On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 2:15 AM Yair Rand <yyairrand(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The Guidelines on Foundation Policy and Political
Association
established by WMF Legal for internal use, specifically bring up the
issue of "public endorsement or critique" of political policies, listing
several requirements for doing so, and further requiring that they "should
protect and advance Wikimedia’s mission “to empower and engage people
around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
globally.” Accordingly, we will not support causes unrelated to or
inconsistent with that mission."
The question I have been trying to ask, going back years now in fact, is
whether "empower" refers to the political power to secure and retain the
freedoms necessary and sufficent to contribute to the mission, or some
other kind of power.
The recent blog post says "We strongly urge
the U.S. administration to
withdraw the recent executive order ... closing the
doors to many
refugees." I have yet to hear any arguments regarding how that statement
specifically protects and advances our mission.
Many people have described how interfering with the travel of existing
employees is substantially more disruptive than restricting the range of
possible employees who have not yet been hired.
I have, on the other hand, heard on this list many arguments by people
explaining reasons ... that are not directly related
to our mission.
That depends on what "empower" means. If our volunteers have less resources
or free time, is their any question that the movement suffers?
Sincerely,
Jim Salsman