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

[MZMcBride]

Liam Wyatt wrote:
> I imagine that it is this kind of thing that would be in the scope of the
> "advocacy" aspect of this new department. Certainly, I too do not want to
> see an overt political lobbying department created, but that is not what is
> being created. For comparison, the formal job title of Mathias Schindler at
> WM-DE, if I understand correctly, is "project manager - politics and
> society" and it's his job to help write submissions to the German
> parliament when applicable. He's been doing this task for years.

Y'know, the CentralNotice extension was originally written for fundraising
banners and campaigns. Eventually people liked its power enough that they
started using it for other interwiki communications. And then a few people
had the idea of using it to turn the English Wikipedia off(!) in protest of
bills in the U.S. Congress that they didn't like very much.

You'll have to forgive me for thinking that what started as a "one-time
protest" that has now (quickly) morphed into an entire department of the
Wikimedia Foundation will not one day be engaged in political lobbying.
Likely with the help of the lobbying organization that Wikimedia has already
engaged and employed.

I will give credit to the Wikimedia Foundation for having the _cojones_ to
try to portray this as "community advocacy." It certainly takes a large
brass pair.

> So... vigilance required to make sure we're not losing our way by focusing
> too much on the politics, but we shouldn't be ignoring it or leaving it to
> others to sort out either. From what that project page says it looks like
> this strikes a good balance and we'll see how the department evolves over
> time.

Respectfully, I don't think this is as much about being vigilant as it is
about saying that the bullets should be taken out of the gun rather than
leaving it loaded on the table. I don't foresee a lot of good coming from
this (predictable) step by the Wikimedia Foundation, but I do foresee quite
a lot of bad. Politics has awesome power... it quite often tears
organizations apart.

MZMcBride