Guide to governance

Project Elara is intended to foster a free and open community, governed by open-source and democratic ideals. As part of this, Project Elara has a Charter, which can be read in full on the next chapter. The Charter is like a mini-constitution, and details the foundational principles and structure of the community.

To lead an organization with such lofty and ambitious goals, some form of self-governance is essential. Project Elara therefore has a leadership team, composed of an elected Project Head and Deputy Head, and appointed members, who serve under the authority of the elected leaders. The community, in the form of a General Assembly, makes policy; the leadership team implements it, and supervises the Project as a whole. Both have mechanisms to ensure their accountability to both the members of the community and the Charter itself.

The entire governance system is constructed such as to make abuses of power as unlikely as possible, and to ensure that the project remains free, independent, and democratic long into the future.

Amendment process for the Project Elara Charter¶

We know that the Project Elara Charter isn’t perfect: so we’ve made sure that it can be amended (albeit not too easily, since it serves as the bedrock of the Project and shouldn’t be changed lightly). The steps to amend the Charter are as follows:

• Make a branch of the website with git checkout -b <amendment-branch-name>

• Edit content/charter.md with your proposed amendment

• Submit a PR on the website repository with a title in the format [AMENDMENT] name_of_your_amendment, and add the charter role to it

• Members will discuss in the comments section on the PR

• The amendment may be passed either by consensus or by holding a plurality vote (again, on the comments section)

• Members can also decide to reject the amendment if there is a general consensus to not proceed with it or if the vote fails to reach a plurality

  • Please do not close any PRs with amendments otherwise!

Note: This process does not apply retroactively for practical purposes.