LLG Meeting Summary 2011

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This is a summary of the 2011 Annual Meeting of the members of the Logical Language Group, as conducted on the llg-members mailing list from October 9, 2011 to November 14, 2011.

Announcement

The 2011 Annual Meeting was announced by the president on October 7, 2011, to commence on October 9, 2011.

Call to order

The meeting began on October 9, 2011 with a call to order by president Robert LeChevalier.

Roll call

  • Dave Barton
  • Robert LeChevalier
  • Veijo Vilva
  • Arnt Richard Johansen
  • Nora LeChevalier (noras)
  • Jorge Llambías (xorxes)
  • Craig Daniel
  • Timo Paulssen
  • Matt Arnold
  • John Cowan
  • Paul Swift
  • Pierre Abbat (.pier.)
  • And Rosta
  • Theodore Reed
  • TommyLee Whitlock (tomis)
  • Robin Lee Powell

With 16 out of 19 current members responding, quorum was declared.

Reading of minutes

The president requested a summary of the previous year's meeting, in lieu of formal minutes, which had been deemed to be satisfied by the archive of the mailing list. No summary was presented.

President's report

I can estimate the number of CLLs remaining. I have full 13 boxes with

either 16 or 20 books in each. Amazon has 40 books just received from

me. Matt has a couple of boxes from when he was doing fulfillment. So

I would estimate that there are at least 250 books remaining, and

probably 300.

Officers' reports

Robin Lee Powell, secretary/treasurer, reported LLG's 2011 Q3 finances.

Committee reports

Robin Lee Powell, chair of BPFK, reported progress on CLL v1.1. Having received some assistance from Nathan Janzen (Moddington), he reported 2-3 dozen hours work left, mostly consisting of polishing and visual presentation for HTML and PDF/printing. While CLL v1.1 would include errata but no substantial changes to content, CLL v2 was projected to add xorlo and dotside.

Pierre reported on LBCK (lojbo bangu cipra kamni):


la lojbo bangu cipra kamni goi lybycyky is tasked with developing Lojban

proficiency tests for various levels of proficiency.

Current status of Lojban proficiency tests:

I have a partially written database schema in which a question group has an author,

a reviewer, a difficulty, and a set of questions, of which some

number is picked to put on a test. A question has up to five answers or a

blank to fill in. Both the question group and the question have text; a

reading comprehension question group has the paragraph in the question group

text.

The set of proficiency levels is not well defined. I proposed scales of

difficulty for lujvo, fu'ivla type, fu'ivla, and cmene, but still need scales for gismu,

cmavo, and grammar and a way to compute an overall difficulty.

Activity within the past year consisted of the following: I proposed a double

multiple choice question, which la .xorxes. shot down; I proposed some questions,

which la .arpis. answered and we discussed; I proposed some rating scales but got

no answer; and I wrote a reading comprehension passage (translated from a passage

of Herodotus which I have in Greek) which no one tried to answer.

I am going to ask in the main list for more people to participate in LBCK.

Election of new members

No new members were submitted for consideration.

Removal of old members

Jay Kominek, who had not been active in lojban for several years, was removed as a member.

Election of the Board

The president called for an additional member to be added to the board, but no new member was nominated. The current slate of directors was submitted for re-election:

  • LeChevalier, Robert
  • Powell, Robin Lee
  • Vilva, Veijo
  • Paulssen, Timo
  • Johansen, Arnt Richard

With no objections, the slate was re-elected.

Old and new business

The eligibility criteria for LLG membership and its purpose was discussed.

Robin described the LLG as a business organization, responsible for money-collecting and money spending, but not in charge of managing the language or "getting things done" (e.g. the poor track record of official projects reaching completion), hence he has discouraged people from joining. The function of LLG membership, he said, should be mostly limited to electing and overseeing the board.

And raised a concern that limiting LLG membership could limit the pool of directors.

Paul raised a concern that a policy of discouraging membership might be perceived as in conflict with the "Purpose" bylaw (Article 2 Section 1).

lojbab suggested that a demonstration of continuing active interest in the organizational and business activities of the LLG should be a criterion for membership, and gave several examples:

1. Working on a project for an extended period of time, especially one requiring coordination with other lojbanists

2. Assumption of responsibility for non-language chores, such as web site maintenance

3. Activity promoting lojban or recruiting lojbanists, such as presenting or teaching the language

4. Being familiar with the bylaws, and taking the initiative to ask for membership at a meeting

5. Participating in a meeting as a non-voting member

He noted that historically there has been a problem with members who join for one meeting and then disappear.

lojbab asked if CLL v1.1 would have an index and if so, how is it maintained given changes in pagination from CLL v1.0? Robin answered that the index was considered a requirement, and that indexing was maintained automatically, so changes in pagination were not a problem.

The prospect of issuing CLL v1.1 in electronic formats such as HTML, PDF, and EPUB was discussed.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned by the president on November 14, 2011.