This is very interesting Ting just to reply to one (fairly minor!) part re: WMUK & WMDE strategy, I agree further sharing and coordination would be a good thing (indeed, we did try to look to other chapters/organisations for guidance) but I also think thinking about localisation of strategy is important, and within the spirit of distribution. Im hoping we can discuss both of these aspects - co-ordination, and localisation - at wmcon in Berlin this week and would welcome thoughts on this element (on a new thread probably).
Best
Simon On 7 Apr 2014 16:49, "Cristian Consonni" kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Ting,
Thank you for sharing your view. It is interesting in many aspects, and I think that I support its spirit but I feel obliged to add a couple of points.
2014-04-07 15:39 GMT+02:00 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de: [...]
Even though the Foundation had increased its legal department and had tentatively tried to work out an approach to support
its
community in legal conflict basically it is still working with the old strategy: In case there is a legal case in a foreign country the
Foundation
will avoid the call of the court while the Chapter will deny any responsibility for the content. This leaves in the end all potential
hazards
to the volunteer who contributed the content. In case of a court suit he
is
probably the one that have the worse legal support and had to take the charge privately, even if he handled legally and in good will.
I can confirm that, this is precisely what Wikimedia italia is doing right now (and rightly so) for the infamous "20 million EURO lawsuit"[1] you should already know about. Plus, the fact that we do not have any responsibility over the projects nor we want to "intervene" or "manage" them is in our bylaws[2] too.
It is worth adding that following the law and jurisprudence in Italy (but mind that IANAL) the mere possession of servers can be enough for an Italian judge to consider you responsible of the contents. That's why Wikimedia Italia does not want any server.
Moreover, the association itself is not a legal person and its rights and duties are exercised in the person of his legal representative, that is the chair (in Italian, presidente) So in the aforementioned case the lawsuit is on the shoulders and head of Frieda herself (which was the chair and legal representative at the time). You can imagine that in no way we can think that a single person accepts this kind of burden (I mean, we have already received a 20M EURO lawsuit and we don't even have any servers!).
[...]
This also means that the chapters, as far as there is one, should be
able to
take the responsibility for the content and the hosting of those servers
in
their country. They should be obliged to provide legal consultation and defense to the community, which means a distribution of the legal defense from a central point into the world, to the chapters and directly to the communities. Indeed the legal consultation and protection of the
community
is in my opinion one of the most missed duty of the chapters and the Foundation to the movement.
Well, Wikimedia Italia is providing assistance to Frieda since day 1, of course. it is also worth mentioning that the case should reach its end sometimes this year (it needed only 5 years)
Cristian (speaking in my personal capacity)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_50#Wikimedia_Ita... [2] {{it}} http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Statuto These are probably outdated: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Italia/bylaws We have modified our bylaws in 2009 to become a registered non-profit:
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