[Wikimedia-l] WMF Policy and Political Affiliations Guideline

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 12:52 AM, Brandon Harris <bharris at wikimedia.org>wrote:

>
>         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.
>


Yeah, and I remember how users were directed (by WMF staff, wasn't it?) to
stop marking votes by single-purpose accounts and IPs, as is common in
every other minor community discussion in the English Wikipedia. SPA and IP
votes are routinely discounted in garden-variety AfDs. But they counted in
the blackout vote.

It's a fact, and quite unprecedented. Why?

And the timeline of the Italian blackout in October, the
half-a-million-dollar Google donation in November, the first Wikimedia
endorsement of the Google position, also in November, and the subsequent
SOPA blackout in January, are what they are.

Politicians may protest, "Oh, my lobbying for Mr Rich had nothing to do
with the $500,000 they gave me at about the time I started lobbying for
them". But people generally aren't stupid.

For the record, I did not endorse the SOPA blackout, and I deeply resent my
work in Wikipedia being leveraged to that political end.

And I deeply resent Jimbo's statements to the BBC today*, about how "We
gave you Wikipedia and we didn't have to, and so you might want to listen
to what we have to tell you".

A gift is either made altruistically, without strings attached, or it
isn't. To claim selfless, altruistic purpose and then demand consideration
in return for what has been given is disgusting.


* http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19104494






>
>
> 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.
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> ---
> Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation
>
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