Readers should also review the Roles and Responsibilities document for a description of the various parties involved in the Incubation process.
The first thing you will want to do is find a Champion for your project. One way to do this is to explore the Apache site to find similar projects. Spend some time reading both the projects' web pages and mailing lists. By simply lurking on the mailing lists (see Mailing Lists section in this document), you may get ideas about who you would like to ask to help you with your project proposal. However, Champions must either be ASF members or officers (see the Champion section later in this document for more on Champion criteria and responsibilities). Once you have found an eligible person who is willing to act as Champion, you can use this person to help you determine if and how your proposal can complement the ASF. If you and your Champion are convinced that your candidate project would fit with the "Apache Way", your Champion can help you to get it established.
+The first thing you will want to do is find a Champion for your project. One way to do this is to explore the Apache site to find similar projects. Spend some time reading both the projects' web pages and mailing lists. By simply lurking on the mailing lists (see Mailing Lists section.), you may get ideas about who you would like to ask to help you with your project proposal. However, Champions must either be ASF members or officers (see the Champion section later in this document for more on Champion criteria and responsibilities). Once you have found an eligible person who is willing to act as Champion, you can use this person to help you determine if and how your proposal can complement the ASF. If you and your Champion are convinced that your candidate project would fit with the "Apache Way", your Champion can help you to get it established.
The establishment of a candidate involves the preparation of a project description (consistent with the candidate description detailed below) endorsed by a Champion .
A Candidate project description should be submitted to the relevant mailing list(s) of a Sponsor (see the Mailing Lists section in this document). See the Jakarta Guidelines for New Projects for a list of issues that should be addressed in your proposal; also see ASF Proposal Pages for other examples. Typically a Candidate is submitted under a message tagged with [[PROPOSAL]. Such a message will normally trigger some discussions on the receiving mailing list(s). Your Champion will be involved in these discussions acting as your advocate.
As a proposer you should consider the feedback and attempt to gauge a sense of consensus. Do not be put off by extended threads under your initial post that have little or nothing to do with your proposal - however, if you feel that your candidate project is not being addressed, you may want to specifically request a decision on the Candidate by the Sponsor by posting a request to the decision making list (either pmc@{project-name}.apache.org or board@apache.org; see Mailing List section for more details). Sometimes a vote will be announced without you asking for it (perhaps you have done some homework and have a PMC member assisting you though the process), other times you may need to cut through discussions and push your request forward for a decision.