[Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

[Bence Damokos]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 1:42 AM, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov <
alexandrdmitriromanov at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2012/2/1 Béria Lima <berialima at gmail.com>
>
> > that is a bit OT but...
> >
>
> Not at all, it is a statement of fact. The continent of Africa is scarcely
> represented in terms of Chapters, despite being the world's largest
> geographically and second most populous geographically.
>
> >
> > *It is difficult to get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in
> > > Africa, and the only approved chapter for the entire continent is 8,000
> > > kilometres away.*
> > >
> >
> > Create one in your country! :D That is basicaly what we are doing in
> > IberoCoop - help groups from all over Latin World with guidance and help.
> > And IF they want to became a chapter, we help them (talk with ChapCom
> > members, each month we have a new request from a Latin Chapter ;) )
> >
> > I rather expected you to say that. Currently the number of people on Meta
> who have expressed an interest (two to three years ago) does not excede 10.
> I daresay with help from ChapCom something could be done, though.
>
> Notwithstanding, that would leave another 54 unrepresented countries. My
> point is that African residents are disenfranchised virtually totally from
> the selection. That's nearly 15% of the world's population (though not of
> its readers/editors).
>

Unfortunately, readers and editors from Africa represent only 1% and 0.6%
respectively of the total traffic to Wikimedia sites (
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerCountryOverview.htm
;
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryTrends.htm
).
However, it is good news that we have a chapter in South Africa
(technically still working on being incorporated) and one in Kenya (to be
approved by the Board soon). Together they could represent 5% of the votes
for chapter selected seats if they finish their founding process on time.

Best regards,
Bence