Curating a Community of Packages: Lessons from a Decade of rOpenSci Peer Review

Slides from UseR! 2025, Durham, NC, Aug 9, 2025.

Abstract: Themed collections of packages have long been a common feature of the R ecosystem, from the CRAN Task Views to today’s “universes”. These range from tightly integrated toolboxes engineered by a single team, to journal-like repositories of packages passing common standards, or loose collections of packages organized around communities, themes, or development approaches. This talk will share insights for managing package collections, and their communities of developers, gleaned from a decade of rOpenSci’s software peer-review initiatives. I will cover best practices for governing and managing collections, determining scope and standards for packages, onboarding and offboarding, and supporting continuing maintenance. Finally, I will discuss the essential role of mentorship and inclusive practices that support a diverse community of package maintainers and contributors.