Agreed from my side, too. Here are my suggestions.
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.)
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).
Just my 2p's worth for starters.
Oliver
On 08-Feb-17 02:09, Milos Rancic wrote:
On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 2:02 AM, Asaf Bartov
<abartov(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
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.
Agreed. I would put on hold any new membership
requests before the
solution of the issues Asaf listed.
I would also say that we should solve these issues as soon as
possible; i.e. to put this thread as priority for our present work.
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