[discuss] Establish a more lightweight decision making process for the GB

[sagelywizard]

@choldgraf mentioned the idea that we could establish a more lightweight decision-making process. I'll copy/paste his suggestion here:

Give that we're all very busy and largely asynchronous except for once a week, I suggest we try to follow a lightweight model like:

1. Describe the intent in an issue (which you've done above, we might want to add more detail like "will we create a new repository"). This should include a time-box for the decision ("If there aren't objections in X days we will action this", choose X with your best judgment based on complexity of the ask)
2. Define a place for the governing board to "watch" for actions that will happen without objections.
3. Put the issue in that place and field any questions / iterate on the idea / etc.
4. At the end of X days, if there are no objections, then act on it.
5. Once the action is done, close the issue.

I also suggest that we define basic working principles like "Trust one another's judgment, provide transparency about intent and rationale, and bias towards action when in doubt" so that we recognize that we might not get it perfect, but the important thing is to iterate and trust that we're all doing our best to move forward.

Let's discuss!

[choldgraf]

We discussed this a bit in the board meeting today. Here were some major takeaways that I recall:

• For "speaking as the board" (e.g. releasing minutes) we need approval from the board
• For taking action for things we've already approved, or for documenting things that are already true, we should get one approval from another board member and then it's OK to act.
  • So for example: The board approves the public minutes with a full vote, then somebody adds them to the repository via a PR, and this PR can be approved by any other board member before being merged.
• We also discussed a general preference for bias to action and lazy consensus rather than requiring approval, but noted that there is likely going to be a higher bar for this group given that it has more formal responsibilities than an open source project usually would.