[Chapter-delegates] Application to form the Internet Society Chapter on Internet of Food

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Dear Gihan,
(and everyone else who has spoken to this)

I feel uneasy about the concept of a "Chapter" for several reasons:

1. Chapter status gives it voting rights in Chapter elections, which are
geographic in scope. Creating topical chapters open the door to abuse
and weakens the geographic emphasis of chapters (in particular, the
Chapter structure promotes the voices from parts of the world which
often do not have a voice or a seat at the table) and lessens their
voice on the Internet Society Board.
2. Chapters are entities that are independent of ISOC altogether and
whilst needing to support the ISOC mission, have leeway which a SIG
would not have. There is therefore less chance of a SIG to go off the rails
3. Taking a leadership role in a topical chapter risks preventing
someone from taking a leadership role in a geographical chapter. Is it
possible for someone to be Chair/Vice Chair of more than one Chapter?

For these reasons, I would support SIGs; topic based groups.

Kind regards,

Olivier
(my own views)

ps. had this proposal come on April 1st, I would have said it looked
right in line with the forthcoming TCP-YP - Yummy Protocols

On 03/04/2015 06:13, Gihan Dias wrote:
> On 2015-04-03 පෙ.ව. 1:33, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>> I fully agree on reservations on the creation of non-geographical
>> chapters. We already have a couple good-faith efforts which I think
>> do their work well and can allow us to study some of the in-depth
>> issues.
>> ...
>>
>> The idea of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) is interesting and worth a
>> comprehensive look.
> Although we already have the Disabilities chapter (the Interplanetary
> chapter *may* be considered geograpical based, I too feel that we need
> a different structure for such groups.
>
> We could work on the idea of SIGs if there is enough interest.
>
> Gihan
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-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html