On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 9:42 AM, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
Re participation expectations: I expect LangCom members to read messages in a timely fashion (as we have a 7-day deadline on decisions, that would mean at least twice per week), and to contribute on such decisions, where appropriate, within the deadline, or otherwise presumably at least once per month (this could be a simple +1). Lapses in participation would result in a "warning" after three months, and revocation of membership after six. (These times could be shortened if we have a consensus on shortening them - I wouldn't mind.)
Agreed. I think six months are OK, as the dynamics of our work allows us not to require less time.
Re committee size: That's a bit more difficult as we strive to have good potential contacts covering the entire world (e.g., I'm a member mainly for African languages but also for my contacts in SIL). Possibly, we still have a few gaps in coverage (our membership is still a bit Euro-centric). Would a maximum of twelve members be sufficient? In any case, it would mean to be strategic about membership, and possibly recruit new members for a specific field (as Jon Harald did in my case back in 2011).
We could work efficiently with more than usual number of members if the rule is not consensus. However, we should keep in mind that we should meet from time to time and that more than 10-15 members would be hard to organize to meet in real life.
If we are able to recruit linguists of your profile, I see that we need three more profiles: (1) South America; (2) Southeast Asia (including Austronesian languages); and (3) New Guinea (both Paupa New Guinea and Indonesian part of the island). Everything else has been covered explicitly (with linguistic knowledge) or implicitly (with social connections).