On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 9:42 AM, Oliver Stegen <oliver_stegen(a)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).