Consensus, Review and Objection Management
This file lays out the process for how consensus is approached for community decisions, review of community initiatives, and how objections are managed.
Consensus
Decisions within the community are primarily driven by lazy consensus. In essence, this means unless objections are raised within the community to the initiative in question within a defined time period, it will be approved.
New issues may be raised for consideration in any forum (e.g. email, GitHub, Slack, etc.).
Conversations about community initiatives (Working Groups, outputs and resources, events) will be logged openly within our GitHub organisation, within issues. This period is known as ‘community review’.
Any discussion about the initiative should be recorded here, including:
- Approvals and objections
- Updates
- Summaries of meetings about the initiative
Discussions will remain open for a defined set of days (usually 14 or 28). Within this time period the community should aim to reach consensus, and to resolve any objections that are raised, in an open, deliberative manner.
Official Review
Decision making
When an initiative is ready for official review, it is submitted to the Steering Group.
The Steering Group will use the discussion related to the initiative from the community review to inform the decision they make. The decisions they can make depending on the initiative are laid out below:
| Initiative | Possible decision |
|---|---|
| Working group creation | Reject; Approve |
| Working group outputs | Reject; Approve; |
| Governance document amendment, creation or removal | Reject; Approve |
| Official UK TRE Community Event | Reject; Approve |
The Steering Group will publish their decision openly, including rationale for their decision, in a report.
By default, the Steering Group should not reject anything that:
- Aligns with community principles
- Is not being covered elsewhere in the community
- Has no outstanding objections
Outstanding objections and review period
Even if the initiative may have outstanding objections, the Steering Group may still approve it. In this instance, the Steering Group will maintain any outstanding objections from the community review, and publish them in their report.
The Steering Group will also create a ‘review period’ for their decision. This period represents the amount of time the decision will remain in place before being re-opened for open community review, in minimum periods of 3 months (e.g. 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, or 24 months).
For instance, if a working group’s output is approved with a review period of 12 months, it will mean the output is officially approved as of now, and in 12 months time an open community review will take place to decide whether to continue approving it.
The review period will be set by the Steering Group, and will be influenced by certain factors, including:
- The extent of consensus reached during community review
- The number, strength and popularity of outstanding objections
- The content and implications of the initiative
Raising a new objection
If a community member wants to raise a new objection to a community initiative outside the period for open community review, they may raise a new objection using the process below.
1. Open an issue
Open an issue on the community management repo using the ‘objection’ template.
This includes:
- Decision being objected: The specific decision made within the community being objected
- Linked Issues/PRs: Link to any issues, documents or other information useful for context
- Detail: The detail the member(s) raising the issue want to discuss
- Action requested: Specific, actionable items the member(s) raising the issue want to see taken
2. Validation
The Community Management Working Group will validate the issue to make sure it:
- Aligns with community principles
- Represents a new issue not currently being addressed in the community
3. Community discussion
Once approved, the issue will be open for community discussion for a period of 28 days.
4. Objection added to relevant initiative
If unresolved at the end of the 28 day period, the Steering Group will add the objection as an outstanding objection to the relevant report, and amend the review period if required.
Outstanding discussion & objections
The above is the current live and used process. Any ongoing discussions about amendments to this process will be linked here!