James,
You have continued this, and related, lines of questioning of multiple staff members and of the community for quite some time now. It is clear that you have not received an answer that you find satisfactory, and I understand that, but may I ask what makes you think that you will receive an answer that is satisfactory to you by continuing to ask the same questions. It is possible, and in my opinion likely right now, that you will never receive an answer that satisfies you given the realities of the conversation.
My read of the discussions (and lack thereof) that have happened here and elsewhere over the course of many years when you bring these topics up is that the level of interest in pursuing your specific agenda is not only low but, if anything, actively negative. That is not to say that many of us do not, personally, agree with the goals that you espouse just that we do not believe the foundation should be actively participating in them. Spreading us too thin is not helpful for any of our goals and focus, including in advocacy, is incredibly important.
I would encourage you, James, to move on from this line of discussion. Continued work on it, whether it be via passive aggressive emails 'to' staff members (while copying in a public mailing list), attempts to rally up support through different mailing lists or via proposed surveys of the community are unlikely to change the response that has been clear for at least 5 years. I understand that you may not see these emails or proposals in the way I described but I urge you look at them through others eyes.
James Alexander User:Jamesofur
On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 4:47 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Geoff,
Would you please clarify which of the advocacy topics below, if any, are precluded by the restrictions at
https://web.archive.org/web/20120621122539/http://www.irs.gov/charities/arti... ?
Since multiple people have claimed that some are without saying which, it would be very helpful to have some clarity from an authority. The topics were designed to address volunteer quality of life issues on which the Foundation has not been active because they were not considered when volunteer survey respondents were polled on their advocacy preferences. I am not interested in correcting those omissions with any topics which are precluded by IRS regulations.
Thank you!
Labor rights, e.g., linking to fixmyjob.com
Support the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child and its protocols without reservation
Increase infrastructure spending
Increase education spending
Public school class size reduction
College subsidy with income-based repayment terms
More steeply progressive taxation
Negative interest on excess reserves
Telecommuting
Workweek length reduction
Single-payer health care
Renewable power purchase
Increased data center hardware power efficiency
Increased security against eavesdropping
Metropolitan broadband
Oppose monopolization of software, communications, publishing, and
finance industries
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Based on the message from James Alexander,[1] there is a long history to this line of discussion that I've missed -- so maybe this has been covered. But I'd like to underscore James A's point, from a different perspective.
( tl;dr -- Build a consensus around a desired course of action, *then* seek legal advice -- not the other way around.)
In my last message I mentioned the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest,[2] but I failed to offer context. CLPI offers trainings (I participated in one a few years ago) and resources, specifically for U.S. non-profit organizations that are interested in lobbying and advocacy, and concerned about possible threats to their tax status (or other related legal threats). To make a long story short, in general, those in the U.S. non-profit world tend to be much more anxious about this issue than they need to be. While due diligence is of course important, the kinds of things that threaten the 501(c)(3) tax status tend to be working for or against the election of specific candidates, or devoting a substantial portion of one's annual budget (somewhere around 40%, if memory serves) to passing or opposing specific legislation.
I think Wikimedia is no exception. I think there are very good reasons to be cautious about how much and what kind of advocacy the Wikimedia Foundation engages in, but by and large, the reasons are not *legal* ones. They're related to our vision, our mission, our strategic plan, and our model of community governance.
If there is a strong consensus to pursue an advocacy agenda in support our mission, I think it's safe to assume that the Legal department would support those efforts, and issue appropriate pushback if necessary. The SOPA blackout illustrates that.[3] But I don't see the use in devoting the resources of the legal team to a detailed *general* answer to this question, when (based on what I learned from CLPI) it seems unlikely that the law will be a significant obstacle.
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
[1] for those who don't know, James A.'s title is: Manager, Legal and Community Advocacy/Wikimedia Foundation [2] http://www.clpi.org/ [3] http://enwp.org/WP:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more ( <-- needs updating, but offers good background )
On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 5:35 PM, James Alexander jamesofur@gmail.com wrote:
James,
You have continued this, and related, lines of questioning of multiple staff members and of the community for quite some time now. It is clear that you have not received an answer that you find satisfactory, and I understand that, but may I ask what makes you think that you will receive an answer that is satisfactory to you by continuing to ask the same questions. It is possible, and in my opinion likely right now, that you will never receive an answer that satisfies you given the realities of the conversation.
My read of the discussions (and lack thereof) that have happened here and elsewhere over the course of many years when you bring these topics up is that the level of interest in pursuing your specific agenda is not only low but, if anything, actively negative. That is not to say that many of us do not, personally, agree with the goals that you espouse just that we do not believe the foundation should be actively participating in them. Spreading us too thin is not helpful for any of our goals and focus, including in advocacy, is incredibly important.
I would encourage you, James, to move on from this line of discussion. Continued work on it, whether it be via passive aggressive emails 'to' staff members (while copying in a public mailing list), attempts to rally up support through different mailing lists or via proposed surveys of the community are unlikely to change the response that has been clear for at least 5 years. I understand that you may not see these emails or proposals in the way I described but I urge you look at them through others eyes.
James Alexander User:Jamesofur
On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 4:47 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Geoff,
Would you please clarify which of the advocacy topics below, if any, are precluded by the restrictions at
https://web.archive.org/web/20120621122539/http://www.irs.gov/charities/arti...
?
Since multiple people have claimed that some are without saying which, it would be very helpful to have some clarity from an authority. The topics were designed to address volunteer quality of life issues on which the Foundation has not been active because they were not considered when volunteer survey respondents were polled on their advocacy preferences. I am not interested in correcting those omissions with any topics which are precluded by IRS regulations.
Thank you!
Labor rights, e.g., linking to fixmyjob.com
Support the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child and its protocols without reservation
Increase infrastructure spending
Increase education spending
Public school class size reduction
College subsidy with income-based repayment terms
More steeply progressive taxation
Negative interest on excess reserves
Telecommuting
Workweek length reduction
Single-payer health care
Renewable power purchase
Increased data center hardware power efficiency
Increased security against eavesdropping
Metropolitan broadband
Oppose monopolization of software, communications, publishing, and
finance industries
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Pete Forsyth wrote:
I think there are very good reasons to be cautious about how much and what kind of advocacy the Wikimedia Foundation engages in, but by and large, the reasons are not *legal* ones. They're related to our vision, our mission, our strategic plan, and our model of community governance.
Yep.
Though since you mention SOPA, it's been over two years and I hope the passage of time has made people more circumspect following that spectacle. In my opinion, the video of Wikimedia Foundation staff members actively cheering blacking out the English Wikipedia and the weaponization of the CentralNotice extension did a lot more harm to Wikimedia than any bill that the U.S. Congress was considering at the time probably would have.
MZMcBride
On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 6:33 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Pete Forsyth wrote:
I think there are very good reasons to be cautious about how much and what kind of advocacy the Wikimedia Foundation engages in, but by and large, the reasons are not *legal* ones. They're related to our vision, our mission, our strategic plan, and our model of community governance.
Yep.
Though since you mention SOPA, it's been over two years and I hope the passage of time has made people more circumspect following that spectacle. In my opinion, the video of Wikimedia Foundation staff members actively cheering blacking out the English Wikipedia and the weaponization of the CentralNotice extension did a lot more harm to Wikimedia than any bill that the U.S. Congress was considering at the time probably would have.
MZMcBride
A fair point.
But let me just underscore -- my point was narrower than the point you seem to be responding to.
I made no claim above that SOPA blackout was a good idea, or that it was executed properly; I just wanted to point out that *when the decision was made to pursue a specific course of action,* as far as I know, the Legal department did what was necessary to ensure that the WMF's legal status was not threatened.
Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org