2012/2/10 Liam Wyatt <[email protected]>: > > With the specifics of "is this a political lobbying wing of the WMF or > not"... > I think it is quite clear to everyone that Wikimedians have a hard time > agreeing about *anything* but that the two things we all agree on is "Free" > (in the technical sense) and that providing a neutral source of information > is itself an inherently non-neutral activity. We spent quite a lot of time > talking about the legislative environments where we live (and how > that interacts with USA laws), what rules govern freedom of panorama in xyz > country, who can request takedown of what content in what circumstances, > whether we can provide workaround methods for accessing the content in > censoring counties, etc. etc. So, in that light it makes perfect sense to > me that there should be a group of people at the WMF dedicated to > supporting individuals and Chapters to learn more about those kinds of > things and to advocate for a "free culture" position when appropriate. > It is in no way against the WMF's (or Chapter's) mission to "advocate" in > the way it has done in the past, to general community acclaim, with for > example, > - Mike's brilliant response letter to the CIA takedown notice > http://mashable.com/2010/08/03/wikipedia-fbi-seal/ > - Geoff's filing of an amicus brief to the Goldman v. Holder case > http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/submissions/domestic/amicus.shtml > - Submissions to government policy reviews such as that written by the > Research Committee > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Committee/Areas_of_interest/Open-access_policy/EU_Consultation_on_scientific_information_in_the_digital_age > To add one more example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/News_and_notes#Wikimedia_Foundation_joins_protest_against_Obama.27s_RIAA_appointments
> I imagine that it is this kind of thing that would be in the scope of the > "advocacy" aspect of this new department. Certainly, I too do not want to > see an overt political lobbying department created, but that is not what is > being created. For comparison, the formal job title of Mathias Schindler at > WM-DE, if I understand correctly, is "project manager - politics and > society" and it's his job to help write submissions to the German > parliament when applicable. He's been doing this task for years. > > So... vigilance required to make sure we're not losing our way by focusing > too much on the politics, but we shouldn't be ignoring it or leaving it to > others to sort out either. From what that project page says it looks like > this strikes a good balance and we'll see how the department evolves over > time. > > -Liam > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
