On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:48 PM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Hi Lila,
My read of the *new* Privacy Policy is that nonpublic emails sent to WMF should remain nonpublic unless the user gives consent to the contrary. The policy states that "We may share your information for a particular purpose, if you agree." Otherwise emails are considered personal information and their redistribution is restricted. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#share-to-experiment and
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Access_to_and_release_of...
So, please do not take the view that "Otherwise, we will consider them public" if you do not hear back from someone who has contacted you.
The general practice in the community is that emails are considered private by default.
"Private" doesn't mean absolutely private, for example it's common for members of certain committees to circulate emails among themselves, but those emails don't usually get forwarded outside of the group or republished without opt-in permission from the sender. Similarly, WMF may circulate emails internally.
User privacy is a big deal in this community. Perhaps you know more about the Privacy Policy than I do, but my understanding is that your announced plans are inconsistent with the current and draft policies. Fortunately, that is easy to fix in this situation.
I am glad you have taken an interest in the experiences of new editors. (:
Pine
Let's not be so quick to criticize; Lila's e-mail is the invitation to participate. By responding to her prompt and not asking for your comments to be private, you agree with the solicitation that the comments be public.