validate and update TC membership

[gireeshpunathil]

It is observed that many TC members are not active in the project for a long time (1 - 2 years):

• no activity in the repos
• no appearance in the TC sittings

The problem of status-quo is it make it look like there are enough members, but practically unavailable for reviews, decision making and other project work, while two or three members are taking up the entire TC responsibility on their shoulders.

proposal:

• validate TC membership status
  • gentle private email individually to assess their continued interest in the project
• update the list based on the validation
• identify and promote new members if need be

[dougwilson]

As far as the validation goes, what is the proposal, just ask them? As far our bylaws, that is at most all we can do unless they are changed:

https://github.com/expressjs/express/blob/master/Contributing.md#tc-process

Members who do not participate consistently at the level of a majority of the other members are expected to resign.

We do not have any bylaws around a forced resignation or similar, with the only documented offboarding being that the member resigns themselves. If the idea is to force resign any member, the actual process should be updated first to document that down so there is no contentions when it comes down to it. Of course, if a member resigns by themselves, then there is no contesting :)

[blakeembrey]

Sounds pretty reasonable. I've been meaning to be more involved myself but the timing has been difficult to meet with everything happening, I'll try and make the next one. I do think it'd be good to help get more people involved or taking ownership where possible.

[gireeshpunathil]

If the idea is to force resign any member, the actual process should be updated first to document that down so there is no contentions when it comes down to it.

@dougwilson - no, my proposal is to send private emails to inactive members to see their continued interest in the project. I expect TC members to respond, by either expressing their justifications as well as future plans, or stepping down voluntarily, if there is no continued interest. We could then re-assess the membership based on the outcome.

In either way, there is neither proposal to force-resign members, nor a bylaw change proposal from me, to that effect.

[dougwilson]

So I went though each of the active members listed on expressjs.com and used the two metrics you provided in the OP: repo activity and appearance in TC meetings. All active members have been active and been in at least one TC meeting within the last 1 year, though you noted that there are members who have not been active for at least 1-2 years in those aspects.

So it doesn't appear that there are any members who would currently meet the bar to send out emails to -- all members who would are already in the inactive list 🎉

[gireeshpunathil]

@dougwilson - why closing an issue when the discussion hasn't completed?

You mixed some of my pointers with your criteria to derive strange observations and conclusions: You picked up my 1-2 years on the face , but then fully abandoned send private emails to inactive members to see their continued interest in the project. why?

open questions that come out of your last comment

• where is the inactive list of members?
• what is the plan with inactive members? do we carry the list? or contact them?
• what is the action plan / alternatives to improve express TC membership?

Request to close issues with OP's ratification wherever possible.

[dougwilson]

You mixed some of my pointers with your criteria to derive strange observations and conclusions: You picked up my 1-2 years on the face , but then fully abandoned send private emails to inactive members to see their continued interest in the project. why?

There are no by-laws around "validating a membership" -- current members are free to self-resign, of course. If we want to introduce some sort of membership validation, we can certainly discuss that, but I'm not going to send people emails asking them to explain their current & future plans with the project in order to validate their membership when that has never been something expected of anyone. This is a conversation that should be driven by another TC member.

where is the inactive list of members?

It's right below the list of active members http://expressjs.com/en/resources/community.html#technical-committee

what is the plan with inactive members? do we carry the list? or contact them?

They are already inactive -- it's a historical list.

what is the action plan / alternatives to improve express TC membership?

TC membership is already described in the by laws are part of becoming part of the Node.js foundation: https://github.com/expressjs/express/blob/master/Contributing.md#tc-process And, I for one, do not know anyone who currently understand the Express.js project well enough who is not already part of the TC to nominate to become a TC member. If a TC member does have a nomination of an existing committer to become a TC member, they are welcome to make such a nomination.

[wesleytodd]

I am a fan of focusing on meaningful changes, and I am not sure how much value is here. I made the change on the website because I did see the point in identifying active an inactive members to the point @gireeshpunathil brought up:

it make it look like there are enough members, ... while two or three members are taking up the entire TC responsibility on their shoulders

That said, an update on the website was a small change since I was already doing some refactors on it. Actually changing the charter and then spending time seeing who is still interested is not super valuable to me, especially since it is so much work. In the future, once we iron out some of the current work and issues, I do think we should take a look at this topic.