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Governance Ratification

SC = Steering Committee AC = Active Contributors PL = Project Leaders TL = Technical Leaders PC = Project Channels Project = SciCat Project

Purpose

This document defines how the SciCat governance documents are ratified and brought into effect.

Document Versions

  • The authoritative version of the governing documents is the latest GitHub release of this repository.
  • Governance versions follow semantic versioning, as described in Amendments
  • The main branch is considered a draft and is not in effect until incorporated into a release following the procedures in this document.

Pre-Ratification Status

Until the governed documents are ratified under this procedure, they are draft guidance only and are not binding on the Project community.

Ratification

Proposal

The ratification vote will be applied to the main branch of this repository. After ratification, governance documents will be tagged and published as a release. Further amendments will be made as described in AMENDMENTS.

Voting Bodies

Ratification requires approval from two separate voting bodies:

  1. Steering Committee (SC) — unanimous approval
  2. Active Contributors (AC) — approval by at least two-thirds (2/3) of votes cast

Only Active Contributors may vote in the AC ratification. Past contributors who are not Active Contributors are not eligible.

Quorum

  • SC: at least two-thirds (2/3) of SC members must participate (in person or remotely).
  • AC: at least fifteen (15) Active Contributors must participate (in person or remotely).

If quorum is not met, the vote does not take effect and may be rescheduled.

Venue and Timing

The ratification vote will be held at the 2026 SciCatCon meeting.

Remote participation is permitted and counts toward quorum and vote totals.

Administration

Until Project Leaders are elected under the ratified governance, the current project leader (Max Novelli) administers the ratification vote and the first election of Project Leaders and Technical Leaders.

Effect

Upon successful ratification, the approved branch will be tagged as v1.0.0 and designated as a github release. It then becomes the authoritative version of the governed documents. Results must be documented and published through the official PC.

Initial Elections

Elections for Project Leader (PL) and Technical Leader (TL) positions will be held following approval of the governance documents. Nominations follow the Nomination procedure. Elections follow the Voting procedure, except where this document or the pre-ratification administration provisions apply.

Relationship to Other Procedures

  • Ratification votes use the supermajority thresholds defined in this document.
  • Amendments to governed documents follow the Amendments procedure.
  • Other Project decisions follow the Voting procedure unless this document states otherwise.

Records

Ratification results must be recorded and made publicly accessible through the official PC, including:

  • the commit under vote
  • quorum attainment for each voting body
  • vote totals
  • the effective date or release tag

Licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License.