[Foundation-l] Re: communications committee

[Anthere]

Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
> Anthere schrieb:
>>A question : why are all members only people living in english-speaking
>>countries ?
> 
> 
> Most other major languages have press teams who do pretty good work.
> English had no formal team yet while it needs it most. Also, most of the
> international press work has to be done in english. Third, if I invited
> all the non-english people who'd merit it, we would end up with a really
> large committee and have still not all languages represented equally. I
> think for the sake of efficiency it's better to start small. These were
> my reasons for focussing on having people from english speaking
> countries on the committee.
> 
> This shouldn't mean that others are excluded. One first task of the
> communication committee will be to invite all members of the local press
> teams to the subcommittee press where probably most actions take place.
> By having this subcommittee, we can integrate all languages equally.
> 
> So far my concept for the committee. If you favour a different approach,
> I'm open for suggestions.
> 
> greetings,
> elian

Hi Elian

I see your point. Of course, not all languages can be represented and 
that would not be the point. And quite obviously, press releases from 
the Foundation will be made in english.

But I think the communication committee has a much larger scope than the 
one you seem to describe here. To my opinion, it is not only about 
relations between Foundation and press, but also between Foundation and 
outside world or Foundation and editors.

It could englobe OTRS organisation (ie, not only organising the info-en 
queue, but also organising the various languages queue, and making some 
proposal for the cross language queues (legal...).

It could englobe information provided by the Foundation to the editors, 
such as visual guidelines for logo reuse, or communication upon adoption 
of a new legal requirement or new copyright policy.

It might also be something around lobbying. For example, to see what 
could be done from a PR point of view to have Wikipedia available again 
in China (this will require first of all chinese-speaking editors). Or 
communication on wikinews (which will require first of all wikinews 
editors).

In short, I believe this committee should go much further than simply 
english-speaking press team. And this will mean to involve editors from 
all projects and from more languages.

I know the committee may be expanded later to involve these ones. But I 
also think the focus of the committee will be directly impacted by those 
who composed it. So, the current team will probably focus on *press* and 
not on other issues which may be just as relevant to this committee.

Just my opinion.

Ant