Dear Wikimedians and Chapter members,
Many representatives on the WCA Council are aware of my views on our Chair election process and it may help current discussions about the Secretary General recruitment to share my view more widely, and make the following proposal.
I was prepared to be nominated at Wikimania 2012 for the WCA Chair position this summer, but I expected a tough competition with several nominations where the Chapter Representatives could judge my skill and experience against other quality volunteers. I was surprised and disappointed to be the only candidate, and I have no intention of staying in this post "by default" or 1 or 2 years without a better and visibly democratic election process, particularly as it was the first time we had tried electing a Chair and would probably all prefer a more rigorously formal process next time around.
I recommend that we have a well designed process that starts in March, at least *4 weeks* before the next Chapters Conference in spring 2013 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2013. This will ensure that the Conference starts with a freshly elected chair having gone through a robust election process against several candidates. I recommend that a page is set up this year on :meta for the election process, so that we can discuss and agree how candidate nominations and votes will work, including a questions/answers section in multiple languages. Having an open and public nomination process may also encourage new chapters to join the WCA before the Conference in Milan, and put forward their own candidate for the WCA Chair position. :-)
Hopefully this will also provide sufficient time for our new Secretary General to get established, before there is a change of WCA chair and avoid any sense of instability, even though I would have been in post for only 8 months or so before we have another election.
Cheers, Fae