Idea: regional council working group(s)

[jacobian]

Django's a global project, but global representation on the DSF Board has historically been pretty bad, heavily weighted towards US and EU directors and officers. This can (and has) led to uninformed decisions that have worse outcomes in some regions than others, to overlooking the way certain decisions play out across the world, and just generally a lack of apropriate perspectives at the DSF.

So here's a sketch for one way we might think about addressing this through regional working groups. This isn't my idea; it was first suggested to me by @kjaymiller, and I've since had my thoughts shaped by discussions with @webology, @cgl, @ckirby, and probably others that I'm forgetting.

This issue is more of a temperature-check than a formal proposal so far. I want to have a bit of discussion, hear feedback from the community, and — most importantly — see if there's a small core of people from around the world who can help get this off the ground. I can help guide this into existence but the whole thing depends on global volunteers and if so it's a non-starter if there aren't at least a few folks from not-the-US who can help me get this started.

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Broadly speaking, the idea is:

• Form a set of "regional councils": groups of people from various regions around the world that have historically not been well-represented within the DSF. I don't know precisely what these "regions" would be -- like, in corporate contexts, we often talk about EMEA ("Europe, the Middle East and Africa") and APAC ("Asia/Pacific") regions, but that seems vastly too broad for the DSF's purposes. But also individual countries seem too small and unwieldy (maybe? I'm really uncertain here) to be able to get actionable feedback to the DSF from. So I'm going to hand-wave what "region" means right now, and ask for help figuring that out if we move this forward.
• Membership would be super-broad - if you live in the region you're eligible to join that region's council, full stop. Each region would elect its own chair/co-chair, I think.
• The councils will serve as resources for the DSF to get help on issues involving that region. I see this as a two-way street: the DSF would be able to ask questions ("hey we're thinking of {New Policy}, how would this play in your region?"), and the regional councils (individually or collectively) could suggest changes to the DSF.
• Some form of council representation at DSF board meetings — some representatives of the region(s) would be invited as non-voting attendees to the DSF board meetings. There are some tactical problems that need to be solved here -- there's a scaling problem, we can't invite everyone, and there are some sensitive matters the board needs to discuss privately or with an agreement of confidentiality -- but these are solvable problems.
• (Perhaps) some form of formal voting power for certain decisions — e.g. I can see the regional council for Region X getting a formal vote in granting a DjangoCon license to that region. Lots of messy details here but directionally I like the idea of regions getting voting power on issues affecting them.
• (Perhaps) delegation of membership decisions -- e.g. instead of the board deciding, each council gets to own membership admission within its region (under the overall rules set by the board). This overlaps with vague ideas we've had to delegate this to a membership working group, unclear which is the better model.

I think that's the big picture. Questions/comments/concerns/thoughts?

[knyghty]

One thing I find interesting (and have concerns about) is how to draw up these regions in a way that they are reasonably cohesive. For example, I would argue that North Africa is quite a different place from sub-Saharan Africa, and I would argue that South Africa (nominally a part of SSA) feels very different from the rest of it.

I imagine quite some people could be annoyed by being in the same group as people they feel very different from, and can have a more powerful country / culture in the same region having more clout than others, for example by having a more developed tech sector and thus having more people / a bigger voice.

I didn't come with any answers, though.

[kjaymiller]

+1 to @knyghty's thoughts...

I think a good solution for this is to have proposals be drafted by the region with their chair/vice chair and founding members with at least 1 person from each represented country.

Motions to add/remove a country can be proposed at the regional council level with approval by the board (I think this becomes an important conversation when geopolitical conflicts come up).

I see a quick adoption of this from folks in Europe and Australia/New Zealand and I think the community around APAC has already organized and established leaders so those boundaries will likely mirror. In terms of Africa there may be some conversations around language, ancestral, and religious similarities and while these shouldn't be exclusionary (see Code of Conduct) they may influence some decisions (as in events being held around culturally recognized holidays)

I would like to see an opportunity for comment on decisions specifically affecting their area of responsibility be an official part of procedure. I know this can delay the process but I think if there is a standard then it will not hinder progress. If the chair/vice-chair have an invitation to the board meetings (especially when topics regarding them have been pre-slated for discussion) decisions can be deferred for a set time so they can get feedback from their council ahead of time and then proceed. If they don't respond in that set time then you have shown valid attempt to seek feedback from the community on the matter and may proceed.

[jacobian]

@knyghty:

One thing I find interesting (and have concerns about) is how to draw up these regions in a way that they are reasonably cohesive. For example, I would argue that North Africa is quite a different place from sub-Saharan Africa, and I would argue that South Africa (nominally a part of SSA) feels very different from the rest of it.

Agree, this is perhaps my biggest concern as well.

@kjaymiller:

I think a good solution for this is to have proposals be drafted by the region with their chair/vice chair and founding members with at least 1 person from each represented country.

So the idea would basically be that the DSF doesn't define regions, but instead as long as there's sufficient interest in a Region X group, then it can just exist? I like that — making this whole thing be as "bottom-up" as possible feels good to me.

@kjaymiller:

I would like to see an opportunity for comment on decisions specifically affecting their area of responsibility be an official part of procedure.

Yes exactly, you said this so much better than me. This feels like not a super-heavy lift: we can circulate the board meeting agenda ahead of time, and councils can be like "oh hey this affects me" and raise their hand to give feedback. I see this being super valuable — there's been any number of times I've felt out on a limb as a board member and having someone with actual knowledge there to share it would have been freaking awesome.

[cgl]

First of all, @jacobian , as I mentioned in our last board meeting, I am really happy that we are moving forward with this, so thank you for your work so far. I think your draft looks good, and I’d like us to hear from people in underrepresented regions, so I’m adding some notes to share my perspective.

I have worked with Django/Python both as a software engineer and within the Django/Python communities as a community manager for many years, without realising the existence of PSF/DSF and the various ways to participate in and collaborate with the global community.

I believe the main reason for this was the region I was in. Since moving to the UK, I’ve found myself in a more privileged situation, with far less effort required than before.

As such, I am very eager to reach out to the more closed communities and Djangonauts at all levels—not only to hear from them but also to help them learn about the broader community they are part of. I am therefore very interested in considering the top-down aspect of this initiative in terms of information flow.

I think DjangoGirls has done this job very well and was particularly good at reaching a global audience. However, it is possible to be an active advocate within the DjangoGirls community and still not be aware of the wider Django community and the DSF itself. This is something for us to consider and potentially expand upon.

A few other points/thoughts—more on objectives to pin down than on the formulation of a solution:

• Bringing representation is the first step towards increasing diversity; while it’s a slow process, it is effective. We often hear from individuals who are geographically or economically privileged, benefiting from a more extensive network of connections in most discussions. So, I would like to see one of the objectives set as increasing diversity through better representation.
• In my experience, both personally and within groups I’ve been part of, including the DSF board, we have found it difficult to make fair decisions regarding regions where we lack deep cultural knowledge or understanding of local ways of working—due to a lack of representation. I can provide further examples, but a simple one is the challenge we faced on the DSF board when reviewing funding applications: a request from a group in Europe or the US was often easier to assess than one from Africa, as the latter often posed unique challenges for us. I hope we can also include this in the objectives of the initiative, so we can explicitly address relevant issues.

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@knyghty:

One thing I find interesting (and have concerns about) is how to draw up these regions in a way that they are reasonably cohesive.

I appreciate how EPS (EuroPython Society) serves as a strong regional body within the Python community. However, I’m not sure if similar representations exist for Python in other regions. I would suggest adopting a similar approach to what @jacobian mentioned: starting with regions like Europe, Africa, APAC, North America, and Latin America, and gathering interest and ideas from people within those regions to help shape how the initial version would look.

[hirokiky]

Thank you @jacobian for opening this discussion. I'm the organizer of DjangoCongress JP and also a DSF individual member.
I am really glad that DSF has focused on the global community in recent years.

In 2018, we tried to use the "DjangoCon" name, but there was a naming rights issue, so we couldn't use it (I was lacking consideration, too).
However, we had strict restrictions on using the name DjangoCon, such as a minimum of 300 ~ attendees, at least one board member attending, and so on (as far as I remember).

In my experience, I wanted the name DjangoCon to be easier to use. and this would be the beginning of communication each other (attending DjangoCon with each other, etc.).
If the regional council will help with this kind of issue, tha's great, but I feel having "council" is too serious.
Firstable, we need communication, open discussion, working groups, or someone we can talk to as friendly as Sarah!

I want to thank Sarah for connecting us with DSF and Baptiste for encouraging Django's Japanese community when we met at EuroPython2014.