Version: 1.2
Last Updated: 2025-07-12
This guide is the single source of truth for how our project is organized, governed, and documented. It outlines the roles of our leadership bodies and provides templates for all official project documents.
1. The Core Philosophy
Our governance model is designed to be both productive and welcoming. It is built on two key principles:
- Separation of Concerns: We separate high-level strategic decisions from day-to-day technical execution. This allows teams to focus on what they do best.
- The Project Council handles “business matters” (strategy, finance, policy). It decides what the project should do and why.
- Working Groups (WGs) handle “technical matters” (coding, data curation, infrastructure). They decide how to get the work done.
- Do-ocracy: We believe that influence and leadership are earned through contribution. In our Working Groups and SIGs, the people who do the work are the ones who drive decisions.
2. Project Workflow: From Idea to Execution
We use two primary tools to manage our work, each with a distinct purpose:
- Discourse Forum (The “What & Why”): This is where we do our strategic planning. We use documents like the Project Roadmap and PRD/DRDs to define what we want to build, why it’s important, and what the high-level goals and scope are.
- GitHub (The “How & Who”): This is where we manage tactical execution. We use GitHub Project Boards and Issues to break down the high-level goals from a PRD into specific tasks, assign them to team members, and track their progress through Agile sprints.
This workflow ensures that every piece of work is connected to a clear strategic goal.
3. Governance Bodies
Our project is organized into three types of groups:
The Project Council
The Project Council is the top-level body responsible for the health and strategic direction of the entire project. It is the final authority on project-wide matters.
Working Groups (WGs)
A Working Group is a formally chartered team responsible for a critical, ongoing piece of the project. WGs have a clear mandate, defined leadership, and the authority to manage their specific area. Their primary goal is to produce and maintain tangible deliverables like code, datasets, documentation, or infrastructure.
- Examples:
Pecha Apps WG, 
Pecha AI Studio WG, 
Pecha Server and API WG, 
Buddhism on Wikipedia WG, 
Community & Outreach WG
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
A Special Interest Group is an informal gathering of people with a shared interest. SIGs are the best place to explore new ideas, build community, or execute smaller, well-defined projects. They frequently produce tangible deliverables like a specific dataset or a proof-of-concept model. A successful SIG can eventually evolve into a WG. If a SIG’s work becomes critical to the project, its members can draft a formal WG Charter and submit it to the Project Council for approval.
- Examples:
Machine Translation SIG, 
MT Evaluation SIG, 
13 Philosophical Treatises SIG, 
Garchen Rinpoche Speech SIG
4. Documentation Structure & Location
All project documentation lives on our Discourse forum. The following map shows where to find everything.
Discourse Forum/
├── Project Council/ (Category for top-level governance)
│ ├── 
Project Council Charter
│ ├── 
Project Roadmap
│ └── … (Meeting minutes, budget discussions, etc.)
│
├── Policies/ (Category for official, project-wide policies)
│ ├── 
Code of Conduct
│ ├── Data Licensing Policy
│ └── … (Branding, Security policies, etc.)
│
├── WGs (Working Groups)/ (Category for all formal WGs)
│ └── Pecha Apps WG/ (Sub-category for a specific WG)
│ . . ├── Pecha Apps WG Charter
│ . . ├── PRD: Pecha Study Platform v2
│ . . └── … (Meeting minutes, technical discussions, etc.)
│
├── SIGs (Special Interest Groups)/ (Category for all informal groups)
│ └── Buddhist MT SIG/ (Sub-category for a specific SIG)
│ . . ├── Buddhist MT SIG Proposal
│ . . ├── DRD: Tibetan MT Model v0.1
│ . . └── … (Meeting notes, brainstorming, etc.)
│
└── 
Housekeeping/ (Category for project resources)
└── 
Templates/ (Sub-category for official templates)
. . └── … (All templates live here for easy reference)
5. Templates for Governance & Projects
Template: Project Council Charter
Project Council Charter
1. Mission Statement:
To provide strategic leadership and stable governance for the [Project Name] project, ensuring its long-term health and success.
2. Scope & Responsibilities:
Define and maintain the project’s mission, vision, and values.
Define and maintain the high-level Yearly Project Roadmap and review quarterly progress.
Approve, review, and retire Working Groups.
Review and archive inactive SIGs and WGs on a regular basis.
Manage all official project policies (Code of Conduct, Licensing, etc.).
Oversee project brand, trademarks, and financial matters.
Serve as the final authority for conflict resolution.
3. Membership & Elections:
The Council consists of [Number] members serving a term of [e.g., 2 years].
[Details of the election process].
4. Decision Making & Communication:
- [Details of quorum, voting, and communication channels].
Template: Yearly Project Roadmap
(To be posted and pinned in the Project Council category)
[Year] Project Roadmap
Vision for [Year]: A brief statement describing the main theme or overarching goal for the year. e.g., “This year, we will focus on expanding our data offerings and empowering our community with powerful new AI tools.”
Q1 Priorities (Jan-Mar)
Theme: [e.g., Stability & Performance]
Key Result 1: [e.g., Reduce API latency by 50%. (Owner: Pecha Server & API WG)]
Key Result 2: [e.g., Launch Pecha Study Platform v2. (Owner: Pecha Apps WG)]
Q2 Priorities (Apr-Jun)
Theme: [e.g., Community Growth & Onboarding]
Key Result 1: [e.g., Redesign the new contributor documentation. (Owner: Community & Outreach WG)]
Q3 Priorities (Jul-Sep)
Theme: [e.g., New Data & Integrations]
Key Result 1: [e.g., Ingest the 13 Philosophical Treatises dataset. (Owner: 13 Philosophical Treatises SIG)]
Q4 Priorities (Oct-Dec)
Theme: [e.g., AI/ML Advancements]
Key Result 1: [e.g., Release v1 of the Garchen Rinpoche speech-to-text model.
Template: WG Charter
(To be posted in the WG’s sub-category, e.g., Pecha Apps WG)
[WG Name] Working Group Charter
Mission: A single sentence describing the core purpose of this WG.
Chair(s): [Name/Username of WG Lead(s)]
Communication Channels:
Chat: [Link]
Forum: [Link]
Meetings: [Link to calendar]
Full Charter Details
1. Scope & Responsibilities:
A bulleted list of the specific systems, datasets, or processes this WG owns and maintains.
2. Deliverables:
A list of the tangible outputs the community can expect from this WG.
3. Membership:
A description of how one becomes a member of this WG. e.g., “Membership is open to any contributor who actively participates in the WG’s work. The Chair is responsible for maintaining a list of active members.”
Template: SIG Proposal
(To be posted in the SIG’s sub-category, e.g., Buddhist MT SIG)
Proposal: [SIG Name] Special Interest Group
Purpose: A brief paragraph explaining why this SIG should exist and what topic it will focus on.
Champion(s): [Name/Username of initial lead(s)]
Communication Channel: [Link to proposed chat channel]
Full Proposal Details
1. Goals:
A bulleted list of what this SIG hopes to achieve.
2. Interested Members:
A list of people committed to getting this SIG started.
Template: Product/Data Requirements Document (PRD/DRD)
(To be posted as a topic in the owning WG’s or SIG’s sub-category)
PRD/DRD: [Product or Dataset Name]
Owning Group [Name of WG or SIG] Status [Draft | In Review | Approved] GitHub Project [Link to GitHub Project Board] Last Updated [YYYY-MM-DD]
1. Overview
What is this project? What problem does it solve for whom?
2. Strategy & Research
Links to foundational research and planning documents that inform this project.
3. Goals & Success Metrics
What are the primary goals? How will we measure success?
4. Timeline & Quarterly Milestones
A high-level schedule for the project, broken down by quarter. This should align with the main Project Roadmap.
Q3 2025:
Milestone 1: [e.g., Initial dataset collected and cleaned.]
Milestone 2: [e.g., Schema finalized and validated.]
Q4 2025:
Milestone 3: [e.g., Alpha version of API released to testers.]
Target Launch: Q1 2026
5. Scope & Features / Data Schema
What is included? What is not included?
6. Dependencies
What other groups, projects, or resources does this work depend on?
Pecha Server and API WG: Requires a new API endpoint for search.
Garchen Institute: Access to the raw audio files.
7. Acceptance Criteria
How will we know when this project is “done”?