Has there been a recent substantial discussion by the community surrounding promotional/biased editting paid or otherwise, which had an outcome resulting in a specific request for assistance or increased action by the WMF?
Aside from the conversation on this list, I'm aware of the discussion on Jimbo's talk page. If WMF Legal or the WMF Board wants to take the position that it would like to see a community RfC or some other such discussion, I imagine that such can be arranged, and I can see how that might be beneficial. Of course, anyone is free to initiate such an on-wiki discussion.
If there hasn't, I do not see grounds for you to be expecting an official response from Legal to a list whose conversation has for the most part consisted of about 6 people?
I'm not sure why you would be telling other people to whom they can initiate requests and the conditions under which they can be made. I already have a dim view of WMF's customer service; please don't dig the hole any deeper.
Many others, I am sure, would rightly complain if the Foundation
unilaterally made decisions in this area.
That is possible if WMF were to do something particularly novel, so your sense of caution here is well taken. I would hope that WMF would discuss its plans with the community and have a conversation before actually initiating novel actions.
But please be realistic, this is a coffee table discussion.
I have mixed views on this. Wikimedia-l is not a quiet back room with only a few people around, but it's true that a consensus here among a small number of people who speak up in a particular discussion demonstrates a lower level of consensus than an RfC with hundreds of participants. It's not clear to me that there is consensus on which tools are appropriate for which exact circumstances, and some discussions happen in multiple venues.
The views expressed here are valid but the right
thing to do would be to further the conversation on wiki and have a proper
community conversation.
I don't think that there is a single definition of a "proper" community conversation.
I have no objection to having an on-wiki RfC (and I can see how a sophisticated and well-attended one might produce detailed guidance that would be helpful), but neither do I want this thread to be trivialized.
Pine