Change in Scheme WG2 process and membership

[Daphne Preston-Kendal]

Dear Schemers,

I hope everyone has had a nice summer (or winter). I will be
announcing the (somewhat belated) release of the procedural fascicle
soon, but first I have an announcement to make about the future of the
Working Group.

Since I became chair, we have made some great progress on R7RS Large,
but in recent months progress has slowed again. Also, the process in
terms of what is happening at any particular moment, and how to join
in, still seems to many Schemers to be intransparent.

Therefore, in order to increase efficiency and transparency about who
is making R7RS Large, and to make it easier to get involved in the
currently relevant issues, I am making another major change to WG2’s
process.

As of today, I am establishing a formal membership list for WG2. (This
replaces both the outdated, pre-charter revision membership list on
scheme-reports.org, and the ‘all ratification voters are WG2 members’
principle since the 2014 charter revision.)

The principle that membership is open to all remains, but in order to
be considered a member you must:

1. Enter yourself in the list of members at
<https://codeberg.org/scheme/r7rs/wiki/WG2-Members> (or ask me to do
it for you, if the wiki software gives permissions problems)

2. Attend synchronous meetings of the WG regularly. Failure to attend
at least 3 meetings in a row will eventually result in being removed
from the membership list. This is not a permanent (nor punitive)
exclusion: you can rejoin just by re-adding yourself to the list and
coming to meetings again. It’s to ensure that everyone knows who is
actively involved. I hope the membership list will be fairly stable
over time.

Synchronous meetings will be held preliminarily over IRC in the
#scheme channel on Libera Chat. (If you are unfamiliar with IRC, you
will be able to join here: <https://web.libera.chat/#scheme>. Simply
type in your preferred handle into the ‘Nick’ box, and click ‘Start’.)
If there is interest, we may also hold voice calls.

Please enter yourself on the member list and join our first meeting!
(You are also welcome to come to the meeting as a non-member.)

We will meet for the first time on Tuesday 16 September at 17:00 UTC.
Conversion to your local time zone is available here:
<https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?qm=1&lid=2147714,1850147,1275004,264371,2950159,2643743,100,5128581,5391959,5856195&h=100&date=2025-9-16&sln=17-19&hf=0>

Unfortunately, I can optimize the choice of time for synchronous
meetings for at most about two-thirds of the globe. In particular, I
realize that this is a very unsociable hour for those in Asia,
Australasia, and the Pacific, and I apologize. I do not want to
exclude people who live in these areas from participation. If you live
in one of these areas and want to take part in meetings, please let me
know and I will try to find a solution, either for this meeting or for
future meetings. Please also let me know if you want to participate
but can’t make this first meeting for other reasons.

The agenda for the first meeting can be found on Codeberg at:
<https://codeberg.org/scheme/r7rs/wiki/Agenda+2025-09-16.->

Note the agenda item to find at least one additional editor, possibly
to replace me as de facto main editor. If anyone would like to
volunteer or is curious about what the job involves (note: you can
keep your head out of politics a lot more as editor than I can as
chair ;-) ), feel free to ask me before the meeting.

Best wishes


Daphne

[Arthur A. Gleckler]

Thank you for everything you do for Scheme, Daphne.

On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 4:35 AM Daphne Preston-Kendal <d...@nonceword.org> wrote:

  

1. Enter yourself in the list of members at
<https://codeberg.org/scheme/r7rs/wiki/WG2-Members> (or ask me to do
it for you, if the wiki software gives permissions problems)

I've added myself.

 

2. Attend synchronous meetings of the WG regularly. Failure to attend
at least 3 meetings in a row will eventually result in being removed
from the membership list. This is not a permanent (nor punitive)
exclusion: you can rejoin just by re-adding yourself to the list and
coming to meetings again. It’s to ensure that everyone knows who is
actively involved. I hope the membership list will be fairly stable
over time.

I'm both nervous that regular attendance at an online meeting is a requirement and excited about the prospect of meeting, albeit virtually, Scheme collaborators.

Would you please clarify what "failure to attend at least three meetings in a row" means?  Does it mean:

1. ...that one can miss many meetings and still be a member unless one misses three in a row?
2. ...that one is not a member until one has attended three meetings in a row?
3. ...that once one has attended three meetings in a row, one is permanently a member?
4. ...something else?

 I'm guessing #1.

Synchronous meetings will be held preliminarily over IRC in the
#scheme channel on Libera Chat. (If you are unfamiliar with IRC, you
will be able to join here: <https://web.libera.chat/#scheme>. Simply
type in your preferred handle into the ‘Nick’ box, and click ‘Start’.)
If there is interest, we may also hold voice calls.

If we're meeting at a certain time, I'd be glad to attend a voice call, or even a video call.  I host my own Jitsi instance, and would be happy to offer the use of it in case that alleviates some free software and privacy concerns.

[Arthur A. Gleckler]

[Daphne Preston-Kendal]

On 2 Sep 2025, at 22:37, Arthur A. Gleckler <a...@speechcode.com> wrote:

> Would you please clarify what "failure to attend at least three meetings in a row" means?

The answer is: I don’t have an answer yet, and we’ll have to see how it works out :-)

It depends, for example, on a potential solution to the time zone issue (which might involve alternating meetings between times that work for people in Asia/Australasia vs times that work for people in the Americas, which might mean people in the time zone that’s awkward for one meeting get a free pass for that meeting).

As I say, this is not meant to be a punitive measure … generally speaking I think as long as someone is still clearly active somehow, they won’t be removed, but the ‘three meetings missed’ rule of thumb is where I’m starting from.

> If we're meeting at a certain time, I'd be glad to attend a voice call, or even a video call. I host my own Jitsi instance, and would be happy to offer the use of it in case that alleviates some free software and privacy concerns.

Thanks for the offer! We’ll see how things work out. My experience is that BigBlueButton offers better tools for meetings (as opposed to social calls) and is less buggy – but that’s based on my experiences of Jitsi five years ago, so it’s probably improved since.

Best


Daphne

[Vincent Manis (he/him)]

Speaking just for myself, the “cannot miss 3 meetings in a row” rule,
along with Daphne's statement that it would be interpreted liberally,
seems to be eminently fair, especially if we always get 2 weeks advance
notice (as we did this time). I verified that it doesn't conflict with
anything, and put the meeting into my calendar when I saw the message,
along with a requirement for copious reminders as the date approaches.
And I checked out the agenda, which looks fine for an inaugural meeting.

I personally prefer text to voice for something like this, because the
transcript can then be saved and archived (I hope on Codeberg) for
future reference.

(As a side note for those who have not yet retired, some claim “when
you're retired, your time is your own”. Don't believe it for a minute.

-- vincent