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Constitution

Article I. Name

The name of this organization shall be the Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective. For brevity, it may also be referred to as Intrusive Thoughts, Intrusive Games, or simply the Collective.

Article II. Purpose

We are artists and creators who reject the present capitalist economic order based on exploitation of labor for private profit, and we defy the regime of violence and terror which enforces it. We reject white supremacy, we reject patriarchy, we reject western imperialism, and we reject all forms of discrimination based on race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, age, religion, and national origin. We have come together to show the people that our world does not have to be this way. Through our works as artists, we endeavor to spread class consciousness, foster resistance against our oppressors, and spread our shared vision of a humane social order.

Article III. Membership

Sec 1. Members

The set of all current members of the Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective is known as the collective body.
Every individual employed by the Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective is a member of the collective body, and all members of the collective body are employed by the Collective.

Sec 2. Recruitment

Membership shall be open to every person who subscribes to the principles of the Collective and is willing to make a meaningful contribution to the creative work of the Collective.
An individual shall apply to be a member following the procedure prescribed by the Recruitment Mandate.

Sec 3. Collective

Every member has a right to vote on decisions made by the Collective.
Any decision made by an individual member or decision-making body on behalf of any body of the Collective may be overruled by the majority decision of a higher decision-making body, except where otherwise stated in this document.
The collective body shall be the highest decision-making body of the organization.
Members who do not wish to vote on collective decisions may temporarily waive their right to vote by expressly declaring their intent to the collective body.
1. Members who have waived their right to vote in the above manner are referred to as "non-voting members".
2. A member may not be coerced into waiving their right to vote.
3. A member may rescind the waiver of their voting rights at any time by expressly declaring their intent to the collective body.
The set of members of the collective body who have not waived their right to vote is known as the voting body.
A quorum of the collective body shall be half its members. Likewise, a quorum of the voting body shall be half its members.

Sec 4. Expulsion

A member may be expelled from the Collective by either a two-thirds decision by the voting body or by unanimous decision of the Personnel Committee.
A member facing expulsion must receive a written notice of the charges against them and must be given the opportunity to be heard before the Personnel Committee or a working group established for the purpose of considering expulsion.
A member meeting any of the following criteria may be subject to expulsion:
1. They are in substantial disagreement with the principles or policies of the Collective.
2. They consistently engage in undemocratic, disruptive behavior.
3. They have violated the Collective Code of Conduct.
4. They have been out-of-contact with the collective body for at least thirty days without providing an excuse for their absence.

Sec 5. Resignation

A member may choose to resign from the collective by announcing the time at which they intend to leave the collective, which shall be respected by the collective body.

Sec 6. Organization

The members of the collective body have a right to unionize.
Intimidation or retribution against any member for exercising their right to organization, or for discussing organization, or for exercising collective bargaining, is recognized as undemocratic behavior and is therefore grounds for expulsion.

Article IV. Committees

Committees may be chartered only by this Constitution.
Any member of the collective body may be a member of any committee, provided they meet that committee's requirements for membership.
1. A member of the collective body may be a member of any number of committees at the same time, unless otherwise prescribed.
Committees may make internal decisions by holding polls and elections exclusive to the voting body of that committee.
1. Any internal decision of any committee may be vetoed by a two-thirds decision of the voting body.
2. A quorum of any committee shall be half of its voting members, unless otherwise stated.

Sec 1. Steering Committee

The Steering Committee shall be responsible for decision-making on behalf of the entire collective body in lieu of polling the members of the collective body themselves.
The Steering Committee shall meet once every two weeks.
1. Meetings of the Steering Committee shall be open to all members of the collective body.
2. The Steering Committee may hold a closed executive session if a simple majority (one-half) of its members agree to do so in order to discuss private matters, such as personnel and related financial matters.
The Steering Committee shall be composed of five individuals who shall be elected from the collective body by the voting body to a term of one year.

Sec 2. Personnel Committee

The Personnel Committee shall be composed of members of the collective body who have been individually appointed by the Steering Committee.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for the recruiting & interviewing candidates for collective membership as prescribed by the Recruitment Mandate.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for ensuring that the Collective operates as a safe, equitable, non-discriminatory organization in accordance with the principles of the Collective.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for periodically reviewing member performance.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for expelling members who meet the criteria for expulsion.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for rallying the morale of the collective and fostering a sense of esprit de corps.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for maintaining the [Personnel Committee Charter][personnel], documenting the procedures, policies, and bylaws specific to the Personnel Committee therein.
1. Any changes to the Personnel Committee Charter must be announced to the collective body.
The Personnel Committee shall be responsible for enforcing the Collective Code of Conduct in all Collective spaces, including the Collective chat and Git repo.
1. The Personnel Committee shall also be responsible for maintaining the Collective Code of Conduct. Any changes must be announced to the collective body.

Sec 3. Infrastructure Committee

The Infrastructure Committee shall be composed of members of the collective body who have been individually appointed by the Steering Committee.
The Infrastructure Committee shall be responsible for the maintenance, upkeep, security, and administration of all Collective IT assets and infrastructure, as well as any physical Collective assets.
The Infrastructure Committee shall be responsible for defining the Collective's security practices, and shall document these practices in the Best Practices Mandate.
The Infrastructure Committee shall be responsible for provisioning and acquiring new IT assets for the Collective as mandated by the other committees and/or the collective body.
The Infrastructure Committee shall be responsible for assisting all members of the collective body in the use of Collective IT assets.
Immediately upon discovery of any instance of unauthorized access of any Collective IT asset, the Infrastructure Committee shall announce the incident to the collective and subsequently begin the process of mitigating damages and advising any affected members. This damage-control process takes priority over any other responsibility of the Infrastructure Committee.
The Infrastructure Committee shall be responsible for maintaining the Infrastructure Committee Charter, documenting the procedures, policies, and bylaws specific to the Infrastructure Committee therein.
1. Any changes to the Infrastructure Committee Charter must be announced to the collective body.

Sec 4. Engineering Committee

The Engineering Committee shall be composed of any members of the collective body who wish to contribute to the works of the Collective in a technical capacity.
The Engineering Committee shall be responsible for maintaining the Engineering Committee Charter, documenting the procedures, policies, and bylaws specific to the Engineering Committee therein.
1. Any changes to the Engineering Committee Charter must be announced to the Engineering Committee body.

Sec 5. Creative Committee

The Creative Committee shall be composed of any members of the collective body who wish to contribute to the works of the Collective in a creative capacity.
The Creative Committee shall be responsible for maintaining the Creative Committee Charter, documenting the procedures, policies, and bylaws specific to the Creative Committee therein.
1. Any changes to the Creative Committee Charter must be announced to the Creative Committee body.

Sec 6. Business Committee

The Business Committee shall be composed of any members of the collective body who wish to contribute to the Collective and our works in a business capacity.
The Business Committee shall be responsible for maintaining the Business Committee Charter, documenting the procedures, policies, and bylaws specific to the Business Committee therein.
1. Any changes to the Business Committee Charter must be announced to the Business Committee body.

Article V. Elections

Sec 1. Procedure

All elected positions shall prescribe a limited term of office.
All elections shall be decided by ranked-choice voting with instant runoff.
1. In the event that a clear winner cannot be decided by either the normal election nor the instant runoff, the winner shall be decided by random selection of the given tied candidates.
All elections shall be held via an online platform so that every member may cast their vote regardless of physical location.
1. Immediately after an election is opened, a link or other means of accessing the ballot must be announced to the collective.
All elections shall be open for a period of at least 72 hours after being announced to the collective.
Whenever an elected position is vacated, a new election for the position shall be held immediately.

Sec 2. Abdication

A member holding any elected office may choose to abdicate that office at any time for any reason, including no reason, by announcing their intent to the collective.
A member holding any elected office shall automatically abdicate that office upon resigning (or being expelled from) the collective body.

Sec 3. Recall

A member holding an elected office or an appointed position may be recalled from that position with a two-thirds decision of the voting body, or the body to which they are beholden.

Article VI. Roles

Sec 1. Internal Roles

A member may be granted a role with respect to any committee they are a part of in accordance with the bylaws of that committee.

Sec 2. External Titles

Members should not identify their internal role when representing themselves as a past, present, or future member of the Collective to anyone outside of the Collective, including (but not limited to) a recruiter for another company, on social media, and on their résumé or CV.
Members are automatically granted external titles based on committee membership. Members are encouraged to identify themselves as one or more of their external titles.
1. All members of the collective body may use the title of "Vice President of Research & Development".
2. Members of the Personnel Committee may use the title of "Vice President of Human Resources".
3. Members of the Finance Committee may use the title of "Vice President of Finance".
4. Members of the Infrastructure Committee may use the title of "Vice President of Information Technology".
5. Members of the Engineering Committee may use the title of "Vice President of Technology".
6. Members of the Creative Committee may use the title of "Vice President of Design".
7. Members of the Business Committee may use the title of "Senior Executive Vice President".

Sec 3. Speaker for the Collective

The voting body shall elect a Speaker for the Collective (alt. Speaker) from the collective body to a term of one year.
The Speaker shall be responsible for representing the Collective's interests publicly in situations that require an in-person representative.
The Speaker does not have any executive power, directorial power, or decision power beyond that which would be otherwise granted to a regular member of the collective body.

Sec 4. Treasurer

The voting body shall elect a Treasurer from the collective body to a term of one year.
The Treasurer shall be responsible for the direct management of the Collective's financial assets.
The Treasurer shall review the Collective's financial situation with the Steering Committee on a monthly basis.
The Treasurer shall prepare an annual budget.

Sec 5. Secretary

The voting body shall elect a Secretary from the collective body to a term of one year.
The Secretary shall be responsible for producing and distributing minutes of meetings of the Steering Committee and any general meetings of the entire collective body.
The Secretary shall be responsible for drafting Collective documentation as prescribed by the Steering Committee or the voting body.
The Secretary shall be solely responsible for maintaining the Collective documentation repository, including merging amendments to this document and revisions to other Collective documentation.
1. Maintenance of the documentation repository shall be conducted in a timely fashion, and only in the manner prescribed by this document.

Article VII. Working Groups

Sec 1. Working Groups

Any set of members may form a working group for any purpose.
Membership in a working group is inherently open; the members of a working group are exactly the members of the collective body who identify themselves as members of that working group.

Sec 2. Projects

A project is a working group formed for the specific purpose of creating a single distinct game, visual novel, or any other piece of media.
A project may elect a Project Director from the project body to the term of the project development cycle.
1. A Project Director makes decisions about the creative direction of the project which they direct. All members of the project body are asked to abide by the creative decisions made by the Project Director.
2. While other members of the project body will naturally make creative decisions about the project in the course of their work, any such decision may be overruled by the Project Director.
3. The project body may collectively overrule any creative decision made by the Project Director with a two-thirds veto decision.
4. A project does not need to elect a Project Director. The election of a Project Director must include a "None" candidate, to indicate the voter's preference that the office remain unfilled.
A project may elect a Producer from the project body to the term of the project development cycle.
1. A Producer is responsible for the planning, procurement, and execution of a project.
2. A Producer facilitates communication between the Project Director and project body to define & refine engineering, creative, and business requirements.
3. A Producer negotiates a project schedule with the project body, and coordinates the project body's labor to ensure the project is completed in accordance with that schedule.
4. A Producer is responsible for advocating for their project's labor requirements to the Personnel Committee.
5. A Producer is responsible for advocating for their project's material and technological requirements to the Infrastructure Committee.
6. A Producer is responsible for advocating for their project's financial requirements to the Treasurer.
7. A Producer is responsible for informing the greater collective body on any decisions relating to the procurement of project requirements.

Article VIII. Collective Ownership

Sec 1. Collective Property

All intellectual property created or discovered by a member of the collective body and contributed to a project shall be the collective intellectual property of the Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective, with all present and future rights, title, and interest assigned to the Collective, unless otherwise stated at the time of contribution.
1. Intellectual property includes, but is not limited to, code, graphical assets, sound assets, algorithms, concepts, developments, designs, discoveries, ideas, formulas, improvements, inventions, processes, software, trademarks, and trade secrets, as well as the tangible embodiments (e.g. drawings, notes) of any intangible items.
2. When starting a project, any preliminary intellectual property intended to become part of that project must be relinquished to the Collective by its owner(s) before the collective body may contribute to the project.
All assets owned by the Intrusive Thoughts Game Collective are collectively owned by the collective body. This includes virtual assets such as intellectual property, as well as material assets including servers and databases, as well as any accounts which represent the Collective on online platforms.
Collective assets shall be managed and administered by the Infrastructure Committee. Access to collective assets in an administrative capacity shall be the exclusive responsibility of the Infrastructure Committee.

Sec 2. Core Infrastructure

The Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective shall collectively maintain a set of core infrastructure elements to facilitate the basic operation of the collective.
All core infrastructure elements shall be listed in the Core Infrastructure Manifest.
1. Any change to the core infrastructure must be immediately reflected in the Manifest.
The Infrastructure Committee shall be responsible for the administration, upkeep, and security of the core infrastructure.
All members must have user-level access to the core infrastructure.

Article IX. Dissolution

In the event of the dissolution of the Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective, all remaining funds and assets shall be released to such other organizations that are organized exclusively for the promotion of social welfare and that will operate to further the common good and general welfare of the community.
In such an event, all Collective source code assets shall be made publicly available on gitlab.com. The URLs of any such repositories shall be disclosed to every person who was a member of the Collective before its dissolution.

Article X. Constitutionality

Sec 1. Constitutional Mandate

This document shall be hosted in a publicly-visible git repository on the Collective document repository.
The version of this document published at the head of the main branch of the repository shall be recognized as the current version of this document.
The git commit history of this document shall not be abridged or altered except to add commits when merging an amendment.

Sec 2. Ratification

This document shall be submitted as a pull request to the existing Collective document repository.
After a period of review of at least one week, with the unanimous consent of all five founding members of the Intrusive Thoughts Creative Collective, this document will be ratified by merging it into the main branch of the repository.
Upon ratification of this document, the five founding members will automatically become members of the Collective.
Upon ratification of this document, there shall be a grace period of one week to allow the Collective to form in compliance with the procedures of this document.

Sec 3. Amendment

Amendments to this document may be proposed by any member of the collective body by submitting a pull request to the Collective document repository.
1. Any member may have no more than one proposed amendment to this document under consideration at any given time.
A proposed amendment must be approved by two-thirds of the voting body before it can be accepted and merged.
If a proposed amendment does not meet all acceptance criteria within two weeks (fourteen days) of submission, it shall be considered rejected and closed permanently.
1. A rejected amendment may not be re-submitted. However, a new amendment with the same text as a previously-rejected amendment may be submitted.

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