STF

The Technical Board

TECH

Nathan Miller

Part of: Major Legal Documents and Charters / Executive Departments And Assistants

Supersession of Previous Bylaws

The bylaws known as SCSI (Edict Dipper 1 #31) and CODE (Edict Hemenway #26) are hereby rescinded and replaced by this bill.

All references to the Internet Department, Internet Director, and Coder in other bylaws will be reviewed as they are encountered and revised to refer to TECH. Any responsibilities delegated to the Internet Department or Coder in other bylaws shall now be the responsibility of TECH

Establishment of the Technical Board

A body is hereby established, known as the Technical Board (TECH).

TECH is responsible for the designing, developing, documenting, deploying, and maintaining all application code utilized by STF. It also manages all of STF’s real-world technological infrastructure, including but not limited to servers, domain names, and other network or technological constructs.

Composition

TECH shall be constructed of no fewer than two members. TECH may by internal vote and consent of the President choose to increase or decrease its membership quota.

New members shall be selected from open application followed by an interview with the membership of TECH. This interview may take place either in a group interview with all of the members of TECH, or multiple one-on-one interviews as the situation demands. TECH may choose to subject applicants to a skill-based evaluation to determine the applicants technical competence. All new members of TECH are subject to Presidential consent.

TECH may also select an under-experienced member in as a Probationary Member of TECH. Probationary Members are described in the section, Probationary Members.

Practices and Internal Policymaking

The TECH Lead

The TECH Lead is responsible for TECHs administrative tasks, including delivering reports to the President, at least one major report per year to the membership on system infrastructure and activity, and regulating server security access.

The TECH Lead shall be put to an internal vote every six months. Every member of TECH shall vote among the body to select a TECH Lead to serve the next six months.

If for any reason a consensus cannot be reached, the President shall select a member of TECH to carry the role for the term, or remainder of the term as the case may be.

In the event that the TECH Lead is AWOL or otherwise not performing the duties of the position, TECH may vote to remove him or her and will immediately vote upon a replacement.

Development of Software

TECH shall be responsible for creating, maintaining, debugging, and supporting STFs Software.

All work on the Software must be tracked and documented on an official STF Source Code Repository, which shall be defined and maintained by TECH.
Major changes to the Software, such as a complete site redesign, or a change in the sites platform, shall be voted on internally by the TECH board, with the prior notification of the President. Any changes affecting the the user experience, such as a site redesign or changes that would be visible to the end user, will require the consent of the President and notification of the membership before being implemented.

External Software

Any member may submit software suggestions to TECH, however all submissions will be declined unless the submitter can demonstrate that the benefit to the users will outweigh the added complexity that comes with supporting additional code.

Should TECH decide to consider software being suggested, that software must be audited. TECH reserves the right to modify any submitted code to account for security and fit within the TECH Development and Documentation Standards. TECH reserves the right to decline any software for any reason.

Any External Software utilized by STF, including but not limited not limited to frameworks and templates, must be under a license which permits modification of the code and non-commercial use. Some examples of licenses like these are: GNU GPL, LGPL, MIT, and MPL.

Policies

TECH shall have the authority to issue titled policies regarding the practices relating to the technical aspects of the club, including, but not limited to: TECH Training, MOTD Development, Privacy, Development Standards, Source Control, and any Style Guides.

Policies may be proposed by any member. Proposed policies are discussed publicly and will require the approval of the majority of TECH to be enacted.

Development Standards

TECH shall write all code to the standards defined by internal policy, and keep all STF technology as secure as possible.

TECH shall, in order to maintain the operational integrity of the system, keep any changes to the Software off of the server until all members of TECH are satisfied that the code is ready for production use. Changes to the Software made live on the server are acceptable only in cases of an emergency, and must be reflected on the relevant repository branches as soon as possible. Any emergency changes shall be immediately reported to the other members of TECH and the President.

Documentation Standards

All code produced and approved by TECH must be documented to a point where anyone with a basic knowledge of the relevant languages may accurately debug the code.

Any undocumented code submitted to TECH, be it from an internal member or an external source, will be rejected outright.

Release Standards

Upon completion and deployment of new features, the TECH Lead shall publicly post announcing changes. Feature posts will include the names of all contributors and Release Notes documenting the features.

Non-feature releases, such as bug fixes and optimisations, shall be denoted in reports as needed, and will include a list of all contributors.

Mandate for Internal Training

TECH shall maintain an active training program at all times. How this program runs will be decided by internal policy.

External Utilities

TECH will administer all external utilities.

Chat Platforms

TECH may establish official real-time chat venues, such as IRC channels. TECH shall have exclusive authority over these venues, including the regulation of assistant administrators such as IRC Operators. These venues, unless otherwise stated, are considered public and open to all STF members who have not been banned from them specifically.

Any and all STF Terms of Service shall apply, in addition to any additional rules published by TECH.

TECH has no authority over chat venues created by other STF members, so long as they do not operate under the guise of an official STF resource.

Administrative Access

All Administrative Passwords to official STF Resources, including but not limited to the STF Server, Official Chat Venues, and any Software, must be held at all times by the TECH Lead, President, and at least one other individual selected by the TECH Lead. That individual need not be the same for all passwords.

At least the TECH Lead and one other holder of the relevant password must agree in order to change the password, and it must be provided immediately to all other authorized holders, unless the change was specifically made to address a security issue.

Other government officers may request administrative access to various STF resources if they can show that it is necessary for the performance of their duties. These requests may be rejected if the TECH Lead is not confident in the requestors ability to maintain the security of the resource.

The TECH Lead is the final authority on who may or may not have administrative access, and no one but the TECH Lead may authorize additional individuals to hold administrative access for any reason. A recommendation from the President to consider providing access to a certain government officer should be given due consideration.

TECH will have access to all web applications installed on the server.

At no point may the password for any official STF resource be held by fewer than three people, but should at all times be kept only to those authorized by the TECH Lead and President.

Resignation and Replacement Procedure

Should a member of TECH tender resignation, the TECH Lead - or in the case of the TECH Lead’s resignation, any other member of TECH - shall post an open call for applications.

Applications chosen as candidates for the position will go through the same process as described in Composition. When an applicant is selected, they will be given all appropriate flags and access required.

Previous members of TECH need not undergo an official interview, but are not guaranteed selection.

In the event of multiple resignations or any event in which TECH is reduced to half its membership quota or less, the TECH Lead may directly install the number of members required to fill TECH back to its membership quota, with the authorization of any existing and active member of TECH, or the President if there are none. Past members of TECH should be considered before the TECH Lead may install new members to TECH, but they are not required to be selected.

In the event that TECH is reduced to half its membership quota or less, is without a TECH Lead, and cannot come to a consensus on who shall be the TECH Lead, the President may select one directly.

TECH may not operate at a deficit of its membership quota for any longer than 45 days. At the end of 45 days, if TECH has not returned to its required quota, the President will directly appoint, using whatever criteria they may, the number of members required to fill TECH, or approve a reduction its membership.

Probationary Members

Any member brought into TECH whom is not adequately trained or experienced will be referred to as a Probationary Member.

The Probationary title will last for six months while the other members of TECH train them. The Probationary title may be removed at any time with the unanimous approval of TECH. At the end of the initial six month probation period, TECH will evaluate the probationary member. If it is decided that the member has learned enough to forgo the title, it will be removed. If the member has not made enough progress, TECH may decide to either extend the probation period an additional six months, or remove the member from TECH.

Probationary Members hold the same voting rights and access as other regular members of TECH, but may not hold the position of TECH Lead, and must have their contributions audited by a more experienced member as they train.

Accountability

TECH may, by unanimous vote, formally request that the President bar someone from re-entering TECH. This action, handled entirely by the President, should only be requested for cases where the person in question has demonstrated a danger to the site’s systems, but has not behaved in such a way that deserves a temporary or even permanent ban from the club as a whole.

If a member of TECH violates the Terms of Service or any other STF Law while performing their duties as a TECH member, the TECH Lead will refer the issue to the President and offer a complete report on the incident. The TECH Lead will also remove any access from the violator until the situation is resolved.

The President has investigative authority over TECH when ToS and STF Law violations arise, and may enlist the help of other members of TECH as necessary to complete the investigation in an educated way. If the investigation can demonstrate negligence or malicious activity, only then may the President directly remove someone from TECH.

In the event that the TECH Lead is the perpetrator, the Chairman shall have all administrative access revoked and the title removed and given to an interim TECH Lead selected by the President.

Violations punishable by a temporary or permanent ban result in an immediate removal from TECH and a revocation of all administrative access.


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