Hi,
In the legal department at the Wikimedia Foundation, we have been examining
for some time whether, as the 5th largest website in the world, we need a
new terms of use agreement. Given our size and the need to ensure good
communication with our users, I think we do, so we’ve put ourselves to
drafting a new version with the hopes that we could get your review,
comments, and ideas.
- You can find the current version of our terms of use here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use .
- You can view the new draft here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use
As I see it, right now our present terms of use is not much more than a
licensing agreement. It does not address a number of other subjects that
are normally found in terms of use of other community-driven websites and
that are often relevant for both legal and community reasons. See, as
examples, the Mozilla Terms of Use (
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Terms%20of%20Service) and Creative
Commons Terms of Use (https://creativecommons.org/terms) .
What we would like to do is to invite you to read the draft, reflect on it,
and leave your comments and feedback on the discussion page. We plan to
leave this version up for at least 30 days; indeed, a 30-day comment period
for changes is built into the new draft.
Our plan is to review the comments and feedback, make appropriate changes
and edits, return with a revised version, and, if appropriate, propose that
draft to the Board of Trustees for adoption and translation.
Generally, we sought to craft a document that is more even-handed, shorter,
and easier-to-read than most user agreements. Although we encourage you to
read the entire draft, here are some key provisions to give you some flavor:
- Security: The proposed agreement prohibits a number of actions - like
malware - that could compromise our systems. We thought we should be clear
as to what is unacceptable in this area, though most of these restrictions
will not be surprising.
- Roles and responsibilities: We feel we need to be honest with the
community on a number of issues, including user liability. We have heard a
number of community members asking for guidance on this topic. The proposed
agreement also seeks to provide guidelines to help users avoid trouble.
- Community feedback: With this version, and with each major revision
afterwards, we want the community to be involved … obviously. So the
proposed agreement gives users a 30-day comment period before a major
revision goes into effect (with Board approval). There is a 3-day exception
for urgent legal and administrative changes.
- Free Licensing: We felt our present agreement is somewhat confusing on
the free licensing requirements. The proposed agreement attempts to explain
more clearly those requirements for editors.
- Harassment, threats, stalking, vandalism, and other long-term
issues: The proposed agreement would make clear that such acts are
prohibited.
Novel for us, the agreement also raises the possibility of a global ban for
extreme cross-wiki violations, a need that we have heard expressed from a
number of community members. We will share that policy with the community in
draft form shortly. Dealing with such matters is a process that we hope
volunteers will continue to lead on a day-to-day basis.
- Other Legal Provisions: We do have other legal provisions...we are
lawyers after all. Most notably, the proposed agreement incorporates legal
sections that are commonly used to help safeguard a site like ours, such as
disclaimers and limitations on liability.
Thank you in advance for your review and comments. Your input will be
invaluable.
Geoff
--
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6750
gbrigham(a)wikimedia.org
*California Registered In-House Counsel*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. www.wikimediafoundation.org
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I have proposed an wiki for managing disputes (cross-wiki and local). It¹s
at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dispute. This wiki would have many
venues, mediation, arbitration and other ways. There would also have an
private wikis for arbitrator, and mediator discussions. This wiki would
overlap other wikis, but would be good to have all in a central place and
wikis that have no dispute resolution place. Ebe123
An idea that I raised during a discussion between the language
committee and Wikimedia South Africa was to inform chapters when a
request for closing a wiki is made for a language that is spoken in a
country which has a Wikimedia chapter. For this I made a list on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_per_Wikimedia_language -- it
took me some time but I think it is well worth it.
So when proposing a wiki for closure, you should inform the main
chapter listed there so they have a chance to find interested people
who can contribute to the respective project.
The list can also be useful when opening projects. If wanted, I or
formally the language committee could also directly inform chapters
when a wiki is opened in a language spoken in one or more countries
covered by chapters.
Regards,
SPQRobin
Dear Chapter Representative(s) and Wikipedians,
Please treat this invitation as a personal
invite from the Indian WikiCommunity to yourselves and your community to attend
the first annual national WikiConference India scheduled to take place
between 18 and 20 November at the University of Mumbai’s Fort Campus.
The event is being co-hosted by the
community and the chapter and this would be a wonderful opportunity for Indian
Wikipedians to interact with all of you. Further, we would appreciate any help
that could be extended by yourselves to make this conference a success.
Do let us know of any requirements you may
have. Kindly confirm the above at the earliest to allow us to schedule
everything in.
Meta Page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011
Kind
Regards,
I thought folks might be interested in this, which was created by
Moving Brands as a hypothetical project for rebnranding Wikimedia, and
published in Viewpoint Magazine in the UK:
http://www.movingbrands.com/?category_name=wikipedia-work
Note the very elaborate work on this, and the particular role in
representing all the sister Wikimedia projects, not just Wikipedia.
Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
If someone wants to make Conservative Wikipedia or Kid-Friendly Wikipedia or
Tiananmen Square-Free Wikipedia, they're free to. They can even sell it.
Contributors made that deal long ago with the open license of the sites.
Wikimedia's goal is to provide free educational content to the world. The
world is then free to make its own filters ("personal bubbles") or even
impose them on others (in the workplace, at school, at public libraries),
but not with Wikimedia's help or harm. Wikimedia should remain neutral in
the matter. The content is available and it is possible to fork and/or
filter with technology today. (And, in fact, some places undoubtedly already
filter particular Wikipedia titles, ineffective as some of these approaches
surely are.) Leave the issue to third parties / a free market. If there's
really demand for School-Friendly Wikipedia, someone will make it. But it's
not Wikimedia's place to say who should and shouldn't have access to the sum
of all human knowledge and what particular pieces of it constitute (graphic
violence, pornography, etc.).
MZMcBride
[sorry for cross-posting]
Dear all,
the deadline to submit our response to EU consultation on Open Access and
Open Science is September 9th.
It's an important opportunity to express our voice on these fundamental
topics (i.e. access to scientific information and knowledge).
Daniel Mietchen, our Open Access Wikimedian in Residence, is doing a great
job writing a draft with all the answers here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RCom/OA/EU
You can directly copy and paste, if you will, it takes 5-10 minutes to
complete the questionnaire.
Please refer yourself as "Wikimedia chapters", in order to have deeper
impact (it is in fact possible to complete the survey as a citizen, an
organization or an institution).
Here's the direct link:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/scientific_information/consultat…
Thank you for you time.
Aubrey
WMI
Nathan, Theo,
You guys raise good questions (as always). Short answer is that hosting
liability is not compromised, and I think Steven responded to the harassment
policy inquiry.
That said, may I suggest that you put your points on the discussion page as
you see them, and we will answer more comprehensively once we understand
where the primary issues are.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use Going forward, I will
probably limit my comments to the discussion page.
Many thanks. Greatly appreciate the inquiries and feedback.
Geoff
-
It's also not difficult to add links to sister projects in the
sidebar, as seen at en.wikibooks since February 2011 [1]. And I know
some other projects do similar things as well, some with JavaScript.
The only difficulty encountered at en.wikibooks is not knowing how to
push the print/export box above the sister project links.
[1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sidebar
-- Adrignola
