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Governance and Succession
Second-Hand Tigers is administered by a custodian — the person holding the GitHub Owner role for the organization. This page explains what that role covers, and how the organization avoids ever depending on one person being reachable.
- The custodian handles day-to-day administration: repository access, structural changes, and maintaining these organization-wide policies.
- The organization always has at least two GitHub Owners — the acting custodian and a designated backup — so administration never depends on one person.
- Holding the custodian role does not give anyone rights over other contributors' copyright, or change any repository's license.
The custodian manages repository access, merges structural changes, and maintains these organization-wide policies. It is an administrative role, not an ownership stake: it does not transfer or affect anyone's copyright in their own contributions, and the CC BY 4.0 / MIT terms already applied to published material are unaffected by who holds it. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
The organization maintains at least two GitHub Owners at all times — the acting custodian and a designated backup — so that administration never depends on one person being reachable. If the acting custodian becomes unable to continue, whether by planned transition or by unexpected incapacity, the backup already holds Owner access and can act immediately. No handover step is required to avoid a lockout.
When the acting custodian steps back under normal circumstances, they and the backup agree who becomes the new acting custodian. A new backup is then designated — from within the organization's active contributors if no one has already been identified — and given Owner access before the transition is considered complete.
A change in custodian does not change any repository's license, content, or existing contributor agreements. Those stand on their own regardless of who administers the organization.
When a backup custodian is being onboarded, copy this checklist into a new issue and track it there — check the boxes on the issue, not on this page, since this page is a reusable template.
Issue title: Custodian succession — add backup Owner
- Backup custodian identified and has agreed to the role: [name]
- Create/confirm his GitHub account
- Add him as a member of the organization
- Grant Owner role now, not deferred to a future handover — this is what prevents lockout if the acting custodian is suddenly unable to act
- Walk him through custodian responsibilities (this policy page, CONTRIBUTING.md, licensing decisions doc)
- Confirm he can independently access org settings (spot-check, not just role assignment)
- Close this issue once backup Owner access is confirmed working
We may update this page as our practices change. The wiki history records every change.
Drafted with AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic); reviewed, verified, and adopted by William Docter.
License: © 2026 William Docter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, redistribute, remix, and build upon this material, including for commercial purposes, provided you give appropriate credit to William Docter and indicate if changes were made.