[Wikimedia-l] New access to non-public information policy, re-ID requirements and data retention

[MZMcBride]

Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote:
>The discussion is taking place at
><https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Access_to_nonpublic_info_policy>
>and I invite every interested person (with a special invitation to
>people holding advanced user rights on any Wikimedia wiki) to take an
>active part in it.

This discussion... isn't going great. There's now a talk page section
devoted to users signing a pledge that should the policy, as written, be
enacted by the Board, they'll resign their advanced privileges (steward
access, CheckUser access, etc.). It's up to eight signatories.

Reading through some of the discussion, I have two questions for the
Wikimedia Foundation Board (copied on this e-mail):

* Is the Board interested in updating its 2007 access to nonpublic data
policy?

* Has there been any consideration of removing volunteers from these types
of roles and relying solely on staff?

On a typical site, paid staff would deal with problematic users. There's a
lot of hoopla being put in place ("confidentiality pledges," etc.) that
would be much easier to implement if everyone with this type of access
were simply paid staff members or contractors. (Though contractors can
still leak, heh.) But this seems like a legitimate enough question in the
context of the current discussion: should volunteers be filling these
roles or should they be focused more purely on education content creation?

MZMcBride