[tor-relays] Process for new policies and proposals for the Tor relay operator community (001-community-relay-operator-process.md)

Tue Jun 27 20:45:38 UTC 2023

Hi,

Last Saturday, during the Tor Relay Operator meetup, I briefly talked
about the meta proposal that defines the process of submitting proposals
to the relay operator community.

The document is open for community feedback, and you can comment
directly on the ticket:
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/issues/2.

I'm also sharing the full text below.

Gus

```
Filename: 001-community-relay-operator-process.md
Title: Process for new policies and proposals for the Tor relay operator
community
Author: gus - gus at torproject.org
Created: 2023-05-22
Status: Meta

## Overview

This document outlines the process for submitting policies to the Tor
relay operator community, explains how proposals are approved, and
clarifies the relationship between Tor Community proposals and the Tor
Project. This is an informational document.

## Motivation

In the past, our approach to organizing the Tor relay operator community
was highly informal and relied heavily on the informal dynamics between
relay operators, Directory Authorities, and The Tor Project staff.
Through discussions and interactions in meetups and similar events,
operators would collaboratively determine the best practices for
managing Tor relays while ensuring the well-being of Tor users. However,
as the Tor Community expands and its members become less interconnected,
there is now a necessity to establish a well-defined process for
presenting and evaluating proposals and policies to the relay operator
community.

It's important to note that these proposals are distinct from the Tor
proposals governed by torspec. The proposals in tor spec primarily focus
on technical specifications and protocols at the core of the Tor
network. They cover areas such as the Tor protocol, directory
authorities, circuit construction, and encryption mechanisms.

The proposals in this document, on the other hand, are specifically
tailored to the relay operator community and address operational,
policy, and community-related aspects. While both types of proposals aim
to improve the Tor network, they serve different purposes and operate
within their respective scopes.

It's part of the scope of these proposals addressing topics like:
- Security measures to combat malicious relays and attacks against the
  Tor network like DDoS
- Expectations for relays operators and operational policies
- Sustainability and operators incentivisation
- Guidelines for conducting investigations to identify and remove
  malicious actors from the Tor network
- Initiatives related to relay operator governance and community
  building

There might be corner cases where proposals impacting the relay operator
community would contain torspec material if approved. In that case it is
fine to submit a proposal within this community proposal process first
and a corresponding torspec on later one if the proposal got approved.

## How new proposals get added, approved and implemented

The process of adding, approving, and implementing new proposals for the
relay operator community follows a specific workflow as described below. 

Here is an overview of the steps involved:

Summary of the stages:
    Draft & Full Proposal -> Policy -> Implementation

The current proposal editors are the Tor Project Community and Network
Health Team leads, who can reject or accept full proposals. The criteria
for evaluation of proposals for relay operators are stated on the
document ["Combating Malicious Relays - Evaluation criteria for
solutions"](https://nc.torproject.net/s/bLWAjC8FJ8KKCGQ).

### 1. Draft, consensus, and full proposal

To submit a proposal, open directly a new issue in the Tor Project
GitLab [Community/Policies
repository](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies).

A proposal should have a properly formatted (see below) draft. Once an
idea moves to this stage, the Tor Community should discuss and improve
it until we've reached consensus that it's a good idea and that it's
detailed enough to implement.

The official request for changes, suggestions and improvements of the
proposal must happen in the GitLab comment section so that the author
can directly receive the feedback.

To submit a new update of the proposal, the author should add a comment
with the new alternative text in the appropriate ticket. Additionally,
the author must update the issue description to indicate the
availability of a new version of the proposal. This ensures that the
proposal is properly documented.

### 2. Policy and implementation

Once the full proposal has reached a consensus and its final version was
approved by the proposal editors, they will officially create a merge
request and add the approved proposal. When this happens, we incorporate
it into the Relay Operator policies directory and implement the
proposal.

This process ensures that proposals undergo thorough discussion and
consensus-building, helping maintain the integrity of The Tor Project's
policies and operations.

## Observations

Unlike RFCs (Request for Comments), Tor relay operator community
proposals can evolve over time while retaining the same number until
they are ultimately accepted or rejected. The entire history of each
proposal will be archived in the Tor Community Policies repository.

It's still okay to make small changes directly to your proposal once
it's finalized if it's cosmetic changes and no substantial change is
required. 

This document reflects the current contributors' _intent_, not a
permanent promise to always use this process in the future.

Technical Tor spec proposals are out of the scope of this document and
must follow the process described on [Tor
specification](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/torspec/).

If consensus cannot be reached among the Tor relay operators community
during the proposal review process, a Voting process involving Core
contributors can be initiated. The decision to proceed with a voting
process is at the discretion of the proposal editors. They are
responsible for determining whether a voting process is necessary to
resolve the impasse. In such cases, the voting process must follow the
[Voting
policy](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/community/policies/-/blob/master/voting.txt).

## Responsibilities and roles of proposal editors

The proposal editors play a crucial role in the evaluation and approval
of proposals within the Tor relay operator community. Their
responsibilities include:

### 1. Reviewing and evaluating proposals

The proposal editors evaluate each submitted proposal to assess its
feasibility, adherence to community policies, and potential impact on
the Tor network and its users.

### 2. Facilitating discussions and building consensus

The proposal editors actively participate in discussions related to
proposals, engaging with the Tor relay operator community to understand
different perspectives and build consensus. They facilitate constructive
dialogue, encouraging community members to provide feedback, suggest
improvements, and address concerns raised during the proposal review
process.

### 3. Determining proposal status

The proposal editors are responsible for assigning appropriate proposal
statuses. They evaluate the progress and quality of proposals, assigning
statuses such as "Draft," "Open," "Needs-Revision," "Accepted,"
"Finished," "Closed," "Rejected," "Dead," "Meta," or "Reserve." The
proposal editors maintain the proposal status throughout the review
process until a final decision is reached.

### 4. Maintaining proposal integrity and documentation

The proposal editors ensure the integrity and accuracy of proposals
within the Tor Community/Policies repository. They review proposals for
adherence to formatting guidelines and make necessary adjustments to
maintain consistency.

## Proposals made by proposal editors

When proposal editors intend to submit their own proposals, they must
follow the standard process outlined in the "How new proposals get
added, approved and implemented" section of this document.

However, when it comes to merging their own proposals, the proposal
editors should not unilaterally merge their own proposals without proper
evaluation and consensus from the Tor relay operator community. The
proposal editors have the responsibility to maintain the integrity and
fairness of the proposal review process.

To avoid conflicts of interest and ensure transparency, full proposals
made by proposal editors must be sponsored by two other Tor core
contributors.

## What should go in a proposal

Every proposal must have a header containing these fields:

    * Filename
    * Title
    * Author
    * Created
    * Status

The body of the proposal should start with an Overview section
explaining what the proposal's about, what it does, and about what state
it's in.

After the Overview, the proposal becomes more free-form. Depending on
its length and complexity, the proposal can break into sections as
appropriate, or follow a short discursive format. Every proposal should
contain at least the following information before it is "ACCEPTED",
though the information does not need to be in sections with these names.

Motivation: What problem is the proposal trying to solve? Why does this
problem matter? If several approaches are possible, why take this one?

Security implications: What effects the proposed changes might have on
anonymity, how well understood these effects are, and so on.

Implementation: If the proposal will be tricky to implement by the Tor
Community, the document can contain some discussion of how to go about
making it work.

## How to format proposals

Proposals must be written in Markdown.

## Proposal status

Draft: This isn't a complete proposal yet; there are definite missing
pieces. Please don't add any new proposals with this status.

Open: A proposal under discussion.

Needs-Revision: The idea for the proposal is a good one, but the
proposal as it stands has serious problems that keep it from being
accepted. See comments in the ticket for details.

Accepted: The proposal is complete, and we intend to implement it. After
this point, substantive changes to the proposal should be avoided, and
regarded as a sign of the process having failed somewhere.

Finished: The proposal has been accepted and implemented. After this
point, the proposal should not be changed.

Closed: The proposal has been accepted, implemented, and merged into the
main policies documents. The proposal should not be changed after this
point.

Rejected: We're not going to implement the proposal as described here,
though we might do some other version. See comments in the ticket for
details. The proposal should not be changed after this point; to bring
up some other version of the idea, write a new proposal.

Dead: The proposal hasn't been touched in a long time, and it doesn't
look like anybody is going to complete it soon. It can become "Open"
again if it gets a new proponent.

Meta: This is not a proposal, but a document about proposals.

Reserve: This proposal is not something we're currently planning to
implement, but we might want to resurrect it some day if we decide to do
something like what it proposes.

Obsolete: This proposal was flawed and has been superseded by another
proposal. See comments in the document for details.

The proposal editors maintain the correct status of proposals, based on
rough consensus and their own discretion.

## Proposal numbering

Numbers 000-099 are reserved for special and meta-proposals. 100 and up
are used for actual proposals. Numbers aren't recycled.
```
-- 
The Tor Project
Community Team Lead
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