Just to add context to @ChrisChiasson’s question as some people have been confused by the question (and please correct me, if I am wrong):
- The current governing structure for Stan development is described at Your new governing body some further refinement can be found at Sean Talts is Technical Working Group Director
- The core point of contention AFAIK is how the Technical working group (TWG) should operate. The specific example @ChrisChiasson is talking about is what happens when someone implements a new feature in a pull request (PR), the PR is not merged and the author of the PR thinks the decision, or the process surrounding the decision is unfair or takes too long. Current state is that merge decisions are made by the lead for the given subproject/domain at their discretion and there is no clear method of appeal. Please correct me, if I am misrepresenting this.
- In a still broader context, discussion has been held whether the TWG/leads should be more “directors” that make decisions and get things done or whether TWG should act like “chairs” that facilitate discussion but don’t make a lot of decisions themselves. The current system is closer to the “director” role of leads and AFAIK the discussion has not provided a clear consensus what is the ideal state.
Hope this makes things clearer.