Governance Taskforce Recommendation "Grow the Community Working Group to Offer More Support"

The Community Working Group performs an important governance function. It should be expanded to enable it to better serve a global community and have a localized version in other regions.

What we heard:

The CWG oversees community governance and day-to-day conflict resolution. This responsibility currently falls upon three or four community members, which is not a sufficient number for the workload. There is a great need for conflict resolution, diplomacy, and nurturing of community health — which should be a shared burden.

We acknowledge that the CWG is actively recruiting new members, but a modest expansion may not be sufficient to serve the growing needs of the group and the community.

The work of the CWG requires an understanding of privacy, governance, and conflict resolution, and demands significant emotional labour and strong communication skills. These are specialised skills, and we would not wish for the CWG to become less selective, but the challenges posed by a large, global community make this responsibility difficult for any small group of people to carry. Expansion is needed.

What we recommend:

We recommend that the CWG expand the group’s types of roles, accommodating a much larger group and allowing a more equitable distribution of labor. Diversifying roles would create openings for volunteers with a range of skills, and reduce the need for all CWG members to be involved in every incident. It would extend the reach of the CWG, increasing the likelihood that someone will be available when needed. This would also improve responsiveness across time zones, reduce language and cultural barriers, and reduce conflicts of interest.

We further recommend the creation of regional CWGs, or that the CWG recruits and assigns a representative with the necessary language skills to local associations. It is important to be able to respond promptly to community members, and (if possible) do so in their native language. It is recommended that these groups or representatives operate as an integrated part of the CWG, not as independent bodies.

We want to acknowledge that the CWG benefits from many of the other recommendations in the proposal. Training offerings can help with recruitment, legal support can mitigate risk to those involved, and increased financial support may allow the CWG to move their efforts forward. It should be explicitly noted that, as part of our recommendation, the CWG must avoid a single point of authority and should not report directly to Dries. We recommend the CWG escalate items to the new, proposed Community Governance Group. The proposed group will need to have the proper authority, and legal and fiscal support, to be successful in this capacity.