[Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[MZMcBride]

Brandon Harris wrote:
> On Aug 2, 2012, at 5:45 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 12:11 PM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>>> What type of action was the SOPA blackout in January?
>>
>> You mean, given the $500,000 Google donation Wikimedia received in November
>> 2011, one month after the Italian Wikipedia's blackout, and two months
>> before the English Wikipedia's SOPA blackout, and round about the time
>> Wikimedia first made public statements denouncing SOPA?
>> 
>> Good question.
> 
> This is inserting a conspiracy theory where one does not exist.
> 
> The English Wikipedia community voted on the blackout and directed it into
> existence, not the Foundation. We merely facilitated.

To be clear, my question isn't about Google or donations or anything like
that. My question, more directly, is: if the SOPA action from January 2012
were held in August 2012 (following the implementation of this new statement
from the General Counsel's office), would it be considered a "community
initiative" or not?

Given that this statement was written as a response to the January 2012 SOPA
blackout, it seems like a reasonable question. Philippe and others have
indicated that such actions would _not_ fall under this new doctrine. Is
this correct?

The line between what constitutes a community initiative and what's
considered a request from an outside group still isn't clear to me,
especially when I consider the Wikimedia Foundation to view the entire
Wikimedia editing community as an outside group some days.

MZMcBride