Policy Development

Outlined below is a Process that Free Geek Uses to Develope and Document Policies and Guidlines. Check out the Policies page for catagorizied list, Or the wiki category of pages taged as policies.

Who makes policies?

Overall policies that affect all of Free Geek, policies that affect multiple groups, and policies that are controversial in nature are decided by the Free Geek Community Council (http://lists.freegeek.org/listinfo/council/) and or the Free Geek Staff. Other policies are more limited in nature and decided by the appropriate working group or committee.

Developing a policy at Free Geek

So you have an idea for a policy

1. Research current applicable policies

   NOTE: Many Policies are currently still only in the email archives

2. Find a couple of people to bounce your idea off of.
3. Document your Proposal idea to the applicable group.

   NOTE: this can be done on the wiki and a link mailed there list

   If you are proposing a new policy you should put its text on a new page.It should be clearly labeled as a by including this template, {{policy in development}}, at the top of the page. (Below is a full page cut and past for policy pages)

   Formatting

   • Please clearly separate your proposal into sections:
     1. the policy you propose (Remember process is not policy but how you comply with a policy)
     2. reason this policy is needed (would this be a change to a current policy)
     3. anything you came up with during your research
4. Discuss the Proposal

   Discussion about the proposal should take place in the discussion link for that page, or on the mailing list. From time to time a rough consensus will be formed around various points in the proposal and at that time the main page should be altered. This allows us to separate the general conversion (ideas that we talk about but may not end up in the proposal) from the actual proposal we end up making.

   We need to keep in mind that folks who don't use the wiki will have opinions. These people should be encouraged to use the wiki, but current wiki users should also seek out and summarize their input, recognizing that not everyone who ought to weigh in on an issue will be a wiki user.

5. Finalize the the policy

   When a policy is finalized (when consensus is reached through the wiki, email lists, face to face meetings, and so on) we should re-label the main page as policy using the Template:Policy Header. The policy templates take care of the category function of the wiki making compiled lists of proposals and policies automatic.

Wiki page format for policies

Three sections in a page: header, policy, and notes.

{{policy in development}}
{{Policy Header 
| PolicyName = {{PAGENAME}}
| notes = Note on what the policy is about/Scope of policy
}}
==Policy==
''Body that set the policy(s) on [lists.freegeek_meeting_Minutes Date Adopted].''
* Wording of the most recent agreed upon policy - as agreed upon
==Notes==
Include some or all of:
* the current process for complying with this policy
* Related policies
* Interpretation/Implementation/Commentary
* Examples/Background/History
* Exceptions/Ramifications
* Etc...

If a policy was approved in a meeting, include links to the meeting minutes and other supporting material. If you don't have the link, add the page to the Category:Link needed.