I am not a member of LangCom (just a volunteer list-admin), so I will not
offer an opinion on Jan's request to join.
However, I *will* offer an opinion about the committee's governance: the
current structure still bears the signs of the committee's genesis, out of
ad-hoc need, in a very different time for the movement. Today, it behooves
this committee, like all WMF committees (and others across the movement),
to adopt some measures of good governance to ensure it remains
fit-to-purpose and active.
The first such measure that comes to mind is agreeing upon participation
expectations (which should of course be appropriate for this particular
committee's tasks and the understandable delays they often carry, such as
waiting on external experts, etc.), and, after due notice, eventually
removing members who do not meet those expectations. This is a relatively
easy way to address the "membership for life" issue without setting actual
(renewable) membership terms.
Another measure would be agreeing upon some desired size (or range) for
committee membership, and then upon some process and criteria for
soliciting and accepting new members.
I am bringing this up as advice in my personal capacity as observer of this
committee, resting though it does on much observation and work with other
Wikimedia committees. My advice does not carry any coercive force, of
course; I just invite the committee to consider improving its governance
along these or similar lines.
Cheers,
Asaf
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 4:49 PM Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren.jan(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
We have a
mailing list where anyone can write to and arguments are
heard. So effectively you
are part of what we do.
Not entirely. The page
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee
writes explicitly:* "Non-members should generally not participate in
discussions. When it is necessary however, they can send a mail which a
list administrator will need to accept manually."* Not that I mind being
moderated, but to put it bluntly, writing a message feels pretty much like
being an intruder.
The language committee was created to say
"no".
Hm, perhaps I am wrong, but isn't the language committee also there to say
"yes" every once in a while? Mind, I can follow your logic. If one member
saying "no" means the whole committee says "no", it makes sense to
limit
the number of members to a bare minimum, because otherwise saying "no" is
likely to become all the committee will ever do. I agree that for normal
issues a majority vote would be a much better solution. While I agree with
Amir that voting is not the solution for all problems, giving each
individual member the right to veto any progress is a solution even worse.
Besides, I read that a quite a few members are completely inactive, which
shouldn't come as a surprise if you consider that members are basically
appointed for life. Given the fact that (except for Satdeep Gill) not a
single new member has been added since 2012, I thought it might be a good
idea to change that. That's why I am offering my expertise and help in
speeding things up.
Cheers,
Jan
2017-02-07 7:46 GMT+01:00 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hoi,
As it is we have a policy whereby anyone can say "no" and it is no. We
have a mailing list where anyone can write to and arguments are heard. So
effectively you are part of what we do.
The language committee was created to say "no". This has proven to be
effective. From the later projects there are fewer failures. As such the
language works as designed.
While some may think that I am obstinate about the GRC issue, the same
opinion I have about proposals that I made. That is however how the cookie
crumbles.
So YES, I value your input and NO I think we should not add another person
that is enabled to say no.
It is not personal. Quite the contrary however, when we are to change the
policy we should overhaul it properly and discuss all the issues we face
with the current policy.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 7 February 2017 at 01:48, Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren.jan(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Also, unlike a decade ago, LangCom has expert
legitimacy and integrity
now, as well as a decade of experience. That's the reason why I don't
think that any group would use majority as a tool to push unreasonable
decisions.
Speaking of which... Would it be possible for me to apply for membership
of the Langcom? I've been following the discussions on this mailing list
for about two years now, and I hope I might be helpful to you.
A short introduction:
My name is Jan van Steenbergen, I'm 46 years old and I live in IJmuiden,
the Netherlands. I work as a professional translator and interpreter Polish
<> Dutch. Linguistics is both my work and my hobby. My main fields of
interest are Slavic languages, constructed languages, Cyrillic and Eastern
Europe. My "language package" can be found on my user page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:IJzeren_Jan (mind, the languages
listed there are those that I have actually learned to some degree – there
are dozens of other languages I can understand, or know the basics of).
I've been editing Wikipedia sporadically since 2003 as an anonymous user,
and have been more active after I created my first user account in 2004. My
home wiki is nlwiki, where I am currently an admin. I've been editing
several other language versions as well, but less frequently.
As I already explained in my post about Lingua Franca Nova, when it comes
to the question whether a language should be allowed to have its own wiki
or not, my primary criterion would be viability/sustainability. In other
words, does a potential project have good perspectives for success?
Obviously, a large community of native speakers is a good thing to start
with, but if a language has 50 mln. speakers and there is nobody willing to
work on a wiki, then the project is doomed to become a failure anyway. What
we surely want to avoid is dead wikis where practically every article is
just three or four words. On the other hand, if a language has no native
speakers at all, yet it is still able to generate a prospering wiki, then I
am all for it. Even a wiki in a language without native speakers can become
a success, provided that the language is well-documented, stable and
complete, and provided that there are enough people willing to work on it.
As far as I am concerned, if a language is doing well in the Incubator for
a longer period, that means it has passed the exam.
Best regards,
Jan van Steenbergen
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