As has been said, the two new "chapter" seats will be filled by representatives
of the individual chapters, with the method of selection left up to
the chapters
(and no real guidance on how to go about this). Of course, an open election
would be fantastic, but we have no way of knowing if this will be the case.
Only time will tell.
However, as the chapters are left to decide how their seat will be dispensed,
what if they came forward with an idea such as "the WMF Board will pick a
member of our board to represent us on the WMF Board." Or perhaps, "the
staff will select for us." Or potentially, "ChapCom and the Chapters
Coordinator
will make the decision."
While these aren't likely scenarios I think, would the Board consider adding a
provision to eliminate such possibilities as this? Having someone within the
WMF decide who the Board members are for the chapters is not only a
massive potential conflict of interest, but would also lose some of the appeal
a chapter-based seat might have (as the decision would be coming from within,
not from the chapter itself).
For what it's worth, the chapter representation is severely limited compared to
the overall traffic. According to Alexa, the United States (no
chapter) approximates
to over 29% of all views. Japan (no chapter either) is around 9%. This is nearly
the first 40% of the overall traffic which has been disenfranchised to
an extent.
-Chad