[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of Use for Review

[Milos Rancic]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 02:14, rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 01:48, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 00:18, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>    - Harassment, threats, stalking, vandalism, and other long-term issues: The proposed agreement would make clear that such acts are prohibited.
>>>>     Novel for us, the agreement also raises the possibility of a global ban for
>>>>    extreme cross-wiki violations, a need that we have heard expressed from a
>>>>    number of community members. We will share that policy with the community in
>>>>    draft form shortly.  Dealing with such matters is a process that we hope
>>>>    volunteers will continue to lead on a day-to-day basis.
>>>>
>>> Is this a new direction? A new system that is being considered for WMF
>>> intervention in such matters? So far, these decisions have been left solely
>>> to local project bodies, or in the absence, to Stewards. I am wondering what
>>> the draft is going to cover. Can someone please shed some light on this?
>>
>> As a steward I can just say: Thanks Thing that it's not anymore
>> stewards' job! As it will be staff action in the future, we wouldn't
>> have that recurring problem anymore!
>
> hahaha ... sure, where does it stop and whats next? do not have any
> stewards any more?  then have no admins any more? i would really love
> if you just ask any person on the street the question: imagine you
> give 10 $ to wikipedia, should we use it to pay a lawyer to make the
> terms of use 10 times as long as before? and then count the "yes"
> answers :)

ToS is WMF's issue and WMF should implement it. Stewards are not WMF's
employees and deals with community rules.

It is true that harassment is problem, but community doesn't have
tools to deal with it; which means that stewards don't have as well.
As WMF stepped out, that means that it has the idea how to implement
it.

As I am speaking as a steward, I have to say that it's very good news
for us. Instead of being harassed because not dealing with harassment,
since the implementation of ToS that would be WMF's job. That's really
good news for stewards!