Community Governance

Note

This concept was accepted by the citizens via vote on 23 of August 2010 1

Current CC Team can be found here: Community Council Team

This is a suggestion to create a new body for Community Governance in the ADempiere project as we have learned that we need somebody to take care about they way we talk and work with each other.

Here is the list of people working on the concept and agreeing with it:

• Teo Sarca
• Joel Stangeland
• Victor Perez
• Werner Scharinger
• Thomas Kreser
• Mario Calderon
• Susanne Calderon
• Kai Schaeffer
• Karsten Thiemann
• Mark Ostermann
• Norbert Wessel
• Tobias Schöneberg
• Dirk Niemeyer
• Dominik Zajac

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Community Council

Today we have an entity for controlling technical aspects of the project which is PMC. But we also do have community aspects which is not taken care of a dedicated entity today. Under "community aspects" we see the social part of the project which is mainly communication among us.

We propose a dedicated team for that social side of the project named "Community Council". It consists of members and one head.

The tasks of that team are:

• ensure code of conduct is followed by community members.
• ensure forum and wiki posts follow the rules set by the community.
• initiate an escalation in case individuals act against the rules.
• Setup votes.
• Maintain citizen list.
• Define working Procedures for CC.
• Remove posts that break the rules.
  • posts can be removed (move to other forum) by community council.
  • poster should be informed.
    • on which rule has been broken.
    • on how he can escalate.

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Initial Staffing Process

• Community can propose CC Teams consisting of a CC head and maximum of 5 members
• After one week citizens vote one of the proposed teams

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Election of Community Council

• Candidates can be nominated by any citizen or them self
• CC Head must approve the nomination
• Current CC members vote about candidate
• Membership is for two years
• Vote of non confidence is applicable

Election of Community Council Head

Head is voted by the team by > 50% votes

Escalation Procedure

If a community member breaks the code of conduct this should be the escalation:

• FIRST TIME: CC member informs the community member about him breaking the rules and advises how to behave.
• SECOND TIME: CC member informs the community member about breaking the rules and announces to him that further incident will lead to escalation and potential consequences.
• THIRD TIME: CC member initiates a voting in CC Team to ask for excommunication of the trouble maker. If more than 50% vote for exclusion all rights of the disturber gets revoked and he is not allowed to participate in the project for three months. If the vote is even CC head decides about the result. In case nobody is active member (see definition of "active member") of the CC team, CC head can take all decisions by himself.
• FOURTH TIME: In case the trouble maker is still repeating his behavior after three months he is excluded forever.

Definitions:

• Exclusion: Posts are deleted immediately, permissions are revoked, citizenship is removed

CC Team - active membership

If a community member works in CC team he is obliged to:

• take part in all CC meetings. In case he is not able to take part he needs to tell in written why.
• take part in all CC election. In case he is not able to take part he needs to tell in written why or delegate his voting right to somebody else.

If a team member does not follow the rules above two times in a row CC head has the possibility to exclude this non active member from the team by written notice to the team and the non active team member listing the incidents.

Code of Conduct

Source: 2

Mailing lists and web forums

Mailing lists and web forums are an important part of the adempiere community platform. This code of conduct applies to your behavior in those forums too. Please follow these guidelines in addition to the general code of conduct:

• Please use a valid email address to which direct responses can be made.
• Please avoid flamewars, trolling, personal attacks, repetitive arguments, advertising.
• On technical matters, the PMC can make a final decision.
• On matters of community governance, the CC can make a final decision.

Behavior

This code of conduct covers our behavior as members of the ADempiere Community, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, website, Internet relay chat (IRC) channel, install-fest, public meeting or private correspondence. ADempiere governance bodies are ultimately accountable to the ADempiere Community Council and will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a member of the community.

• Be considerate. Our work will be used by other people, and we in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision we take will affect users and colleagues, and we should take those consequences into account when making decisions. ADempiere has plenty of users and contributors. Even if it's not obvious at the time, our contributions to ADempiere will impact the work of others. For example, changes to code, infrastructure, policy, documentation and translations during a release may negatively impact others' work.

• Be respectful. The ADempiere community and its members treat one another with respect. Everyone can make a valuable contribution to ADempiere. We may not always agree, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We expect members of the ADempiere community to be respectful when dealing with other contributors as well as with people outside the ADempiere project and with users of ADempiere.

• Be collaborative. Collaboration is central to ADempiere and to the larger free software community. We encourage individuals and teams to work together whether inside or outside the ADempiere Project. This collaboration reduces redundancy, and improves the quality of our work. Internally and externally, we should always be open to collaboration. Wherever possible, we should work closely with upstream projects and others in the free software community to coordinate our efforts in all areas whether they be technical, advocacy or documentation. Our work should be done transparently and we should involve as many interested parties as early as possible. If we decide to take a different approach than others, we will let them know early, document our work and inform others regularly of our progress.

• When we disagree, we consult others. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time and the ADempiere community is no exception. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively and with the help of the community and community processes. We have the Project Management Committee, the Community Council which help to decide the right course for ADempiere.

• When we are unsure, we ask for help. Nobody knows everything, and nobody is expected to be perfect in the ADempiere community. Asking questions avoids many problems down the road, and so questions are encouraged. Those who are asked questions should be responsive and helpful. However, when asking a question, care must be taken to do so in an appropriate forum.

• Step down considerately. Members of every project come and go and ADempiere is no different. When somebody leaves or disengages from the project, in whole or in part, we ask that they do so in a way that minimizes disruption to the project. This means they should tell people they are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where they left off.

The ADempiere code of conduct is copied from the ubuntu code of conduct, modified and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 licence.