On 9 Feb 2017, at 14:30, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
* Accepting any new member would still require
consensus of those who
expressed their opinion. (Nothing has changed.)
OK
* 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!)
This is hard to do. There is a lot of discussion on this list and lots of it is not
relevant to an actual vote. Subject lines don’t indicate where a vote actually is. Perhaps
we could use wiki pages for actual voting? That would also track both voters and
non-voters.
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).
How many of those have populations large enough to want or need an encyclopaedia? The Tok
Pisin Wiki exists and Hiri Motu is in the incubator. Wikipedia says “Papua New Guinea has
more languages than any other country, with over 820 indigenous languages, representing
12% of the world's total, but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers”; Enga might be a
candidate.
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.
One problem is that little is known (in the Anglophonie anyway) about many of these
languages. Many of the articles on African languages are very short and sketchy.
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.
André Müller might be good for (2). I don’t know if he’s a Wikipedian. But areal experts
like these may well be hard to find.
Michael