[Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson

[Nathan]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 9:51 AM, Jan-Bart de Vreede
<jdevreede at wikimedia.org> wrote:


>
> 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

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the WCA is an
activity chapters can choose to participate in, or choose not to. To
the extent the WCA intends to "represent" its members, that
representation should be restricted to those chapters which have
specifically opted-in. I don't think an opt-out approach to membership
is ideal, at least for now.

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.

~Nathan