Add automation to alert BEPs once in a while about needed progress

[yarikoptic]

The overall problem is that BEP process is still not straight-forward: lots of "human" decisions to be made, activities to be carried out by humans (notifications, adjustment of beps.yaml) instead of automated actions to be taken based on the state of the BEPs. This PR intends to provide a single automation - notification of BEPs.

We have a list of BEPs at https://github.com/bids-standard/bids-website/blob/main/data/beps/beps.yml in machine readable form with valuable information about their status etc.

I will try to come up with a github action to send notification to the still open BEP leads upon request, to alert them about their entries in the list, and some notable future event (so should be an option) like "Next release of BIDS is planned for December 2025".

And without reason -- just an update request to be sent e.g. every half year.

Any further ideas/reasons when to alert BEP people?

TODOs

• fixup "bep-leads" check
  • finish up [INFRA] Update code for assemble of contributors records and extend listing of referenced contributors bids-specification#1964
• gather credentials for some existing bids email account (e.g. bids.maintainers@gmail.com) to send from/via (@effigies ? @bendhouseart -- do you have it) using e.g. https://github.com/dawidd6/action-send-mail
• check/extend records in https://github.com/bids-standard/bids-website/blob/main/data/beps/beps.yml to be up to date
  • ideally should also be automated to update dates on PR being associated, and potentially even enrich/update with _updated for PRs etc to be able to track activity on them so we detect/alert stale ones
• develop the script to send notification
• create CI action

Alternative potential solutions

Utilize github teams more.

We do have teams for many BEPs: see https://github.com/orgs/bids-standard/teams . Potentially we could alert members of those teams. Ideally the listing should be synchronized between beps.yaml here and list of teams there. But what would be the "source"?

[cmaumet]

This was discussed today in BIDS steering

[christinerogers]

@ericearl shall we tag this as BEP Process WG issue?
Ideally managing BEP status reminders through GitHub like with their stale issue notifications

[ericearl]

@yarikoptic @christinerogers @cmaumet This goes back to the need for a volunteer coordinator to keep things like communication coordination on the top of their list. It seems to be the top of no one's list right now and what happens instead are we have short bursts of VERY NECESSARY communications followed by long periods of silence (with the exception of GitHub issues, discussions, and PRs).

I agree Christine that, yes, this is something the BEP Process Working Group we are putting together soon will plan to formalize in making the "BEP Process" clearer and more concretely documented, to include "expected BEP follow-ups from the maintainers and steering group."

[cmaumet]

@ericearl - thanks for sharing this! How about we put out a specific call to lookout for someone who'd be focused on comms? Do you agree this person be a maintainer? I am happy to help trying to find that person.

I think this could totally be done in parallel of Yarik's suggestion to have more things automatically performed.

[yarikoptic]

Agreeing with @cmaumet -- could/should be done in parallel. Eventually, automation should relief the burden for such a human coordinator and make communication timing guided by timelines and not human work schedule. Meanwhile, having a dedicated person would help.

[ericearl]

@cmaumet Putting out a call for a BIDS communications maintainer specifically would be great. I would expect them to come to one of the maintainers meetings biweekly and always read the steering group meeting notes, attending when possible. A stretch goal for them would be to organize regular BIDS office hours for experts and community members to connect. Is this outside the scope of what @kimberlylray has cycles for?

@yarikoptic I do fear automating communications runs the risk of notifying people when we shouldn't or don't need to, possibly demotivating project progress or alienating people from not feeling like they are receiving personalized communication. Also, automated messaging is not a substitute for better communication (which I'm hoping we could achieve with a dedicated comms person, if not a BIDS volunteer coordinator).