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

[Lodewijk]

Hi Philippe,

it sounds great. Awesome. But still, it doesn't make much sense to me,
sorry.

Saying people can 'edit' is of course bound to cheer people up - but if you
don't understand *what* you're editing, it is also bound to either become a
mess, or either just become what you pick it to become. I can't suggest
changes to team or actions if I am unable to grasp behind the very broadly
stated goals. Right now it is clear who is in the team, but honestly I
don't know you guys well enough to derive from that what you should be
doing.

Lodewijk

No dia 10 de Fevereiro de 2012 08:54, Philippe Beaudette <
philippe at wikimedia.org> escreveu:

>
> I think we'll be doing some combination of all three of those.  But
> here's the important part:  you tell us.  I built out the brainstorming
> page: people are acting as though there's a determined course charted
> for this team - if anything, it's the opposite.  This is the
> opportunity for the community to tell us how you'd like to be supported
> by this team.  From the ground floor, help us design it.  Tell us what
> will work best.  Do we need more Maggies?  Do we need someone to help
> us track issues of free culture?  Maybe we don't, because the community
> has a process in place for that and we just don't know about it.
>
> Help us design the team, and its high level goals.  We have what we
> THINK some of those will be (they're on the page, but I've pasted them
> here [1], also)... but we're open to the community's input - actually,
> we're begging for it.
>
> Edit this team, and edit this plan. :-)
>
> pb
>
>
> [1]- -
> * Maintaining a proactive online content-protection strategy, defending
> the written and media work of the community on the Projects through
> litigation and other means with the involvement of the community;
> * Ensuring increasing amounts and efficacy of global community
> participation in WMF-generated initiatives (such as revisions to WMF
> policies);
> * Setting up international meet-ups that recognize and support the role
> of administrators and functionaries, including brainstorming ways that
> WMF can better help these critical roles within our movement (e.g.,
> Arbcoms, checkusers, OTRS, etc.);
> * Providing international legislative and policy support to the
> community, such as providing information about legislative issues of
> interest like global censorship laws; and
> * Creating and learning from a community-based advisory board,
> including implementation of support ideas that serve the advocacy
> interests of the community and Foundation.
>
>
> On Thu Feb  9 23:42:23 2012, Lodewijk wrote:
> > I must say that after reading all this and the detailed page with the
> > beautiful graphic I am still confused what the department will actually
> do.
> > There are beautiful abstract goals which everybody would obviously agree
> > with, and there are highly diverse skills involved from on one end Maggie
> > and on the other extreme Geoff. All great. But I hope you can help me by
> > summarizing in one or two sentences of "mortal" English what you will
> *do*
> > everyday. Will you be the ones executing decisions from Legal? Will you
> be
> > nutshelling community decisions and act like an ambassador to the
> Wikimedia
> > Foundation? Will you be working on guiding the community involvement
> > processes Geoff handled so well with the Terms of Use?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > No dia 10 de Fevereiro de 2012 07:46, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com
> >escreveu:
> >
> >> On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Casey Brown <lists at caseybrown.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>>> "Advocacy" is a much more general term in this context than people
> >>>> seem to be taking it as. It does not mean lobbying or fighting for
> >>>> something controversial with outside organizations. As I understand
> >>>> it, it's the opposite: advocating to the Wikimedia Foundation on
> >>>> behalf of the community.
> >>>
> >>> Yeah, that's my understanding of the game plan here as well. I think
> >>> the announcement could have been clearer in that regard, but that's
> >>> pretty much what Philippe and Maggie have already been doing, and what
> >>> they'll continue to do in a structure that's set up for growth.
> >>>
> >>> Sometimes we have a tendency to speak in management lingo when we
> >>> should be choosing simple, crisp & clear terms. Honest feedback: Burn
> >>> the chart on
> >>>
> >>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/LCA_Announcement
> >>> and draft a super crisp mission statement to slap on the first page
> >>> for this group. I know, I've been guilty of this as well -- no
> >>> criticism of the team. When working in an organization this kind of
> >>> communication style is often expected from you in day-to-day work, but
> >>> it's not necessarily helpful when communicating with people who have
> >>> very little time and interest to parse it.
> >>>
> >>> I think the brainstorming page is a great start and hope it'll be
> >>> utilized and further advertised in coming days:
> >>>
> >>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Community_Advocacy
> >>>
> >>> Congratulations to Philippe and Maggie for their new roles. I think
> >>> it's about time that we're creating this structure, and I think it'll
> >>> generate lots of tangible value for the community.
> >>
> >>
> >> Then my suggestion would be, rename the department.
> >>
> >> I completely agree, it is about time Philippe and Maggie get more
> authority
> >> and a dedicated department. I am happy for both of them. They actually
> do
> >> and have been doing the heavy lifting for years when it comes to the
> >> community. I would actually be more in favor of calling their department
> >> the community department. ;)
> >>
> >> Regards
> >> Theo
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