[Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson

[Pharos]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:07 AM, Ziko van Dijk <vandijk at wmnederland.nl> wrote:
> 2013/2/25 Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>:
>> 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.
>
> 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

Yes, it is fairly easy bureaucratically for a new chapter to join WCA.

But at this stage in WCA's embryonic development, when only about half
of the chapters have "officially" joined so far, I think it might
actually be a good idea to extend the suffrage for this particular
vote to all Affcom-recognized chapters.

I think this could lead to a renewed sense of community and global
buy-in while we're still at ground-level, and could help pave the way
for many more chapters signing on for "official" membership in the
medium-term future.

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)