Thank you Gerard
This is helpful. When did the Charter come into effect?
On 14 Sep 2021, at 13:03, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
This committee predates the charter.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 13:42, Jim Killock <jim(a)killock.org.uk> wrote:
Do any of the other Committee members have an
opinion about this below?
I do not believe it the problem here to be a "process issue”.
1. The orginal consultation was faulty, in breach of the Committee
Charter and has produced a problematic AL policy;
2. The Committee’s current is in likely breach of the Committee’
Charter language policy as it is not based on “quantative indicators” but
instead changes these indicators according to preference;
3. This tension between the Committee’s Charter and the AL policy is
being consulted on now, there is an alternative approach available, but so
far the Committee do not seem to wish to respond or to discuss these
mitigations
Gerard, this does not need a response from you at this stage as we have
that already
On Mon, 13 Sept 2021 at 20:31, Jim Killock <jim(a)killock.org.uk> wrote:
Dear Gerard,
I am sorry you feel your time is being wasted. I am also very surprised
how much effort this is taking, especially given that *the request for
policy change in the RFC is very limited*, and would help the Committee
deal with issues around the ancient language wikis which are not performing
well. Furthermore I have no wish to be a nuisance, rather I would like to
work with the Committee to help improve the ability of Ancient Language
Wikis (ALWs) to meet WM’s mission.
As you say, the policy is clear; the process is now clearer, having
found the email archive. This is important, because some members of the
Committee want to leave the current policy in place, should the current RFC
be rejected.
However, that is only reasonable if the policy you have can be seen to
be developed fairly and responsibly, and to have dealt with all of the
issues properly, at the time. Looking at the email discussion that led to
the change I would observe that:
1. The change to the status of Ancient Languages was *presented as a
minor change to the Language proposal policy*
2. The discussion was very short, with just 16 emails sent
3. *Only three issues were raised*; being the need to meet the
mission; a "need for native speakers"; and the need for a “natural
audience”
4. There were no mitigations or alternatives discussed
5. There was *no mention of a public discussion or consultation*,
which *appears to be a breach of the Committee’s Charter commitment
to transparency*
6. There was no discussion of whether *qualitative factors* (ancient
versus constructed languages) could be appropriately combined with *different
treatment of objective factors* (numbers of native speakers) which *appears
to be in breach of the Committee’s Charter, which commits to using
objective factors alone.*
Point six in particular is in need of public consultation and a
consensus, and should not be the property of the Committee to determine by
itself, or via a Board rubber stamp.
All this said, it is easy to say these things in hindsight. I just want
to be plain that the current RFC process is already a much more thorough
and developed policy process than that in 2007 - quite naturally, given we
have 14 years of further experience to apply. A review would be quite
natural after this length of time in any case.
So this is not meant as criticism, still less a personal one. I would
however like the Committee to approach the current RFC positively, and use
it to take a fresh look.
Thank you again for your time,
Jim
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