Hi All, Not to be incredibly mean about this, but how about giving a vote to all chapters approved by the AffCom, rather than just the members? I know you are looking at the membership model and trying to see if it will work for you, but this sort of limits your options and perpetuates the feeling that you are not representing cooperation between ALL the chapters... Jan-Bart On Feb 24, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Fae <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:

So I would not dare speak for the specific chapters, but I gather some of them did not want to join simply because they did not like the membership model. So it might be good to open things up the other way around :) Jan-Bart On Feb 24, 2013, at 4:39 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Jan Bart, I think that your request would suggest a more open model... It may be that this simple and natural request needs to have the ability to rediscuss the whole organization. On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 1:35 AM, Jan-Bart de Vreede &lt;jdevreede(a)wikimedia.org > Hi All, > > Not to be incredibly mean about this, but how about giving a vote to all > chapters approved by the AffCom, rather than just the members? I know you > are looking at the membership model and trying to see if it will work for > you, but this sort of limits your options and perpetuates the feeling that > you are not representing cooperation between ALL the chapters... > > Jan-Bart > > > On Feb 24, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Fae &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com> > > Hi, > > > > The schedule of election for the Chapters Association Council Chair > > has been announced at > > < > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/201… > > > > > > The schedule is: > > Nominations open midnight (UTC) on Monday 25 February 2013. > > Nominations close midnight on Monday 4 March 2013 and voting is > opened. > > Voting closes midnight Monday 11 March 2013. > > > > Note that all 21 Council members will be eligible to vote, including > > those that stand for election. In a heavily contested election, > > expecting nominated candidates to refrain from voting would not be > > workable. > > > > Thanks, > > Fae > > -- > > Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) faewik(a)gmail.com > > Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA > > Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > -- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch

@Jan-Bart One of the early discussions before agreeing the WCA charter was the possibility of automatically counting all legally recognized chapters as members. It was felt that this would not result in a credible democratic process, indeed the current 21 members are not all very active in votes and the current voting pattern shows participation at around 2/3 of the members or less in any vote. If we counted all Chapters, then a quorum would have to be set to be artificially low.<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Resol… Should any Chapter wish to vote in this election, they need only provide a statement to me and then the new Council member sends in a statement that they support the charter. The Council member need not be on the board of the Chapter. There are no fees, there are no specific duties and we are always looking for more light-weight ways of handing our processes. Any Council member recognized before the vote opens, will be eligible to vote. @Newyorkbrad My original thought was to allow an overall three week process, but was put under pressure to do this quickly to make a clear demonstration that I was going; however I would guess that opening the election does this rather than bringing forward the deadline to close it. I will take a look at the schedule again later today and reconsider the deadlines. In practice, I have had the opposite feedback from Council members, who thought that allowing 2 weeks for a vote as our past custom, was unnecessarily long. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) faewik(a)gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae

Hey Ziko No actually we did not agree on that. We agreed that there were several reasons that chapters might not join the Chapters Association. Again: i do not know all the specifics and cannot give you the arguments for the chapters that did not join, but some certainly voiced a reluctance to become part of a membership organisation within the Wikimedia Movement, simply because they felt it was a bit much) And I am not sure that creating a membership model within a group of approved chapters (who have therefore already passed the AffCom test) can be described as a "democratic model". You are creating an preferred status. You could argue that it is much more democratic to give all the approved organisations a vote. After all the Chapters Association intends to help all chapters with the exchange of knowledge of skills… regardless of wether they are a member or not (that was the last status I heard). Jan-Bart On Feb 25, 2013, at 1:13 AM, Ziko van Dijk &lt;vandijk(a)wmnederland.nl&gt; wrote:

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Nathan &lt;nawrich(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: 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

Seconding Béria here - by common sense, a group called the "Wikimedia Chapters Association" would represent the Wikimedia chapters. If it only exists to represent "Wikimedia chapters that sign on to ideas X and Y, and pledge Z, and attend meeting Q", then the name ought to be more representative of that - "Biggest Wikimedia Chapters Association", or "Wikimedia Europe", or "Wikimedia Chapter Politics Interest Group"... -Fluffernutter On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 10:37 AM, Béria Lima &lt;berialima(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

The opt-in model make sense to be sure that all members actually support the WCA and what can be said in the name of the WCA. But this is IMHO the problem, the WCA has been presented like a body that should represent the chapters in negociation with the WMF, but it has been received like a body that will actually serve the big european chapters in their negotiation with the WMF. Thus it's normal that several chapters refuse to join an association that do not demonstrate its capacity to help every chapter, and not only the noisiest ones. Charles ___________________________________________________________ I use this email for mailing list only. Charles ANDRES, Chairman "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch Le 25 févr. 2013 à 16:45, Katherine Casey &lt;fluffernutter.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt; a écrit :

Am 25.02.2013 16:37, schrieb Béria Lima: The WCA plans to represent all the chapters. That's at least a desire. But in order to represent, I think we need a mandate. We cannot represent a chapter / an entity without its consent, right? For me, that's the main reason for having an opt-in model. In my opinion, though, opting in should be as easy as putting the name of a representative here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership. Best, Markus -- Markus Glaser WCA Council Member (WMDE) Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.

2013/2/25 Nathan &lt;nawrich(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: That's it, indeed. The membership is absolutely open for all approved chapters, the application process for the WCA is very easy: Send a message from the chapter board that a) "we want to join", b) "we know that the Charter is the organizational basis" and c) "This is our appointed Council Member". After Washington, I have written to the mailinglists and also individually to all chapters which didn't join already. Many did not even answer. So, allegations that the WCA is "exclusive" have no ground. Kind regards Ziko ----------------------------------------------------------- Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter http://wmnederland.nl/ Wikimedia Nederland Postbus 167 3500 AD Utrecht -----------------------------------------------------------

«That representation should be co-extensive with taxation, not stopping short of it, but also not going beyond it, is in accordance with the theory of British institutions.» http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645r/chapter8.html Béria Lima, 25/02/2013 16:37: Nobody said this. It doesn't plan to *mis*represent all chapters. Of course it can legitimately represent only its members, while Jan-Bart suggests to claim that it somehow represents also non-members that don't mind participating in its discussions, by pretending they were invited to. Nemo

Dariusz Jemielniak, 25/02/2013 16:59: Not in my sentence above; perhaps in someone else's, as Markus said (25 Feb 2013 17:08:40 +0100). That's an unfortunate confusion, I'm glad that the chapters association didn't make this mistake. Sure. Nemo

On Feb 25, 2013 9:41 AM, "James Alexander" &lt;jamesofur(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm hoping that was just a poor choice of words and Fae doesn't mean they have to support the charter, just that they have to agree to follow the charter. If they do have to support the charter, then that is excessive and undesirable.

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: Probably this type of discussions over the meaning of technical English words after all, I hope that "supporting the Charter" includes supporting the part about amendments) and the fact that inviting chapters to become members was never really pursued more enthusiastically than stating that 1) becoming a member just takes "these easy steps" therefore 2) logically, every chapter can make the rational choice whether to join and if they haven't yet decided to join that is probably because they haven't had time to realize that this is the correct choice, probably "because they are not active or too busy with other things." At least, this was my personal perception at the time I was still a chapter board member; I fear that this model might not work in attracting new members (especially as the history to process is growing, so it makes more difficult to make an informed decision) and some more active and welcoming outreach might bring better results. In that light, I think Jan Bart's suggestion to give voice to all chapters and set up structures that are open not only in principle but practice is a good idea. (Although, with that in mind, the choice of the chairperson - especially as he needs to be a council member - seems like an internal matter, so there might not be big benefits in extending the right to vote.) Best regards, Bence

On 25 February 2013 09:40, James Alexander &lt;jamesofur(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The charter is very basic. If you want to turn the organization upside down, throw away the charter or sack the Chair, it's very easy, you just put forward a resolution. The wording on <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership> is: :"Declare that your chapter, and the appointed Council Member, respect the WCA Charter." If you fundamentally disagree with the existence of the WCA, then it would be odd to join it. I believe it is entirely possible to join the WCA with the ambition of changing it, in fact I would love for more Council members to join with reformation agendas as it would bring plenty of energy into discussions. As for scary, well, I can't comment, many folks seem to find me scary which puzzles me immensely. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) faewik(a)gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae

Am 25.02.2013 23:13, schrieb Fae: +1 Markus -- Markus Glaser WCA Council Member (WMDE) Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.

Sorry wrong ref, easily done - I meant to paste in "The Council elects from its own Members a Chair and a Deputy Chair." (Section 3 Art 6). Fae

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Nathan &lt;nawrich(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I think that the "member dues" issue should really not be something to deter any potential new chapters from joining, though I understand the concern. The fact is, there have been zero dues required so far (a fact my small chapter is quite happy with!), and if burdensome dues were ever instituted, we are perfectly free to leave before they would come into effect. So, I think it is more the perception of the potential for burdensome dues that has been the problem, and so it might make sense to help "ease" chapters with this concern into the official membership. Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)

I see your point, and I agree that proposing to modify the bylaws would not be a practical option for us now. Perhaps, though, we might come up with some "informal" processes for broader pan-chapter input before then... Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos) On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Fae &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: