Ten Simple Rules for Building Open Science Community Organizations

Matthew Turk and Greg Wilson

1. Do the reading. People have been writing about their experiences with grassroots organizations for two centuries. Resources we have found particularly useful include Building Powerful Community Organizations and Producing Open Source Software.

2. Make it a democracy. Sooner or later (usually sooner), every appointed board turns into a mutual agreement society. Giving the community power is messy, but is the only way invented so far to ensure that an organization continues to meet the actual needs of the people it's supposed to be helping.

3. Write down the rules. As Jo Freeman described in The Tyranny of Structurelessness, every organization has a power structure: the only question is whether it's formal and accountable, or informal and unaccountable. Make yours one of the first kind: write and publish the rules governing everything from who gets to decide when software is ready to release and who's allowed to use the name and logo to how complaints of inappropriate conduct are handled and what actually constitutes inappropriate conduct. (This model anti-harassment policy is a good start.)

4. Provide training. Organizations require committees, meetings, budgets, grant proposals, and dispute resolution. Most researchers are never taught how to do any of this, despite the fact that universities depend on them too. Training people to do these things helps your organization run more smoothly, and gives participants a powerful reason to get and stay involved. If you aren't large enough to provide training, join an organization that is and take some of theirs. As with startups, it's always best to learn on someone else's dime...

5. Leave space. If you're too engaged or too quick on the reply button, people have less opportunity to grow as members and to create horizontal collaborations. The community can remain a vertical one, focused on one or two individuals, rather than a distributed one where others feel comfortable participating.