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