Goals/Goals Process

KDE Goals process

Definitions

• Goal – a topic focused on improving a specific thing in KDE, has 1 person attached to it as it’s Champion.
• Goal Champion – a person who’s pushing for the goal to be worked on from the initial proposal of the goal to its end. Usually a goal has 1 Champion for the duration it is in focus.
• “Being in focus” – a distinction given to goals that were selected to be in the spotlight by the community. Once a goal is selected to be in focus, it will remain that way for the duration outlined below. After that, it’s not considered “done”, and people passionate about it are encouraged to continue working on it. The same goal can’t be selected as a potential candidate to be in focus again, but a meaningful rephrasing of it that tackles new things, can be.
• Curator – a person selected by KDE e.V. to oversee the goal selection process.

Details

• There is a maximum of 3 goals in focus at the same time.
• When new goals are selected to be in focus, all the previous ones are automatically not in focus anymore.
  • This means in the usual case, 3 old goals are always replaced by 3 new ones.
• If for some reason a goal in focus can no longer continue to be worked on, it’s not replaced immediately – instead it will be replaced with a batch of new goals after the next selection process.
• New goals are announced every second Akademy.
  • This means a goal remains in focus for approximately 2 years before it’s replaced by new ones.

Goal selection process

• Assume the next Akademy would mark the 2nd one since goals were announced.
• 15 weeks before Akademy, a submission stage for new goals is announced:
  • This stage lasts for 4 weeks.
  • An online workboard containing at least the following columns is created:
    • Not ready for voting – a place where people KDE Identity/Developer account holders can submit their proposals for new goals.
    • Ready for voting – goals that have been refined enough can be moved to this column in the next stage of the process.
  • A template of the goal proposal is provided.
  • The person submitting the goal proposal is also considered as the goal Champion.
• Immediately after the previous stage ends, the refinement stage starts:
  • This stage lasts for 6 weeks.
  • No new goal proposals can be added at this point.
  • The community works on the submitted goals to improve them.
    • One way for the users to show support or interest at this point is to edit the goals description to attach their names in a appropriate place.
  • Once the champion of the goal believes that the goal is refined enough, it can be moved to the “Ready for voting” column. Only the goals champion can perform this move.
  • The goal proposal can be moved back to the “Not ready for voting” column by the Champion if they believe that the proposal needs some more work.
    • This move can also be performed by the Curator at their own discretion to signal that a proposal does not yet meet the basic standards of a refined proposal.
• Immediately after the previous stage ends, the voting stage starts and is announced:
  • This stage lasts for 3 weeks.
  • No changes to the proposals can be made at this point, including in which column in the workboard they are in.
  • The Curator selects the final goal proposals to be voted on by the community:
    • Only the proposals in the “Ready for voting” are considered
    • If there are more then 15 proposals under consideration, the top 15 in terms of number of community member’s names attached to them are selected.
      • In case of a draw, the Curator decides at their own discretion.
  • An online survey is created to select the 3 goals that will be selected to be in focus:
    • Anyone with a KDE developer account can vote.
      • Additional access to the vote can be given in a case-by-case basis by the Curator to other community members without a developer account but existing contributions to KDE.
    • The voter is presented with the list of the final goal proposals.
      • The list is presented in a random order.
    • Using the ranked vote method, the voter must rank all of the proposed goals.
    • Eligible voters have 1 vote.
    • The voting is anonymous.
• Immediately after the previous stage ends, the voting is closed and the top 3 goals based on the algorithm are announced during Akademy as the new goals to be in focus.
  • This leaves about 2 weeks since the voting ended to the start of Akademy.