Am 09.02.2017 5:01 nachm. schrieb "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com:
One issue: membership.
== Membership ==
* Accepting any new member would still require consensus of those who expressed their opinion. (Nothing has changed.)
* LangCom members should read messages in a timely fashion (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. (Note: This is actual proposal for the policy change!)
Saying “members should read messages in a timely fashion (at least twice per week) [...] otherwise at least once per month“ is a reasonable thing but it should be separate from a removal policy, which ought to be formulated rather clearly. I was, for example, away for a week just now (and am drowning in langcom threads now :p), and I think nobody wants to remove me for that :p So just to have it clear that not all members need to be hyperresponsive all of the time.
I'd support a "warning" after three months of no participation, and revocation of membership after six; though I also wouldn't mind extending the time e.g. to 9 and 12. I guess that everyone will have something to say at least yearly, even if he is e.g. mostly a member because of some special matter.
* At this moment of time we have 17 members. One of them has very specific role (Zadiak, Wikiversity). I don't remember if I heard at all three of them. Five of them are quite quiet during the last few years.
While it's good to create a general limit of 10-15 members, I think it is not useful at the moment, as we don't have all necessary expertise inside of the committee. However, on the long run, we could limit accepting new members from already covered areas.
In relation to Wikimedia and computers in general we are pretty strong and I see no reason to increase the number of LangCom members based on those types of expertise.
However, we lack in expertise and connections related to, most importantly, South (and Central) America and Southeast Asia (including Austronesian languages). It would be good to have somebody for the languages of New Guinea (~1500 of them).
I would also like to see a little bit of ethnnolinguistic diversity inside of the committee. At the moment we are 16/17 native Indo-European speakers and just two members are not of European ancestry. In other words, I think another African member should be welcome, as well.
My proposal (so, please, comment this paragraph if you don't agree or you want to make addition or change!) is to publish on wikimedia-l that we are searching for three member profiles, which should be, ideally, similar to Oliver: (1) A Wikimedian and expert in South and Central American indigenous languages; (2) A Wikimedian and expert in Southeast Asian (including Austronesian) languages; (3) A Wikimedian and expert in New Guinea languages.
I'm inclined to agree, except maybe that I am, as others already said in the thread, a bit skeptical about the need for New Guinean expertise (not that I'd mind having it).
That would raise the number of LangCom members to 20 and from this point of time, we should wait to lose at least 7-8 members before adding any new.
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