On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:48 PM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi Lila,
My read of the *new* Privacy Policy is that nonpublic emails sent
to WMF should remain nonpublic unless the user gives consent to the
contrary. The policy states that "We may share your information for a
particular purpose, if you agree." Otherwise emails are considered
personal information and their redistribution is restricted. See
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#share-to-experiment
and
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Access_to_and_release_o…
So, please do not take the view that "Otherwise, we will consider them
public" if you do not hear back from someone who has contacted you.
The general practice in the community is that emails are considered private
by default.
"Private" doesn't mean absolutely private, for example it's common for
members of certain committees to circulate emails among themselves,
but those emails don't usually get forwarded outside of the group or
republished without opt-in permission from the sender. Similarly, WMF
may circulate emails internally.
User privacy is a big deal in this community. Perhaps you know more
about the Privacy Policy than I do, but my understanding is that your
announced plans are inconsistent with the current and draft policies.
Fortunately, that is easy to fix in this situation.
I am glad you have taken an interest in the experiences of new editors. (:
Pine
Let's not be so quick to criticize; Lila's e-mail is the invitation to
participate. By responding to her prompt and not asking for your comments
to be private, you agree with the solicitation that the comments be public.