Hello
Benjamin Smedberg pinged me to say that he would find it useful if I
were to implement the idea of Emeritus Module Owners. I also suspect
this would help existing module owners feel recognized and thus better
about passing on ownership when they should. Thanks to Benjamin for the
push to get this done.
So I'm proposing a new module: Emeritus Module Owners. I'm proposing
this is a very factual status, and not a qualitative measure of how well
one did performed the role. The latter seems a receipt for trouble and
then paralysis.
Here the proposal:
1. Description of the role of Emeritus Module Owners. I propose
adding this description to the Mozilla Modules and Module Owners page at
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/module-ownership/
An Emeritus Module Owner is a former module owner who has handed over
ownership to someone new. The ability to develop new leaders is
important to health of Mozilla and our mission. It’s also very
important to recognize when someone else is the best leader of an area
or activity that one has previously owned, and then to transfer
authority smoothly. This is how we will remain robust and relevant as
an organization that outlives any one of us.
The status of Emeritus Module Owner is a factual status. It is not a
qualitative decision about the quality of one’s service as a Module
Owner, or about the effectiveness of how ownership of the Module was
passed on.
On the other hand, Emeritus Module Owners have experienced a very
particular and important part of the a Module's cycle of activities --
new leaders gaining authority. And of course, the quality of how an
Emeritus Module owner passes on ownership is an important part of his or
her legacy with the Module. Emeritus Module Owners will vary in their
skill in developing and executing a succession plan. When those sort of
qualitative understandings are needed then other owners, peers and
contributors to the Module should be consulted.
2. Template for Directory of Emeritus Module Owners.
Module Name:
Date became the module owner:
Date stopped being the module owner:
Prior module owner (if any):
Successor module owner (if any, some modules may have a natural
lifespan):
3. And actually, I see that at some point we made a "Former Module
Owners" description at our list of project roles, but we haven't done
more with it that I know of.
(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/roles/). I propose
deleting the paragraph at this page. Point 1 above adds Emeritus Module
Owners to the description of the Module system which puts all the info
re module owners in one place.
4. Implementation Topics:
a. Over time there are a large number of Emeritus Module Owners. In
fact, success in building mozilla into a long term (say 100 year)
organization requires this. We expect we will probably end up
categorizing our Emeritus Module Owners by the year in which module
ownership was passed on, e.g., “the cohort of 2015.”
b. Populating the list. We have a wiki page, which can be edited and
added to by anyone, but we require that additions be made either by the
previous or the subsequent module owner, and not by the person
themselves. That provides much of the necessary checking and
confirmation in the very act of editing.
For example, say I am a potential EMO. I would then need to find the
person who made me a MO or the person who succeeded me, and ask them to
make the edit. This would involve negotiating the correct values for
the fields between the two people, and the other person would then make
the edit, thereby confirming the agreement of the two parties.
This works much better than having people add themselves, and
incorporates some fact checking. (Thanks to Gerv for thinking up this
mechanism)
mitchell
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