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Add RFC to discuss RustConf 2024 Steering Committee #3549

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Add RFC to discuss RustConf 2024 Steering Committee #3549

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Create rustconf-steering-committee
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- Feature Name: rustconf-steering-committee
- Start Date: 12-27-2023
- RFC PR:
- Rust Issue: N/A

# Summary

This RFC proposes creating an advisory Rust Steering Committee for RustConf to represent Rust Project and community perspectives and priorities throughout the RustConf 2024 planning process.
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If this RFC is purposefully limited just to the 2024 RustConf than I'm not sure an RFC is appropriate.

My initial impression of what this document would be was a document for establishing how RustConf would be run at a high-level. Such a document would clearly layout who has authority over which decisions. For example, I imagined that the RFC would have said something like:

Areas of Responsibility

The following groups are responsible for the following areas. More detail on the nature and limits of the responsibility can be found below:

  • The Rust Foundation Staff: logistical operation of the event itself, coordinating sponsor relations, ...
  • The Steering Committee: all programming aspects of the event (e.g., program committee, MC selection, format of talks, whether to include workshops, inclusion of an UnConf day(s) or other supplementary events, etc.)


# Definitions

- "Steering Committee": A group of advisors that present recommendations to an organizing group (in this case, the "organizing group" being the Rust Foundation as the organizer of RustConf 2024). Often, a steering committee will be in place to represent the interests of a specific group (in this case, the Rust Project and community)
- "Program Committee": The group responsible for selecting speakers/talks to appear on the RustConf agenda/"program". The Program Committee for RustConf has historically been independent of the organizer. The Foundation intends to maintain this tradition of independence in 2024 but will provide oversight and facilitation.
- "CFP": Stands for "Call for Proposals". This is the period and process during which we will solicit talk submissions for RustConf. The Program Committee will select submissions from the CFP to appear on the program and might also advocate for inviting several speakers who did not submit a talk.

# Proposal

The Rust Foundation staff team is proposing the formation of a RustConf Steering Committee with the following parameters:
- Members: 4 total members from the Rust Project -- one leadership council member, one Project Director member, and two members from the wider Rust community. We feel that an even split between leadership members and community members makes sense as the former positions can provide context and Project authority while the latter can advocate for those who are not necessarily in a position of power within the Project. We will lean on the Leadership Council as a whole to select this group based on a process of self-nomination initiated by the Foundation and promoted by the Leadership Council.
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The split between Project and wider community makes sense to me, but I'm unsure why we're being so prescriptive about who represents the Project. What is the advantage of this over 2 members who represent the Project as selected by the Leadership Council? Requiring that the members be Leadership Council members or Project Directors seems like a good way to artificially limit the pool of who can participate without much benefit.

We will lean on the Leadership Council as a whole to select this group based on a process of self-nomination initiated by the Foundation and promoted by the Leadership Council.

Nit: the way this is worded seems odd to me. I think we can phrase it much directly:

The Leadership Council is responsible for establishing the process by which the members of the Steering Committee are selected.

With that being said, are we sure we really want to leave it up to the Leadership Council to establish their own rules which are not subject to wider review? It might make sense for this RFC to lay out some base rules

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how about this?

Suggested change
- Members: 4 total members from the Rust Project -- one leadership council member, one Project Director member, and two members from the wider Rust community. We feel that an even split between leadership members and community members makes sense as the former positions can provide context and Project authority while the latter can advocate for those who are not necessarily in a position of power within the Project. We will lean on the Leadership Council as a whole to select this group based on a process of self-nomination initiated by the Foundation and promoted by the Leadership Council.
- Members: 4 total members from the Rust Project -- e.g. one leadership council member, one Project Director member, and two members from the wider Rust community. The Leadership Council is responsible for establishing the process by which the members of the Steering Committee are selected.

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That's fine with me - my only nit is that "wider Rust community" would indicate to me people who are explicitly not members of the Rust Project which sort of contradicts what you stated previously.

- Scope: The Foundation would like the Steering Committee's involvement in the following areas:
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Nit: I doesn't strike me as normal for an RFC to talk about the desires of the author unless that information is relevant for justifying why the authors have chosen a certain way between tradeoffs or if the authors would like to throw in a "nice-to-have" loose requirement. For more foundational information, a more direct wording is preferred:

Suggested change
- Scope: The Foundation would like the Steering Committee's involvement in the following areas:
- Scope: The Steering Committee's involvement will be in the following areas:

> - **Program Committee:** The Steering Committee should help guide the structure, personnel, and processes of the Program Committee with oversight and collaboration from the Rust Foundation. The Foundation will take this plan from the Steering Committee to formally set up the Program Committee which will select talks after the closure of the call for talk proposals. Steering Committee members will not be on the Program Committee or be involved in selecting talks, although they can advise the Program Committee on key priorities as talks are being selected. To stay on schedule, the Foundation will likely need to open the CFP earlier than these two committees are in place, however, we will share our intentions for talk tracks/suggested topics with the Leadership Council in advance for feedback.
> - **UnConf Day:** The Foundation would be pleased to offer an UnConf Day again in 2024, but would lean on the Steering Committee to decide this. If they decide there should be an UnConf Day after RustConf, the Foundation would like the Steering Committee to provide us with a basic plan including content and identification of people from the Project we should be logistically coordinating with ("UnConf Day Organizers") to ensure proper supplies and resources are available to UnConf organizers and attendees. The Foundation would welcome the Steering Committee's participation in planning and running the UnConf alongside the Organizers they identify.
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Again, this is written too much from the author's perspective. Try to avoid an us/them framing and talk about all groups in the third person.

Suggested change
> - **UnConf Day:** The Foundation would be pleased to offer an UnConf Day again in 2024, but would lean on the Steering Committee to decide this. If they decide there should be an UnConf Day after RustConf, the Foundation would like the Steering Committee to provide us with a basic plan including content and identification of people from the Project we should be logistically coordinating with ("UnConf Day Organizers") to ensure proper supplies and resources are available to UnConf organizers and attendees. The Foundation would welcome the Steering Committee's participation in planning and running the UnConf alongside the Organizers they identify.
> - **UnConf Day:** The Steering Committee is in charge of deciding whether to include an Unconf style event in the programming. If they decide there should be an UnConf Day after RustConf, the Steering Committee is required to provide the Foundation with a basic plan including content and identification of people from the Project that should be involved in coordinating logistics.

> - **Other considerations:** The Foundation would also like to lean on the Steering Committee to understand if there are any other areas of the event they would like to be involved in. The Rust Foundation needs to operate independently on major event decisions (like co-located events and conference activities, tickets/access, general event experience, and sponsorship experience) but will welcome feedback from the Steering Committee along the way.

- **Communication:** The Rust Foundation will share monthly asynchronous updates with the Steering Committee as the RustConf planning process develops. These updates will be used to share advanced notice of key event milestones (i.e. CFP open/close date, registration details, major planning changes/developments). The steering committee can use an agreed-upon communication channel to ask questions/provide feedback about the details shared.


# Motivation

Since it was approved by the board and leadership council for the Rust Foundation to play a larger role in managing RustConf, we have intended to facilitate an UnConf Day and for the Program Committee to remain independent (with management and facilitation provided by the Foundation). We also understand that there may be additional expectations around Rust Project involvement and feel that clearer parameters around the Rust Project's role in RustConf would be helpful.
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Suggested change
Since it was approved by the board and leadership council for the Rust Foundation to play a larger role in managing RustConf, we have intended to facilitate an UnConf Day and for the Program Committee to remain independent (with management and facilitation provided by the Foundation). We also understand that there may be additional expectations around Rust Project involvement and feel that clearer parameters around the Rust Project's role in RustConf would be helpful.
Since it was approved by the Rust Foundation Board and leadership council for the Rust Foundation to play a larger role in managing RustConf, we have intended to facilitate an UnConf Day and for the Program Committee to remain independent (with management and facilitation provided by the Foundation). We also understand that there may be additional expectations around Rust Project involvement and feel that clearer parameters around the Rust Project's role in RustConf would be helpful.


The Foundation's senior management team discussed this internally and decided that a Rust Project Steering Committee for RustConf would be the right vehicle to identify and drive further Rust Project input. We feel this is the right approach due to the nature of event planning -- many decisions need to be made quickly to deliver a high-quality event for the community. We will be working with many, many vendors, sponsors, and stakeholders and need as clear a project management process as possible. An open thread on Zulip, a closed thread on Zulip without clarity on deadlines or decision-makers, or an ill-defined process of collaboration will not enable the Foundation to plan a satisfactory event.

When the Rust Foundation staff team raised the idea of a Steering Committee to our Project Directors during our biweekly meeting, we were asked to outline our idea in an RFC.
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I don't think this is really necessary to say personally.

Suggested change
When the Rust Foundation staff team raised the idea of a Steering Committee to our Project Directors during our biweekly meeting, we were asked to outline our idea in an RFC.



# Alternatives

## Foundation-Leadership Council Collaboration

If desired, the Rust Foundation could work directly with the Leadership Council instead of forming a steering committee. However, we will still require an agreed-upon set of priorities and a more detailed process of communication about RustConf than currently exists between the Rust Foundation and the Leadership Council.

## Additional Consideration

The Foundation would like to advocate for the promotion of the two community seats on the Steering Committee to a more global audience. We are in touch with several community organizers of global meetup groups (for example: Rust Nigeria and Rust India) who could surface the community seat opportunity to their members for self-nomination. We feel it would be valuable to spread awareness about this kind of opportunity to Rustaceans who may not be active in Zulip.

## Timeline
The Steering Committee should be in place and active by the end of February 2024 with the Program Committee in place by early March.