P.S. Luis, my question relates to the scope of this list:

"Other interests include privacy, innovation policy, and internet governance issues, especially when any of these directly threaten the core Wikimedian goals of building and sharing free knowledge"

The direct threats to core Wikimedian goals come from externalities in addition to the policies you've identified. I would add social safety net spending, education spending, class size reduction, middle class growth, and global warming mitigation. I have no idea whether it is easier for the Foundation to adopt policies on telecommuting or renewable power purchase, but these are things which have in the fact been issues of considerable interest and progress in the past. I have no reason to believe that they will not remain so in the future, do I?

For 2014, negative interest on excess reserves could be the factor most determinate of editor and administrator retention outcomes when weighted by the extent to which Wikimedians have effective influence at present. I have in the past tried to enumerate a longer such list at http://j.mp/amendmentact which still needs to be updated for this year and I would gladly enjoy comments.

Best regards, James Salsman

On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 5:27 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Luis,

I like your new document, but I have a question.

Do you prefer "Relate very clearly to interests of Wikimedians" or "Relate very clearly to interests of our readers"?

Best regards, James Salsman

On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 3:12 AM, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Hi, all-

Since SOPA, we've seen a steady trickle of advocacy groups approaching us and asking us to banner or shut down for a variety of causes/events/etc. Not surprisingly, they usually come away frustrated.[1]

I think that a lot of the frustration stems from two sources:

• misunderstanding who we are/what we do
• confusion about how best to ask us when there is a legitimate problem.

To help address those points, I've put together a super, super-preliminary draft that we can point people at when they ask us to do advocacy for them, telling them better what to expect, how to help themselves, etc. It is here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Asking_Wikimedians_To_Support_Advocacy

Please feel free to edit/hack at it/tell me it is awful :)

Luis

[1] Recent example: https://thedaywefightback.org/letter-to-wikipedia/

-- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810

NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.

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Would quantitative measures of how various proposed actions counter threats to building and sharing free knowledge help?

For example, if someone makes a case that acting successfully on some issue is likely to cause X additional hours of productive editor contribution time than failing to act on it, and nobody disagrees with the analysis, or, if the analysis is supported by reliable sources, nobody is able to counter those sources or show that they aren't applicable, then the Foundation could be obligated to at least open a formal RFC on the topic, and at larger thresholds of X, for example, point people to it with CentralNotice or watchlist notices etc.

A good specific example is the Comcast-Time Warner Cable issue. I think we should act to avoid monopoly consolidation of internet resources, and there are sources which measure the extent to which monopolies result in additional rent-seeking which would tend to exclude editors. But I'm not particularly motivated to ask for action on it without some expectation of whether it is even worth it to try to persuade people.