<div dir="ltr">This is an incredibly important initiative. Having procedures to ensure that we can preserve vital infrastructure (bots and tools), and a committee to oversee the process of implementing those procedures, is a crucial step to "future-proofing" Wikimedia. It certainly helps me sleep better at night :)<div><br></div><div>So, heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Bryan and the Tool Labs Standards Committee for stepping up. I promise to support your work any way I can!</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Jonathan</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 2:29 PM, Bryan Davis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bd808@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">bd808@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hopefully most of you are aware that over the last several months I<br>
have been working with the Tool Labs community to draft policies to<br>
help ensure that vital tools and bots can live on if their initial<br>
maintainers lose interest or are otherwise prevented from keeping<br>
their projects in good working order. I am very happy to announce that<br>
we now have two policies and a volunteer working committee to help<br>
enforce the policies.<br>
<br>
The Tool Labs right to fork policy [0] helps to protect Wikimedia<br>
wikis from loss of a useful tool. It guarantees the right to fork an<br>
existing tool project by developers who are interested in extending<br>
and maintaining it after the original developers have lost interest.<br>
<br>
The Tool Labs Abandoned Tool policy [1] helps to protect Wikimedia<br>
wikis from loss of a useful tool. It defines processes for:<br>
* Requesting to be added as co-maintainer of a tool which has no<br>
active maintainers (adoption)<br>
* Requesting removal of inactive maintainers in a tool they have<br>
adopted (usurpation)<br>
<br>
The Tool Labs Standards Committee [2] is a group of Wikimedia<br>
volunteers who review, approve, and facilitate access requests for the<br>
source code of Tool Labs hosted tools, and adoption and usurpation of<br>
abandoned tools. Seven outstanding community members have been chosen<br>
to form the initial committee:<br>
* Eran Roz (User:Eranroz)<br>
* James Hare (User:Harej)<br>
* Huji Lee (User:Huji)<br>
* Amir Sarabadani (User:Ladsgroup)<br>
* Matanya (User:Matanya)<br>
* Nick Wilson (User:Quiddity)<br>
* zhuyifei1999 (User:Zhuyifei1999)<br>
<br>
There is a lot of work left to be done to establish the basic<br>
operating procedures used by the committee. I am looking forward<br>
working with the committee to help them get started. After some<br>
initial setup I expect them to become self-sufficient in carrying out<br>
the work of evaluating and processing requests from the community.<br>
Please join me both in thanking these individuals for accepting this<br>
responsibility and in helping them support all of us who create and<br>
use tools to make the wikis better.<br>
<br>
<br>
[0]: <a href="https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Tool_Labs/Right_to_fork_policy" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wikitech.wikimedia.<wbr>org/wiki/Help:Tool_Labs/Right_<wbr>to_fork_policy</a><br>
[1]: <a href="https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Tool_Labs/Abandoned_tool_policy" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wikitech.wikimedia.<wbr>org/wiki/Help:Tool_Labs/<wbr>Abandoned_tool_policy</a><br>
[2]: <a href="https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Tool_Labs/Tool_Labs_standards_committee" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wikitech.wikimedia.<wbr>org/wiki/Help:Tool_Labs/Tool_<wbr>Labs_standards_committee</a><br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
Bryan<br>
--<br>
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation <<a href="mailto:bd808@wikimedia.org">bd808@wikimedia.org</a>><br>
[[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] Sr Software Engineer Boise, ID USA<br>
irc: bd808 v:<a href="tel:415.839.6885%20x6855" value="+14158396885">415.839.6885 x6855</a><br>
<br>
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</font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Jonathan T. Morgan<div>Senior Design Researcher</div><div>Wikimedia Foundation</div><div><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)" target="_blank">User:Jmorgan (WMF)</a></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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