JED Council in the upcoming Directory Guideline Discussion and Terms of Use

[Matt Lipscomb]

Hi Everyone,

As the JED continues to grow exponentially and is a vital part of the Joomla ecosystem, we must continue to engage with end users, developers, volunteers and leadership.  Additionally, it is recognized that we need a more formal structure.  The upcoming (posting this week) DRAFT guidelines and DRAFT terms of use (final version expected implementation on Jan 1, 2011) includes an enhanced structure up for debate.

A specific part of this (and the reason I'm posting this here) is the inclusion of a JED Council.  Jeremy Wilken was kind enough to offer up some ideas and suggestions to the CLT while in San Jose, and while this is not exactly the same as his ideas, this is founded on that.  A special thanks to him for being a "visionary" in this and having the guts to recognize a need and offer a solution to it.  After much discussion here is the idea... 

JED Council

A group of 6(?) members that consists of 3 end users, 3 developers

The objectives of the council are...

1. Review appeals cases where a user and their listings have been suspended (recieved a ban) if the user requests it along w/ a member of the CLT (that is not on the JED Team)
   
2. Provide ideas and Input on changes that broadly affect the JED procedurely and have substantial impact on the community and devs
   
3. Propose enhancements/changes and visionary guides for the future of the JED
   

One member of the JED Team Manager role will be the liaison between the council and the JED Team.

One member of the CLT will provide oversight and be the liaison between the JED Council and the CLT and have the "swing vote" if needed on appeal cases.

The first selection of 6 will be "appointed" by the CLT, however, the goal is to have this first group outline guidelines/procedures/practices.  The idea is that this provides the developer and end-user communities with a strong and balanced voice in decisions that affect them.

I do realize that this first structure is very "undefined", and that is intentional.  It would be the job of the first council to structure it logically and then submit that to the CLT for approval rather than one or two people defining it for everyone.

The purpose of the council is not to make decisions for the team, but instead to be visionaries, goal setters and a balance for team decisions.

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Not looking for an up or down vote on this, just general input.

[Brad Baker]

This sounds like a great way to allow community and developer input to our busiest website. I'm all for it

[Paul Orwig]

Matt,

First, as you mentioned thanks to Jeremy Wilkens for the time and effort he put into exploring this idea with us in San Jose, and thanks to you for picking up on it and moving it foward. I believe Robert Vining also mentioned this idea (I think possibly referring to Jono Bacon as a source for the idea) in an interview you and I had with him and Alice Grevet on Joomstew along with David Deutsch (sp?).

What I like about this idea is that it can hopefully allow members of the community to have a more direct role in processes that previously have been handled by the JED a/o CLT. There is frequently a lot of passion and diverse viewpoints when JED issues come up, and we also hear complaints that the JED makes decisions in a vacuum without allowing the community to have a key role in the process. A major goal for the JED council would be to address those issues.

If this idea moves forward, here are some questions I would like to see addressed, either defined up front or allowing the initial JED council to come up with recommendations:

1. What would be the term durations for JED council members to serve?
2. Once the initial JED council finished it's term, how would new members be nominated and selected?

Thanks again,

paul

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Brad Baker <br...@joomlatutorials.com> wrote:

This sounds like a great way to allow community and developer input to our busiest website. I'm all for it

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[Matt Lipscomb]

Thanks guys - I think it's really important to provide stronger voices in the decision-making process for these directories and also believe it's a natural course of growth similar to corporations that have experienced such change.

@Paul:  Those are great questions, and agree they should be answered.  One of the things that is specifically intended here is that this council form it's own structure, and that questions like that should be answered by it's collective body.  The basic governing principle behind this is that the JED Council should operate semi-autonomously to the JED in terms of function and procedure - as in, it's not meant to be specifically a part of the JED Team.  The purpose of this is to keep the council from being "unable to see the forest for the trees."  Could very well be the wrong way to go about it, but it's the idea we seem to be running with so far - any other suggestions are welcome.  :-)

It's really great to see how previous discussions like on JoomStew and the Bob Bloom show, partnered with leading community experts opinions like Jono Bacon, have grown into practical applications and action items.  It's really amazing when community input is provided constructively and acted upon realistically.