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

[Theo10011]

I'm all for a shift from the community department, and dividing focus
between existing community and things like new editor retention. Zack and
the community department, primarily focus on fundraising, with only
indirect involvement with the existing community affairs through Philippe,
Maggie and others. It seems like an efficient move to give them some room
and autonomy.

However, the issue of advocacy is not generally agreed upon by the entire
community. SOPA blackout was the first and official action of its kind,
before we consider an advocacy department, do we have consensus that it is
something we should seek actively? The strategic plan and individual board
members covered this issue in passing several times, but as far as I know,
there is no official community-ratified outline or policy to warrant an
active involvement at this stage.

Issues like SOPA are rare, they come up once in a while. It was the only
one of its kind that required such strong action in the last few years I
can remember. I'm not sure if an advocacy department already, is a good
thing. Especially, if actions like the Italian Wikipedia blackout prove
that local communities are quiet capable of doing this on their own,
without the involvement or even the knowledge of WMF.

The issue with SOPA blackout was different, the communication from WMF was
constantly that it is the community's decision, and the foundation will
support what the community decides. There was a quick vote and not long
after, a blackout. Then the impression seems to have shifted that it was
WMF who took that decision, and everyone agreed.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Advocacy is a sensitive area. I really
think if we venture too far into this territory, we might loose our
neutrality. Encyclopedias, historically have little to do with politics and
political advocacy, the only exception that can be agreed upon is, related
to things that affect the existence and pursuit of the mission. Those are
quiet rare to warrant an entire department already.

Regards
Theo

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Philippe Beaudette
<philippe at wikimedia.org>wrote:

>
>
> On 2/9/12 7:19 PM, Andreas K. wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Well, what do "fighting for content online", "providing information about
> > legislative initiatives worldwide that impact online content and
> > censorship", and "support the advancement of legal conditions that enable
> > unimpeded access to information online, worldwide" mean?
>
> 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.
> >
> > Is this program not in one way or another the result and an extension of
> > the recent SOPA blackout?
>
> No.  It was conceived of prior to that, in fact.
> >
> > "We have found that our community has a keen interest in legal and
> > legislative issues (and the policy makers in those areas return the
> > interest), so we would like to explore new ways to support better the
> > community within the goals of the Foundation. We want to improve our
> > communication with international communities, ensuring that the voice of
> > the global community is heard on important initiatives."
> >
> > How does this not mean that Wikimedia will in part be a lobbying
> > organisation? Or in other words, how can you advocate effectively for
> > favourable legal conditions without involving lobbying and politics?
> 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
>
> >
>
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