This is a consensus-based project by the community for the community. Anyone with an interest in the project can join the community and contribute to the project. This document describes how that participation takes place and how to engage within the project community.
The aim of this governance is to enable the Citation File Format project to serve its aims, to provide a friendly and enjoyable experience to all community members, and to safeguard the project's continued development.
The Citation File Format project is a collection of the subprojects whose collaborative repository is part of the Citation File Format organization of repositories. Its main subproject is the Citation File Format schema and format guide repository. Further subprojects include tooling projects and the project website.
The Citation File Format project and all subprojects make their work publicly available under suitable open licenses. Source code is licensed under open source licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative. Other work is licensed under Creative Commons licenses, including work that is dedicated to the public domain under the CC0 1.0 Universal license.
New subprojects may be added to the Citation File Format project if requested by the maintainers of the potential new subproject. In this case, the Steering Committee will make a decision in private to accept or reject the new subproject. The Steering Committee may also invite new subprojects to be added, in which case, the maintainers of the potential new subproject would have to decide whether to accept or reject the request.
Maintainers of subprojects retain ownership of their subprojects. They are free at any time to delete the respective repository, transfer it out of the Citation File Format project, archive it, etc. Maintainers should notify the Steering Committee before making such changes. Changing the visibility of a subproject repository to private does not change its status as a subproject of the Citation File Format project.
The Citation File Format project as a community project welcomes and encourages contributions and support from the community to enable the project and its subprojects to serve the needs of the community. Contributions and support can take many different forms.
Common contributions include, but are not limited to, the following:
- raising awareness about the project (e.g., providing a link on a website, word-of-mouth recommendation)
- informing developers and others of strengths and weaknesses of the project
- providing moral support (a "thank you" goes a long way)
- facilitating financial support (all subprojects are open source/open access, but their continued development needs to be safeguarded)
- supporting new users (existing users are often the best people to support new users)
- contributing to discussions and replying to issues
- reporting bugs
- fixing bugs
- identifying requirements
- providing graphics
- web design
- programming
- assisting with project infrastructure
- writing documentation
- suggesting and adding features
The community usually engages with the project through the issue trackers of the subprojects or other means of communication (e.g. mailing lists) that subprojects provide. These means of communication are generally the best place to ask for help when making contributions, and discuss details of the contributions being made. Where contributions take the form of changes to a subproject itself, they are usually made via patches (in "pull requests"), which will be considered for inclusion in the project by the subproject maintainers.
Maintainers of subprojects and members of the Steering Committee have special roles within the Citation File Format project.
Maintainers are community members who maintain one or more subprojects. Anyone can become a maintainer; there are no special skills required, other than to be willing and able to maintain the respective subproject, and to participate in the Citation File Format project as a team player. Maintainers understand and support the Citation File Format project, its aims and scope, and its strategy to meet these aims; they maintain their subprojects within the bounds set by the Citation File Format project. It is in the maintainers' exclusive remit to publicly represent their subproject, but not the Citation File Format project as a whole.
Maintainers have the largest possible autonomy in maintaining their subproject, as long as their decisions do not conflict with the governance principles described here. In particular, they are free, for their subproject, to:
- nominate new maintainers
- define and award roles beyond user and contributor
- define contribution and development processes
- define further governance principles, as long as they do not conflict with the governance described here
- define and provide suitable communication channels for the community of their subproject
The Steering Committee can remove maintainers from subprojects in extreme circumstances. However, under normal circumstances maintainership exists for as long as the maintainer wishes to continue engaging with the project.
The Steering Committee (SC) governs the project with respect to membership, strategic direction, outward representation and legal standing of the project. It is in the SC's exclusive remit to publicly represent the Citation File Format project as a whole. SC members are identified on the Citation File Format website.
The responsibilities of the SC ensure the smooth running of the project. They are supported by all SC members individually and collectively, but may be fulfilled in practice by only some members. These responsibilities are detailed in the following.
- All members support the aims of the project and work towards the fulfillment of its strategic goals and long-term health.
- All members participate in strategic planning.
- Some members participate in fundraising.
- All members manage changes to the governance model.
- All members manage changes in the set of subprojects and their maintainership.
- Some members participate in the organization and facilitation of community meetings.
- Some members advise on strategic decisions and new features in subprojects on request.
- Some members review changes to subproject products on request.
- All members act as maintainer for the Citation File Format project website1 and its repository2, as well as the governance repository3.
- Some members provide and administer public channels to facilitate communication within the community about the Citation File Format format and schema, its governance, roadmap, future collaborations, etc.
- Some members serve on the Code of Conduct Committee that receives and handle reports about code of conduct violations in the project and its subprojects.
- All members act as the final escalation point and decider for any disputes, issues, clarifications, or escalations within the scope of the project and its subprojects.
The SC should consist of at least 3 individuals. Its size should not exceed 9 individuals.
Membership in the SC is by invitation from the existing SC members. Any SC member can nominate a new SC member at any time as long as the size of the SC will not exceed 9 individuals upon acceptance of the new member. A nomination is made by informing the SC about it, and will result in discussion and then a decision made by the existing SC members in private. SC nominees are accepted only if all current SC members agree.
Membership in the SC continues as long as the member wishes to continue engaging with the SC, with the exception of the Community Representative (see below). Departing members are asked to nominate a new member who will replace them in the SC, and the remaining members of the SC make a decision whether to invite the nominee. If the decision is to not invite the nominee, and the size of the SC would not reach the minimum of 3 individuals after the departure of the departing member, the remaining members must work to fill the third seat before any further decisions can be taken by the SC. In extreme circumstances, a member of the SC can be removed from the SC, subject to consensus reached by all other members of the SC. In this case, the removed SC member is entitled to request an explanation for the removal. This explanation will be provided by a Steering Committee Chair (see below) and will be anonymous and constructive in nature.
The SC convenes as necessary, but at least once per calendar year. Meetings can be held online or in person. Minutes of the meeting are published in suitable form with sensitive content removed.
The election of representatives of the community, called Community Representatives, to the SC aims to increase the participation of the community in decisions about the Citation File Format project outside of regular SC membership. Community members are those who have made at least one traceable contribution to the project or a subproject. Traceable contributions are contributions which are made by a user under their personal GitHub account, and consist of at least one comment in an issue or pull request in a repository, or of a change or proposed change to the contents of a subproject repository in the Citation File Format project.
The Steering Committee Community Representatives are full members of the SC, with the exception of their membership term.
Elections for the seats of the Community Representatives are held once per calendar year.
Community Representatives hold their seat for the period between elections and cannot be elected for consecutive years. The number of Community Representatives in the SC must not exceed a third of the total number of SC members. As with all SC members, the SC can remove a Community Representative before their term ends, in which case the respective seat remains free until the next election of Community Representatives.
Community Representatives are elected by community members. Community members are eligible to vote in elections for Community Representatives if they have made at least one traceable contribution to the project or a subproject in a repository, as defined above.
When an upcoming Community Representative election has been announced by the SC, any community member can nominate themself for this role by notifying the SC and motivating their nomination before the election is held. The motivations for nomination are published by the SC in preparation for the election. Nominations can be rejected by the SC.
If there are no nominations for an election, the SC invites a community member to fill the seat. If two consecutively invited community members decline the invitation, the SC appoints an SC member to fill the seat in addition to their own until the next election.
The SC Chair is a single individual. The decision who will be chair is made by the SC members by simple majority decision. Once someone has been appointed Chair, they remain in that role until they choose to retire, or the SC casts a two-thirds majority vote to remove them.
The SC Chair has no additional authority over other members of the SC: their role is one of coordinator and facilitator. The Chair is also expected to ensure that all governance processes are adhered to, and has the final decision when the SC fails to reach a decision.
This section details the decision-making process for the Citation File Format project, as governed by the Steering Committee. The responsibility for defining the decision-making process for a subproject lies with the maintainers of the subproject.
At the level of the Steering Committee, decisions about the project are made through discussion within the SC and relevant members of the community. Non-sensitive discussion takes place publicly. Sensitive discussion occurs privately.
Decision making usually consists of four steps:
- One or more SC members propose that a decision be taken
- The proposal may be discussed
- Expressions of approval and disapproval from the SC members are received, leading to a decision (see below for details of how this happens)
- The decision is made and recorded
Non-critical decisions are made by unanimous consensus within a reasonable timeframe set by the SC member(s) proposing the decision. Reasonable extensions of this timeframe can be requested by any SC member. To reach unanimous consensus about a decision, a proposal needs to receive at least one expression of approval from members of the SC who have not proposed the decision, and must receive no expressions of disapproval.
Critical decisions are made by consensus approval. To reach consensus approval of a decision, a proposal needs to receive expressions of approval from all members of the SC, and must receive no expressions of disapproval. The timeframe for decision making is determined by the time it takes to reach consensus approval, or finally reject the proposal, although a reasonable timeframe may be suggested by the proposing SC member(s).
Consensus approval is required for at least the following types of decisions, and all cases where at least one SC member asks to make it required:
- Changes to the governance of the Citation File Format project
- Changes to the set of subprojects within the Citation File Format, where the change is in the remit of the SC
- Changes to the membership in the SC, with the exception of votes to remove an SC member (in extreme cases as outlined above) or the SC chair
- Removing maintainers from subprojects in extreme cases as outlined above
- Major changes to the branding guidelines for the Citation File Format project
Expressions of approval/disapproval are made in writing (e.g., in a comment to the issue where the proposal is discussed, or per email), or as an "emoji reaction" (👍 for approval, 👎 for disapproval) in a GitHub issue where the proposal is made, on the comment proposing that a decision be made. The SC member(s) who propose a decision are responsible for seeking timely expressions of (dis)approval for that decision.
In addition to proposals from the SC, any community member can make a proposal for consideration by the SC. In order to initiate a discussion about a proposal, community members should open an issue on the governance repository on GitHub. This will prompt a review and, if necessary, a discussion of the idea. The goal of this review and discussion is to gain approval for the contribution. Proposals coming from community members not on the SC need to be accepted by the SC.
The Citation File Format governance model is based on the meritocratic governance model template by OSS Watch. The template is available here: http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/meritocraticgovernancemodel#template-for-a-meritocratic-governance-document.
Part of the work to develop the governance model was funded by Code for Science & Society as part of the Digital Infrastructure Incubator, and the Netherlands eScience Center.
We would like to thank Axel Loewe (openCARP, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) for helpful discussion about governance of open projects in academia.