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 (This replaces both the outdated, pre-charter revision membership list on scheme-reports.org, and the ‘all ratification voters are WG2 members’ principle since the 2014 charter revision.)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
