On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
The model of voting delegates the casting of votes to members of the council; which are individuals, chosen by chapters. Purely from a practical perspective, it may not be possible for chapters to get council members in order by the deadline for this vote if they are not already members. Additionally, it's important to distinguish in voting between chapters abstaining and chapters simply not participating. Choosing to be a member, while not exercising a vote, is effectively assent to the outcome. This is not the case for those chapters which have chosen not to join the WCA.
while I agree that in principle WCA should serve the large Wikimedia community and its impact should definitely not be limited to members only, I believe it is quite dangerous from the point of view of governance to separate membership from voting rights. Although it could make perfect sense to accept non-member chapter functionaries as candidates for the board/chair/etc., the very right to vote should be reserved to those who opt-in. Otherwise the chain of responsibility gets fuzzy, plus what Nathan wrote.
best,
dariusz