management.md 4.5 KB


title: General management guidelines and leadership information x-toc-enable: true ...

This document sets out general guidelines for how the Transit project is governed, managed and who constitutes the core leadership of the project.

All project members must act according to the Guidelines for Good Conduct in the Transit community.

Democratic governance of the Transit project

Previously, the Transit leadership was a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) arrangement, with the project's founder (Leah Rowe) having exclusive control over the project and, while initially effective, was found to be ineffective and counter-productive in the long term.

The old leadership structure has been abandoned, and Leah is no longer leader of the Transit project. This decision was made democratically and collectively, by the same overall standards set out in this document, with Leah's direct approval and participation, in the best long-term interests of the Transit project, where she agreed to stand down as project leader.

In principle and in practise, Transit is now a collectively and democratically governed project. Any individual member of the community, regardless of their current standing or reputation, can propose changes to the project (this includes code/documentation contributions, project management decisions and so on). The proposal can be absolutely anything, within reason where it is relevant to Transit and could be beneficial.

All proposals are subject to review and approval by the community. In the case of site patches, any member of the public can also voice their opinions on a contribution; the patch will also be reviewed by one of the core maintainers of the project. In the case of general project decisions, such as general policies of the project and management roles (such as, removing a core member who starts acting out of line with and/or in violation of project policies), the decision will also be polled by the community, to assess public support for such a decision. With public approval, and agreement among the core maintainers, the decision would then be enacted, and it falls on them to implement the mandate that was set, whatever that mandate might be.

Actual places to poll members of the public, shall be decided on by the core maintainers (we'll probably just use IRC. We're a small community).

Those who are part of the core maintainers and core management team, can be appointed and removed at the behest of popular public demand, with approval from the current core maintainers and/or management team within the Transit project.

Generally, the project should not have a single leader, but if such a role is required in the future, it will be a rotating leadership, to be changed after a certain period, subject to approval by the core maintainers and by popular public demand. Exact infrastructure for how to cast such votes and make such appointments will be decided at that time, when it becomes necessary for the Transit project.

The public, in this context, refers to the members of the IRC channels that we run.

Information about Transit's code review and code management guidelines can be found on the Git section of the website.

Information about core team members, responsible for the Transit project

  • Alyssa Rosenzweig handles Communications and Public Relations*, acting additionally as the official System Administrator for the Transit project infrastructure. IRC nick alyssa on Freenode.
  • Leah Rowe is one of the core developers. IRC nick _4of7 on Freenode
  • IRC nick NeoNamo in the IRC channel.

All of the people above are moderators in the Transit IRC channel, and form the basis of the project's collective inner leadership, responsible as trustees for the project in ensuring the projects long-term success and for general management of the project.

All core members have push access to the Git repository for Transit. Additionally, Alyssa and Leah have SSH access (including root) to the main server for Transit.org (this list will expand, if Alyssa and Leah both agree and if it is appropriate, e.g. if more System Administrators join the project).

Any member of the public can join this list, if they make substantial contributions and the core team members agree to it. Transit's leadership is open to the public.

Other team members (IRC operators) who also have influence:

  • Not listed on the website, for their privacy.