[Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees

[Milos Rancic]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk at 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.)