Talking about board seats...
Sue...
I'd like to acknowledge the fact that local associations are apparently
unable to create a separate mailing list for discussing the nomination
of chapter representatives. It did not appear to me to be a huge
unaccessible task, but unfortunately, that's a fact. Not the right
infrastructure I guess.
I even envisionned to create a Google list, that the idea really turned
me off :-)
What have you tried? A request on
bugzilla.mediawiki.org would be the
best way, I think (I've searched and can't find one there). Unless the
sysadmins have orders from on high not to give you a mailing list, I
can't see why they wouldn't be able to do it pretty quickly.
Hopefully, in two years from now, for next elections
(we can set it up
for ourselves as a GOAL), we'll be able to host a list to discuss WMF
rep, but since that's not the case right now, I'd like to officially
(and humbly) ask that the WMF set up a wiki for us to discuss the issue.
After much thinking, it seems to me that setting up a list would not be
the easiest way to come to a consensual agreement, whilst a wiki could
host at the same time, discussions and votes if necessary.
This wiki would not be public. Its members would be chapter board members.
The way I see it, there are two things the chapters need to decide. A
method for selecting chapter reps to the WMF board, and then actually
selecting them. I can see why the latter may need to be private (that
would depend on the method chosen), but why can't the former be
public? Or, at least, publicly viewable - discussion sometimes moves
faster if you restrict who can take part.