In today's Office Hour[1] I had some questions about the "Promotional Use of Website Assets" section of the Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline[2] which I'm not sure were addressed in accordance with what that guideline actually says. And it was made clear that decisions about it have been made in one-on-one and small group discussions, instead of the wider consultations which the guideline contemplates. I've asked similar questions on the Advocacy Advisors list which weren't directly answered. So I want to ask some specific questions and a general question of the community at large:
(A) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CISPA advocacy?[3][4]
(B) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CALEA advocacy?[5]
(C) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CFAA advocacy?[6]
(C) As there are economic issues on which advocacy would support the broad volunteer editor community, but which could in some cases be seen as politically partisan, where should the line be drawn on economic advocacy? As a more specific practical reformulation of this question, how bad would poverty in developed countries have to become before it would be appropriate for the Foundation to advocate on the issue? Is it already appropriate? Would it only be appropriate if the proportion of editors leaving the project due to personal poverty was increasing? Would it never be appropriate?
Sincerely, James Salsman
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-03-30
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Polic...
[3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/consequences-cispas-broad-legal-immuni...
[4] http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/03/22/pro-cispa-lawmaker-deletes-ret...
[5] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/26/andrew_weissmann_fbi_want...
[6] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/congress-new-cfaa-draft-could-have-put...
On 30 March 2013 20:57, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
In today's Office Hour[1] I had some questions about the "Promotional Use of Website Assets" section of the Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline[2] which I'm not sure were addressed in accordance with what that guideline actually says. And it was made clear that decisions about it have been made in one-on-one and small group discussions, instead of the wider consultations which the guideline contemplates. I've asked similar questions on the Advocacy Advisors list which weren't directly answered. So I want to ask some specific questions and a general question of the community at large:
(A) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CISPA advocacy?[3][4]
(B) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CALEA advocacy?[5]
(C) Should the Foundation devote banner space on project home pages to CFAA advocacy?[6]
No since none of those have any impact on our core issues.
On 30 March 2013 20:57, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
As a more specific practical reformulation of this question, how bad would poverty in developed countries have to become before it would be appropriate for the Foundation to advocate on the issue? Is it already appropriate? Would it only be appropriate if the proportion of editors leaving the project due to personal poverty was increasing? Would it never be appropriate?
Speaking personally: you seem to be confusing the Wikimedia movement with the "now that we've got the world's eyeballs, what things make us sad?" movement. It would, practically speaking, never be appropriate for us to spend page impressions or chunks of page impressions on this kind of advocacy - I say "practically" because, while things might alter slightly if it turned out editors were leaving in droves due to poverty, this seems...'ludicrously unlikely' doesn't cover it.
James, I appreciate that you care a lot about these issues. But please stop trying to use the movement as your personal soapbox.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org