Casey Brown wrote:
What kind of situations does Meta have that would call for "office actions" as they were practiced on the English Wikipedia?
With respect to the larger issue, the Wikimedia Foundation office must have the authority to intervene on all projects when necessary for legal reasons. It would be difficult to abdicate this. The details and process might vary (the closure of the French Wikiquote was done rather differently), and I wouldn't recommend referring everyone to the English Wikipedia version as the blanket official policy, but the principle remains the same.
--Michael Snow
Yep.
Jeff
Just for the record, I just applied an "office action" on the one (non english, nor french) wiki.
Not being admin over there, I went on irc and asked help from an admin. I asked him to delete the image, and I put an explanation on the article talk page. I mentionned it was an office action.
Time to see if there are any reactions now.
Ant
What was the instigation? If its a copyright reason, I doubt there will be any reaction.
On 4/24/07, Florence Devouard [email protected] wrote:
Just for the record, I just applied an "office action" on the one (non english, nor french) wiki.
Not being admin over there, I went on irc and asked help from an admin. I asked him to delete the image, and I put an explanation on the article talk page. I mentionned it was an office action.
Time to see if there are any reactions now.
Ant
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Brock Weller wrote:
What was the instigation? If its a copyright reason, I doubt there will be any reaction.
On 4/24/07, Florence Devouard [email protected] wrote:
Just for the record, I just applied an "office action" on the one (non english, nor french) wiki.
Not being admin over there, I went on irc and asked help from an admin. I asked him to delete the image, and I put an explanation on the article talk page. I mentionned it was an office action.
Time to see if there are any reactions now.
Ant
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
It was a logo, taggued public domain.
The office action held less than 30 mn.
A new logo was uploaded (very very poor quality) and replaced on the page. No comment was added on the talk page.
Outcome: Office action rejected.
Anthere
Thank you, Anthere, I think this proves we need to upload it to meta and actually enforce it project wide.
Cbrown1023
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Florence Devouard Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 7:30 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia:Office Actions
It was a logo, taggued public domain.
The office action held less than 30 mn.
A new logo was uploaded (very very poor quality) and replaced on the page. No comment was added on the talk page.
Outcome: Office action rejected.
Anthere
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Brock Weller wrote:
What was the instigation? If its a copyright reason, I doubt there will be any reaction.
On 4/24/07, Florence Devouard [email protected] wrote:
Just for the record, I just applied an "office action" on the one (non english, nor french) wiki.
Not being admin over there, I went on irc and asked help from an admin. I asked him to delete the image, and I put an explanation on the article talk page. I mentionned it was an office action.
Time to see if there are any reactions now.
Ant
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
It was a logo, taggued public domain.
The office action held less than 30 mn.
A new logo was uploaded (very very poor quality) and replaced on the page. No comment was added on the talk page.
Outcome: Office action rejected.
Anthere
Florence Devouard wrote:
It was a logo, taggued public domain.
The office action held less than 30 mn.
A new logo was uploaded (very very poor quality) and replaced on the page. No comment was added on the talk page.
Outcome: Office action rejected.
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand is that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are particularly unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we do routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to do so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
-Mark
It was based on a request to remove it sent to the Foundation.
Cbrown1023
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Delirium Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 8:30 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia:Office Actions
Florence Devouard wrote:
It was a logo, taggued public domain.
The office action held less than 30 mn.
A new logo was uploaded (very very poor quality) and replaced on the page. No comment was added on the talk page.
Outcome: Office action rejected.
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand is that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are particularly unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we do routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to do so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
-Mark
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 4/25/07, Delirium [email protected] wrote:
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand is that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are particularly unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we do routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to do so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
You can be forgiven for your confusion, as there were multiple postings by Florence in this thread with only slightly differing content.
I think the relevant bit is in the fullest of those postings as follows:
"It was a logo, taggued public domain. Request received for a take down. Legal analysis on it, and recommandation to indeed remove the logo."
Note take down request is not normal routine. It does need consulting legal eagles and acting without haste.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
2007/4/25, Delirium [email protected]:
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand is that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are particularly unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we do routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to do so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
In my opinion an office action necessary to specify that this actually is not a request but an order. If I ask for a copyright violation to be deleted, the people from the wiki where I do the request may still decide that in their opinion it is not one, and let the text or image stay. Against an office action they would not have such a choice.
Again I will state:
I don't understand that you want to repair something which is not broken.
If there is a necessity (mainly the EN:WP) you formalize office-actions there. If there is not a necessity, because the community accepts authority from the Foundation (without a policy backing this up): you don't need to enforce it on all the projects.
Apparently there is one project which needs this policy (EN:WP) and there might be 2 or 3 others; enforcing it project-wide is unnecessary and premature.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/25, Andre Engels [email protected]:
2007/4/25, Delirium [email protected]:
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand is that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are particularly unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we do routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to do so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
In my opinion an office action necessary to specify that this actually is not a request but an order. If I ask for a copyright violation to be deleted, the people from the wiki where I do the request may still decide that in their opinion it is not one, and let the text or image stay. Against an office action they would not have such a choice.
-- Andre Engels, [email protected] ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, Defining office action as an instrument is not the same as using this instrument itself. We have at the moment some 250 Wikipedias over 170 Wiktionaries and many other projects. You do not want to argue every time when an Office action is to be executed for a first time. You want it to be clear upfront with no discussions when an office action is executed.
As the logo was deleted and a new copy was uploaded after 30 minutes, the situation IS broken.
We do a license that allows for the distribution of a logo under terms that respects the restrictions that a trade mark implies.
Thanks, GerardM
On 4/25/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Again I will state:
I don't understand that you want to repair something which is not broken.
If there is a necessity (mainly the EN:WP) you formalize office-actions there. If there is not a necessity, because the community accepts authority from the Foundation (without a policy backing this up): you don't need to enforce it on all the projects.
Apparently there is one project which needs this policy (EN:WP) and there might be 2 or 3 others; enforcing it project-wide is unnecessary and premature.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/25, Andre Engels [email protected]:
2007/4/25, Delirium [email protected]:
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand
is
that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are
particularly
unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we
do
routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to
do
so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
In my opinion an office action necessary to specify that this actually is not a request but an order. If I ask for a copyright violation to be deleted, the people from the wiki where I do the request may still decide that in their opinion it is not one, and let the text or image stay. Against an office action they would not have such a choice.
-- Andre Engels, [email protected] ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I don't see the relevance of your answer. What does that have to do with the fact that this policy is unnecessary for many projects, where the Foundation still has some authority left and these problems do not occur?
It is just a matter of opinion: if it is not broken: don't try to fix it.
Apparently in this example you mention: it is broken, the Foundation lost its authority (so clearly that not even Office works), so fix it there. There is no need to fix it project-wide (certainly when most office workers will have knowledge of a few languages like every normal person). This problem seems to be very limited compared to the total projects the Foundation has. Simply asking a steward or representative from that certain community will do in most cases and will be better accepted by the smaller communities, than someone they don't know removes a part of their content.
In some issues it is better to have it fixed at the top. In this case not: I would use the network of stewards and other people in stead of forcing it upon the project instead.
Bureaucracy is not the goal here.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/25, GerardM [email protected]:
Hoi, Defining office action as an instrument is not the same as using this instrument itself. We have at the moment some 250 Wikipedias over 170 Wiktionaries and many other projects. You do not want to argue every time when an Office action is to be executed for a first time. You want it to be clear upfront with no discussions when an office action is executed.
As the logo was deleted and a new copy was uploaded after 30 minutes, the situation IS broken.
We do a license that allows for the distribution of a logo under terms that respects the restrictions that a trade mark implies.
Thanks, GerardM
On 4/25/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Again I will state:
I don't understand that you want to repair something which is not
broken.
If there is a necessity (mainly the EN:WP) you formalize office-actions there. If there is not a necessity, because the community accepts authority from the Foundation (without a policy backing this up): you don't need
to
enforce it on all the projects.
Apparently there is one project which needs this policy (EN:WP) and
there
might be 2 or 3 others; enforcing it project-wide is unnecessary and premature.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/25, Andre Engels [email protected]:
2007/4/25, Delirium [email protected]:
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My
understand
is
that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are
particularly
unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that
we
do
routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to
do
so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
In my opinion an office action necessary to specify that this actually is not a request but an order. If I ask for a copyright violation to be deleted, the people from the wiki where I do the request may still decide that in their opinion it is not one, and let the text or image stay. Against an office action they would not have such a choice.
-- Andre Engels, [email protected] ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2007/4/25, Peter van Londen [email protected]:
I don't see the relevance of your answer. What does that have to do with the fact that this policy is unnecessary for many projects, where the Foundation still has some authority left and these problems do not occur?
So your idea is to have the policy that when a project accepts foundation decisions, it does not need to, but when it doesn't it is forced to? If on those projects the foundation has sufficient authority left, what is lost by having a policy that states that it has?
It is just a matter of opinion: if it is not broken: don't try to fix it.
But if you fix it anyway, why not fix it good? Better to repair it once and have it right than to have to repair every separate piece when it breaks.
Apparently in this example you mention: it is broken, the Foundation lost its authority (so clearly that not even Office works), so fix it there. There is no need to fix it project-wide (certainly when most office workers will have knowledge of a few languages like every normal person). This problem seems to be very limited compared to the total projects the Foundation has. Simply asking a steward or representative from that certain community will do in most cases and will be better accepted by the smaller communities, than someone they don't know removes a part of their content.
If that does work, then that's the way to go, sure. But what if it doesn't on a certain occasion? Say to the project "You won't listen, so you're under the policy now"? That is really no different from having it under the policy in the first place. Or are we going to solve each such occasion separately, so that in a few years time before doing an office action on zh:wiktionary the foundation first has to check how things work there?
Let's just have a policy that states that these actions can be done, and then, when it is needed, they can be done. As long as there are other ways that work better, yes, let's use them by all means, but there's no reason to close the door on a specific route.
In some issues it is better to have it fixed at the top. In this case not: I would use the network of stewards and other people in stead of forcing it upon the project instead.
If the Foundation has legal reason to remove something, then it must be able to force it on the project. Whether through the network or by other means. This should be no "would you please". How it is done can be debated, not whether it should be possible.
2007/4/25, Andre Engels [email protected]:
2007/4/25, Peter van Londen [email protected]:
I don't see the relevance of your answer. What does that have to do with the fact that this policy is unnecessary
for
many projects, where the Foundation still has some authority left and
these
problems do not occur?
So your idea is to have the policy that when a project accepts foundation decisions, it does not need to, but when it doesn't it is forced to? If on those projects the foundation has sufficient authority left, what is lost by having a policy that states that it has?
Because it is yet another rule. My idea is to have only so many rules as necessary (although I see there is a correlation between the amount of rules and the scale of the project, but in fact I do not understand why this would have to be the case). If not necessary: no rules, work with consensus, and common sense. It used to work like that in the past as well.
It is just a matter of opinion: if it is not broken: don't try to fix it.
But if you fix it anyway, why not fix it good? Better to repair it once and have it right than to have to repair every separate piece when it breaks.
In fact it is a EN:WP rule forced on the rest of the projects, without asking consent or informing the other projects in a proper way.
Apparently in this example you mention: it is broken, the Foundation lost
its authority (so clearly that not even Office works), so fix it there. There is no need to fix it project-wide (certainly when most office
workers
will have knowledge of a few languages like every normal person). This problem seems to be very limited compared to the total projects the Foundation has. Simply asking a steward or representative from that
certain
community will do in most cases and will be better accepted by the
smaller
communities, than someone they don't know removes a part of their
content.
If that does work, then that's the way to go, sure. But what if it doesn't on a certain occasion? Say to the project "You won't listen, so you're under the policy now"? That is really no different from having it under the policy in the first place. Or are we going to solve each such occasion separately, so that in a few years time before doing an office action on zh:wiktionary the foundation first has to check how things work there?
Hypothetically, this might be the case: the reality says it is not much of a problem outside EN:WP. Trust the trusted user (that is what a admin/bureaucrat/steward is) to do the right thing in case something like this happens.
Let's just have a policy that states that these actions can be done,
and then, when it is needed, they can be done. As long as there are other ways that work better, yes, let's use them by all means, but there's no reason to close the door on a specific route.
In some issues it is better to have it fixed at the top. In this case
not: I
would use the network of stewards and other people in stead of forcing
it
upon the project instead.
If the Foundation has legal reason to remove something, then it must be able to force it on the project. Whether through the network or by other means. This should be no "would you please". How it is done can be debated, not whether it should be possible.
agreed. no difference of opinion here, only I would recommend to use the peoples network. It is still better that someone from the community does the deletion than someone else, users from the community do not know and are in fact no member of the community (certainly when this policy is unknown, not many community members read and use meta).
--
Andre Engels, [email protected] ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
Kind regards Londenp
foundation-l mailing list
[email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 25/04/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
In fact it is a EN:WP rule forced on the rest of the projects, without asking consent or informing the other projects in a proper way.
This is a ridiculous statement, unless you consider the Foundation is an en:wp matter forced on the rest of the projects.
The office policy page came about on en:wp *after* Danny had had to start zapping things without being able to spend thousands of words on a talk page explaining why.
- d.
Is it ridiculous, really? Is this your normal way of communication Mr Gerard?
It is everywhere the same: one tries to demonize a message/person by taking a small part of a bigger message to try to discredit the total message and credibility of a certain person. I don't like this way of communication at all, it is unworthy. Besides it gives an idea that the total message has not been read by you.
No idea how you come to the conclusion I would mean that the Foundation is een EN:WP matter forced on the rest of the projects, I wil give one comment on that: The Foundation still has a lot of credit in the smaller communities, which, by needing this policy for EN:WP, seems to be different for EN:WP.
It was a problem on the EN:WP, right? This policy was made for solving this problem on the EN:WP, right? Until now I guess it was debated on EN:WP only right? Need I to go on?
Anyhow: you can put this policy projects-wide, without proper informing other projects, without giving them the possibility to have their say, it will not be your problem, but the problem for the office once they try to enforce this, when necessary, on an project where this was not properly introduced. There is an easier and less bureaucratic way: use the network of trusted people.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/25, David Gerard [email protected]:
On 25/04/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
In fact it is a EN:WP rule forced on the rest of the projects, without asking consent or informing the other projects in a proper way.
This is a ridiculous statement, unless you consider the Foundation is an en:wp matter forced on the rest of the projects.
The office policy page came about on en:wp *after* Danny had had to start zapping things without being able to spend thousands of words on a talk page explaining why.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 25/04/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Is it ridiculous, really? Is this your normal way of communication Mr Gerard?
Er, no, it's because you made a ridiculous statement. The rest of your answer doesn't actually follow logically from *anything* I said. Please try responding again.
- d.
You did the same thing again, Mr Gerard: explanation seems futile.
For all the other people this is my proposal, how to work with office actions (probably excluding EN:WP, where office-members might be known).
In order to help the office with these kind of actions.
We have on many projects OTRS-systems in place. If there is a necessity to delete or change content on an other project then on EN:WP let the office-people write an e-mail to the OTRS of that particular project (these e-mail addresses have been made available to the Office). Copyright/privacy/slander is a good reason for speedy or immediate deletion, so OTRS-people can take care of that and immediately.
Advantage: *action is just as fast *deleting content will be more readily accepted by the community if a community member does the deletion; this will prevent partly reuploading, but also take care of immediate redeletion in case of reuploading *deleting this copyright is now made the responsibility of the community, so that the office does not need to follow this up frequently (and loose a lot of valuable time for that). *there is no need for yet another policy, nor the introduction of the policy to all the different communities
For smaller communities (which until now do not have this problem anyhow) without an OTRS other people could be used for office actions, that is for example stewards.
In my opinion the Foundation can trust the trusted people (admins, bureaucrats and stewards) to do the right thing, certainly as the Foundation still has a lot of credit out there.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/25, David Gerard [email protected]:
On 25/04/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Is it ridiculous, really? Is this your normal way of communication Mr Gerard?
Er, no, it's because you made a ridiculous statement. The rest of your answer doesn't actually follow logically from *anything* I said. Please try responding again.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 4/26/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
You did the same thing again, Mr Gerard: explanation seems futile.
For all the other people this is my proposal, how to work with office actions (probably excluding EN:WP, where office-members might be known).
In order to help the office with these kind of actions.
We have on many projects OTRS-systems in place. If there is a necessity to delete or change content on an other project then on EN:WP let the office-people write an e-mail to the OTRS of that particular project (these e-mail addresses have been made available to the Office). Copyright/privacy/slander is a good reason for speedy or immediate deletion, so OTRS-people can take care of that and immediately.
This is actually a pretty interesting question, especially in light of the approach you suggested. What I find most problematic with that is that the authority of OTRS people only goes so far. If action is needed in response to legal threats, such actions are not always suitable to explanation, particularly to the extent requested by some community members. Of course, one can try to sit out such conflicts and make sure the OTRS action stands but this may easily backfire on the individual ultimately executing the action. This really is a question of trust, as you point out too, but trust is sometimes a luxury not at our disposal.
That's why I think it is important for the foundation to be very clear that in certain occasions actions will be necessary, which can't always be explained or discussed publicly. In order to avoid accusations of arbitrary decisions and reduce the potential for conflict, the process must be documented sufficiently and tactfully respectful of the customs and culture of the community involved.
Regards,
Sebastian
I find this discussion quite strange. Certainly, WP:OFFICE is valid on all projects. Certainly, if this policy exists only in english and it was never communicated to any projects except en that there is such a policy, enforcing this policy on other projects except en will inevitably result in a fight.
In particular, there should be an office-account on every wiki, which does only office actions. Asking an admin in IRC to do something is IMHO not the right way to do this.
Bye,
Philipp
Wp:Office is until now only official on EN:WP (I mean by that: published only there); it has not been spread to the other projects; imho this was not a mistake, nobody found it necessary to do that (maybe because there was not a need for that policy elsewhere?).
If it was meant to be foundation-wide, it would have meant that this policy would have been properly introduced to all the projects, which it was not.
My proposal is a way to help the office in many ways: 1) make the problem a problem of that particular community. If left to the office it is their problem and it stays there problem, they need to follow-up on any deletion or change made (as it might be reverted, which does happen). My thought is that they have other things to do and should be able to delegate. 2) language problems: If the problematic content (and follow-up) is in a language the Office can not read, cooperation of that particular community would be needed anyway. 3) acceptance of Foundation-intrusion by communities is probably less than if trusted people delete the content (but it does not mean there won't be a problem with reverts, after all it is an open environment). 4) Sebastian: I think the authority of the Foundation will not be challenged by the trusted people: If the Foundation says it needs to be done, because the project is in danger: no one will ask for further explanation and just do what is required.
In the end: the policy is workable for the English projects, I sincerely doubt this policy would work with languages the Office can not understand. It is better to use the structures already in place.
Anyhow I will not go on with my preaching. If one doesn't want to, the future will tell how workable this policy is. After all it is really not a huge problem: we have bigger problems than this policy.
By the way IRC and OTRS are different things.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/26, P. Birken [email protected]:
I find this discussion quite strange. Certainly, WP:OFFICE is valid on all projects. Certainly, if this policy exists only in english and it was never communicated to any projects except en that there is such a policy, enforcing this policy on other projects except en will inevitably result in a fight.
In particular, there should be an office-account on every wiki, which does only office actions. Asking an admin in IRC to do something is IMHO not the right way to do this.
Bye,
Philipp
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 4/26/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
- Sebastian: I think the authority of the Foundation will not be
challenged by the trusted people: If the Foundation says it needs to be done, because the project is in danger: no one will ask for further explanation and just do what is required.
You know, I wished that was the case. Unfortunately, I've seen the discussion this incident caused on the project in question. It didn't quite go that way until some calmer minds proposed a different way to resolve this issue. I would have hoped for a reasonable, respectful reaction (even though this was a first time office action named as such on this wiki) but was surprised to see that the response was rather hostile. This is also why I think that the issue of office actions need to be dealt with in a manner consistent with the customs of each community. It's not something that should lead to a lot of conflict or confusion.
Sebastian
On 26/04/07, Sebastian Moleski [email protected] wrote:
This is also why I think that the issue of office actions need to be dealt with in a manner consistent with the customs of each community. It's not something that should lead to a lot of conflict or confusion.
Oh, definitely. Things that cause an attitude of "foundation versus project" are bad. (en:wp had a bit of this feeling when WP:OFFICE started being applied.) But the Foundation will occasionally have to take actions, and so this needs to be understood.
- d.
Sebastian Moleski wrote:
You know, I wished that was the case. Unfortunately, I've seen the discussion this incident caused on the project in question. It didn't quite go that way until some calmer minds proposed a different way to resolve this issue. I would have hoped for a reasonable, respectful reaction (even though this was a first time office action named as such on this wiki) but was surprised to see that the response was rather hostile. This is also why I think that the issue of office actions need to be dealt with in a manner consistent with the customs of each community. It's not something that should lead to a lot of conflict or confusion.
My 2 cents. So far it appears that WP:OFFICE is a policy only valid on en.wp, because that's where the policy is written. Now, most of the people working on other projects have no clue of en.wiki policies, nor they're interested in them. En.wp may be the largest project, but at the end of the day it's just ONE project. I'm 100% in favour of having WP:OFFICE on all the projects, because there are cases when it is needed, if we are requested to take down defamatory content, we have to do it and of course there cannot be a public discussion on doing so. But then if one sees an almost unknown username deleting content with the summary WP:OFFICE, one is tempted to think it's just vandalism. Most people would find it strange to have an unknown person with sysop rights, and one may be tempted to think of a vandal with admin rights. So, I think it would be more than fair to tell the projects that office actions can happen, people will understand. On a slightly related topic, people on it.wiki got upset because a certain website was blacklisted on meta because of a ruling of en.wp Arbcom, and as a result that website was whitelisted on it.wp. I think it should be made clear what are en.wp policies and what are wikimedia-wide policies, and these should be on meta.
Cruccone
Marco Chiesa wrote:
My 2 cents. So far it appears that WP:OFFICE is a policy only valid on en.wp, because that's where the policy is written. Now, most of the people working on other projects have no clue of en.wiki policies,
I think this discussion would benefit from a description of how things are done in the absense of such a written policy.
Everybody who thinks about it for five seconds, must realize that the foundation board (with the help of employed technicians) has the ultimate control of the servers and can in fact do whatever they feel that they need to do, including turning off the power. Against this de facto control, all community voting is futile.
So what has the de-facto WMF office done in those wikis that currently lack a written document for this? How often do such things happen? What kinds of conflict of interest appear? How can a written policy help, as an alternative to that absense?
On 26/04/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Wp:Office is until now only official on EN:WP (I mean by that: published only there); it has not been spread to the other projects; imho this was not a mistake, nobody found it necessary to do that (maybe because there was not a need for that policy elsewhere?). If it was meant to be foundation-wide, it would have meant that this policy would have been properly introduced to all the projects, which it was not.
The point being missed here is that WP:OFFICE on en:wp is not prescriptive - it is descriptive. It does not set out a policy to be applied, it describes what actually happens. The actions came first, the description later.
That is: it already applies by default to all projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation - whether a page saying so exists already or not.
What that page says and how it works may need a lot of attention. But the policy (that the Foundation can do things because it has to) exists already, because the Foundation hosts the wikis.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/04/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Wp:Office is until now only official on EN:WP (I mean by that: published only there); it has not been spread to the other projects; imho this was not a mistake, nobody found it necessary to do that (maybe because there was not a need for that policy elsewhere?). If it was meant to be foundation-wide, it would have meant that this policy would have been properly introduced to all the projects, which it was not.
The point being missed here is that WP:OFFICE on en:wp is not prescriptive - it is descriptive. It does not set out a policy to be applied, it describes what actually happens. The actions came first, the description later.
Eh, it's at least a little bit of both---Jimmy has discussed on several occasions his (still in flux) prescriptive vision for how a workable WP:OFFICE system should operate, and much of the text there is based on his comments.
-Mark
Hoi, Peter, when you get a "take down" notice, this is presented to an organisation. No project has the status of an organisation and consequently the organisation embodied in the "Office" has to have a way to take the action that it has to take by law.
What you describe is nice, it however does not work because it does not scale. The organisation does not know all projects and, the organisation does not have enough staff to get to know all projects. Furthermore there are other things that this same staff has to do. Yes, in a perfect world you would cooperate with the admins and community of the projects. Realistically there are plenty people in any project that are irresponsible.
This thread started with the notion that this policy needs to be translated. I would welcome it when the policy is described in such a way that there is an "ambassador" for the organisation in each project. A person trusted to communicate about issues and will be allowed to say by the community: "shut up, this has to be".
Thanks, GerardM
On 4/26/07, Peter van Londen [email protected] wrote:
Wp:Office is until now only official on EN:WP (I mean by that: published only there); it has not been spread to the other projects; imho this was not a mistake, nobody found it necessary to do that (maybe because there was not a need for that policy elsewhere?).
If it was meant to be foundation-wide, it would have meant that this policy would have been properly introduced to all the projects, which it was not.
My proposal is a way to help the office in many ways:
- make the problem a problem of that particular community. If left to the
office it is their problem and it stays there problem, they need to follow-up on any deletion or change made (as it might be reverted, which does happen). My thought is that they have other things to do and should be able to delegate. 2) language problems: If the problematic content (and follow-up) is in a language the Office can not read, cooperation of that particular community would be needed anyway. 3) acceptance of Foundation-intrusion by communities is probably less than if trusted people delete the content (but it does not mean there won't be a problem with reverts, after all it is an open environment). 4) Sebastian: I think the authority of the Foundation will not be challenged by the trusted people: If the Foundation says it needs to be done, because the project is in danger: no one will ask for further explanation and just do what is required.
In the end: the policy is workable for the English projects, I sincerely doubt this policy would work with languages the Office can not understand. It is better to use the structures already in place.
Anyhow I will not go on with my preaching. If one doesn't want to, the future will tell how workable this policy is. After all it is really not a huge problem: we have bigger problems than this policy.
By the way IRC and OTRS are different things.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/26, P. Birken [email protected]:
I find this discussion quite strange. Certainly, WP:OFFICE is valid on all projects. Certainly, if this policy exists only in english and it was never communicated to any projects except en that there is such a policy, enforcing this policy on other projects except en will inevitably result in a fight.
In particular, there should be an office-account on every wiki, which does only office actions. Asking an admin in IRC to do something is IMHO not the right way to do this.
Bye,
Philipp
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2007/4/26, Peter van Londen [email protected]:
Wp:Office is until now only official on EN:WP (I mean by that: published only there); it has not been spread to the other projects; imho this was not a mistake, nobody found it necessary to do that (maybe because there was not a need for that policy elsewhere?).
If it was meant to be foundation-wide, it would have meant that this policy would have been properly introduced to all the projects, which it was not.
My proposal is a way to help the office in many ways:
- make the problem a problem of that particular community. If left to the
office it is their problem and it stays there problem, they need to follow-up on any deletion or change made (as it might be reverted, which does happen). My thought is that they have other things to do and should be able to delegate.
However, to do so we still need a policy to ensure that the delegation works. So there still has to be a policy saying that the Foundation can tell this person or that person to take action. Delegation is not a solution unless you can be sure the person delegated to is actually capable and willing to take the action. So we should have a policy that certain people can be ordered by the foundation to do certain actions. In other words, an office policy.
- language problems: If the problematic content (and follow-up) is in a
language the Office can not read, cooperation of that particular community would be needed anyway.
So?$
- acceptance of Foundation-intrusion by communities is probably less than
if trusted people delete the content (but it does not mean there won't be a problem with reverts, after all it is an open environment).
On the other hand, it's also an easy way to get rid of the trust, unless there is a clear policy allowing them to do it. In other words, an office policy.
- Sebastian: I think the authority of the Foundation will not be challenged
by the trusted people: If the Foundation says it needs to be done, because the project is in danger: no one will ask for further explanation and just do what is required.
You THINK. How can you be sure? And how can you be sure the community itself will accept that those trusted people do something that is required? There has been a case on the English Wikipedia where another sysop reverted an office action because he did not know it was one. And that was an office action by someone explicitly allowed to do so. So what if you let an office action do by a local moderator/bureaucrat or a steward, without there being any policy on the project itself that would allow the action? Would it not be much easier, and much clearer, to specify that there are indeed actions obliged by the foundation and that they can be recognized so-and-so?
In the end: the policy is workable for the English projects, I sincerely doubt this policy would work with languages the Office can not understand. It is better to use the structures already in place.
Problem is that none of those structures have sufficient power to ensure that actions are taken. I have nothing against involving local sysops and bureaucrats or known stewards. I do have something against not having the rules in place that enable the actions to be taken in the first place.
(1) I want to make clear to anyone still reading this thread that the existence of Foundation authority to have final say-so over something involving a legal threat, which in the eyes of the Foundation and its counsel (meaning, explicitly, the board in consultation with lawyers) is sufficient to merit action, is *non-negotiable*. Anarchists, free love for everyone types and anyone else who disagrees with that statement on principle needs to get past it. Simply put - if you disagree the Foundation has the *authority* to do it, you are wrong.
(2) Assuming (1) is true, *whether* the Foundation (explicitly meaning the board, acting through its own employees or lawyers) chooses to act in any particular circumstance is a matter of judgment on which people can disagree for many reasons. The facts of a particular circumstance mean it will always be a case of "it depends."
(3) People who "trust" (in the sense of being more willing to accept) the actions of individual users in any particular project over the WP:OFFICE actions of the Foundation board members (who have an irrevocable fiduciary duty to the Foundation) or staff (who are employed by the Foundation) are either (a) misguided in their understanding of the policy (which may be reasonable given this thread) (b) have their priorities upside-down (project over Foundation) or (c) are simply newbies who haven't learned how this is structured. The answer to someone who is suspicious of an action is ASSUME GOOD FAITH *precisely* because it is the Foundation acting. Volunteers come and go, the Foundation is the Foundation. That is what matters.
The fact this discussion is occurring is evidence of a lack of communication, but I fear the suggestion of hyperexpansion of policy pages will stir things up in ways that are in the end, unfortunate. EN:WP has been the historic source of this for many and obvious reasons. GMaxwell got it right - if it is this rare, don't overdesign. Just deal with it responsibly.
Bottom line: All legal threats should be brought to the attention of the Foundation office, no matter what the project, language or country. Don't try to forge an answer yourself if the legal threat is a real one. And if you can't tell the difference, you have no business addressing the threat at all.
Brad Patrick *Former* General Counsel and interim Executive Director.
Brad Patrick wrote:
(2) Assuming (1) is true, *whether* the Foundation (explicitly meaning the board, acting through its own employees or lawyers) chooses to act in any particular circumstance is a matter of judgment on which people can disagree for many reasons. The facts of a particular circumstance mean it will always be a case of "it depends."
I think this is what people are arguing over, really. That, and what to do in the aftermath. Office actions are often done when there is a suspicion of e.g. libel, but some sort of policy is needed for what to do afterwards. Sit and wait for the office to resolve it? Empirically, this means sitting and waiting forever. Cautiously start writing a new, carefully sourced version? But how to avoid the original libel if nobody says what was objected to in the original article? And who has the authority to put the new version in place? Jimmy has made some comments about the subject, suggesting that the original idea was to just leave it alone but he would now be open to careful rewriting taking place if nothing has happened after some period of time. But none of this is entirely clear.
In addition, Office actions have historically been used not *only* for legal threats. Jimmy explicitly defended this, as part of our customer service and friendly face. That's quite different from taking something down due to an imminent lawsuit. Again, this needs to be specified in policy somewhere, at least some sort of loose policy, so people are aware that this should or shouldn't happen.
Basically, we'd like to have some guidelines for: 1) When will this be used, in rough outlines and reserving exceptions for exceptional cases?; and 2) What are the rules for editing the article subsequently?
-Mark
Brad Patrick wrote:
The answer to someone who is suspicious of an action is ASSUME GOOD FAITH *precisely* because it is the Foundation acting. Volunteers come and go, the Foundation is the Foundation. That is what matters.
Erm I just noticed this, but I'd have to disagree wholeheartedly. The Foundation can come and go; the projects are the only reason for its existence, and it does not matter one whit independently of its support for them. They can outlast it and be supported by a new Foundation if for some reason this becomes necessary, though of course this is not to be sought out.
-Mark
Hoi, I hope you are being silly. As long as THIS Foundation is here and, as long as it is THIS Foundation who deals with a legal threat you will have to deal with THIS Foundation. The philosophical possibility that you have to deal with a later organisation later does not deal with the reality of today.
When you disagree, you disagree with the whole notion of office actions, when you disagree because of a philosophical reason, you are producing noise distracting from what is the issue.
It has to be clear that for as long as Wikipedia is a Wikimedia Foundation project, Office actions are compulsory. The removal of content is in essence a necessary step in a process. When this process has run its course, the same data may be back depending on the outcome of the legal process.
Thanks, GerardM
On 4/27/07, Delirium [email protected] wrote:
Brad Patrick wrote:
The answer to someone who is suspicious of an action is ASSUME GOOD FAITH *precisely* because it is the Foundation acting. Volunteers
come
and go, the Foundation is the Foundation. That is what matters.
Erm I just noticed this, but I'd have to disagree wholeheartedly. The Foundation can come and go; the projects are the only reason for its existence, and it does not matter one whit independently of its support for them. They can outlast it and be supported by a new Foundation if for some reason this becomes necessary, though of course this is not to be sought out.
-Mark
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Nowhere did I disagree with office actions, merely with the sentiment that the Foundation trumps all concerns, including for the project, because "the Foundation is what matters". The Foundation does not in itself matter *at all*; it matters exclusively insofar as it supports our projects. I support office actions to the extent that they are consistent with the overall progress of our projects, taking all factors into account, which I think for the most part they are.
-Mark
GerardM wrote:
Hoi, I hope you are being silly. As long as THIS Foundation is here and, as long as it is THIS Foundation who deals with a legal threat you will have to deal with THIS Foundation. The philosophical possibility that you have to deal with a later organisation later does not deal with the reality of today.
When you disagree, you disagree with the whole notion of office actions, when you disagree because of a philosophical reason, you are producing noise distracting from what is the issue.
It has to be clear that for as long as Wikipedia is a Wikimedia Foundation project, Office actions are compulsory. The removal of content is in essence a necessary step in a process. When this process has run its course, the same data may be back depending on the outcome of the legal process.
Thanks, GerardM
On 4/27/07, Delirium [email protected] wrote:
Brad Patrick wrote:
The answer to someone who is suspicious of an action is ASSUME GOOD FAITH *precisely* because it is the Foundation acting. Volunteers
come
and go, the Foundation is the Foundation. That is what matters.
Erm I just noticed this, but I'd have to disagree wholeheartedly. The Foundation can come and go; the projects are the only reason for its existence, and it does not matter one whit independently of its support for them. They can outlast it and be supported by a new Foundation if for some reason this becomes necessary, though of course this is not to be sought out.
-Mark
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 4/27/07, GerardM [email protected] wrote:
Hoi, I hope you are being silly. As long as THIS Foundation is here and, as long as it is THIS Foundation who deals with a legal threat you will have to deal with THIS Foundation.
Current office actions cover more than legal threats.
Hoi, That is beside your point. Thanks, Gerard
On 4/27/07, geni [email protected] wrote:
On 4/27/07, GerardM [email protected] wrote:
Hoi, I hope you are being silly. As long as THIS Foundation is here and, as
long
as it is THIS Foundation who deals with a legal threat you will have to
deal
with THIS Foundation.
Current office actions cover more than legal threats.
geni
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 4/27/07, GerardM [email protected] wrote:
Hoi, That is beside your point. Thanks, Gerard
No it isn't your entire email was build on the premise that the foundation was only acting to deal with legal threats.
You are right, I don't think anyone on this list disagrees with your number (1), but the problem really is with (3).
What fact is and should be done and accepted by the communities (i.e. accept an "intrusion" by the Office in what the community see as, how untrue, their affairs) is different of how the Foundation/Office is seen by the communities. Jimbo as his former roll as the "God-King" is different than the present roll of Board and the Staff (also in perceived authority).
The action from Anthere together with someone on IRC and the outcome afterwards makes perfectly clear that the policy is not the solution here. What can you really do when your policy says the office can remove content, but the community decides to act counterwise after the office has done their action and left: put a guard dog there? This is a fundamental flaw in the policy: you do not delegate the problem (or the follow-up of the problem) to the particular community; a lot of people reacting in this thread says in fact the community can not be trusted with this, I politely disagree.
There are several ways how you can solve this apparent lack of trust to and authority of the Foundation. 1) The hard way: push all your policies in place, make a bureaucracy, make the people accept it (confrontation) 2) Build up the position of the Foundation in the communities, communicate and let them trust you (maybe backed up by a policy, but this would not be needed then anyhow). The long way, you have to put in a lot of work and time (which seems to be lacking anyhow, seeing what the board has to accomplish in short time). 3) Follow-up on the decentralizing process started with the local chapters (but local chapters do not have much to say until now), so that is give the local chapters more power so they will be able to solve their own problems. 4) Use the existing structures and networks: i.e. delegation of these problems. And if this does not work, you can always push through afterwards.
What stunned me is your statement that the Foundation is the Foundation and the volunteers are the volunteers and what that seems to imply. The foundation is mostly made up of volunteers itself !! and the content/communities are the assets (see a different thread on that): If the Foundation cease to exist (which is not unimaginable), there will be (maybe after some time) another Foundation. I don't see how content/communities would not be able to survive in this process. The core of the different communities are certainly dedicated to the ideal (maybe even more because they are not paid for that).
Anyhow my idea was to *help* the Office, but if one wants to do it the hard way: it is their choice.
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/4/27, Brad Patrick [email protected]:
(1) I want to make clear to anyone still reading this thread that the existence of Foundation authority to have final say-so over something involving a legal threat, which in the eyes of the Foundation and its counsel (meaning, explicitly, the board in consultation with lawyers) is sufficient to merit action, is *non-negotiable*. Anarchists, free love for everyone types and anyone else who disagrees with that statement on principle needs to get past it. Simply put - if you disagree the Foundation has the *authority* to do it, you are wrong.
(2) Assuming (1) is true, *whether* the Foundation (explicitly meaning the board, acting through its own employees or lawyers) chooses to act in any particular circumstance is a matter of judgment on which people can disagree for many reasons. The facts of a particular circumstance mean it will always be a case of "it depends."
(3) People who "trust" (in the sense of being more willing to accept) the actions of individual users in any particular project over the WP:OFFICE actions of the Foundation board members (who have an irrevocable fiduciary duty to the Foundation) or staff (who are employed by the Foundation) are either (a) misguided in their understanding of the policy (which may be reasonable given this thread) (b) have their priorities upside-down (project over Foundation) or (c) are simply newbies who haven't learned how this is structured. The answer to someone who is suspicious of an action is ASSUME GOOD FAITH *precisely* because it is the Foundation acting. Volunteers come and go, the Foundation is the Foundation. That is what matters.
The fact this discussion is occurring is evidence of a lack of communication, but I fear the suggestion of hyperexpansion of policy pages will stir things up in ways that are in the end, unfortunate. EN:WP has been the historic source of this for many and obvious reasons. GMaxwell got it right - if it is this rare, don't overdesign. Just deal with it responsibly.
Bottom line: All legal threats should be brought to the attention of the Foundation office, no matter what the project, language or country. Don't try to forge an answer yourself if the legal threat is a real one. And if you can't tell the difference, you have no business addressing the threat at all.
Brad Patrick *Former* General Counsel and interim Executive Director. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Dear All,
In a strange outcome of matters, a German (excerpting) translation of WP:OFFICE got AfDed within hours....
Regards, Peter
On 4/27/07, Peter Jacobi [email protected] wrote:
Dear All,
In a strange outcome of matters, a German (excerpting) translation of WP:OFFICE got AfDed within hours....
for the ones who understand german: it's http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:L%C3%B6schkandidaten/27._April_2007#W...
Michael
Regards, Peter
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
In the discussion about the german translation of WP:OFFICE, the desire for transparent ways to see whether an action is actually an office action or merely somebody impersonating the office was expressed. I therefore ask the office to soon come up with a clear way of how this is done. Again, I suggest using an office account.
Bye,
Philipp
Hello,
now we have a house lawyer again. It means we will see WP:OFFICE activated even at least on English Wikipedia?
On 4/27/07, P. Birken [email protected] wrote:
In the discussion about the german translation of WP:OFFICE, the desire for transparent ways to see whether an action is actually an office action or merely somebody impersonating the office was expressed. I therefore ask the office to soon come up with a clear way of how this is done. Again, I suggest using an office account.
Bye,
Philipp
That is entirely a matter for Mike and the new Board to deal with, first, at the abstracted level of when legal counsel is going to have anything to say about project-level issues and why; second, when a credible legal threat exists, what action the Foundation is willing to take to make its existence known to the community, and if it includes something like WP:OFFICE.
As an aside, Delirium, if your understanding of organizational structure is so profoundly lacking as to not see what the significance of having a legally existing Foundation is (and mind you, it already has existed for a few years), I strongly suggest you divert some of your online energies to learning about non-profit corporations before weighing in further. WMF is long past anarchy. Sorry if that isn't welcome news to you.
On 7/14/07, Aphaia [email protected] wrote:
Hello,
now we have a house lawyer again. It means we will see WP:OFFICE activated even at least on English Wikipedia?
On 4/27/07, P. Birken [email protected] wrote:
In the discussion about the german translation of WP:OFFICE, the desire for transparent ways to see whether an action is actually an office action or merely somebody impersonating the office was expressed. I therefore ask the office to soon come up with a clear way of how this is done. Again, I suggest using an office account.
Bye,
Philipp
-- KIZU Naoko Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
- habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *
foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 7/14/07, Brad Patrick [email protected] wrote:
As an aside, Delirium, if your understanding of organizational structure is so profoundly lacking as to not see what the significance of having a legally existing Foundation is (and mind you, it already has existed for a few years), I strongly suggest you divert some of your online energies to learning about non-profit corporations before weighing in further. WMF is long past anarchy. Sorry if that isn't welcome news to you.
I wouldn't presume to speak for Delirium, but in my humble opinion, you very widely miss his point. There is a pre-existing legal framework to the legal existence of the Foundation. And that is that the content is published under GFDL. Sorry if that isn't welcome news to you.
Brad Patrick wrote:
As an aside, Delirium, if your understanding of organizational structure is so profoundly lacking as to not see what the significance of having a legally existing Foundation is (and mind you, it already has existed for a few years), I strongly suggest you divert some of your online energies to learning about non-profit corporations before weighing in further. WMF is long past anarchy. Sorry if that isn't welcome news to you.
Since your reply didn't quote a message of mine, and I haven't posted in this thread since April, I'm not quite sure what prompted this attack.
My position on the Foundation is that it *is* important, but as a means to an end, the end being to support the community creating and distributing free content, not as some thing in itself. I have nowhere objected to having a legally existing Foundation; on the contrary, I've mentioned Software in the Public Interest (which is a legally existing Foundation) as a reasonably good model of a legal entity that supports a community-based free-content project.
-Mark
Brad Patrick wrote:
That is entirely a matter for Mike and the new Board to deal with, first, at the abstracted level of when legal counsel is going to have anything to say about project-level issues and why; second, when a credible legal threat exists, what action the Foundation is willing to take to make its existence known to the community, and if it includes something like WP:OFFICE.
I suspect that if counsel became involved every time someone in the mailing lists said, "We need a lawyer's opinion on this," he would soon be overwhelmed.
Ec
Hello,
Ray Saintonge a écrit :
I suspect that if counsel became involved every time someone in the mailing lists said, "We need a lawyer's opinion on this," he would soon be overwhelmed.
Yes, however there is a need for legal advice to the community. I think that legal issues should be taken into account much before cease-and-desist letters reach the office. I feel that this is a bit the case now. We need some kind of Legal Committee which can give informed answers to the community. As an example, among issues I know, the copyright help pages on Commons [1] and Wikisource [2] should be reviewed by a lawyer. Another issue is dealing with "Freedom of panorama" on Commons. Just now, it is a kind of blind guess by Commons admins [3].
Ec
Regards,
Yann
[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_tags http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Image_copyright_tags_visual
[2] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Help:Public_domain http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Copyright_policy http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Help:Copyright_tags http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Help:Licensing_compatibility
[3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Image:Louvre_DSC... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama
Another tricky case: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/World_War_I_era_...
On 4/27/07, Peter Jacobi [email protected] wrote:
Dear All,
In a strange outcome of matters, a German (excerpting) translation of WP:OFFICE got AfDed within hours....
And kept, at least for now. I'd imagine the three big issues a description page might deal with are:
(1) how do we tell if something is or isn't an office action? (2) why are office actions usually performed? (3) under what circumstances, if any, can office actions be reversed, discussed, or modified?
Obviously the foundation has this authority on every WMF wiki, implicitly. In a situation where many new users aren't even aware the foundation *exists*, however, I believe a description page is less for the benefit of the foundation, and more for the confused users who will be left with a smoldering pile of ash where their article used to be.
Not to say office actions are bad. I readily recognize that they're very important. But to a new user, I suspect they're almost like the act of an angry god. When dealing with such an entity, it's nice if the deity provides you with simple guidelines to avoid future smiting, or to generally explain that what they're doing is in everyone's best interest, even if they may not always elaborate in full.
If you guys really insist on avoiding a description page on meta, you know people will only wind up linking to the en.wikipedia version, anyway.
Just my thought, -Luna
It may be best to bring this discussion up *after* we finish the Elections discussions. Otherwise, this post will get drowned. :-P
(I know Luna didn't start it, but he had the most recent post.)
Casey Brown Cbrown1023
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Luna Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 5:22 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia:Office Actions
On 4/27/07, Peter Jacobi [email protected] wrote:
Dear All,
In a strange outcome of matters, a German (excerpting) translation of WP:OFFICE got AfDed within hours....
And kept, at least for now. I'd imagine the three big issues a description page might deal with are:
(1) how do we tell if something is or isn't an office action? (2) why are office actions usually performed? (3) under what circumstances, if any, can office actions be reversed, discussed, or modified?
Obviously the foundation has this authority on every WMF wiki, implicitly. In a situation where many new users aren't even aware the foundation *exists*, however, I believe a description page is less for the benefit of the foundation, and more for the confused users who will be left with a smoldering pile of ash where their article used to be.
Not to say office actions are bad. I readily recognize that they're very important. But to a new user, I suspect they're almost like the act of an angry god. When dealing with such an entity, it's nice if the deity provides you with simple guidelines to avoid future smiting, or to generally explain that what they're doing is in everyone's best interest, even if they may not always elaborate in full.
If you guys really insist on avoiding a description page on meta, you know people will only wind up linking to the en.wikipedia version, anyway.
Just my thought, -Luna _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 4/25/07, GerardM [email protected] wrote:
As the logo was deleted and a new copy was uploaded after 30 minutes, the situation IS broken.
People frequently re-upload copyvios unless you make it really clear they should not.
geni wrote:
On 4/25/07, GerardM [email protected] wrote:
As the logo was deleted and a new copy was uploaded after 30 minutes, the situation IS broken.
People frequently re-upload copyvios unless you make it really clear they should not.
Wasn't the page protected or was a sysop who re-uploaded?
Andre Engels wrote:
2007/4/25, Delirium [email protected]:
Why is there a need for an office action in this case? My understand is that office actions are for time-sensitive matters that are particularly unusual. Deleting copyright violations is a very normal thing that we do routinely; there's no need for some sort of Official Intervention to do so, and even Normal Wikipedians can request such deletions and have their requests honored.
In my opinion an office action necessary to specify that this actually is not a request but an order. If I ask for a copyright violation to be deleted, the people from the wiki where I do the request may still decide that in their opinion it is not one, and let the text or image stay. Against an office action they would not have such a choice.
OFFICE actions should be exceptional, and should never be a vehicle to push someone's POV. They should reflect a credible and imminent likelihood of legal action. Where libel is the alleged offence it should provide an opportunity for senior responsible editors to make a dlligent review the information in the article to insure that what is said is not libellous. Once that has been done it should not prevent the substantiated material from being restored.
This is not about copyright violations. These should be kept out of the OFFICE action system completely. There are already rules in law that give a copyright owner the opportunity to challenge infringements of his copyrights so that they will be taken down. If the copyright owner has not personally made any complaints whatsoever _any_ use of OFFICE for this should be viewed as abusive.
If WMF steps in to make a finding of fact in what is otherwise an honest dispute about whether a particular passage is a copyright infringement it does not decrease its exposure to liability, it increases it. It proclaims editorial control that would not be there if it were only a pure ISP. Such a stand by the Foundation is not tantamount to permitting any copyvio that a person puts into a project. It is enough that WMF has a copyright policy in place; it does have that, and that policy is already more conservative than what is found in US law. That does not mean that it should be in the business of finding fact. Even when an outsider complains that his copyrights have been violated it is still not in a position to determine facts. It must, however, respond appropriately to legal demands on both sides of the issue; it has no obligation at all to respond to third parties that lack any personal interest in the matter.
Most disputes about these things must be solved at the project level. Maintaining an editorial distance between WMF and the projects is absolutely vital! It becomes very difficult to do this when the pprojects ask the Foundation to solve problems that they should be solving themselves.
Ec
2007/4/25, Ray Saintonge [email protected]:
In my opinion an office action necessary to specify that this actually is not a request but an order. If I ask for a copyright violation to be deleted, the people from the wiki where I do the request may still decide that in their opinion it is not one, and let the text or image stay. Against an office action they would not have such a choice.
OFFICE actions should be exceptional, and should never be a vehicle to push someone's POV. They should reflect a credible and imminent likelihood of legal action.
I agree, but what does that have to do with what I wrote? Whether they are exceptional or common, they are at least exceptional in the amount of force behind it, which is, or at least should be, much greater than the force behind "Jimbo says so" or even "it's a WMF rule".
Where libel is the alleged offence it should provide an opportunity for senior responsible editors to make a dlligent review the information in the article to insure that what is said is not libellous. Once that has been done it should not prevent the substantiated material from being restored.
I do not necessarily agree. The office might be more capable of having the judicial help to make such a decision. If there is a disagreement between complainant an project, the WMF should itself make a decision as to what it thinks is the acceptable solution, given that it is also the party that could risk to lose on the issue.
This is not about copyright violations. These should be kept out of the OFFICE action system completely. There are already rules in law that give a copyright owner the opportunity to challenge infringements of his copyrights so that they will be taken down. If the copyright owner has not personally made any complaints whatsoever _any_ use of OFFICE for this should be viewed as abusive.
And what if the copyright owner *has* made personal complaints?
If WMF steps in to make a finding of fact in what is otherwise an honest dispute about whether a particular passage is a copyright infringement it does not decrease its exposure to liability, it increases it. It proclaims editorial control that would not be there if it were only a pure ISP. Such a stand by the Foundation is not tantamount to permitting any copyvio that a person puts into a project. It is enough that WMF has a copyright policy in place; it does have that, and that policy is already more conservative than what is found in US law. That does not mean that it should be in the business of finding fact. Even when an outsider complains that his copyrights have been violated it is still not in a position to determine facts.
I think it does. The only alternatives are to force each copyright holder to go to court for even the most blatant copyright violation or to take down each alleged copyright violation, however ridiculous that allegation. If I send an email to the Wikimedia Foundation, claiming I am the copyright holder of some text actually in the public domain, should there be action to take that material off our servers? If the complete text of a novel of Stephen King is on wikibooks, and he or his publisher make a complaint with the WMF, should it be taken off our servers? If you answer differently between these two questions then the WMF IS in a position to determine facts.
Most disputes about these things must be solved at the project level. Maintaining an editorial distance between WMF and the projects is absolutely vital! It becomes very difficult to do this when the pprojects ask the Foundation to solve problems that they should be solving themselves.
Who is talking about this? As far as I can see, we are all talking about cases where the Foundation takes the steps to start the process, not the project.