[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcement: Building a new Legal and Community Advocacy Department & Promotion of Philippe Beaudette

[MZMcBride]

Geoff Brigham wrote:
> Today, we are excited to announce the start of our building of a new
> department called the ³Legal and Community Advocacy Department.²  This new
> alignment recognizes that we can combine the best of legal and community
> advocacy to foster new ways to advance the interests of the community
> consistent with the goals and strategies of the Foundation.   For details,
> please go to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/LCA_Announcement.
> 
> As part of this reorganization, I¹m pleased to announce that Philippe
> Beaudette has been promoted to Director of Community Advocacy.  We will
> start engaging our community shortly and enter into a consultation period
> with it to brainstorm how to build the department.  We anticipate that it
> will take us about 6-12 months to get the right team and drive the new
> department at full speed.
> 
> The community is invited to join us on Friday for office hours to discuss
> the new Legal and Community Advocacy Department.  Details for the IRC chat
> can be found at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours.

A political (lobbying?) arm of Wikimedia? And the Wikimedia community and
Board have said they're okay with this?

MZMcBride