GOVERNANCE.md

Governance

This document outlines the governance model for ICL. This includes detailed descriptions of different roles, nomination processes, code review processes, and Code of Conduct enforcement.

All community members must follow the Code of Conduct (CoC).
Consequences for CoC violations are detailed in Moderation.

Want to trigger a vote, nomination, or perform some other action?
Scroll down to Playbook.

Get Involved

Anything that supports the ICL community is a valuable contribution!

All types of contribution are meaningful. This can include code changes, type fixes, Discord activity, and even posting about ICL to your personal blog. No contribution is too small!

Anyone can become an ICL contributor (yes, even you!). Engineering ability is not required. Our goal is to recognize all contributors to the project regardless of skill, experience or background.

Contributor Levels

We recognize different levels of contribution as four different Contributor Levels. Because each level comes with a new set of privileges and responsibilities, you may also see these levels referred to as Contributor Roles.

Contributor levels are available to all members of the ICL community, regardless of coding skill or experience.

Two important things that we look for in a contributor are:

• Being here - Everyone's time is valuable, and the fact that you're here and contributing to ICL is amazing! Thank you for being a part of this project with us.
• Being a positive member of our community - Go above and beyond our Code of Conduct and commit to healthy communication across pull requests, issue discussions, Discord conversations, and any interactions outside of our community (ex: no Twitter bullies allowed :)

All Contributor roles are granted for as long as the individual wishes to engage with the project.

Contributors can voluntarily leave the project at any time. See Retiring a Role below for more information.

In extreme cases -- such as a Code of Conduct violation -- a role may be revoked by a project Steward at their discretion.

Each new Contributor level unlocks new privileges and responsibilities both on Discord and on GitHub. Below is a summary of each level.

Level 1 - Contributor

Have you done something (big or small) to contribute to the health, success, or growth of ICL? Congratulations, you're officially recognized as a contributor to the project!

Examples of recognized contributions

• GitHub: Submitting a merged pull request.
• GitHub: Filing a detailed bug report or RFC.
• GitHub: Updating documentation or fixing a typo.
• Helping people on GitHub, Discord, etc.
• Answering questions on Stack Overflow, Twitter, etc.
• Blogging, Vlogging, Podcasting, and Livestreaming about ICL.
• This list is incomplete! Similar contributions are also recognized.

Privileges

• New role on Discord: @contributor
• New name color on Discord: light blue.
• Invitations to contributor-only events, sticker drops, and the occasional swag drop.

Responsibilities

This role does not require any extra responsibilities nor time commitment. We hope you stick around and keep participating in our community!

If you're interested in reaching the next level and becoming a Maintainer, you can explore some of those responsibilities in the next section.

Nomination Process

You may self-nominate by sending the message !contribute in any Discord channel. If you do this, please share a second message with a link or description of your contribution so that people can recognize you for the contribution.

You may also be granted this role automatically if you are active and helpful on Discord.

Level 2 (L2) - Maintainer

The Maintainer role is available to contributors who want to join the team and take part in the long-term maintenance and growth of ICL.

The Maintainer role is critical to the long-term health of ICL. Maintainers act as the first line of defense when it comes to new issues, pull requests and Discord activity. Maintainers are most likely the first people that a user will interact with on Discord or GitHub.

Maintainers are not required to write code! Some Maintainers spend most of their time inside of Discord, maintaining a healthy community there. Others work on technical documentation, support, or design.

A Maintainer has moderation privileges! All maintainers are trusted with the ability to help moderate our Discord and GitHub communities for things like spam. There is also a special (optional, opt-in) @mods role open to maintainers who are also interested in helping out when a community member reaches out for moderation help.

Recognized Contributions

There is no strict minimum number of contributions needed to reach this level, as long as you can show sustained involvement over some amount of time (at least a few months).

• GitHub: Submitting multiple non-trivial pull requests and RFCs
• GitHub: Reviewing multiple non-trivial pull requests and RFCs
• Discord: Supporting users in Discord, especially in the #support channel
• Discord: Active participation in RFC calls and other events
• GitHub + Discord: Triaging and confirming user issues
• This list is incomplete! Similar contributions are also recognized.

Privileges

• All privileges of the Contributor role, plus...
• Invitation to the @maintainer role on Discord
• Invitation to the private #maintainers channel on Discord.
• Invitation to the withICL organization on GitHub.
• Invitation to the @maintainers team on GitHub.
• New name color on Discord: blue.
• Ability to moderate Discord to remove spam, harmful speech, etc.
• Ability to join the @mods role on Discord (optional, opt-in).
• Ability to push branches directly to the withICL GitHub organization (personal forks no longer needed).
• Ability to review GitHub PRs.
• Ability to merge some GitHub PRs.
• Ability to vote on some initiatives (see Voting below).

Responsibilities

• Participate in the project as a team player.
• Bring a friendly, welcoming voice to the ICL community.
• Be active on Discord, especially in the #support channel.
• Triage new issues.
• Review pull requests.
• Merge some, non-trivial community pull requests.
• Merge your own pull requests (once reviewed and approved).

Nomination

• To be nominated, a nominee is expected to already be performing some of the responsibilities of a Maintainer.
• You can be nominated by any existing Maintainer (L2 or above).
• Once nominated, there will be a vote by existing Maintainers.
• See vote rules & requirements for info on how the vote works.

Level 3 (L3) - Core

The Core role is available to community members who have a larger-than-usual impact on the ICL project and community. They are seen as leaders in the project and are listened to by the wider ICL community, often before they have even reached this level. A Core member is recognized for contributing a significant amount of time and energy to the project through issues, pull requests, bug fixes, implementing advanced enhancements/features, and/or actively posting on Discord.

Not every contributor will reach this level, and that's okay! L2 Maintainers still have significant responsibility and privileges within our community.

Privileges

• All privileges of the Maintainer role, plus...
• @core role on Discord
• New name color on Discord: yellow.
• Invitation to the private #core channel on Discord.
• Invitation to the core team on GitHub.
• Ability to vote on most initiatives (see Voting below).

Responsibilities

• All of the responsibilities of L2, including...
• Ownership over specific part(s) of the project.
• Ownership over the long-term health and success of ICL.
• Leadership as a role-model to other maintainers and community members.

Nomination

• To be nominated, a nominee is expected to already be performing some of the responsibilities of a Core member.
• You can be nominated by any existing Core member (L3 or above).
• Once nominated, there will be a vote by existing Core members.
• See vote rules & requirements for info on how the vote works.

Special Membership Type: Core Residency

Core Residency is a special type of Core membership that is limited in the following way(s):

• No voting abilities.
• No nomination abilities.
• Can be revoked at any time by the project Steward.

Because of these limitations, this type of Core membership is useful for anyone who has been brought in to work on or contribute to the ICL project without rising through our normal contributor levels. For example: an ICL designer or developer advocate hired by The ICL Technology Company to assist the community could be nominated for a Core Residency role without having a previously earned contributor level.

A Core Residency nomination must still be approved through the normal Core nomination and voting process. During the nomination, the Project Steward will state that the nomination is for the Core Residency designation. The project Steward is the only one who can officially make this designation during the nomination process.

A Core Residency member can become a full Core member (with all limitations removed) through the normal Core nomination and voting procedure.

If a Core Residency member has their membership revoked, the project Steward may choose to impose a waiting period of some number of days, during which the member can not be re-nominated to become a full Core member.

Level 4 - Project Steward

The Steward is an additional role bestowed to 1 (or more) Core member of the project.

The role of Steward is mainly an administrative one. Stewards control and maintain sensitive project assets, assist in resolving conflicts, and act as tiebreakers in the event of disagreements.

In extremely rare cases, a Steward can act unilaterally when they believe it is in the project's best interest and can prove that the issue cannot be resolved through normal governance procedure. The steward must publicly state their reason for unilateral action before taking it.

The project Steward is currently: @FredKSchott

Responsibilities

• Access to the @ICLdotbuild Twitter account
• Administration privileges on the ICL GitHub org
• Administration privileges on the ICL Discord server
• Publish access to the ICL npm package
• Domain registrar and DNS access to ICL.build and all other domains
• Administration access to the ICL.build Vercel account
• Ability to initiate a vote
• Ability to veto votes and resolve voting deadlocks
• Define project direction and planning
• Ability to decide on moderation decisions
• Access to the *@ICL.build email address

Nomination

• Stewards cannot be self-nominated.
• Only Core members are eligible.
• New Stewards will be added based on a unanimous vote by the existing Steward(s).
• In the event that someone is unreachable then the decision will be deferred.

Other Roles

Project Teams

Besides our contributor levels described above, there are additional roles and teams available that community members are welcome to join. Roles are a great way to organize around different projects and initiatives in our community. For example:

• @team-docs runs the #docs channel and organizes the growth and development of ICL documentation.
• @i18n-gang runs the #docs-i18n channel and organizes translations in several languages.
• @support-squad runs the #support-threads channel and helps anyone who needs help using ICL.

Many of these team roles can be browsed and joined automatically by visiting the #manage-roles channel in our Discord. Getting involved with a team is a great way to start contributing to ICL!

Moderator

Moderator is a special role available to Maintainers (L2 and above). While all maintainers are granted permissions to moderate for bad behavior across our community, a Moderator actively takes on this the responsibility. For example, a community member may ping moderators (via the @mods role) to resolve spam posts or Code of Conduct violations.

Trivial tasks (like removing spam) can be acted on unilaterally by a Moderator. Other non-trivial tasks (like assisting with or resolving a Code of Conduct violation) should involve the entire Moderator team (and in some cases, the project Steward).

Privileges

• @mods role on Discord
• Invitation to the private #moderators channel on Discord
• Invitation to the staff team on GitHub.

Nomination

Any Maintainer (L2 and above) can self-nominate by messaging the project Steward (@steward) on Discord.

Technical Steering Committee (TSC)

The TSC is a special role available to Core members (L3 and above). TSC members are responsible for the growth and maintenance of the ICL codebase.

TSC members are guardians over the ICL codebase. Their duty is to ensure code quality, correctness and security.

A TSC member guides the direction of the project and ensures a healthy future for the ICL codebase. TSC members are ultimately responsible for technical decision making when it comes to any changes to the ICL codebase.

A TSC member has significant sway in software design decisions. For this reason, coding experience is critical for this role. TSC membership is one of the only roles that requires a significant contribution history of code to the ICL project on GitHub.

Privileges

• @tsc role on Discord
• Invitation to the private #tsc channel on Discord
• Invitation to the tsc team on GitHub.
• Ability to merge all GitHub PRs.
• Ability to vote on RFCs and technical initiatives (see Voting below).

Responsibilities

• Participating in RFC discussions and technical meetings.
• Assisting with design and implementation of non-trivial GitHub PRs.
• Reviewing and merging larger, non-trivial PRs.
• Maintaining and improving overall codebase architecture.
• Tracking and ensuring progress of open pull requests.
• Mentoring and guiding other community contributors.

Nomination

• To be nominated, a nominee is expected to already be active in technical discussions and performing some of the responsibilities of a TSC member.
• You can be nominated by any existing Core member (L3 or above). Note: This includes all existing TSC members as well.
• Once nominated, there will be a vote by existing Core members.
• See vote rules & requirements for info on how this vote works.

Staff

Staff is a special designation for employees of The ICL Technology Company.

Privileges

• @staff role on Discord
• New name color on Discord: yellow.
• Invitation to some private channels on Discord, at the discretion of the project Steward.
• Invitation to the staff team on GitHub.

Staff membership does not grant any additional abilities when it comes to voting and project governance. A Staff member is still eligible for other roles in the community and may still vote as defined by their other roles. For example, a Staff member who is also a part of @core will be able to vote as any other @core member would.

Alumni

Alumni is a special designation for Maintainers (L2 and above) who have stepped away from the project and no longer contribute regularly. See Retiring a Role below for more information.

Privileges

• @alumni role on Discord
• New name color on Discord: light blue.
• Invitation to the private #alumni channel on Discord.

Retiring a Role (Alumni)

Contributor roles are granted for as long as the person wishes to engage with the project. However, over time an active community member may choose to step away from the ICL project to work on other things. Moving on from a project is a natural and well-understood part of any open source community, and we celebrate it!

Alumni is a special designation and role for any person who was once an active maintainer (L2 or above) but is now no longer actively involved. By retiring and joining Alumni you trade-in your current set of roles, privileges, and responsibilities for a new, special Alumni role (which comes with its own set of Privileges, as described above).

As a Maintainer (L2 or above) you can retire your role at any time by pinging the project Steward and requesting Alumni status. You can initiate this action yourself if you know ahead-of-time that you need to step away from the project. Or, if you have gone several months without interacting with the ICL community, the project Steward may actively reach out to you to discuss retiring as a way to make room for new contributors.

As an Alumni member, you are still a part of the ICL community and can continue to be a part of our Discord, GitHub, and anywhere else. You may also request to have your old roles reinstated at any time through the normal nomination & voting process for that role.

Rejoining the project as a contributor (L1 or above) will automatically remove you from the Alumni role.

Governance Playbook

Voting

Certain project decisions (like governance changes and membership nominations) require a vote. Below are the changes that require a vote, and the rules that govern that vote.

The project Steward may initiate a vote for any unlisted project decision. General Rules will apply, along with any addition rules provided at the steward's discretion. If this unlisted project decision is expected to be repeated in the future, voting rules should be agreed on and then added to this document.

General Voting Rules

• Members may abstain from any vote.
• Members who do not vote within 3 days will automatically abstain.
• Stewards may reduce the 3 day automatic abstain for urgent decisions.
• Stewards reserve the right to veto approval with a publicly disclosed reason.

Voting: Maintainer (L2) Nomination

This process kicks off once a valid nomination has been made. See "Maintainer - Nomination Process" above for more details on nomination.

Who can vote: All Maintainers (L2 and above).

1. A vote thread should be created in Discord #maintainers channel (the private channel for all maintainers).
2. A vote thread can be created by any Maintainer, Core member, or the Steward.
3. Once a vote thread is created, existing Maintainers can discuss the nomination in private.
4. The normal 3 day voting & discussion window begins with the thread creation.
5. Voting can be done in the thread (visible to other voters) or in a private DM to the project Steward.
6. Once the vote is complete, the thread is deleted.
7. The vote must receive an overwhelming majority (70%+) to pass.
8. If the vote passes: the nominee will be made a Maintainer and all privileges will be made available to them.
9. If the vote fails: the project Steward is responsible for informing the nominee with constructive, actionable feedback. (Note: this is not required if the nomination was made in the #core channel, or if the nominee was otherwise not made aware of their nomination).

Voting: Core Member (L3) Nomination

This process kicks off once a valid nomination has been made. See "Core Member - Nomination Process" above for more details on nomination.

Who can vote: All Core members (L3 and above).

1. A vote thread should be created in Discord #core channel (the private channel for Core members).
2. A vote thread can be created by any Core member, or the Steward.
3. Once a vote thread is created, existing Core members can discuss the nomination in private.
4. The normal 3 day voting & discussion window begins with the thread creation.
5. Voting can be done in the thread (visible to other voters) or in a private DM to the project Steward.
6. Once the vote is complete, the thread is deleted.
7. The vote must receive an overwhelming majority (70%+) to pass.
8. If the vote passes: the nominee will be made a Core Member and all privileges will be made available to them.
9. If the vote fails: the project Steward is responsible for informing the nominee with constructive, actionable feedback. (Note: this is not required if the nomination was made in the #core channel, or if the nominee was otherwise not made aware of their nomination).

Voting: Governance Change

A vote is initiated once a pull request to the GOVERNANCE.md file is submitted by a Core Member.

If the pull request submitter is not a Core Member, the PR can be closed by any Maintainer without a vote. However, any Core Member may request a vote on that PR, in which case a vote is initiated.

Who can vote: Core members (L3 and above). All Maintainers are encouraged to discuss and voice their opinion in the pull request discussion. Core members should take the opinions of Maintainers into consideration when voting.

1. The pull request discussion thread is used to discuss the governance change.
2. The normal 3 day voting & discussion window begins with either the PR creation or the removal of WIP: from the PR title if the PR was created as a draft.
3. Voting can be done in the pull request via a review of either Approve (For) or Change Requested (Against).
4. The vote must receive a simple majority (50%+) to pass.
5. If the vote passes: the PR is merged and the changes take effect immediately.
6. If the vote fails: the PR is closed and no change occurs.

Voting: RFC Proposals

ICL features are discussed using a model called Consensus-seeking decision-making. This model attempts to achieve consensus on all significant changes to ICL, but has a fallback voting procedure in place if consensus appears unattainable.

Who can vote: All TSC members.

1. Anyone can submit an RFC to suggest changes to ICL.
2. A trivial change can be discussed and approved entirely within the RFC GitHub issue, as long as there are no objections from Core or TSC members. This is not considered a formal vote.
3. A non-trivial, significant change should be discussed within the RFC and approved during an RFC meeting call. In some cases, an RFC may be approved outside of an RFC meeting using Pull Request reviews as a proxy for votes.
4. During an RFC meeting, the person leading the call will attempt to achieve consensus on the RFC proposal.
5. If consensus is reached: the RFC is approved.
6. If consensus is not reached: The RFC author and TSC members must make all reasonable attempts to resolve issues and reach consensus in GitHub or a follow-up RFC meeting. The process of reaching consensus can take time, and should not be rushed as long as all participants are making a reasonable effort to respond.
7. If consensus still cannot be reached: The project Steward may invoke rough consensus to resolve an RFC that has not achieved absolute consensus, as described below (borrowed from the IETF):

Working groups make decisions through a "rough consensus" process. ICL consensus does not require that all participants agree although this is, of course, preferred. In general, the dominant view of the TSC shall prevail. (However, "dominance" is not to be determined on the basis of volume or persistence, but rather a more general sense of agreement). Consensus can be determined by a show of hands, humming, or any other means on which the TSC agrees (by rough consensus, of course). Note that 51% of the TSC does not qualify as "rough consensus" and 99% is better than rough. It is up to the project Steward to determine if rough consensus has been reached.

Moderation

Outlined below is the process for Code of Conduct violation reviews.

Reporting

Anyone may report a violation. Violations can be reported in the following ways:

• In private, via email to one or more stewards.
• In private, via direct message to a project steward on Discord.
• In public, via a GitHub comment (mentioning @withICL/maintainers).
• In public, via the project Discord server (mentioning staff).

Who gets involved?

Each report will be assigned reviewers. These will initially be all project stewards.

In the event of any conflict of interest - ie. stewards who are personally connected to a situation, they must immediately recuse themselves.

At request of the reporter and if deemed appropriate by the reviewers, another neutral third-party may be involved in the review and decision process.

Review

If a report doesn’t contain enough information, the reviewers will strive to obtain all relevant data before acting.

The reviewers will then review the incident and determine, to the best of their ability:

• What happened.
• Whether this event constitutes a Code of Conduct violation.
• Who, if anyone, was involved in the violation.
• Whether this is an ongoing situation.

The reviewers should aim to have a resolution agreed very rapidly; if not agreed within a week, they will inform the parties of the planned date.

Resolution

Responses will be determined by the reviewers on the basis of the information gathered and of the potential consequences. It may include:

• taking no further action
• issuing a reprimand (private or public)
• asking for an apology (private or public)
• permanent ban from the GitHub org and Discord server
• revoked contributor status

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