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[DOC] add maintainers guide #1770

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90 changes: 90 additions & 0 deletions Maintainers_Guide.md
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# BIDS Maintainers Group Guide

The BIDS Maintainers are a key group of members that ensure that the BIDS infrastructure is kept up.
The maintainers have wide-ranging responsibilities that enable BIDS to continue to grow and succeed.
All maintainers are listed in the [DECISION-MAKING document](DECISION-MAKING.md#definitions),
hosted at the bids-specification repository.
As furthermore detailed in the DECISION-MAKING document,
maintainers have a set of rights that go beyond those of a contributor.

The following guide draws heavily on a related [blog post](https://matthewrocklin.com/blog/2019/05/18/maintainer)
on “The Role of a Maintainer” by Matthew Rocklin,
which is a recommended reading in conjunction with this guide.

## Why become a maintainer?

As a BIDS maintainer you may get the chance to:

* Learn to work as a team
* Bring your expertise to the BIDS maintainers group and cover technical blind spot it may have
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* Improving your technical writing skills (for example documentation)
* Learn to work with continuous integration and development
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* Advise and participate in the development of BIDS extensions that are most commonly associated with a publication

## Responsibilities

* Maintainers need to be loosely aware of the entire project
and use their knowledge to facilitate and initiate interactions
between different nodes of the project
and determine a reasonable and timely order for features to be added and issues to be resolved.
* Maintainers direct other BIDS contributors in reviewing PRs,
writing clarifications to the specification, or other contributions.
Maintainers “dispatch” work teams.
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* Maintainers ensure that all contributions maintain a friendly and welcoming tone
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to encourage productive conversations.
* If no work team is suitable or available,
the final responsibility of getting the work done lies with the maintainers.
* The development of each BIDS extension proposal should be “followed”
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by at least one maintainer who acts as a preferential point of contact
between the BIDS maintainers and the BEP leads.

Apart from these abstract and general responsibilities,
maintainers within the BIDS community also need to ensure that the following tasks get done:

* Keeping the [Contributors wiki](https://github.com/bids-standard/bids-specification/wiki/Recent-Contributors) up to date
and assisting new contributors with adding their credits
and performing community inquiries to ensure contributors are credited in the [Contributors appendix](https://bids-specification.readthedocs.io/en/stable/appendices/contributors.html)
* Deciding what constitutes a contribution worth adding to the “Contributors list”
* Preparing a monthly report to the BIDS Steering Group.
The monthly report is in the form of milestones, issues addressed,
and open issues raised in the past month and goals/plans for the next month.
The BIDS Steering Group may ask for additional information or propose a meeting to further discuss report items.
The report format and meetings are at the discretion of the BIDS Steering Group.

Maintainers are not expected to individually be responsible for all the responsibilities listed.
Rather, the responsibilities are distributed amongst the entire group.

## Organization

* The group of maintainers are a group of people with the above mentioned responsibilities,
who commit to convene bi-weekly meetings to discuss the project.
* One lead maintainer represents the group to other BIDS Groups, mediates disagreement among members,
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and casts deciding votes when needed (tie break).
Note that the maintainers will always strive for consensus decision making, and will try to avoid resorting to voting.
* The lead maintainer may delegate any of their duties to another maintainer.
* The lead maintainer is appointed collectively by the group of maintainers, preferably through consensus.
* If no one else does, the lead maintainer sets the schedule for the maintainers meeting.
* Additions to and departures from the group are negotiated collectively between the lead maintainer
and the new/departing members, as they involve the redistribution of duties.
* If a maintainer wishes to serve for a limited term, that can be arranged at the start. Otherwise, due notice is expected.
* See also “How to become a maintainer?” below

## How to become a maintainer?

If you are interested in becoming a BIDS maintainer, please get in contact with an active BIDS maintainer (for example via email).
In that initial email it would be great if you could outline previous experience with BIDS (if any)
and your motivation to become a maintainer, as well as particular interests for work that you would like to do.
The BIDS maintainers will then invite you to one of the biweekly maintainers meetings (online)
to discuss further steps and point you to the Onboarding documentation (things to do).

We would be happy to hear from you!

## Citation

To cite the BIDS maintainers (as a consortium author),
you can use the following OSF account: [https://osf.io/y48x9/](https://osf.io/y48x9/)

## Notes

As detailed in the [BIDS governance document](https://bids.neuroimaging.io/governance.html),
this guide is subject to change and to amendment by the BIDS Steering Group.