Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 6:16 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 16 June 2014 20:48, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Not quite sure what you're shouting about, Gerard. The amendment clearly gives individual projects the right to have an alternative to this particular section of the terms of use, and that alternative can be either more strict or less strict. That's correct. Members of various projects asked for this kind of flexibility in the comment period, and the board agreed that we should add the ability for projects to craft alternatives on a per-project basis to this amendment. In the absence of a local policy, however, the ToU amendment applies to every project. While this issue is a concern of many on the English Wikipedia, the amendment was not crafted specifically for en:wp; this has been an issue across many language communities. The terms of use (amendments and all) apply to all of our projects. best, -- phoebe I'm so very disappointed in the Board and the WMF for this TOU amendment, which was obviously written to quell concerns about English Wikipedia, with extremely little consideration of any other project. Now projects *must* formally exempt practices that are perfectly acceptable to them: Commons in particular, where professionals (who link to their personal for-profit websites in their file descriptions) contribute a great deal of the highest quality work; MediaWiki and all its developer-related sites, where a large number of our best non-staff developers are financially supported by other organizations; Wikidata, which is pure data and no benefit can be derived; Wikisource, where no benefit can be derived; and a multitude of Wikipedias that have openly welcomed editors who receive financial support or are paid by various organizations without any issue whatsoever. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be enforced in the vast majority of WMF projects. I'm sorry you're disappointed. But I don't really follow your reasoning. I don't know of many people who get paid *specifically* to upload photos or contribute to Wikidata. Perhaps a few cultural professionals who are already, in general, following this best practice. And if someone is specifically getting paid to upload photos to Commons (or contribute to another wiki) it seems, in general, like a good idea to know about it. (If a professional photographer that's not doing work for hire chooses to donate some of their professional-quality photos to the project -- in their spare time, as it were -- I don't think the amendment applies, though I leave discussion of that nuance to the legal team and the commons community). Anyway, I'm not sure why you are assuming that the amendment will automatically be abhorrent to every community that's not English Wikipedia. Of course projects do vary based on size and cultural norms and other factors; that's why we put in the local exemption clause however. It would have been far more beneficial if the WMF and the Board had had the courage to work directly with the English Wikipedia community to develop a policy there instead of imposing it on hundreds of projects that not only don't care, they will now have to create policies to counteract the effects of this TOU amendment. Simply put, Terms of Use should never include clauses whose enforcement is undesirable in a significant portion of the overall site. I'll be off now to help Mediawiki create their RFC to essentially void this decision. Of course you should feel free, though I'm not entirely sure how a provision that a person should disclose if they are getting paid specifically to edit that wiki (in mediawiki's case, it would likely be something along the lines of I work for the Foundation or I work for someone else who has an interest in developing mediawiki and also developing documentation on the wiki) is especially undesirable. I'm pretty sure most paid developers do this anyway. (If someone is editing in their spare time -- on any project -- and not specifically getting paid for that work, the amendment doesn't apply). At any rate, I leave that specific discussion to the mediawiki community, where I suspect it's basically a non-issue. best, -- phoebe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
On 17 June 2014 12:56, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 6:16 PM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: I'm so very disappointed in the Board and the WMF for this TOU amendment, which was obviously written to quell concerns about English Wikipedia, with extremely little consideration of any other project. Now projects *must* formally exempt practices that are perfectly acceptable to them: Commons in particular, where professionals (who link to their personal for-profit websites in their file descriptions) contribute a great deal of the highest quality work; MediaWiki and all its developer-related sites, where a large number of our best non-staff developers are financially supported by other organizations; Wikidata, which is pure data and no benefit can be derived; Wikisource, where no benefit can be derived; and a multitude of Wikipedias that have openly welcomed editors who receive financial support or are paid by various organizations without any issue whatsoever. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be enforced in the vast majority of WMF projects. I'm sorry you're disappointed. But I don't really follow your reasoning. I don't know of many people who get paid *specifically* to upload photos or contribute to Wikidata. Perhaps a few cultural professionals who are already, in general, following this best practice. And if someone is specifically getting paid to upload photos to Commons (or contribute to another wiki) it seems, in general, like a good idea to know about it. (If a professional photographer that's not doing work for hire chooses to donate some of their professional-quality photos to the project -- in their spare time, as it were -- I don't think the amendment applies, though I leave discussion of that nuance to the legal team and the commons community). The amendment has effect if someone decides to kick up a fuss about it; it may not result in a determination of paid contributions but will create a chill directed toward anyone contributing in a like manner. Substitute the word photos in the above with words; if someone linking to their personal site and contributing words from their published sources (available at a fee, click shop!) is not essentially a self-employed paid editor, then there is little point in this amendment. Anyway, I'm not sure why you are assuming that the amendment will automatically be abhorrent to every community that's not English Wikipedia. Of course projects do vary based on size and cultural norms and other factors; that's why we put in the local exemption clause however. Editors from several non-English Wikipedia projects stated that their projects are quite happy to have paid editors. Now in order for those editors not to violate the TOU, those projects have to go to the work of developing and approving an alternate policy, or they can just ignore it, and refuse to enforce the TOU; either way, it's not cost-neutral, and reduces the respect that the broad community has for the terms of use. I cannot think of another site anywhere that creates opt-out terms of use. Can you? Why does this need to be in the terms of use at all? It would have been far more beneficial if the WMF and the Board had had the courage to work directly with the English Wikipedia community to develop a policy there instead of imposing it on hundreds of projects that not only don't care, they will now have to create policies to counteract the effects of this TOU amendment. Simply put, Terms of Use should never include clauses whose enforcement is undesirable in a significant portion of the overall site. I'll be off now to help Mediawiki create their RFC to essentially void this decision. Of course you should feel free, though I'm not entirely sure how a provision that a person should disclose if they are getting paid specifically to edit that wiki (in mediawiki's case, it would likely be something along the lines of I work for the Foundation or I work for someone else who has an interest in developing mediawiki and also developing documentation on the wiki) is especially undesirable. I'm pretty sure most paid developers do this anyway. (If someone is editing in their spare time -- on any project -- and not specifically getting paid for that work, the amendment doesn't apply). At any rate, I leave that specific discussion to the mediawiki community, where I suspect it's basically a non-issue. There are actually a surprisingly large number of non-WMF employees who are indeed paid to develop mediawiki. As well, for the majority of the developer-related sites/software, they can't include the information on (non-existent) userpages or edit summaries which are either non-existent or specifically used for other purposes. If it's not important enough to be a mandatory requirement for every single user on every single project, then it really
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
phoebe ayers, 17/06/2014 18:56: Anyway, I'm not sure why you are assuming that the amendment will automatically be abhorrent to every community that's not English Wikipedia. And why do you think it will be useful? If it was needed, how comes only some 50 non-en.wiki editors came to support it (and about as many opposed it)? Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Hoi, I have read Stephen's mail. It refers to many other things that I did not read. When the policy was discussed I raised the notion that for Wikidata the need for such disclosure is different. Given that I did not get any response, I took it as if that was not interesting relevant and understood it as one ring to rule them all. Apparently not. Thanks, GerardM On 16 June 2014 20:15, Tilman Bayer tba...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi GerardM, have you read Stephen's email? On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, WOW, CAN SOMEONE WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO CLARIFY IF THIS WILL GET A HEARING? Either it is something that should apply to all projects and consequently it is a board issue or it is en.wp only. When it is en.wp only, the policy is either not carefully thought through or it should not be a board issue in the first place.\ The time to reconsider the application from a project level did come and has gone REALLY Thanks, GerardM On 16 June 2014 19:32, Tomasz W. Kozlowski twkozlow...@gmail.com wrote: Stephen LaPorte writes: We would like to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved an amendment to Section 4 of the Terms of Use to require disclosure of paid editing. There is a proposal on Wikimedia Commons that aims to opt-out that project from the amendment, given the huge differences between Commons and the English Wikipedia, at which the amendment was targeted. Feedback and comments are welcome at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/Alternative_ paid_contribution_disclosure_policy Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Hi Nemo ( others) I know of at least one non english project that has implemented a much stronger stance against paid contributions Their are two possibilities when specific projects discuss if they need to have their own policy on this topic a) If all participants of the project agree on what they would like to implement, then it should not be a long discussion. b) If there are different opinions this could be a longer discussion and is a worthwhile one to have (and the general ToU is a general fall back in case there is no conclusion to that discussion) In both cases this is a discussion that worth having. One of the most important things we have is our integrity (and the perception of that integrity by our readers), and having a frank discussion (per project) on how we protect this integrity is not a waste of time or useless overhead, its incredibly relevant. Jan-Bart On 17 Jun 2014, at 19:55, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: phoebe ayers, 17/06/2014 18:56: Anyway, I'm not sure why you are assuming that the amendment will automatically be abhorrent to every community that's not English Wikipedia. And why do you think it will be useful? If it was needed, how comes only some 50 non-en.wiki editors came to support it (and about as many opposed it)? Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Hi all, We would like to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved an amendment to Section 4 of the Terms of Use to require disclosure of paid editing. This follows the extensive discussion of the amendment https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment on meta in February and March, which resulted in 320,000 words of discussion in various languages. At the Board's meeting in April, they reviewed issues raised in this discussion, and approved the proposed amendment. This amendment is added to the Terms of Use effective immediately. The new section can be found here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use#4._Refraining_from_Certain_Activities For more information, please see the following links: * A letter from the Board: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_letter_on_paid_contributions_without_disclosure * A blog post summarizing the change and explaining the process: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/06/16/change-terms-of-use-requirements-for-disclosure/ * An FAQ explaining the amendment: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/FAQ_on_paid_contributions_without_disclosure * You can leave comments on the Terms of Use on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use -- Stephen LaPorte Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation *NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.* ___ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Stephen LaPorte writes: We would like to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved an amendment to Section 4 of the Terms of Use to require disclosure of paid editing. There is a proposal on Wikimedia Commons that aims to opt-out that project from the amendment, given the huge differences between Commons and the English Wikipedia, at which the amendment was targeted. Feedback and comments are welcome at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/Alternative_ paid_contribution_disclosure_policy Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Hoi, WOW, CAN SOMEONE WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO CLARIFY IF THIS WILL GET A HEARING? Either it is something that should apply to all projects and consequently it is a board issue or it is en.wp only. When it is en.wp only, the policy is either not carefully thought through or it should not be a board issue in the first place.\ The time to reconsider the application from a project level did come and has gone REALLY Thanks, GerardM On 16 June 2014 19:32, Tomasz W. Kozlowski twkozlow...@gmail.com wrote: Stephen LaPorte writes: We would like to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved an amendment to Section 4 of the Terms of Use to require disclosure of paid editing. There is a proposal on Wikimedia Commons that aims to opt-out that project from the amendment, given the huge differences between Commons and the English Wikipedia, at which the amendment was targeted. Feedback and comments are welcome at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/Alternative_ paid_contribution_disclosure_policy Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Hi GerardM, have you read Stephen's email? On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, WOW, CAN SOMEONE WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO CLARIFY IF THIS WILL GET A HEARING? Either it is something that should apply to all projects and consequently it is a board issue or it is en.wp only. When it is en.wp only, the policy is either not carefully thought through or it should not be a board issue in the first place.\ The time to reconsider the application from a project level did come and has gone REALLY Thanks, GerardM On 16 June 2014 19:32, Tomasz W. Kozlowski twkozlow...@gmail.com wrote: Stephen LaPorte writes: We would like to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved an amendment to Section 4 of the Terms of Use to require disclosure of paid editing. There is a proposal on Wikimedia Commons that aims to opt-out that project from the amendment, given the huge differences between Commons and the English Wikipedia, at which the amendment was targeted. Feedback and comments are welcome at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/Alternative_ paid_contribution_disclosure_policy Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Tilman Bayer Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) Wikimedia Foundation IRC (Freenode): HaeB ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Not quite sure what you're shouting about, Gerard. The amendment clearly gives individual projects the right to have an alternative to this particular section of the terms of use, and that alternative can be either more strict or less strict. Seems Commons is considering an alternative that is very much less strict. If your point is that terms of use that are specifically intended for one or a small number of projects, and that are extremely unlikely to be enforced on most projects, should be addressed on a project-by-project basis, I tend to agree with you; however, it seems that since the primary target project couldn't come to consensus on a policy, everyone else gets stuck with one designed for enwiki. Risker On 16 June 2014 13:58, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, WOW, CAN SOMEONE WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO CLARIFY IF THIS WILL GET A HEARING? Either it is something that should apply to all projects and consequently it is a board issue or it is en.wp only. When it is en.wp only, the policy is either not carefully thought through or it should not be a board issue in the first place.\ The time to reconsider the application from a project level did come and has gone REALLY Thanks, GerardM On 16 June 2014 19:32, Tomasz W. Kozlowski twkozlow...@gmail.com wrote: Stephen LaPorte writes: We would like to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved an amendment to Section 4 of the Terms of Use to require disclosure of paid editing. There is a proposal on Wikimedia Commons that aims to opt-out that project from the amendment, given the huge differences between Commons and the English Wikipedia, at which the amendment was targeted. Feedback and comments are welcome at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/Alternative_ paid_contribution_disclosure_policy Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/guidelineswikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Not quite sure what you're shouting about, Gerard. The amendment clearly gives individual projects the right to have an alternative to this particular section of the terms of use, and that alternative can be either more strict or less strict. That's correct. Members of various projects asked for this kind of flexibility in the comment period, and the board agreed that we should add the ability for projects to craft alternatives on a per-project basis to this amendment. In the absence of a local policy, however, the ToU amendment applies to every project. While this issue is a concern of many on the English Wikipedia, the amendment was not crafted specifically for en:wp; this has been an issue across many language communities. The terms of use (amendments and all) apply to all of our projects. best, -- phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers at gmail.com * ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
On 16 June 2014 20:48, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Not quite sure what you're shouting about, Gerard. The amendment clearly gives individual projects the right to have an alternative to this particular section of the terms of use, and that alternative can be either more strict or less strict. That's correct. Members of various projects asked for this kind of flexibility in the comment period, and the board agreed that we should add the ability for projects to craft alternatives on a per-project basis to this amendment. In the absence of a local policy, however, the ToU amendment applies to every project. While this issue is a concern of many on the English Wikipedia, the amendment was not crafted specifically for en:wp; this has been an issue across many language communities. The terms of use (amendments and all) apply to all of our projects. best, -- phoebe I'm so very disappointed in the Board and the WMF for this TOU amendment, which was obviously written to quell concerns about English Wikipedia, with extremely little consideration of any other project. Now projects *must* formally exempt practices that are perfectly acceptable to them: Commons in particular, where professionals (who link to their personal for-profit websites in their file descriptions) contribute a great deal of the highest quality work; MediaWiki and all its developer-related sites, where a large number of our best non-staff developers are financially supported by other organizations; Wikidata, which is pure data and no benefit can be derived; Wikisource, where no benefit can be derived; and a multitude of Wikipedias that have openly welcomed editors who receive financial support or are paid by various organizations without any issue whatsoever. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be enforced in the vast majority of WMF projects. And the end result is an amendment that can't effectively be enforced without violating the internal rules of the amendment. [1] It's virtually impossible to make a supportable allegation of undeclared paid editing without violating outing or harassment policies. Of course, we all know there will be plenty of unsupported allegations. It would have been far more beneficial if the WMF and the Board had had the courage to work directly with the English Wikipedia community to develop a policy there instead of imposing it on hundreds of projects that not only don't care, they will now have to create policies to counteract the effects of this TOU amendment. Simply put, Terms of Use should never include clauses whose enforcement is undesirable in a significant portion of the overall site. I'll be off now to help Mediawiki create their RFC to essentially void this decision. Risker/Anne [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/FAQ_on_paid_contributions_without_disclosure#How_does_community_enforcement_of_this_provision_work_with_existing_rules_about_privacy_and_behavior.3F ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Disclosure amendment to the Terms of Use
Risker wrote: I'm so very disappointed in the Board and the WMF for this TOU amendment, which was obviously written to quell concerns about English Wikipedia, with extremely little consideration of any other project. Now projects *must* formally exempt practices that are perfectly acceptable to them: Commons in particular, where professionals (who link to their personal for-profit websites in their file descriptions) contribute a great deal of the highest quality work; MediaWiki and all its developer-related sites, where a large number of our best non-staff developers are financially supported by other organizations; Wikidata, which is pure data and no benefit can be derived; Wikisource, where no benefit can be derived; and a multitude of Wikipedias that have openly welcomed editors who receive financial support or are paid by various organizations without any issue whatsoever. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever be enforced in the vast majority of WMF projects. From what I can tell, a few people thought there was a lack of ammunition against paid advocates. This amendment provides a modicum of firepower. Whether this amendment is a good idea or not, I agree with you that this amendment is unlikely to be heavily enforced, which is why I'm not particularly concerned about it. I imagine most readers and editors have never and will never fully read the terms of use. I certainly haven't gotten through the whole thing. It's long. Plus it's one of many documents that I'm allegedly supposed to read before editing a wiki. I think I'm also supposed to read the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, the GNU Free Documentation License, and probably the privacy policy, as well as local policies and now policy overrides, of course. So, uh, nobody does. And the world keeps on spinning. The general rule of engagement continues to be don't be a dick, which is really a re-statement of the Golden Rule. And none of this is specific to Wikimedia wikis. Don't be a dick is pretty universal. Terms of use, terms and conditions, site usage agreements, etc. continue to go unread across the wired and unwired worlds. If it helps, there are worse things that the Legal and Community Advocacy group could be spending its time on. :-) Are black hat paid advocates going to disclose their practices on their user page? Of course not. They're also not going to read or follow the terms of use. Perhaps a benefit of this will be that GLAM folks and similarly like-minded individuals will now be more cognizant of the need to disclose their paid editing, which seems like a decent practice in many cases. If that's the upshot here, that doesn't seem so bad. At the end of the day, you don't need to register an account to edit. You don't need to provide an e-mail address. With a very small amount of patience, you can make as many accounts as you want (they're free!). We've already lost the battle and yet we continue to win the war. How about that. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
