Re: [Langcom] Governance changes

Based on the input from the previous couple of days, I am listing them. Some of them are in the form of the request for comment, some of them are in the form of the proposal. So, please, comment if you disagree with some of the items. == 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!) * 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. 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. == Voting == This is also proposal, so read it and comment if you don't agree or you want any addition. 1) No voting 1.1) According to the Closing projects policy [1], particular member of the committee analyzes discussion and, if decides that the project should be closed, sends the request to WMF Board. 1.2) Clear-cut situations for making a language eligible for Wikimedia projects: the language has a valid ISO 639-3 code, there are no significant issues in relation to the language itself, the population of speakers is significant, request made by a native speaker. In this case, any committee member can mark language / project eligible. 1.3) Approval without obvious formal requirements. No project will be approved without them. 2) Simple majority (of those who expressed opinion) 2.1) Eligibility of a language with a valid ISO 639-3 code, but without significant population of native speakers. (Note: this covers ancient, constructed, reviving and languages with small number of speakers.) 2.2) Eligibility of a language without a valid ISO 639-3 code, but valid BCP 47 code. (Note: this covers Ecuadorian Quechua.) 2.3) Eligibility of a language with significant collision between prescriptive and descriptive information. (Note: this covers "macrolangauges".) 2.4) Project approval if not 1.3. 3) 2/3 majority (of those who expressed opinion) 3.1) Any change of the rules, including the committee's role in possible changes of the Language proposal policy [2] and Closing projects policy [1]. 4) Consensus (of those who expressed opinion) 4.1) A new member of the Language committee should not be opposed by any of the current committee member. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Closing_projects_policy [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom