Hi all,
Although I do realize this is a Dutch Wikipedia-topic, I would like to get a somewhat broader set of input on this. I'll first sketch the situation a bit, and then explain what my interpretation is.
On the Dutch Wikipedia, there are two related, relatively long standing, policies: * Usernames linked to companies / organizations / brands are not allowed * Usernames are supposed to be strictly personal: groups of people using one user name is not allowed. This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is blocked indefinitely.
I find this practice very unfortunate, for a few reasons. For one, we assume bad faith: We assume that companies or even organizations are not able and willing to edit NPOV. This is mentioned often as a main reason for this policy. Often they are already blocked before they even can make their first edit. This does not only harm their feelings, it leaves a trail on the internet that is potentially harmful for their PR (just imagine: "Company XX got blocked on Wikipedia on sight"). As soon as a search engine does not fully respect (intentionally or not) the limitations we asked them to comply with, such as not search in these talk pages, this might even show up in a query. In short: companies and organizations are being punisched for trying to identify themselves.
In the past, there was a lot of hush about companies and organizations who edited anonymously and they were even named and shamed (although not by us). Now companies tell in advance who they are, so we can pay close attention to their edits, and we ask them now to take another name, which would be not recognizable? I think that is actually an editorial disadvantage! If we can recognize them easier, we can make sure they edit NPOV. Please, let's judge users on their actions, not on their names... This way, also the Tropenmuseum got blocked at some point, even though the account was created on another wiki!
Also, why would group accounts be bad? I mean, the only one that has disadvantage from it, is the people using the account, right? If we treat them as if they are one user, and we block them accordingly if necessary, it is their problem if someone else on that account did something bad and got the whole account blocked for it. We don't block IP-adresses either just because they could be used by multiple people?
I assume this is no WMF topic (thy shall not block people because of their username won't make it I guess), but I would like to get a little more insight and experiences from you guys.
* Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for blocking on sight? * Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on sight? ** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification? * Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies considering the SUL? ** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who registered on another wiki?
Thanks,
Lodewijk
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is blocked indefinitely.
I support policy that no organizational/group accounts should be used. It is not just about NPOV, but about liability, as well as WMF's position toward other organizations (imagine an account "Coca Cola"; is it really Coca Cola account? should we ask every such entity to prove that it is so? and so on).
However, you described the exactly wrong method for doing so. While it is not so easy to give some definite suggestions to English or Chinese Wikipedia because of the amount of possible companies, on the projects with smaller number of speakers (like Dutch is), I suggest much softer approach: Don't block them immediately. Talk with them. Explain to them that it is a problem for Wikipedia. Ask them to create their own accounts. And after that, with their approval, block the original account indefinitely.
- Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
blocking on sight?
No. As explained above.
- Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on sight?
** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
No. No. As explained above.
- Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies
considering the SUL? ** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who registered on another wiki?
This is a general rule, not just nl.wp rule. Probably, it should be WMF rule and thus in this particular case it is not a valid question.
At the other side, there are two approaches: autonomist and globalist. No one of two approaches allow to one wiki to enforce anything on another wiki. In the autonomist scenario, if the user comes from one wiki to another with an unacceptable username, it is up to the community at the destination wiki would they block such user or not. (Personally, I don't think that there is a space for any kind of policy autonomy on Wikimedia projects [if general policies are good enough]. However, that position is not a dominant one.)
Although I can understand that there are genuine reasons why the "anti organisational account" rule is in place, can I mention that having an organisational account is one of the main things that GLAM institutions have asked from us. If a museum wants to upload their own photographs to Commons (something which I think we all would love to support) they have requested that they be able to upload those images under their own organisational username. This in itself doesn't necessarily mean we should change our policies, but it's just an example of a good outcome that changing our flat ban on organisational accounts would achieve.
-Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is blocked indefinitely.
I support policy that no organizational/group accounts should be used. It is not just about NPOV, but about liability, as well as WMF's position toward other organizations (imagine an account "Coca Cola"; is it really Coca Cola account? should we ask every such entity to prove that it is so? and so on).
However, you described the exactly wrong method for doing so. While it is not so easy to give some definite suggestions to English or Chinese Wikipedia because of the amount of possible companies, on the projects with smaller number of speakers (like Dutch is), I suggest much softer approach: Don't block them immediately. Talk with them. Explain to them that it is a problem for Wikipedia. Ask them to create their own accounts. And after that, with their approval, block the original account indefinitely.
- Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
blocking on sight?
No. As explained above.
- Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on
sight?
** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
No. No. As explained above.
- Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies
considering the SUL? ** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who registered on another wiki?
This is a general rule, not just nl.wp rule. Probably, it should be WMF rule and thus in this particular case it is not a valid question.
At the other side, there are two approaches: autonomist and globalist. No one of two approaches allow to one wiki to enforce anything on another wiki. In the autonomist scenario, if the user comes from one wiki to another with an unacceptable username, it is up to the community at the destination wiki would they block such user or not. (Personally, I don't think that there is a space for any kind of policy autonomy on Wikimedia projects [if general policies are good enough]. However, that position is not a dominant one.)
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On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Although I can understand that there are genuine reasons why the "anti organisational account" rule is in place, can I mention that having an organisational account is one of the main things that GLAM institutions have asked from us. If a museum wants to upload their own photographs to Commons (something which I think we all would love to support) they have requested that they be able to upload those images under their own organisational username. This in itself doesn't necessarily mean we should change our policies, but it's just an example of a good outcome that changing our flat ban on organisational accounts would achieve.
Then they should sign contracts with WMF. OR: They should send their identification to WMF staff and WMF should make clear that those accounts are exceptions from the general policy.
could you perhaps point to that general WMF policy? Or do you mean you would like to see such a policy, but there is none yet?
Lodewijk
2009/12/3 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Although I can understand that there are genuine reasons why the "anti organisational account" rule is in place, can I mention that having an organisational account is one of the main things that GLAM institutions
have
asked from us. If a museum wants to upload their own photographs to
Commons
(something which I think we all would love to support) they have
requested
that they be able to upload those images under their own organisational username. This in itself doesn't necessarily mean we should change our policies, but it's just an example of a good outcome that changing our
flat
ban on organisational accounts would achieve.
Then they should sign contracts with WMF. OR: They should send their identification to WMF staff and WMF should make clear that those accounts are exceptions from the general policy.
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But perhaps what you are suggesting is something along the lines of a "verified account" (like in Twitter recently). Perhaps it wouldn't scale well, I'm not sure. This is probably digressing from the original subject but perhaps it might be an interesting technical solution for a question that many experts/academics/GLAMs etc. have asked - "we would like recognition". Could this mean that the user (e.g. a museum) could place their logo on their userpage and say "these are our official actions on Wikipedia and these are our official photograph uploads to Wikimedia Commons". This would give us the ability to offer something that has made FlickrCommons so popular - institutional recognition.
If there was a way to verify that a user with an institutional name was the "real" institution (that wasn't too bureaucratically difficult to set up, or administer) would that go some of the way to solving the problem of why we don't accept institutional accounts?
It doesn't solve the other reason why institutional user accounts are banned - because they can be "promotional" - but that is more a matter of the content that they create rather than the username itself.
-Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 12:07 PM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.comwrote:
could you perhaps point to that general WMF policy? Or do you mean you would like to see such a policy, but there is none yet?
Lodewijk
2009/12/3 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Although I can understand that there are genuine reasons why the "anti organisational account" rule is in place, can I mention that having an organisational account is one of the main things that GLAM institutions
have
asked from us. If a museum wants to upload their own photographs to
Commons
(something which I think we all would love to support) they have
requested
that they be able to upload those images under their own organisational username. This in itself doesn't necessarily mean we should change our policies, but it's just an example of a good outcome that changing our
flat
ban on organisational accounts would achieve.
Then they should sign contracts with WMF. OR: They should send their identification to WMF staff and WMF should make clear that those accounts are exceptions from the general policy.
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On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 1:07 PM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
could you perhaps point to that general WMF policy? Or do you mean you would like to see such a policy, but there is none yet?
Are you able to read the whole content or it is so much important to point bureaucratically to every mistake? Or, to be more clear: your behavior is the example of one of the main reason of the problems which you listed and about we are talking last days.
I don't know about such policy, as I stated inside of my first email in this thread:
"This is a general rule, not just nl.wp rule. Probably, it should be WMF rule and thus in this particular case it is not a valid question."
Please, don't waste others' time to prove your point.
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is blocked indefinitely.
I support policy that no organizational/group accounts should be used. It is not just about NPOV, but about liability, as well as WMF's position toward other organizations (imagine an account "Coca Cola"; is it really Coca Cola account? should we ask every such entity to prove that it is so? and so on).
It also hurts the community's position towards other organisations. Lets say we let them use their company name, and then we block them for edit-warring or copyvio or something. What!? We just blocked a _company_.
However, you described the exactly wrong method for doing so. While it is not so easy to give some definite suggestions to English or Chinese Wikipedia because of the amount of possible companies, on the projects with smaller number of speakers (like Dutch is), I suggest much softer approach: Don't block them immediately. Talk with them. Explain to them that it is a problem for Wikipedia. Ask them to create their own accounts. And after that, with their approval, block the original account indefinitely.
This is a great way to handle the situation. Sadly English Wikipedia tends to want to "fix" each problem that they see _immediately_.
Our policy currently says:
"Since usernames that are the name of a company or group create the appearance of intent to promote that group, accounts with a company or group name as a username are indefinitely blocked."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ORGNAME
-- John Vandenberg
What if someone registers an account 'Miscrosoft" and starts vandal editing? The media reports like 'Miscosoft blocked for vandalism in Wikipedia'" would be hardly better than 'Microsoft blocked on sight'.
Concerning the joint accounts I thought the main problem is that someone should be held responsible for the edits. I mean if there are some illegal edits done from this account and then someone claims it is not him, it is another user who uses the same account? On ru.wp we ban the joint accounts on sight, even though the company name policy has not been really enforced.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 18:18, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
What if someone registers an account 'Miscrosoft" and starts vandal editing? The media reports like 'Miscosoft blocked for vandalism in Wikipedia'" would be hardly better than 'Microsoft blocked on sight'.
Concerning the joint accounts I thought the main problem is that someone should be held responsible for the edits. I mean if there are some illegal edits done from this account and then someone claims it is not him, it is another user who uses the same account? On ru.wp we ban the joint accounts on sight, even though the company name policy has not been really enforced.
I support Liam's idea and think we might want to look at a two-tier policy:
1- have "verified" accounts, which are used by some companies/organisation to do "encyclopedic work" 2- disallow using a company's name in one's user name if they have not asked for a verification - and provided the right credentials
This said, I am completely with Lodewijk on the fact that I find incredible that we push companies to actually make what is nothing else than sock puppets accounts, because we don't allow to have a company's name in the user name. I am sure this has been debated at length, but I fail to see how this can be better than being able to identify staff from a company contributing to an article.
Delphine
2009/12/3 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 18:18, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
I support Liam's idea and think we might want to look at a two-tier policy:
1- have "verified" accounts, which are used by some companies/organisation to do "encyclopedic work" 2- disallow using a company's name in one's user name if they have not asked for a verification - and provided the right credentials
This said, I am completely with Lodewijk on the fact that I find incredible that we push companies to actually make what is nothing else than sock puppets accounts, because we don't allow to have a company's name in the user name. I am sure this has been debated at length, but I fail to see how this can be better than being able to identify staff from a company contributing to an article.
Delphine
The idea of verified accounts raises all sorts of questions and potential problems. The Wikimedia Foundation might be able to verify that users requesting a "company account" are connected to that company, if the account is on the English Wikipedia. But can the Foundation be sure that the existence of a company account is authorized by that company? Can they do anything at all in other languages? Should the process of "verification" be left to OTRS, or some other group on each wiki? If verified status is granted erroneously, and it impacts the reputation of a particular company, who is responsible?
Among other reasons, the English Wikipedia bans role accounts (including corporate accounts) because we wish people to act on their own behalf, and not claim the support or backing of a corporation. With limited capacity to verify the basis for any claimed role, we end up treating all such claims as suspect anyway. This restriction may be inconvenient in some instances, but far more trouble is prevented by maintaining the simplicity of individual to individual interaction.
As an example, Wikipedia administrators do not take action "on behalf of Wikipedia" when they enforce project policies. If the user behind the "ACME Cola" account earned a block, it would be an individual administrator on their own initiative blocking an account that represents an entire Fortune 100 corporation. This imbalance of agency could make administrators hesitate to take otherwise appropriate action.
Personally, I would much rather deal with an individual than with an anonymous representative of a corporate giant - and very little that can be accomplished with a role account can't be accomplished with a personal account. Simply state on the user page "My name is John Smith, public relations representative for ACME Cola Inc. Please contact me at john.smith@acmecola.com or 800-ACM-COLA, or use my talkpage." If they want to voluntarily identify their organizational affiliation, then nothing prevents them from doing so in this way.
Nathan
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 18:20, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
The idea of verified accounts raises all sorts of questions and potential problems. The Wikimedia Foundation might be able to verify that users requesting a "company account" are connected to that company, if the account is on the English Wikipedia. But can the Foundation be sure that the existence of a company account is authorized by that company? Can they do anything at all in other languages? Should the process of "verification" be left to OTRS, or some other group on each wiki? If verified status is granted erroneously, and it impacts the reputation of a particular company, who is responsible?
Well, obviously the "verified" account system should find a way to answer those questions.
And I fail to see what kind of responsibility would end up on the shoulders of an administrator for blocking an account on Wikipedia. It's not like blocking a Wikipedia account actually endangered a company in any kind of way.
Among other reasons, the English Wikipedia bans role accounts (including corporate accounts) because we wish people to act on their own behalf, and not claim the support or backing of a corporation. With limited capacity to verify the basis for any claimed role, we end up treating all such claims as suspect anyway. This restriction may be inconvenient in some instances, but far more trouble is prevented by maintaining the simplicity of individual to individual interaction.
But as I understand it, accounts such as "Delphine-ACMEcola" are also blocked on sight right? Which prevents even me from making edits on behalf of a "company" and being really open about it.
Mind you, if I was there to really make a company shinier on Wikipedia (see the recent coffee brand case recently talked about in the French Wikipedia), I would probably avoid having a corporate account at all. But for people and companies who act in good faith, I still think that role accounts should be allowed and a verify-system be put in place.
Delphine
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think are valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum article on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a difference ... I would like to know more good examples.. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/3 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org
Hi all,
Although I do realize this is a Dutch Wikipedia-topic, I would like to get a somewhat broader set of input on this. I'll first sketch the situation a bit, and then explain what my interpretation is.
On the Dutch Wikipedia, there are two related, relatively long standing, policies:
- Usernames linked to companies / organizations / brands are not allowed
- Usernames are supposed to be strictly personal: groups of people
using one user name is not allowed. This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is blocked indefinitely.
I find this practice very unfortunate, for a few reasons. For one, we assume bad faith: We assume that companies or even organizations are not able and willing to edit NPOV. This is mentioned often as a main reason for this policy. Often they are already blocked before they even can make their first edit. This does not only harm their feelings, it leaves a trail on the internet that is potentially harmful for their PR (just imagine: "Company XX got blocked on Wikipedia on sight"). As soon as a search engine does not fully respect (intentionally or not) the limitations we asked them to comply with, such as not search in these talk pages, this might even show up in a query. In short: companies and organizations are being punisched for trying to identify themselves.
In the past, there was a lot of hush about companies and organizations who edited anonymously and they were even named and shamed (although not by us). Now companies tell in advance who they are, so we can pay close attention to their edits, and we ask them now to take another name, which would be not recognizable? I think that is actually an editorial disadvantage! If we can recognize them easier, we can make sure they edit NPOV. Please, let's judge users on their actions, not on their names... This way, also the Tropenmuseum got blocked at some point, even though the account was created on another wiki!
Also, why would group accounts be bad? I mean, the only one that has disadvantage from it, is the people using the account, right? If we treat them as if they are one user, and we block them accordingly if necessary, it is their problem if someone else on that account did something bad and got the whole account blocked for it. We don't block IP-adresses either just because they could be used by multiple people?
I assume this is no WMF topic (thy shall not block people because of their username won't make it I guess), but I would like to get a little more insight and experiences from you guys.
- Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
blocking on sight?
- Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on
sight? ** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
- Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies
considering the SUL? ** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who registered on another wiki?
Thanks,
Lodewijk
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On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think are valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum article on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a difference ... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will ask the person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a block and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The notion that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a difference ... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I believe that a "verified" account system for GLAMs specifically doing encyclopedic work (not for businesses, etc) would not be too difficult to work out, and would be well worth any such effort.
Such systems, though nothing is 100%, have worked quite well for many other websites.
Thanks, Pharos
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will ask the person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a block and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The notion that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a difference ... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
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The spirit of the one person per account policy was to prevent people from disclaiming responsibility by claiming another person did it. I feel that allowing accounts for GLAMs would not violate the intent of the policy, but suggest that the account be required to verify, maintain a valid email and provide the Foundation with the identities of the authorized users.
________________________________ From: Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 4:16:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
I believe that a "verified" account system for GLAMs specifically doing encyclopedic work (not for businesses, etc) would not be too difficult to work out, and would be well worth any such effort.
Such systems, though nothing is 100%, have worked quite well for many other websites.
Thanks, Pharos
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will ask the person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a block and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The notion that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a difference ... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
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_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Practically speaking, how would such a verification system work? Would it be a specific OTRS queue (similar to the way we get proof that a photo's copyright release is correct) or would it be an email to Cary at the WMF (similar to the way we make sure people with specific tools are over a certain age)? Or, would it be a different thing altogether (e.g. the verification process is via the local chapter who "vouches" for the GLAM)?
-Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.comwrote:
The spirit of the one person per account policy was to prevent people from disclaiming responsibility by claiming another person did it. I feel that allowing accounts for GLAMs would not violate the intent of the policy, but suggest that the account be required to verify, maintain a valid email and provide the Foundation with the identities of the authorized users.
From: Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 4:16:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
I believe that a "verified" account system for GLAMs specifically doing encyclopedic work (not for businesses, etc) would not be too difficult to work out, and would be well worth any such effort.
Such systems, though nothing is 100%, have worked quite well for many other websites.
Thanks, Pharos
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will ask
the
person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a block and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The
notion
that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a
difference
... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
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On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 12:28 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Practically speaking, how would such a verification system work? Would it be a specific OTRS queue (similar to the way we get proof that a photo's copyright release is correct) or would it be an email to Cary at the WMF (similar to the way we make sure people with specific tools are over a certain age)? Or, would it be a different thing altogether (e.g. the verification process is via the local chapter who "vouches" for the GLAM)?
-Liam [[witty lama]]
Perhaps we could start out modestly with just a handful of GLAMs, run through a chapters "vouching" system, and move on from there.
If Wikimedia Australia were able to take the initiative on this and start a pilot project, I personally think that would be fantastic.
Thanks, Pharos
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.comwrote:
The spirit of the one person per account policy was to prevent people from disclaiming responsibility by claiming another person did it. I feel that allowing accounts for GLAMs would not violate the intent of the policy, but suggest that the account be required to verify, maintain a valid email and provide the Foundation with the identities of the authorized users.
From: Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 4:16:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
I believe that a "verified" account system for GLAMs specifically doing encyclopedic work (not for businesses, etc) would not be too difficult to work out, and would be well worth any such effort.
Such systems, though nothing is 100%, have worked quite well for many other websites.
Thanks, Pharos
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will ask
the
person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a block and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The
notion
that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of the Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a
difference
... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
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I'm new to this discussion, so I may be inserting at the wrong place and time, but I want to suggest that Wikipedia's counsel determine whether the Digital Millennium Copyright Act implicitly requires individual accounts in order to maintain the Foundation's protections under the Act. I don't know that it does, but I think it may, or may head in that direction.
By the way, and by comparison, the federal courts require individual attorney accounts for use of the online filing system (called Pacer), so that an individual attorney must take responsibility for her or his pleadings, and can't hide behind a firm account. Of course, you can always locate an individual attorney, and determine what firm they work for.
John Sinclair
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Plourde Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 8:15 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
The spirit of the one person per account policy was to prevent people from disclaiming responsibility by claiming another person did it. I feel that allowing accounts for GLAMs would not violate the intent of the policy, but suggest that the account be required to verify, maintain a valid email and provide the Foundation with the identities of the authorized users.
________________________________ From: Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 4:16:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
I believe that a "verified" account system for GLAMs specifically doing encyclopedic work (not for businesses, etc) would not be too difficult to work out, and would be well worth any such effort.
Such systems, though nothing is 100%, have worked quite well for many other websites.
Thanks, Pharos
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will
ask the
person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a
block
and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The
notion
that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I
think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of
the
Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a
difference
... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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I'm not an expert in the particular arena, but it would seem that the onus of any requirement on individual accounts lies on the account holder; it would be patently unreasonable to expect a website or service provider to have any method of enforcing that.
For instance, AOL has not the slightest clue how many people utilize a single one of their accounts. It could be the credit card holder, it could be them plus their children, it could be 100 different people. They have no more restriction on whether individual accounts are needed than we do.
-Dan On Dec 10, 2009, at 12:21 PM, John M. Sinclair wrote:
I'm new to this discussion, so I may be inserting at the wrong place and time, but I want to suggest that Wikipedia's counsel determine whether the Digital Millennium Copyright Act implicitly requires individual accounts in order to maintain the Foundation's protections under the Act. I don't know that it does, but I think it may, or may head in that direction.
By the way, and by comparison, the federal courts require individual attorney accounts for use of the online filing system (called Pacer), so that an individual attorney must take responsibility for her or his pleadings, and can't hide behind a firm account. Of course, you can always locate an individual attorney, and determine what firm they work for.
John Sinclair
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Plourde Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 8:15 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
The spirit of the one person per account policy was to prevent people from disclaiming responsibility by claiming another person did it. I feel that allowing accounts for GLAMs would not violate the intent of the policy, but suggest that the account be required to verify, maintain a valid email and provide the Foundation with the identities of the authorized users.
From: Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 4:16:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees
I believe that a "verified" account system for GLAMs specifically doing encyclopedic work (not for businesses, etc) would not be too difficult to work out, and would be well worth any such effort.
Such systems, though nothing is 100%, have worked quite well for many other websites.
Thanks, Pharos
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When they are blocked like it happened with the Tropenmuseum, I will
ask the
person who did this to reconsider... There has to be a reason for a
block
and these organisations do what they do and they do it very well. The
notion
that a block on sight is always good is .... not reasonable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/12/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I want to give you two different group / company accounts that I
think
are
valuable..
Tropenmuseum... If you do not know about it, read the Tropenmuseum
article
on Commons Calcey - a company from Sri Lanka has adopted the localisation of
the
Sinhala language. We are really grateful for their work.
There are more great examples of companies, groups that make a
difference
... I would like to know more good examples..
You say that now, but what happens when they are blocked.
Or maybe they say something that sounds like a legal threat; are they speaking for the company?
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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John M. Sinclair wrote:
I'm new to this discussion, so I may be inserting at the wrong place and time, but I want to suggest that Wikipedia's counsel determine whether the Digital Millennium Copyright Act implicitly requires individual accounts in order to maintain the Foundation's protections under the Act. I don't know that it does, but I think it may, or may head in that direction.
This would be seriously unrealistic. If you think there is something of the sort there by all means give a specific references. If you need to run to counsel to verify the presence every little speculative legal provision nothing would ever get done anywhere, and expensively so.
People sign all sorts of complicated contracts every day without so much as reading them, let alone understanding them. They are typically held responsible for the consequences. Do you consult your lawyer every time you sign an apartment lease, or buy a car, or take out a credit card. The consequences of clauses in these contracts can be more profound than what is being discussed here.
By the way, and by comparison, the federal courts require individual attorney accounts for use of the online filing system (called Pacer), so that an individual attorney must take responsibility for her or his pleadings, and can't hide behind a firm account. Of course, you can always locate an individual attorney, and determine what firm they work for.
The court system requires considerably more formality than Wikipedia accounts.
Ec
Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
The spirit of the one person per account policy was to prevent people from disclaiming responsibility by claiming another person did it.
That means little when we don't know the real names of the contributor. A pseudonym could be anyone with access to the family computer. If an account owner allows others to use his account he is still responsible for what happens in the account. (If you let someone drive your car, and there is an accident you can still be held responsible.) Someone else, with your permission, uses your account for vandalism it's your problem. Most of the time secondary users of these accounts do so responsibly. We waste too much energy on the irresponsible minority.
Ec
This lets you know why the recording industry needs more money from consumers. :'(
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/735096--geist-record-industry-faces-...
Ec
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