Improving Transparency: Advisory Committee's Role and Community Involvement

[Martin]

Sorry for the long answer; I have been iterating on it since Friday and kept enriching it from more recent conversations. I will break down my answer in

1. Answers to points raised in previous comments
2. A proposition for a path to update our governance
3. A history of the current governance

1. Answers to points raised in previous comments

@tfmorris

Because the Apache Software Foundation's primary goal is to produce software, the focus is on software development and the roles (developer, committer, lead) reflect that. Other communities have different focuses. For example, Wikipedia is focused on producing (curating) knowledge, so editor is a primary role and tool developers exist principally to support editors. Antonin's proposal includes a variety of additional roles, including trainer, translator, etc (called "teams" in that proposal).

From the current draft mission statement is (see latest proposed version here it may be slightly revised based on the survey results) OpenRefine primary goals is about Empowering everyone to meaningfully engage with data by providing an accessible open source tool and nurturing a diverse, supportive community., which include a software and community support part.

@tfmorris

I don't think contributors are limited to those who write software, but I do think that those who contribute should drive the project. I agree with Albin that the governance processes (and everything we do) should be scaled appropriately for the size of our (small) project.

I agree. The issue today is that many non-code contributors do not feel like they are part of the community or have a voice in governance. As reported by Bocoup, currently: "Several interviews also mentioned wanting it to feel like a proper community, rather than a collection of users. There was a theme around wanting community members to feel like they’re part of a project where developers are listening to them about what to prioritize, and where there is clarity on how to interact and exchange ideas."

As part of my work on the contributor handbook, I aim to provide them with clear pathways so they understand how they can get involved and we have more diverse voices (see point 2. below).

@abbe98

Reality is that OpenRefine has very few active contributors, and I question if complex governance models would even be beneficial for the ~5 people who contribute actively

@tfmorris

our (small) project. It's great to have ambitions to grow to the scale of Wikipedia, Apache, or Eclipse, but that's not where we are today.

The OpenRefine community is dispersed (see my attempt to map it) but not small. The recent Barcamp brought together 29 contributors at various levels; this count does not include many current contributors who were absent. I estimate the total number of contributors to be closer to 50 than 5.

As far as I know, there is no ambition to become as large as Wikipedia, Apache, or Eclipse.

@thadguidry in your this GitHub comment you mentionned

I wish now for the old days when we had a very good form of simple meritocracy.

I do not agree that our previous model was better. I think our old model was deeply broken by being nontransparent regarding its process and empowering a few vocal individuals. I am resharing here feedback I received last year in User Interviews Results Part 3: Cultivating a Thriving Developer and Trainer Community

Three experienced contributors to the project have noticed that some communication between team members can be off-putting or aggressive at times. They also believe that to contribute to the project in the long term, one needs to be persistent and tenacious. They are also concerned about how newer contributors perceive those exchanges.

I think the usage of the terms persistent and tenacious show that we are failing somewhere in our onboarding process.

@abbe98

Do the AC members actually think it makes sense if things like governance, development, website, etc were a part of their role? Rather than with the committers? I'm rather surprised by the responses here to be honest.

I believe members of the Advisory Committee (all volunteers except for Antonin) are also OpenRefine contributors and that they have a voice in the governance, development, grant applications (for which they will be responsible for fund administration), and the website like other contributors.

@antonin_d

The committee was set up from CS&S' template for fiscally sponsored projects, which we adopted probably too eagerly, because we didn't have enough experience with it, and we trusted their model to be broadly appropriate. There are many improvements we could make, first with the term "advisory" which is a really poor fit (swapping the names of the advisory and steering committees would already have been an improvement…).

@antonin_d I am not sure which document you are referring to. When we joined CS&S we only added the Advisory and Steering Committee to our governance document. We started to work on the GOVERNANCE in 2014, as described in the history below.

However, I agree that we are far from having perfect governance, and there is plenty of things to improve. For me, the top three issues are that

• We dismissed the steering committee and still haven't replaced it with a new body. Proposition for the Ambassador Council
• I am very unhappy with our process for electing advisory committee members. We have very few candidates from our call, and they are currently selected by seating members. How do we identify a new leader for the project? How can we include a broader participation of the community in electing the Advisory Committee?
• I still struggle to understand how we get consensus on large changes (governance or software-wise) and who (and by who, I mean which individual and how they are elected) can approve those changes.
• How do we engage with current non-code contributors?

2. A proposition for a path to update our governance

Since September 2023, I have been exploring the creation of contributor pathways. I understand that I've taken the long road, and things take time to take shape. I hope my approach addresses the root cause and ensures we listen to all voices and explore different options.

This post Proposition for the Ambassador Council - #8 by Martin highlights what I expect from the pathways.

The idea is that instead of naming "ambassador" or "steering committee" members, they will emerge from the community by following pathways we previously identified.

Through this approach, we will

• Enhance transparency and predictability regarding how one can contribute and progress,
• Offer better recognition to non-code contributors,
• Increase one legitimacy by officially recognizing different types of contributions.

For the following three months (October to December 2023) I worked on how we turn this plan into action (see Reflecting on 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024 as OpenRefine Project Manager)

At the beginning of 2024, I focused on building the foundation of that approach via

1. The CSCCE workshop to create the contributor guide
2. Working with Bocoup to Clarify OpenRefine Mission, Vision, and Values.

I recently shared my progress here.. So far, I have received limited but constructive and supportive feedback to improve the different components.

For the rest of the year, I plan to continue working with the community on updating the roadmap, project roles, and governance.

I welcome this conversation, appreciate the engagement on this topic, and welcome feedback or comments on the existing draft documents. I want to better leverage our OpenRefine community meetup to have an hybrid conversation (call with minutes + forum discussion and PR) to progress on those important topics.

3. A history of the current governance

Here are links to the different conversations and updates to our governance documents:

April, 2014:

• Fwd: Defining a Governance model for OpenRefine:
• commit

Apr 2015:

• Re: Adding new committers to OpenRefine repo
• Related commits: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Nov 2017: Fwd: Inviting existing contributor to become committers.

Dec 2017: When Google News Initiative donated USD 100,000 OpenRefine was not a legal entity. @thadguidry created an LLC in the US so we can have a dedicated bank account for the project before the Dec 31, 2027 deadline to receive the money. We knew that was short term and went to seek for a long term solution by joining a fiscal sponsor with SF Conservancy (which did not work out) and then CS&S.

Jan 2018: Create GOVERNANCE.md by magdmartin · Pull Request #1435 · OpenRefine/OpenRefine · GitHub

Nov 2018:

• Apache Foundation vs SF Conservancy?:
• clarify role and list of committer by magdmartin · Pull Request #1838 · OpenRefine/OpenRefine · GitHub

Nov 2019:

• CZI Grant OpenRefine funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as an Essential Open Source Software for Science | OpenRefine that confirms the need for a legal entity to manage funds and contracts.
• OpenRefine joining CS&S: committees

Jan 2020:

• OpenRefine joins Code for Science and Society | OpenRefine
• Update GOVERNANCE.md to mention advisory and steering committees · Issue #2292 · OpenRefine/OpenRefine · GitHub

Sep 2020: Update Governance and Contributing doc by magdmartin · Pull Request #3198 · OpenRefine/OpenRefine · GitHub