WordPress Community and Redress of Grievances

[chipbennett]

Answering my own questions:

1) What should the responsibilities be for the Community Contributor committee?

1. Maintain the wordpress.org website (or contributor/community-related sections, such as the repositories, forum, and codex)
2. Manage the various communication channels between WordPress and the contributor community
3. Promote those communication channels, and facilitate communication between the WordPress project and the contributor community
4. Maintain the various guidelines for community contributions (repositories, Code of Conduct, etc.)
5. Promote and facilitate opportunities for community contribution
6. Act as liasson/point-of-contact between WordPress project and contributor community

2) Who should serve on the two committees, and how should they be selected?

1. The committees should be small, but representative - perhaps 4 - 6 members.
2. The committees should have representation from both the WordPress project (3-4) and the contributor community (1-2)
3. Committee members representing the WordPress project shall be appointed by Matt Mullenweg, one of whom shall be the committee chair. These committee members serve at Matt's discretion.
4. Committee members representing the contributor community shall be elected or otherwise chosen by and from among the contributor community. These committee members serve for a duration of one year (two years? longer? shorter?)

So what would such a committee look like? I could envision Matt appointing someone like Jane Wells as the committee chair, and Mark Jaquith, Andrew Campbell, and Mark R. (or Westi) as committee members. From the contributor community, I could see maybe a Brian Gardner and a Joost de Valk (or Otto, or even Jeff) being elected: 3-4 WordPress representatives and 1-2 contributor community representatives.

[andreasnrb]

I'm not sure the idea is ready to be discussed in a dev chat yet.

Hehe I know. Just wanted to reactivate it all. There needs to be a well thought out proposal for them to look at first. But I doubt we can get anything changed unless we anchor our discussion with someone more famous than us =). Personally I find it boring that they only come here for hit and runs :(. Ah the life of the rich and famous.

About your answers
I like them for the most part.
1),4) What exactly does "maintain" mean in this context?

Really need to think about it some more before answering in more detail.

[chipbennett]

Hehe I know. Just wanted to reactivate it all. There needs to be a well thought out proposal for them to look at first. But I doubt we can get anything changed unless we anchor our discussion with someone more famous than us =). Personally I find it boring that they only come here for hit and runs :(. Ah the life of the rich and famous.

Hey, I think it's nice that some of them drop by to comment at all. Would be nice to see more exchanges, rather than just hit-and-run, one-off comments - but the latter are better than nothing...

About your answers
I like them for the most part.
1),4) What exactly does "maintain" mean in this context?

Really need to think about it some more before answering in more detail.

What I mean by "maintain the wordpress.org website" is exactly that: whether the entire web site or just the parts of it that relate to community contributors, I think the committee should be responsible for it - maintain the content, keep it updated, add/remove content and sections as needed.

I'd love to see wordpress.org transformed into a community hub (I think some plans along those lines are in the works/being discussed?), and such a committee would be the perfect entity to make that happen.

What I mean by "Maintain the various guidelines for community contributions (repositories, Code of Conduct, etc.)" is exactly that. They would be responsible for clarifying and revising existing guidelines as necessary, as well as creating new ones when needed.

For instance, if a group of users pressed the issue regarding a proper privacy policy regarding api.wordpress.org data collection and retention, the Community Contribution committee would be the ideal entity to create that policy. Likewise with a community Code of Conduct.

Or, if a plugin/theme developer wanted to get a clarification on the guidelines for repository submission, the Community Contribution committee would be the ideal entity to provide that clarification.

[Jeffro]

My biggest fears of implementing committees is the human factor. Joomla has committees and thanks to communication breakdowns, they just about caused more harm than good. On the flipside, having more people involved should provide more viewpoints on coming up with a better solution to a problem. Decisions could be discussed before they are made and hopefully, unwritten rules could disappear.

As far as I know, the plugin repository rests on the shoulders of Mark_R who I believe is a happiness engineer for Automattic. The closest you can get to sending a support query or dealing with situation like having a plugin removed is to send an email to plugins@wordpress.org. Not the greatest of ways to handle the problem thanks to the possible large volume of emails.

Disputes and resolutions all going through one person I think increases the likelihood of mistakes. Also, Mark is employed by Automattic. Do the committee members get paid or is this a community thing? How do we keep both committees from fighting each other on a decision?

I think information flow is part of the problem but the human element with one person is also part of the problem. Both need to be improved upon some how.

[chipbennett]

My biggest fears of implementing committees is the human factor. Joomla has committees and thanks to communication breakdowns, they just about caused more harm than good. On the flipside, having more people involved should provide more viewpoints on coming up with a better solution to a problem. Decisions could be discussed before they are made and hopefully, unwritten rules could disappear.

All valid concerns. But, first, remember that all WordPress project-related decision-making stays exactly the way it is now. However Matt and his team ultimately make decisions will not be impacted in any way by these committees.

These committees are strictly dealing with the contributor community, and its interaction with the WordPress project. So, that should (hopefully) limit the risk of death-by-committee for the WordPress project itself.

As far as I know, the plugin repository rests on the shoulders of Mark_R who I believe is a happiness engineer for Automattic. The closest you can get to sending a support query or dealing with situation like having a plugin removed is to send an email to plugins@wordpress.org. Not the greatest of ways to handle the problem thanks to the possible large volume of emails.

And that is a thankless and unenviable role. That's a lot to ask one person to maintain. If, on the other hand, Mark_R were on the Community Contribution committee, and was made responsible for the plugin repository, he would have the help of the committee in carrying out that role. The committee members could decide to give themselves the ability to approve plugins, police the repository, etc. - taking some of that burden off of Mark. Or, the committee could decide to appoint some community members underneath Mark, to help him. Whatever the course, the idea would be to help Mark manage the plugin repository in the best way possible.

Disputes and resolutions all going through one person I think increases the likelihood of mistakes. Also, Mark is employed by Automattic. Do the committee members get paid or is this a community thing? How do we keep both committees from fighting each other on a decision?

Simple: the committees have explicit, mutually exclusive responsibilities (for that very reason - to avoid conflict of interest), and (ideally) will be comprised of different people.

Care and feeding of the contributor community is handled by the Community Contribution committee. Any matter of conflict is dealt with by the Conflict Resolution committee (which may seek interpretation/clarification of guidelines from the Community Contribution committee, but that would be about the only interaction between the two committees).

Also, no; the committee members would not get paid for their roles on the committee. The committees are a function of the WordPress project, not Automattic (even if some of the project-appointed committee members are also paid Automattic employees; I think that's inevitable).

I think information flow is part of the problem but the human element with one person is also part of the problem. Both need to be improved upon some how.

Agreed - which is why improving the information flow and minimizing the human element (subjectivity, conflict of interest, overwork, etc.) are key goals of this suggestion.

[Jeffro]

PHPbb has done very well as a project by creating various teams. All of the people actively being part of the development of the software do so with volunteer time. I'm not aware of any of the PHPbb team members being paid by a company or foundation to work on the software. WordPress, Joomla, and probably Drupal through Aquia have a commerical venture that is able to pay people to continuously work on the software. On the one hand, paying people to work non stop improving the software is a good thing. On the other, all of the other work being put in by volunteers inevitably creates clashes as Jelly mentioned in a previous post.

Because WordPress is not entirely managed and run by folks who don't make a dime working on the software, is it even possible at this stage to transition to more of a PURE community project? In essence, the transition between community driven and community run.

These topics are a little off topic but I think part of the larger equation.

[chipbennett]

Because WordPress is not entirely managed and run by folks who don't make a dime working on the software, is it even possible at this stage to transition to more of a PURE community project? In essence, the transition between community driven and community run.

Honestly, that's not even an issue/question I want to try to tackle.

I'm intentionally taking the stance that, with this suggestion, I don't want to upset the status quo with respect to the decision-making regarding the direction and development of the WordPress project itself.

I don't think we need to go there right now, or for a long time (if ever). As I've said elsewhere, the end-product of the WordPress project is and continues to be excellent. No need to upset that applecart.

These topics are a little off topic but I think part of the larger equation.

For sure, there is a wider-angle, higher-altitude, view that needs to be addressed: the many roles that Matt plays, the number of decisions and amount of responsibility and authority that rests solely with him; the overlap between the WordPress project, wordpress.org, Automattic, the WordPress Foundation, etc.; and especially, a contributor community that will soon take one of two divergent courses: a thriving community that synergistically improves WordPress, or an ambivalent and discouraged community that begins to move elsewhere.

That may sound melodramatic, but I believe that the WordPress contributor community is at a much greater risk of becoming a victim of the success of the WordPress project than the project itself is at risk. The lack of/breakdowns in communication, overwork of volunteers, and disagreement with decisions made affect the contributor community much more than the project developer community, at least right now.

What I'm really suggesting here is that just a little bit of that control be divested, so that the WordPress contributor community can gain a little bit of autonomy, and can have a centralized point for communication, organization, and facilitation.

[chipbennett]

*Blatant and shameless bump, since so many new people are online right now.*