[Foundation-l] Proposal: Addition to the general disclaimer

[Florence Devouard]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> On 4/12/08, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:
>> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>> On 11/04/2008, Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Isn't the general disclaimer a local thing rather than a global one?
>>>>  I think this is a matter for the individual communities, not the
>>>>  Foundation.
>>>>
>>> It's a legal matter, so it probably does fall on the foundation.
>>>
>> To the best of my knowledge, the foundation has not created any of the
>> existing disclaimers or dictated their contents. That makes them
>> entirely community products, subject to the same process as any other
>> wiki page. I'll defer to our lawyer if he thinks it should be otherwise,
>> but that's how I understand the situation.
>>
>> --Michael Snow
> 
> If memory serves, there have been situations when stuff analogous
> to the disclaimers has gone at least mildly - but sufficiently in any
> case - awry, for the foundation to take interest in their goings on, but as
> far as recall (and I wouldn't trust my memory further than I can throw
> it :-), in each case it wasn't a situation of the foundation pouncing
> on the project, but use of roundabout, gentle suasion, very low key.
> 
> Trusting each community to be sensible about things and
> explaining things from the general mission point of view to
> them. In general, personally I think the foundation can afford to
> talk softly, and not really even measure how big their stick is.

How nicely phrased :-)


> The question of what the legal status of those documents is
> I think should remain as unstated as possible. I think they are
> communication to the reader, which is intended to be the people
> who do the work in the communities, making sure there are as
> few as possible avenues for our readers to believe there is some
> thing they are entitled to, implicitly or not, which they should not
> feel entitled to, nor for their own benefit make a mistake about
> what we really are.
> 
> But if The Foundations lawyer feels a compelling need to spell
> out precisely what the disclaimer status is and thus take the
> disclaimers explicitly under its aegis, or completely distance
> itself from them; I certainly cannot argue with that. It would
> surprise me though.
> 
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

Agreed.
I just made a tweak to the disclaimer of commons, to clarify that 
Commons was "hosted" rather than "provided" by WMF; as well as to 
mention a wikimedia email address (rather than a wikia address) for the 
designated agent (who really should not be Jimbo anymore).

My feeling is that all projects and all languages should have a 
similar-looking paragraph mentionning the Foundation as host provider; 
and providing the appropriate contact, in particular a proper address 
consistant project-wide (right now, commons mentions the SF address, 
whilst the WMF site stills mentions the Florida address).

Aside from this little paragraph, it seems to me the community of each 
project should be 100% in charge of what is put in the disclaimer.

Ant