This is a public update on the work of the Governance Task Force.

Drupal is one of the most successful open source projects in the world. Governance is fundamental to the project's success.

The community and the code has been built from the ground up. And as the code has grown, so has the community.

When communities are first emerging it's easy to bring newcomers along, but over time the community begins to mature, change, and then needs to adapt. Challenges and opportunities emerge as evolution occurs, and our community needs to navigate them strategically.

A Governance Task Force has been meeting weekly since May to put together the strategic proposal we now share with you. We've synthesized ideas, discussions, and experiences from people we've interviewed, and we've revisited the themes that emerged from the community listening project run by Whitney Hess and by previous governance discussions.

This Drupal Governance Task Force 2018 Proposal serves two purposes.

Firstly, it's clear that for community evolution to occur there needs to be broad agreement and buy-in. People are comfortable jumping in and building a new module, but community change and action is hard. People talked to us openly about the unclear processes and barriers holding back community progress.

We heard strong perceptions that support from Dries or the Drupal Association is needed before initiatives could be created or scaled; real or otherwise, this is affecting community progress and action. Speaking to people from the Drupal Association, the Community Working Group and other initiative leaders, they also feel limitations. But to change their terms of reference and priorities they also need to have a community directive.

The community is stronger and more influential than we sometimes assume  --- when we are speaking together.

That's why at the heart of this proposal is a new community governance structure.

The second purpose of the proposal is to create a starting point --- a framework. We’ve been practical, highlighting a range of actions that form a backbone for community evolution. It’s not a defined roadmap, and it’s not a list of every idea we had or heard. We welcome the discussion, debate and idea generation that this document will spark. We want to hear your solutions on how to get change done, and what you would like to contribute.

We strived to make practical recommendations with the potential to make progress, lower barriers, and help our community to continue to evolve with time.

Throughout this process we have heard people say they believe change is necessary. Change is necessary for the longevity of Drupal the project and the code. Change is necessary to create a new generation of Drupallers — the people we want to help build ambitious things and to have the chance to build a career within our community.

It is hard to not feel the project is at a crossroads. We’ve climbed the mountain of Drupal 8, we sit at the peak and look to the valley below.

Where we go next, and who we take with us, is up to you.

We hope this proposal helps.

David, Ela, Stella, Lyndsey, Rachel, Hussain, and Adam

Comments

davidhernandez’s picture

Links are in the PDF, but you can also go directly to the Governance queue to find all the issues created. https://www.drupal.org/project/issues/governance

hestenet’s picture

I want to thank all the members of the task force for the tremendous amount of work, thought, and care that went into engaging with so many members of community.

This is a wide-ranging and detailed proposal covering a wide variety of topics, so I know it will take some time for the community to process, for the DA board and staff to process, and for people to formulate their thoughts.

As we take time to read, consider, and process, I'll be watching the comments of the wider community here and in other channels.

Thank you again David, Ela, Stella, Lyndsey, Rachel, Hussain, and Adam.

--
Tim L
Drupal Association - CTO

ok_lyndsey’s picture

And thank you for how generous with time and insight and supportive you and Megan and Adam (in a "not the DA Chair, but thoughtful governance advisor to many") and others were. 

The DA has been impressive in it's ability to respond to changing community conditions. We hope this becomes a useful document and community voice piece that assists your team in forward planning. And that from it we all build beautiful community things together. 

rszrama’s picture

Good work, everyone - this represents a tremendous effort with careful thought put into follow-up. I've just read through the proposal and will need to let it mellow before providing specific feedback on the linked issues.

At a high level, though, can you speak to why many action points represent recommendations for outreach, adoption, etc. as opposed to what I would recognize as more straightforward governance concerns (e.g. what's bulleted in the intro as processes / structures, operations and oversight, points of authority / decision making, and best practices)? Advising on the creation of websites, event pricing, mentoring, and marketing may all be relevant to improving aspects of the Drupal community, but they seem unrelated to the central governance questions of "How are decisions made, how are disputes escalated, and ultimately which questions are answered by which parties?"

I'm also wondering if you can speak to why various recommendations were included that seem to exceed the scope of the Governance Task Force. Maybe I'm misreading your charter, but it identified changes to the governance of the Drupal Association as out of scope. Recommendations that contradict this include directing how the D.A. spends money, how its board is composed, how the board staffs its Executive Committee, and more. Was your charter just indicating that you weren't going to directly change the D.A. (seems that would've been self-evident), or did you determine along the way that you needed to expand your scope to include changes to the D.A. for the sake of delivering a comprehensive proposal?

ok_lyndsey’s picture

Thanks for your time reading and your questions Ryan. My (personal) reflections the processes / structures, operations and oversight, points of authority / decision making, and best practices) form practical functions of good governance - once you are clear on what good governance looks like and how you want to get there.

Our proposal was a deep listening exercise and we committed to staying true to what we heard. We didn't hear that people wanted (say) a diagram on how decisions are escalated or tweaks to that model - indeed this community is so thoughtful with transparency that those things already exist. We heard that the system itself had areas where it has broken down.

People were very clear about this and why and how it was having such an impact.

Re the DA, it is an integral piece of the community and governance ecosystem and the tensions around voice, inclusion, scope and purpose came through in most of the conversations we had (perhaps all). We have no charter to change the structure, and indeed the governance of the DA itself wasn't what we  looked at. We did however look at the interrelationship between the DA and the community. We heard those community tensions and where tensions for community vision, working together, and resource distribution were coming from. 

We were privileged that people were open and candid with us (and very considerate in their thoughts and contributions), which means we heard practical ideas worth sharing. And so talking about changes we heard and recommend re the DA felt appropriate. The DA will consider things within their framework and priorities, we recognise that. And we also recognise that other things in the dic the DA could pick up and say "why don't we do that thing". We haven't wanted to be prescriptive, just suggestive.

Building a vision and practical functions such as a website, addressing inequality and exclusion through fair access via ticket pricing, marketing and strengthening community demand, and mentoring to supporting inclusion are practical functions that build community and governance.

In practical actions you also see the limitations of current structures and systems - that frustrates people and diminishes potential.

Practical action is important, because otherwise it's all meta and theory. I'm also a strong believer in process building community - which is why this document is also a critical conversation starter. We want people to connect, reject, build on the areas that make sense to them and that they can contribute to.

Wow - long statement (I could babble about this stuff for days) :)

nerdstein’s picture

As individuals, members of the task force will likely continue to participate in the discussion as we care about this topic. Per our charter, our group agreed to disband after the proposal was delivered. Any further commentary will be from a personal perspective and not a representation of the group itself. 

rachel_norfolk’s picture

As mentioned in the proposal, the 30 days consultation period will end on the 8th December 2018. At that point, all of the comments made so far in the issues will be collated and passed on to Dries.

hrodrig’s picture

Big thanks to the Governance task force team for assembling a well-considered, thoughtful document that clearly outlines strategies for resolving a lot of the outstanding issues in our community. It’s evident that you paid close attention to the feedback offered, and really worked hard to distill it into an actionable plan.

Thanks David, Ela, Stella, Lyndsey, Rachel, Hussain, and Adam!

YesCT’s picture

The proposal has a lot of words.

I see a bunch of expand, create, and do more.

I don't see what to do less of, or where to get or how to increase resources to do the creating, expanding, or doing more.

I don't see the recognition that some of these recommendations are not new.

I do see recognition of lack of faith that things will change on pg 3

"However, we will also caution that we heard from people frustrated by the slow pace of community change, and some simply don’t believe action will ever happen. There are recommendations in this document that can be started quickly and would provide essential positive outcomes."

A. I suggest clearly marking which recommendations can be implemented with current resources and which would need money, etc.

B. Or make it clear the steps are: get dries to approve the recommendations, then… fund them. But who will fund getting the funding? sigh.

Same old drupal community problems. And I’m not clear on what is new, and what might have a different outcome than in the past.

There is a summary table.

C. I suggest
add columns on requirements. maybe enumerate the requirements:
decision only
volunteer work
money
DA prioritization of work
…..

D. Perhaps use icons if space is tight with a key.

E. I suggestion also marking somehow:

new idea,
existing idea (issue, committee, group, initiative)

The table has the suggestion as a link to its issue.

F. I suggest also including the link to its issue in the section of the pdf for the suggestion, maybe have the title of each suggestion section be a link, or in the text?

G. I also suggest each individual issue for each suggestion link to related issues/initiatives for doing what it recommends or things very similar to what it recommends. This would acknowledge past work, and provide context for evaluating the recommendation and the barriers or possible solutions.

davidhernandez’s picture

Here is an issue where comments related to the proposal doc itself can be compiled. If you want to make suggestions about the format of the document, how it is written, any problems in reading it, etc. Suggestions can make future proposals better.

This issue will not be subject to any commentary deadline.

https://www.drupal.org/project/governance/issues/3018845

matthand’s picture

I am encouraged by reading this governance proposal to engage and contribute to the Drupal community more than ever. I feel that some of my personal worries regarding our community being dependent on Dries as a central figure are acknowledged in this communication in a way that is respectful and productive. I can now see that the community already has the power and the will to meet this challenge and create an improved experience for contributors and users. I'll add some specific comments in the issues queue, but I wanted to leave this general feedback first.

Thank you to the Governance Task Force and to all of the community members who engaged in the process! This work signals the Dawn of the Drupal Renaissance! Let's get to WORK!

remediosaraya’s picture

this is nice, i hope some day we will get some Governance  on WordPress.org too.

zahid6662’s picture

i am new in Drupal i like the idea of Drupal Governance Task Force and i support its purpose of the proposal to create a starting point a framework. they’ve been practical, highlighting a range of actions that form a backbone for community evolution.