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What is governance and why does it matter

At WordCamp Europe 2019, someone asked Morten Rand-Hendriksen when the revolution would begin.

His answer: This is not the revolution you’re looking for.

When we launched the WordPress Governance Project back in December 2018, we made a crucial error in not clearly setting expectations right at the start.

This lack of clarity, combined with a growing undercurrent of unrest in the WordPress community, led some to label the project a revolt, a revolution, even a coup.

That’s unfortunate and has done governance, and our project, a disservice. I feel its incumbent upon myself and Morten to set the record straight so we are able to move forward as a community.

What is governance?

Governance is a seemingly misunderstood word. But the definition of governance is quite simple: “the activity of governing something” or “the way that organizations are managed at the highest level, and the systems for doing this.”

Governance is the way in which organizations get things done.

The WordPress project already has some governance, but much of it remains ad-hoc, opaque, and often inscrutable.

The WordPress Governance Project was created to clearly define, formalize, and clarify how the WordPress project is managed.

Our goal is to introduce clarity and transparency in three key areas of the WordPress project:

  • Its organizational structure
  • Its day to day processes
  • How decisions are made

The WordPress project, and its leadership, make decisions that affect a large and growing percentage of the web. Their decisions affect people’s livelihoods.

With so many impacted, it’s vital that we understand and inform users about what we do that affect their success and trust. Good intent and planned safeguards are a given, but due diligence for and with our diverse users is a must.

Governance means providing clear policies and processes. When an organization, especially one that is large and volunteer-based, lacks clear governance, the health of its people and product suffer through confusion, frustration, and growing pains.

What the governance project is not

In light of the rumors and speculation about the project, it is also important to point out what governance is not.

Governance is not democracy

We don’t believe WordPress decisions need to be voted on by the masses.

We do, however, believe that since most WordPress users don’t get to vote, decisions made by the project should be driven by clear processes and defined policy. Users have the right to know where the project stands on key issues (like privacy and ethics) so when important issues are raised, we know how the project will move forward. This is how you build trust.

Governance is not a revolution

We’re not here because we think project leadership needs to be scrapped. We want governance because we love the project and want to make sure its sustainable.

Governance is not a coup

We’re not here because we want to overthrow Matt Mullenweg.

Governance and Matt Mullenweg leading the WordPress project are not mutually exclusive.

The goal of The WordPress Governance Project isn’t to change how Matt is involved, but to more clearly define how the project is managed, and how he and others fit into the process.

We didn’t start this project because we want to remove anyone from power. We’re here because we care about the WordPress project, even more so its people, and believe that an organization of its size needs clear and transparent governance in order to remain sustainable and healthy.

How governance can help the WordPress project

There are many areas in which governance can help the WordPress project, from defining processes to creating policies, all of which serve to bring clarity to the project’s priorities and decision making.

Two great examples of the impact (the lack of) governance can have on the WordPress project can be found in recent posts on the Make blog.

Example 1: Auto-updating old versions of WordPress

Recently, Ian Dunn proposed to auto-update old versions of WordPress to 4.7 and an onslaught of feedback ensued. So much so, in fact, that Ian felt the need to schedule a follow up Slack meeting and declare “No decisions will be made during the meeting, but I hope that we can have a productive conversation and move closer to some kind of resolution.”

There is no clear path for Ian to resolve this discussion because there is no clear path for how these decisions are made, especially when the feedback is so diverse. It’s not even clear if Ian has the responsibility or authority to resolve the discussion.

Furthermore, the debate highlights the lack of a project-wide privacy policy. How does the WordPress project define consent? Does the project require explicit, implicit, or opt-out consent?

Example 2: Conflicts of interest

Recently, Timi Wahalahti posted a question about “How to handle conflict of interest situations”. While the question is specifically about Meetups and WordCamps, it brings up a larger problem: The WordPress Open Source project doesn’t have a Conflict of Interest policy, and has no way of creating or enforcing one.

Any enforcement based on conflict of interest is at best ad-hoc based on the opinions of those involved.

How to help the WordPress project

No matter where you stand in these debates, these interactions with the community pose a lot of questions:

  • Who can propose and create project policies?
  • How are those policies discussed, ratified, and enforced, and by whom?
  • What is the project’s stance on privacy and consent?
  • How will feedback be adequately and objectively represented towards a decision?
  • Where (in what public forum/space) and when will a decision be made?
  • By what mechanism will the final decision be made? And by whom?
  • Who holds accountability for the final decision?

Answers to these questions would make a big difference towards the resolution of these and future proposals and issues.

These examples highlight a key component of functional governance: clear decision making processes and the creation and enforcement of policies.

Having clear policies on important topics such as privacy, conflicts of interest, accessibility, and more can make a huge difference in building trust and moving the project forward because decisions are driven by clearly defined priorities, and not by individual opinions.

However, policies are nothing without accountability, which is why defined organizational structures and processes are just as important.

What’s next for The WordPress Governance Project

Aside from our ongoing research and governance hypothesis, the WordPress Governance Project is also focusing its efforts to help create working examples of the following policies:

  • Community Code of Conduct
  • Diversity and Inclusion Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Conflict of Interest Policy
  • Accessibility Policy

Considering there’s no clear process for proposing and ratifying these types of policies, the goal of these efforts are to create a starting point for future official discussions within the WordPress project.

If you’d like to help with the creation of these policies, please get involved and let us know.

If you’re like to get more involved, the general project meetings of The WordPress Governance Project take place every Tuesday at 4 p.m. UTC in our Slack account. Use World Time Buddy to confirm your local time.

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Change in general meeting time

Going forward, our weekly general meetings will continue to take place Tuesdays at 4 p.m. UTC. If you just went through Daylight Saving then your meeting time will move back an hour.

For example, if you’re located in Eastern Time in the United States, your meeting time went from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. You can use World Time Buddy to confirm your local time.

See you Tuesdays at 4 p.m. UTC!

Agenda for #general meeting: 8/13/19

About the meeting

The general project meetings of The WordPress Governance Project take place every Tuesday at 4 p.m. UTC. Use World Time Buddy to confirm your local time.

The meetings take place in the #general channel of our Slack account.

Meeting agenda

  1. Discuss Advisory Board proposal and how to provide constructive input
  2. Status update: Where are we with things
  3. Project scope: What should we do moving forward, and how should we do it
  4. Sub-project review: What’s happening, what’s alive, what’s dead, what new things need happening

Comments, suggestions, thoughts welcome.

Journey Maps: The Case for Governance

Any organization can function without governance, but that is not enough. You need to function and be a healthy environment for your organization, and its current and future members. In order to be healthy, you need clear structure, processes, and decisions. That is what governance means.

Rachel Cherry 2019

The task of coming up with a vision of WordPress governance can be overwhelming. It’s a lot of responsibility to imagine what an ideal experience can be, then render the governance documentation to achieve and support that experience.

We have broken this task into smaller components and by doing so a vision emerges from a series of smaller tactics. (interviews, usability observation, personas, scenarios, & journey maps).

Here’s how teams have worked through the UX tactics:

  • Identify Stakeholders and groups of Stakeholders
  • Observe & interview people as they use current conditions in the WordPress ecosystem to work through tasks
  • Note the order of steps use cases takes and measure each step frustrating or delightful
  • Create a journey map that shows the experience of each with a horizontal timeline and marker that represent each step
  • Measure frustration and delight on the map using a vertical timeline
  • Resulting maps shows the current experience for that scenario
  • Create different maps for each Stakeholder and look for patterns that emerge

This work, lead by UX Architect Cathi Bosco is a team effort by many contributing members of the WordPress community. The following documentation and research is for identifying specific evidence (pain points) and experiences useful for facilitating important conversations. This is a useful practice for the purpose of identifying problems in need of solutions.

Journey maps

A journey map is a diagram that visualizes the journey of stakeholders as they interact or accomplish tasks within the WordPress project.

How to read this document and journey maps:

  • Click through each map graphic to view and interact with the actual journey map at scale
  • Each journey map highlights frustrating experiences and delightful experiences along the course of a set of tasks per stakeholder
  • The pain points or frustrating experiences are highlighted in the red panels of the journey maps
  • Both the delightful and frustrating experiences are noted in the bullet points below each chart

Language, Geographical, and Culturally Diverse

Illustration of two individuals with different geographical locations and communicating using different languages thanks to WordPress website designs

Suresh owns a company that provides professional language learning services internationally. They use WordPress multisite installation for their platform. The company, their clients, and their students all depend on WordPress to work no matter what language or region they represent.

Diagram of Language, Geographical, and Culturally Diverse WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 Using WordPress multisite allows the administration staff to customize their own platform for their specific student base
  • 👍 Plugin author can make requests within the WordPress channels for volunteer translators to help
  • ⚠️ More translation support for plugins is needed
  • ⚠️ Need to improve of the processes for adding translations for plugins in core

Individuals & Educators

Illustration of a college instructor giving a lecture in front of a screen on a stage from behind

Robin is the IT lead engineer at a state university in the USA and is tasked with setting up hosting and a website for the school. Their team needs specific functionality, to protect the privacy of the site guests, and must meet accessibility requirements for their work.

Diagram of Individuals & Educators WordPress Journey Map
Diagram of Migration of Individuals & Educators WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 WordPress web development can meet WCAG standards with some work
  • 👍 Fallback on the Classic editor proves very useful
  • 👍 Great resources are available through the plugin repository
  • 👍 WordPress web development can be done in compliance with Privacy Laws
  • ⚠️ Mapping illustrates the need for WCAG accessibility compliance
  • ⚠️ Evidence that some plugins conflict with legislation about privacy tracking
  • ⚠️ Illustrates that documentation is not easily available for the Gutenberg editor
  • ⚠️ Need for standardized formatting for more successful migration of sites
  • ⚠️ Themes and plugins can cause formatting & usability issues

Site Owners for Hobby & Pastime Websites

Illustration of an aerial view of a web editor working on publishing content to their website and previewing it on their mobile phone

Sam is a member of a trail running community. They have a domain and are ready to set up hosting. They choose WordPress for their blog because their group is not technical and they love the ability to write essays with the visual editor. When asked why not just run a Facebook group for the trail running group, Sam replies, “because not everyone uses Facebook.”

Diagram of Site Owners for Hobby & Pastime Websites WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 Easy to disseminate information from a WordPress blog
  • 👍 Control and ownership of content
  • 👍 Low cost to get started
  • 👍 A lot of beautiful themes and useful plugins to choose from
  • ⚠️ Confusion between .com and .org
  • ⚠️ Maintenance of a website and managing plugin conflicts is challenging
  • ⚠️ Struggles to find clear, non-technical documentation that is easily available in WordPress (maybe on dashboard)

Small Business

Illustration of an enthusiastic woman adding stars to her small business WordPress website while feeling inspired

Melissa is a naturopathic doctor who started using WordPress to help launch her new practice in her local community. After learning more about themes and customizing how her website looks, she began publishing information about natural remedies that have led to her to add phone consultations to her services.

Diagram of Small Business WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 WordPress website can grow and add dynamic functionality to grow business and increase revenue channels for a business over time
  • 👍 Adding ecommerce to a site can support business growth
  • 👍 Consumer audiences can transcend local regions for larger reach
  • ⚠️ Lacks the time and resources to build and manage the website without help
  • ⚠️ Users struggle to find best practices in WordPress, as well as finding help (paid and free) when issues arise
  • ⚠️ Support for both initial site setup/creation as well as support for the growth & maintenance of an evolving site as functionality is added and maintenance is required

Consumers or Audiences

Illustration of the globe identifying audiences all over the world use WordPress

Finley is searching for recipes on line. Ease of finding the information, products, or services they are looking for is important to Finley regardless of the device they are using or if they are traveling or connected to service in their house. Finley finds a beautiful website powered by WordPress.

Diagram of Consumers or Audiences WordPress Stakeholder Journey Map
  • 👍 The top search results are from recipe sites built with WordPress
  • 👍 Taxonomies provide an efficient and immersive browsing experience
  • 👍 Easy to share sites and site content with friends to engage with
  • ⚠️ Poor performance, privacy, and consent concerns on some sites
  • ⚠️ Lack of accessibility standards lead to negative impacts on the diverse use cases who browse and engage with WordPress websites (perhaps unknowingly) everyday
  • ⚠️ Highlights the importance of considering the end-user and web standards implications the ecosystem creates

Accessibility Required

Illustration of an aerial view of a visually impaired person at a desk using the tab button to tab through a WordPress website while having tea

In progress
https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_kxoZaWw=/


Publishers

Illustration of an aerial view of a WordPress content publisher at a standing desk

In progress
https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_kxoZaNo=


Enterprise

Illustration of a group of business buildings

BWH is a large, enterprise scale company and the CEO is very accomplished technically. They dedicate a lot of their professional time to the WordPress project. A large percentage of their business depends on WordPress to be successful. The CEO was asked to take on a leadership role in the Project.

Diagram of Enterprise WordPress Stakeholder Journey Map
  • 👍 Large companies invest a lot of resources and make many very important contributions to the WordPress project
  • 👍 Sponsoring contributors is another support system that they bring
  • 👍 Sponsoring WordCamps and infrastructure are celebrated
  • 👍 Influencers of continued increased adoption of WordPress across the world
  • 👍 Support features aimed at improving the reliability, security and stability of WordPress
  • ⚠️ Leadership and team roles need to be clearly defined
  • ⚠️ The WordPress Project is served best by being supported by a more diverse and a broad variety of individuals from a variety of large companies
  • ⚠️ Communication channels around strategy, vision, and roadmaps need to be opened up
  • ⚠️ As WordPress grows so does their role in the governance of the open web and a more collaborative and functional community is deemed necessary and the responsible choice

Freelance Developers and Designers

Illustration of an aerial view of a freelance web designer/developer working at a desk

Yih-Woei, an independent developer and small business owner attends a local MeetUp. The organizer of the MeetUp learns that Yih-Woei has specialization with accessibility and invites Yih-Woei to begins speaking publicly and sharing knowledge.

Diagram of Freelance Developers & Designers WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 WordPress is a strong and extremely welcoming community
  • 👍 Developers find WordPress has great extensibility – easy to add and create plugins and themes
  • 👍 Open Source is rewarding as we can contribute and make it do whatever we want
  • 👍 It is possible to be sponsored to give presentations at WordCamps
  • ⚠️ Confusion about paid/sponsored speakers vs unpaid/unsponsored speakers at a WordCamp – how the payment/remuneration affects the direction of their talk
  • ⚠️ How a sponsorship can change the message in a presentation or project for WordPress

Makers and Entrepreneurs

Illustration of WordPress Developer working at a standing desk writing code

Patricia, a developer opens a WordPress plugin shop. They have 3 plugins in the repo that have over 600,000 installs specializing in SEO and Social Media integrations. As a company they do a lot of work contributing to WordPress core and are known for creating custom applications as well.

Diagram of Makers & Entrepreneurs WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 A growing company that grows with WordPress produces job opportunities and financial security for successful teams
  • 👍 As companies and teams gain traction they often generously contribute back to the WordPress project
  • 👍 Volunteers within the project are incredibly skilled and dedicated to their work and responsibilities giving extreme care to be thoughtful and sincere in their communications
  • ⚠️ The workload on volunteers and team leads (a team of 2) all plugin reviews fall on the shoulders of a small team
  • ⚠️ There is no known code of conduct for the WordPress Project (unlike the WordCamps) and the plugin review team often experience a lot of pressure and abuse
  • ⚠️ A lack of ongoing UX usability testing
  • ⚠️ A lack of productive channels for expression of frustration, concerns, and dissenting opinions

Past, Present, and Future Innovators

Illustration of a woman creating something new and innovative with WordPress at a drawing board

Jay is a WordPress software engineer working for a larger publishing company. Jay is hired because of their WordPress expertise and after their new platform is completed is is well received among early adopters! They sell subscriptions and business grows.

Diagram of Past, Present, & Future Innovators WordPress Journey Map
  • 👍 WordPress software engineers, developers, and designers are in demand as the popularity of the platform grows and delivers reliable experiences
  • 👍 Multiple authors are able to contribute within the platform
  • 👍 As the community evolves and grows troubleshooting issues becomes less daunting for teams
  • ⚠️ Improve communication and decision making to minimize the disruption experienced when a big change to WordPress occurs
  • ⚠️ Before a big release is shipped, plugin and theme developers need an adequate amount of time to develop and test their products to ensure readiness
  • ⚠️ Need for open communications and timeline decision making for the future

The WordPress Project: Some Paid and Some Volunteer

Illustration from the WordPress project showcasing diverse people using WordPress around the globe

From the collection of volunteers, builders, administrators, and users who support and use WordPress, Sasha is a sponsored team lead for the Accessibility team. WordPress teams are currently building the new block editor called Gutenberg.

Diagram of The WordPress Project- Some Paid and Some Volunteer Journey Map
  • 👍 The community works hard together and takes on extremely difficult challenges together
  • 👍 Ambitious work on projects or initiatives often takes months and years of teamwork to achieve set goals and to secure forward momentum for the project
  • 👍 WordPress teams often take proactive measures towards identifying deficiencies and beginning to work on solutions
  • 👍 The project provides for backward compatibility through the fluid nature of the technology
  • 👍 WordPress project leader sets up “Office Hours to Gutenberg and 5.0 Listening Office Hours” to create opportunities to open up the lines of communication and continues to promote transparency and improved communication moving forward
  • ⚠️ The is tension between paid and unpaid volunteers
  • ⚠️ Prioritization of suggestions & contributions by unpaid team members
  • ⚠️ Projects for governments and higher ed (USA) must meet accessibility regulations and WordPress could therefore give equal weight to this priority
  • ⚠️ Need for improved communications, transparency and inclusion for road-mapping the future of WordPress
  • ⚠️ Improve processes, consensus, and rules as well as a role in the process for standards, inclusivity, and accessibility teams
  • ⚠️ Consider how to organize and represent our community across the wider web and how to contribute to improving the state of the web

WordPress Community Supporters

Illustration of a WordPress supporter pointing to the sign with the WordPress logo to signify how welcoming the WordPress community is

Terry, leads a monthly MeetUp in South Africa and volunteers to coordinate a larger WordCamp held annually in Cape Town. Terry decides to start a new WordCamp with a group of co-organizers. They regularly give back to the community, create and share their learning, and build networks of support so that people can help themselves. WordCamps help launch careers, build meaningful connections and help to move the web forward.

Diagram for WordPress Community Supporters Journey Map
  • 👍 Community supporters have made some excellent professional relationships as well as some life long friends for themselves and for others
  • 👍 The WordPress community builds networks of support so that people can help themselves through community events like WordCamps
  • 👍 Meet others that share the same passion — WordPress
  • 👍 Budget provided by Central covers the venue, swag, food, and beverages
  • 👍 The price to attend and learn at a WordCamp is affordable and inclusive
  • 👍 The “5 For The Future” initiative supports some of Terry’s team for some of their volunteer time working at this camp
  • ⚠️ People travel from long distances to contribute to and to learn more about working with WordPress 
  • ⚠️ Challenges experienced by unpaid volunteers who create & execute a WordCamp in their city or territory
  • ⚠️ Improve communication and support needed by these organizers and their unpaid contributions, challenges, and sacrifices

Grouping of Stakeholders

WPGovernance MindMap | Stakeholders  – complete in progress – living documentation

Diagram of Grouping of Stakeholders WPGovernance MindMap

General meeting minutes: 07/02/2019

The following are minutes from the general project meeting on Tuesday, July 2, 2019.

All documents for The WordPress Governance Project can be accessed on the project’s Google Drive.

Props: Pat Lockley, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Rachel Cherry

Agenda

  1. Summarize events and discussions at WCEU (Morten Rand-Hendriksen)
  2. Overview of next steps for the project

Minutes

  • Morten summarized WCEU (WordCamp Europe)
    • Two notable things took place:
      • The Governance Project had a surprise table at Contributor Day
      • Had two WP Cafe Sessions:
        • One on internal governance
        • One on representing WordPress in the political arena
    • Governance project table at Contributor Day:
      • Roughly 10 people sat down to talk about governance and do some work on communication team structure
      • About 20-30 people stopped by the table to voice their support for the project. Attendance less as people had committed to join other tables announced beforehand. There was also a common sentiment that sitting down at the table would somehow be harmful
      • Discussed the need for the project to work on marketing to make sure people understand that the project is not a coup or some sort of rebellion
      • Will there be a Governance Project table at WCUS Contributor Day?
        • Right now, no, not unless something major changes.
      • The Governance Project lives outside the official WordPress project and therefore doesn’t “belong” at CD.
    • WP Cafe Sessions:
      • WC Cafe sessions were announced well in advance, and were quite successful.
      • 1st one, titled “Who are the deciders? A Governance Conversation” happened the morning of day 1. About 40 people showed up including core contributors and key project leads. It was a 45 minute workshop on exploring leadership.
        • Take aways:
          • More transparency and clearer communications
          • Clear leadership paths and clear declaration of decision making powers
          • Need for more community input
      • 2nd session, titled “Representing WordPress in the Political Arena” took place on day 2. 20 people attended this one. Session focused on how to turn the WordPress mission statement into policy.
        • Take aways:
          • WordPress needs to speak for its users
          • This means it needs policy positions
          • These need internal governance to ratify and representatives
          • We don’t have the time for 3, so need a solution
  • Work is needed on explain what the project is about
  • Discussion on reluctance of people to contribute depending on how project is seen
  • Rachel will be discussing the project on the Post Status Publish conference
  • Next steps:
    • Marketing for the project (blog post, Publish)
    • Journey maps blog post
    • Governance model hypothesis
  • Pat updated re governance models progress – asked about whether more questions could be added to the form
  • Heather raised a belief in governance via software systems seemed a common view at WCEU – and that software systems will provide governance
  • Heather raised that 501c3 (USA Non-profit / no federal tax) companies cannot do various things politically
  • Noikolai asked for clarification on the project’s purpose, Rachel said it was about implementing governance to stay healthy
  • Heather raised issues over how we proceed and whether it is worth it re open web policies (re 501c3)

Action items

  • Publish blog post about “what is governance”
  • Publish journey maps blog post
  • Publish governance model hypothesis

General meeting minutes: 04/16/2019

The following are minutes from the general project meeting on Tuesday, April 16, 2019.

All documents for The WordPress Governance Project can be accessed on the project’s Google Drive.

Props: Pat Lockley and Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Agenda

  1. Comments on minutes from last meeting (if any)
  2. Appointment of meeting lead + secretary
  3. Update on action items from last meeting
  4. WCEU and publication strategy
  5. Open floor

Minutes

  • Review of minutes from previous meeting. No issues.
  • Morten chaired, Pat took minutes.
  • Updates from last meeting:
    • Morten invited people to join the Trello board.
    • Blog post about Team Drive action put back a week due to time commitments.
    • Morten thanked Cathi for her work with others on the stakeholder document.
    • Pat brought up the form doc being migrated and whether the related blog post needed changing, but it seems “ok”.
  • Point 4 – WCEU and publication strategy
    • Morten confirmed Alex noting the Governance Project does not have a slot on the WCEU schedule.
    • Morten confirmed it was never an official goal to announce at an event (and subsequent discussion has occurred in #general and #group-communication).
    • Discussion occurred on how to best release and distribute the data.
    • Discussion to continue at next general meeting.
  • Morten moved to open floor
    • Remkus suggested he may be able to do stuff at WCEU – contributor day was mentioned. Remkus will check.
    • Pat raised issues over raising agenda items and suggested tweets (as discussed previously) as possible slack channels. Morten created two new channels: #suggested-agenda and #suggested-tweets.
    • Discussion over an outreach team
    • Discussion over meeting time changes. European members want the meeting moved to one hour earlier. Discussion around the meeting time being North America / Western Europe friendly possibly excluding contributors from other regions.

Action items

  • Add discussion of publication strategy surrounding WCEU on the agenda for next meeting.
  • Remkus to explore options for WCEU.
  • Add discussion of meeting times to agenda for next meeting.

General meeting minutes: 04/9/2019

The following are minutes from the general project meeting on Tuesday, April 9, 2019.

All documents for The WordPress Governance Project can be accessed on the project’s Google Drive.

Props: Pat Lockley and Rachel Cherry

Agenda

  1. Review action items from March 26th meeting
    Make sure everyone knows how to join Trello board
    New: Team Drive
    New: Automated tweets
    Discussion: Current project documents
    Discussion: Project research on existing governance
    Discussion: Project’s governance hypothesis
    Open floor

Minutes

  • Review of the Trello board
    • Everyone is free to self-assign tasks.
  • New: Team Drive
  • Confirmed auto tweeting new blog posts and meeting reminders was complete
  • Discussed suggestions for recurring / automatic tweets
  • Discussed current project documents
    • Cathi Bosco shared the work on #group-communication
    • Including experience maps and stakeholder identification
    • Cathi and Alex Sirota have been workshopping scenarios, which need proof reading
  • Discussed promotion and support for communication documents
  • Discussed new research: case studies on current WordPress teams and their governance: what exists, what works, what doesn’t work, what they’d like to see changed/implemented.
  • Discussion: Morten Rand-Hendriksen and Rachel Cherry to get started on project’s governance hypothesis

Action items

What should WordPress Governance look like?

As the weekend approaches, here’s my challenge to the WordPress community and other interested parties:

If you got to decide, what would WordPress’ governance structure look like?

As work progresses in the WordPress Governance Project, several people have reached out with suggestions and opinions about what WordPress governance should look like. This is a good thought experiment to get the conversation going about both what is and what can be. It is also a good platform to build a Governance Hypothesis, effectively a starting point from which further research can be conducted.

We are looking for all opinions here, short ones, long ones, new ideas, tried-and-tested models from other projects, general concepts, and fully fleshed out governance proposals. This is your opportunity to think big and approach the governance of 33.4% of the web as a design problem.

Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below or in blog posts (and link them in the comments below) and take part in the development of a Governance Hypothesis for WordPress.

I know you have opinions on this. Even if the opinion is “I want everything to stay exactly as it is today,” we want to hear it. So, avoid disappointment and future regret. Act now!

Comments & Suggestions: WordPress Stakeholders Document

We’d like to take this opportunity to request input from the wider WordPress community as we continue the work of identifying the Stakeholders of WordPress. We are further identifying 3 unique Stakeholders, Publishers, Enterprise, and Freelance Developers/Designers. Please review the entire document and make any comments or suggestions as we go through another editing phase. – Thank you

Add your comments and suggestions to the comment section of this page: Identifying the Stakeholder of WordPress

While we collectively begin the creation of a proposed Governance Document to support WordPress, it is useful to identify who the project serves.