Wikimedia Technical Committee/Forum

The Wikimedia Technical Forum is a group of people interested in taking part in and being consulted on technical matters that are strategic, cross-cutting, or hard to undo (as specified by the TechCom Charter, as well as in the creation of policies and guidelines related to such matters. The Technical Forum extends and complements the Wikimedia Technical Committee (TechCom) by providing additional expertise and perspectives. Members of the Technical Forum are encouraged to bring relevant topics for discussion to other members and bring them to the attention of TechCom. TechCom will call on members of the Forum to contribute to RFCs and discuss other matters of interested.

Purpose
(TBD, mostly covered above)

Membership
Membership in the Technical Forum is primarily a commitment to active participation in decision making processes related to Wikimedia's technical products, platforms, and engineering practices.

Members of the Technical Forum should be people with a deep technical understanding of the technologies created used by the Wikimedia Foundation, a strategic interest in shaping Wikimedia's technical platform, and commitment to invest time and attention in related investigations and discussions. Typically, they would be tech leads at the Wikimedia Foundation or at an associated organization or third party company involved in MediaWiki development. They could however also be managers, volunteer developers, or wiki users who have the necessary technical understanding.

New members must be approved by existing members. Anyone can nominate new members, with self-nomination being encouraged. The approval process is intended to be informal and light-weight. Its main purpose is to avoid spam and toxic behavior. Membership can be withdrawn due to Code of Conduct violations (...and?...).

Members of TechCom are automatically members of the Technical Forum as well.

Mode of Operation
The Technical Forum manifests in two ways:
 * 1) in the list of members on this page, which provides information about the roles, interests, and expertise of members.
 * 2) in a mailing list which acts as the primary communication channel and venue for discussion.

The mailing list is publicly archived, and non-members can post to it (moderated?). TBD: is a private channel needed as well, e.g. for discussing new members? TBD: do we want to use Discourse instead of, or in addition to, the mailing list?

Current Members
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