The style process is a series of stages a concept must go through in order to be added to the BookBrainz style guidelines. The four stages are discussion, drafting, approval and release.
The style process begins with discussion. A member of the style mailing list sends out a new email, asking for discussion on a particular topic. Someone in the list (not necessarily the proposer), should then make a GitHub issue for the proposal, on the BookBrainz User Guide GitHub repository.
At the same time, the members of the list start collaborating on a document for the guideline (either on GitHub, or some cloud document editor), bringing together the key points of the discussion into a suitable format for a guideline - the drafting phase. When no new changes have been made to the guideline document for a week, the Style Committee decide by unanimous vote whether approve the guideline and make any necessary modifications, or reject it for some good reason.
If approved, the guideline is subsequently included in the official style guidelines, after being committed to the BookBrainz User Guide repositiory.
Style Committee
The style process is overseen by a Style Committee, consisting of three active style members. The style committee is elected by the users of the style mailing list, with style committee members serving until they choose to leave, or are removed. The un-election process can be started by the other two committee members, who make a post to the list giving reasons for the decision asking for votes to be cast within a week - the majority vote decides the outcome.
One of the members of the Style Committee will be chosen as the Style Leader. Under normal circumstances, the Style Leader is no different to the other two members of the Style Committee. However, if for a particular proposal both the following two conditions are met, the Style Leader can perform the duties of the Style Council for that proposal:
- The proposal has had no changes for at least two weeks.
- The Style Committee has not acted on the proposal.