I think the concern regarding the WCA primarily arises from the proposed paying of people who will be leading it. If these people are equivalent to the editors of content on Wikipedia (ie volunteers) and work from a virtual office than most concerns will disappear. So are the leaders of the WCA paid or not? While the office be virtual or not? @Tom: The thematic organizations are funded by those involved and are run entirely by volunteers and their offices are virtual in nature. They claim no authority over the content of the projects and goal is to provide benefits to Wikipedians ( Wiki Project Med is working to get academic resources for editors through partnering with journals, working to increase editors numbers by partnering with universities such as UCSF, working to improve access to translation, and collaborating with journals to give Wikipedians academic credit for the work they do ). If thematic groups and chapters do not provide a benefit to editors than they have failed in their mission and will hopefully fade away in reality. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com