @caesar (I think 1 from each team is enough) We'll need to think about the exact process of editing that decision-making table. We might need to form a "general circle" to make it practical. Anyway, something to discuss further, probably in next meeting.

Ghost commented 2023年01月28日 11:38:10 +01:00

At this point I'd prefer to focus on what is common to decision making regardless of the domain (security, etc.) to keep it simple.

As someone who wants to participate in Forgejo, I would need to quickly understand within a single document, that decision making is essentially:

1. Discuss
2. Agree
3. Document

And slightly more formally something like:

1. Start a discussion about the relevance of the decision and reach out to the people who are impacted by the decision. Collect their input and figure out if it makes sense to them to make a decision on this matter.
2. Create a proposal for a agreement that differs from the discussion because it is meant to be concluded by an acceptance of the agreement or not.
3. Record the agreement with links to the discussion and the proposal. It will be in AGREEMENTS.md if it impacts the whole Forgejo community or somewhere else for smaller groups.

A few examples can be associated to this and show how it is currently done. For copyleft, freebsd or PR review.

IMHO what is most important is to keep this simple and understandable by anyone within five minutes.

At this point I'd prefer to focus on what is common to decision making regardless of the domain (security, etc.) to keep it simple. As someone who wants to participate in Forgejo, I would need to quickly understand within a single document, that decision making is essentially: 1. Discuss 1. Agree 1. Document And slightly more formally something like: 1. **Start a discussion** about the relevance of the decision and reach out to the people who are impacted by the decision. Collect their input and figure out if it makes sense to them to make a decision on this matter. 1. **Create a proposal for a agreement** that differs from the discussion because it is meant to be concluded by an acceptance of the agreement or not. 1. **Record the agreement** with links to the discussion and the proposal. It will be in AGREEMENTS.md if it impacts the whole Forgejo community or somewhere else for smaller groups. A few examples can be associated to this and show how it is currently done. For copyleft, freebsd or PR review. IMHO what is most important is to **keep this simple and understandable by anyone within five minutes**.

fr33domlover commented 2023年01月28日 20:40:19 +01:00

@dachary I'm hearing your wish to focus on a simple-to-understand decision-making process. I'll write documentation for that in a separate PR, will that work?

(it will be a bit more involved than discuss-agree-document since that's probably the more obvious part of decision-making; extra focus will probably be on how to gather/express criteria and how to integrate concerns into a proposal, since that's where the challenge is)

I do believe this PR and the decision-making table is important though, at least as much as documenting the concerns-proposal-agreement process is. Because without clarity about who decides what, every decision has to go through discussion (and we get stuck in lots of discussion slowing us down).

@dachary I'm hearing your wish to focus on a simple-to-understand decision-making process. I'll write documentation for that in a separate PR, will that work? (it will be a bit more involved than discuss-agree-document since that's probably the more obvious part of decision-making; extra focus will probably be on how to gather/express criteria and how to integrate concerns into a proposal, since that's where the challenge is) I do believe this PR and the decision-making table is important though, at least as much as documenting the concerns-proposal-agreement process is. Because without clarity about who decides what, every decision has to go through discussion (and we get stuck in lots of discussion slowing us down).

Ghost commented 2023年01月28日 23:12:54 +01:00

I think this PR is fine, I understand all of it. You can merge it if you'd like. I have serious doubts that anyone except a handful of people highly motivated will read it though.

I think this PR is fine, I understand all of it. You can merge it if you'd like. I have serious doubts that anyone except a handful of people highly motivated will read it though.

fr33domlover commented 2023年01月31日 17:32:22 +01:00

@dachary if you have serious doubts that's precious feedback that I want to hear, definitely not ignore!

Can you say more? What about the "table" (I wish it was a real table and not a list) makes it unlikely to be read? Its style, or content, or both? Or lack of docs pointing to it?

@dachary if you have serious doubts that's precious feedback that I want to hear, definitely not ignore! Can you say more? What about the "table" (I wish it was a real table and not a list) makes it unlikely to be read? Its style, or content, or both? Or lack of docs pointing to it?

fr33domlover commented 2023年02月21日 07:23:32 +01:00

@dachary, I'll try to address what you wrote about having a general simple decision-making process in #148. Merging this to be able to move on. Doing so manually because Codeberg keeps saying "This pull request is broken due to missing fork information."

@dachary, I'll try to address what you wrote about having a general simple decision-making process in #148. Merging this to be able to move on. Doing so manually because Codeberg keeps saying "This pull request is broken due to missing fork information."

forgejo/meta