Pathoschild writes:

Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:

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As to whether users will read it from beginning to end -- well, I assume most won't.

I think that is a problem.

If it is a problem, then are you suggesting that the current privacy policy (implemented in 2006) doesn't have this problem? In my view, the draft revision is more readable than the existing privacy policy.

Of course, we can solve the problem of readability by removing essential elements and placing them elsewhere. That solution is, to me, unsatisfactory, because the people who won't read our privacy policy from beginning to end are exactly the same ones who won't click to links containing important things like the Wikimedia Foundation's philosophy with regard to privacy issues.

All document design that serves multiple purposes requires tradeoffs. Given that the privacy policy (which will have legal consequences for the Foundation but not for editors, in general) has to function both as an inclusive, comprehensive document and as a reasonably accessible document (and as an easily referenced document), I think the length problem is one we're going to have to live with.

My test for whether a policy gets read is not primarily length -- it's whether the language is accessible to ordinary, nontechnical users. That's a major area in which the current policy falls short, and if we end up with a longer policy because we took the trouble to reframe it in ordinary language, I believe that is an appropriate tradeoff. It should be remembered that this policy is not primarily for the purpose of serving editors, but for giving notice to the whole world of users what we do.

To the extent that you believe a hypertextual document is more likely to be read than a longer document, in this context I have to disagree. I've been working with privacy activists and privacy- concerned citizens for nearly 20 years now, including nine years at EFF, two or three years at CDT, and a couple of years at Public Knowledge. My experience over this period has been (as I have said) that those who want to inform themselves fully about privacy policy tend to want all the information all in one place. (Really, this is true of probably more than 90 percent of privacy-concerned users.)

It should be noted that the existing policy follows exactly the principle I have outlined in the preceding paragraph.

After your original draft I proposed such a separation at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Draft_Privacy_Policy_June_2008#Rewrite

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a complete policy-only version linking to a second editable "explanatory material" page. I think this is the ideal solution: we have a binding easy-to-read privacy policy, as well as the lengthy explanatory material properly separated from binding policy and editable by the community.

I've read your proposed draft, and have been influenced by it in many ways. Please don't take my disagreement with you about this single issue to reflect anything other than general appreciation and gratitude for your efforts in your Rewrite, which I thought were quite helpful.

--Mike