I think the better question is "what will this department actually do?" On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Philippe Beaudette <philippe(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

Obviously, we have some ideas - several of them are listed in the announcement page. However, one of the most exciting bits of this is that since it's a community advocacy department, we're asking you to help us define that. There's a page on meta (also linked from the announcement page), and an IRC chat tomorrow to kick that off. :) pb On Thu Feb 9 18:32:42 2012, Mono wrote:

Quite right, inasmuch as any of our jobs can work in that much of an insular fashion. We'll do quite a bit of dealing with the external community (defending takedown challenges, etc), but you're quite right that it's in a posture of focusing on the existing community. However, our hope is that through this, we can encourage further organic growth of the community, as well as protect the community that we have. pb On 2/9/12 6:35 PM, Liam Wyatt wrote:

No, I report to Geoff. Geoff is the "Chief" for the legal and community advocacy department. I run the C.A. side of it. :-) On Thu Feb 9 18:48:34 2012, Theo10011 wrote:

On 2/9/12 7:19 PM, Andreas K. wrote: Fighting for content online includes thing such as pushing back against DMCA takedowns, etc. Providing information about legislative initiatives is just that - making sure that our community is aware of things that are going on. More specifically, building (from within the community) the ability to track that sort of thing. That's an area where crowdsourcing works very very well. No. It was conceived of prior to that, in fact. By providing our community with the knowledge and the tools to do it... through creative education, and early involvement in decision making to attempt to provide us with more options than the full SOPA blackout. The whole idea here is to increase community capacity, not to lobby. :-) Although it is possible that there will be (at some point) a legislative affairs person, for instance, who would track legislation and provide subject matter expertise on process, that's a far cry from a traditional lobbying effort. pb

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 10:39 PM, Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote: "Advocacy" is a much more general term in this context than people seem to be taking it as. It does not mean lobbying or fighting for something controversial with outside organizations. As I understand it, it's the opposite: advocating to the Wikimedia Foundation on behalf of the community. The new "Community Advocacy" staff do what they've always done -- represent the community to the Wikimedia Foundation, liaise, and advocate for their issues. Taking into account Philippe's last role, reader relations, it probably also includes advocating for the readers as well. This just spins it off into its own department and gives it a name that more clearly defines what it does. Many organizations, especially membership associations, have positions devoted to advocacy like this. They're the contact people that represent the broader group to the rest of the organization and bring up issues that they want dealt with. -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org> wrote: Yeah, that's my understanding of the game plan here as well. I think the announcement could have been clearer in that regard, but that's pretty much what Philippe and Maggie have already been doing, and what they'll continue to do in a structure that's set up for growth. Sometimes we have a tendency to speak in management lingo when we should be choosing simple, crisp & clear terms. Honest feedback: Burn the chart on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/LCA_Announcement and draft a super crisp mission statement to slap on the first page for this group. I know, I've been guilty of this as well -- no criticism of the team. When working in an organization this kind of communication style is often expected from you in day-to-day work, but it's not necessarily helpful when communicating with people who have very little time and interest to parse it. I think the brainstorming page is a great start and hope it'll be utilized and further advertised in coming days: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Community_Advocacy Congratulations to Philippe and Maggie for their new roles. I think it's about time that we're creating this structure, and I think it'll generate lots of tangible value for the community. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Then my suggestion would be, rename the department. I completely agree, it is about time Philippe and Maggie get more authority and a dedicated department. I am happy for both of them. They actually do and have been doing the heavy lifting for years when it comes to the community. I would actually be more in favor of calling their department the community department. ;) Regards Theo

I think we'll be doing some combination of all three of those. But here's the important part: you tell us. I built out the brainstorming page: people are acting as though there's a determined course charted for this team - if anything, it's the opposite. This is the opportunity for the community to tell us how you'd like to be supported by this team. From the ground floor, help us design it. Tell us what will work best. Do we need more Maggies? Do we need someone to help us track issues of free culture? Maybe we don't, because the community has a process in place for that and we just don't know about it. Help us design the team, and its high level goals. We have what we THINK some of those will be (they're on the page, but I've pasted them here [1], also)... but we're open to the community's input - actually, we're begging for it. Edit this team, and edit this plan. :-) pb [1]- - * Maintaining a proactive online content-protection strategy, defending the written and media work of the community on the Projects through litigation and other means with the involvement of the community; * Ensuring increasing amounts and efficacy of global community participation in WMF-generated initiatives (such as revisions to WMF policies); * Setting up international meet-ups that recognize and support the role of administrators and functionaries, including brainstorming ways that WMF can better help these critical roles within our movement (e.g., Arbcoms, checkusers, OTRS, etc.); * Providing international legislative and policy support to the community, such as providing information about legislative issues of interest like global censorship laws; and * Creating and learning from a community-based advisory board, including implementation of support ideas that serve the advocacy interests of the community and Foundation. On Thu Feb 9 23:42:23 2012, Lodewijk wrote:

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think the name's pretty spot-on, actually: advocating on behalf of the community. It's the elucidation of that concept that needs to happen to avoid confusion. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 5:39 AM, Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote: I guess what I'm trying to say is, Advocacy is a sensitive area. I really I think you are confusing "rare" with "first". This was merely the OPENing salvo of a long and protracted battle to protect wikimedia and the internets and particularly and espescially up and coming internet entrepeneurs from draconian internet/IP legislation and international treaties. This will now, once started, last years if not decades, and we have to stand fast. It isn't our neutrality that is at stake, it is our very existence, and our ability to stay neutral under pressure from governments. -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

On 10 February 2012 14:43, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: As a matter of general principle, I too would like to know whether the WMF Board is consulted and/or informed and/or formally approved the creation of new departments or general major organisation re-shuffling. I don't mind who actually gets to make "the announcement" first, but I think things on this scale (setting up a new division of the organisation) should be dependent on board approval. Also, it would have been nice to see some discussion and buildup to this (or any) new department or major project rather than merely announcing it one day, "ta da!" style, and expecting that the community wouldn't make assumptions about why it was kept secret in the first place. With the specifics of "is this a political lobbying wing of the WMF or not"... I think it is quite clear to everyone that Wikimedians have a hard time agreeing about *anything* but that the two things we all agree on is "Free" (in the technical sense) and that providing a neutral source of information is itself an inherently non-neutral activity. We spent quite a lot of time talking about the legislative environments where we live (and how that interacts with USA laws), what rules govern freedom of panorama in xyz country, who can request takedown of what content in what circumstances, whether we can provide workaround methods for accessing the content in censoring counties, etc. etc. So, in that light it makes perfect sense to me that there should be a group of people at the WMF dedicated to supporting individuals and Chapters to learn more about those kinds of things and to advocate for a "free culture" position when appropriate. It is in no way against the WMF's (or Chapter's) mission to "advocate" in the way it has done in the past, to general community acclaim, with for example, - Mike's brilliant response letter to the CIA takedown notice http://mashable.com/2010/08/03/wikipedia-fbi-seal/ - Geoff's filing of an amicus brief to the Goldman v. Holder case http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/submissions/domestic/amicus.shtml - Submissions to government policy reviews such as that written by the Research Committee http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Committee/Areas_of_interest/Open-ac… I imagine that it is this kind of thing that would be in the scope of the "advocacy" aspect of this new department. Certainly, I too do not want to see an overt political lobbying department created, but that is not what is being created. For comparison, the formal job title of Mathias Schindler at WM-DE, if I understand correctly, is "project manager - politics and society" and it's his job to help write submissions to the German parliament when applicable. He's been doing this task for years. So... vigilance required to make sure we're not losing our way by focusing too much on the politics, but we shouldn't be ignoring it or leaving it to others to sort out either. From what that project page says it looks like this strikes a good balance and we'll see how the department evolves over time. -Liam

Liam Wyatt wrote: Y'know, the CentralNotice extension was originally written for fundraising banners and campaigns. Eventually people liked its power enough that they started using it for other interwiki communications. And then a few people had the idea of using it to turn the English Wikipedia off(!) in protest of bills in the U.S. Congress that they didn't like very much. You'll have to forgive me for thinking that what started as a "one-time protest" that has now (quickly) morphed into an entire department of the Wikimedia Foundation will not one day be engaged in political lobbying. Likely with the help of the lobbying organization that Wikimedia has already engaged and employed. I will give credit to the Wikimedia Foundation for having the _cojones_ to try to portray this as "community advocacy." It certainly takes a large brass pair. Respectfully, I don't think this is as much about being vigilant as it is about saying that the bullets should be taken out of the gun rather than leaving it loaded on the table. I don't foresee a lot of good coming from this (predictable) step by the Wikimedia Foundation, but I do foresee quite a lot of bad. Politics has awesome power... it quite often tears organizations apart. MZMcBride