IRC office hours/Office hours 2012-02-10

[09:00am] StevenW So are we ready to get started then?

[09:00am] tommorris better have Ironholds in the tent pissing out... ;-)

[09:00am] Seth_Finkelstein joined the chat room.

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[09:00am] geoffreybrigham yes.

[09:00am] Philippe tommorris: I prefer not to think of that at all :P

[09:00am] StevenW Alrighty

[09:00am] DQ|school Oh Ironholds you missed it the other day. I asked Cleverbot who was smarter, Jimmy or you, and it answered me XD

[09:00am] StevenW So I think Geoff will give us a quick intro to today's topic

[09:00am] geoffreybrigham I hope everyone saw our announcement about a new idea, the Legal and Community Advocacy Department.

[09:00am] Ironholds DQ|school: well, you're clearly smarter than me. Only stupid people would take this job.

[09:00am] StevenW https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy

[09:00am] StevenW link ^

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[09:01am] geoffreybrigham The main purpose in this change is to make sure that we are community focused in our initiatives

[09:01am] DQ|school lol /me stays ontopic now

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[09:01am] geoffreybrigham As many of you know, every day Philippe and Michelle are fighting for content on our site.

[09:01am] geoffreybrigham That is an example of community advocacy

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[09:01am] geoffreybrigham Thanks to their efforts we only take down about 5% of content.

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[09:01am] Philippe 5% of the requests that we receivve

[09:01am] Philippe not 5% of content :)

[09:01am] tommorris yep, was going to say.

[09:02am] geoffreybrigham OK - right Philippe.

[09:02am] geoffreybrigham Actually if we were taking down 5% of content that would be a problem

[09:02am] guillom heh

[09:02am] geoffreybrigham lol

[09:02am] geoffreybrigham ok

[09:02am] Philippe Yes, yes it would.

[09:02am] gmaxwell Philippe: 5% of the formal well formed requests, no?

[09:02am] geoffreybrigham we are also litigating to support content ... like the loriot case in Germany.

[09:02am] geoffreybrigham It takes time and resources etc.

[09:03am] geoffreybrigham Philippe and I work very closely together as well as our teams.

[09:03am] Philippe gmaxwell: that 5% number includes rejections for form, but there are very very few of those

[09:03am] geoffreybrigham We thought we should come together and start thinking of new ways that we can support the community.

[09:03am] geoffreybrigham But we did not want to do it by ourselves in figuring out our strategy.

[09:03am] geoffreybrigham We wanted to build in a mechanism where we can work with the community in figuring out our priorities

[09:03am] geoffreybrigham and strategy

[09:04am] geoffreybrigham That will allow us to make requests during our budget cycle.

[09:04am] Philippe (Fiscal year = July to June, for those who don't know)

[09:04am] geoffreybrigham We laid out some ideas ... but none are etched in stone

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[09:04am] geoffreybrigham They are just ideas to get the conversation started.

[09:04am] geoffreybrigham I have other ideas as well ....

[09:05am] geoffreybrigham so we wanted a way to discuss them.

[09:05am] geoffreybrigham This is a pretty exciting initiative.

[09:05am] geoffreybrigham It means that we consult more with the community

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[09:05am] geoffreybrigham it means that we figure out what the community needs.

[09:05am] geoffreybrigham So that is a quick summary of where we are.

[09:05am] geoffreybrigham The big news out of this is Philippe's promotion to Director of Community Advocacy

[09:06am] • Philippe blushes

[09:06am] geoffreybrigham I'm privileged to work with him and Maggie.

[09:06am] Moonriddengirl Ditto. :) </Maggie>

[09:06am] Philippe Hey Ironholds, that bribery plan that you suggested?  It works.  :P

[09:06am] geoffreybrigham This is also a Foundation-wide effort to involve community members in the various departments of the Foundation.

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[09:06am] saper LCA sounds scary, at Microsoft it is "Legal and Corporate Affairs"

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[09:07am] Ironholds Philippe: the one with the 1894 Chateau Lafitte?

[09:07am] geoffreybrigham We must work with the community, and we need to figure out ways to hear the community in each of our departments.

[09:07am] tommorris so... does the fact that legal and community are coming together mean that there are plans to set, say, policies on whether or not the Foundation will step in on local legal issues with Wikimedians acting in good faith?

[09:07am] DQ|school A lot of people have commented in the same way as saper from what i've seen

[09:07am] geoffreybrigham So ... definitely not ... "and Corporate Affairs"

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[09:07am] geoffreybrigham that makes me scared to.

[09:07am] Moonriddengirl Tommorris, can you clarify what you mean? Do you mean to intervene on their behalf or to stop them?

[09:07am] Philippe heh… imma have to buy a briefcase

[09:08am] Philippe "corporate affairs"

[09:08am] geoffreybrigham but when you make the community front and center you need to remind yourself of that mission every day

[09:08am] geoffreybrigham thus "Community Advocacy"

[09:08am] geoffreybrigham Now ... if in our discussion we find that name doesn't work, we can change it.

[09:08am] geoffreybrigham But for me it is a reminder that I work for a Foundation where the community is the priority

[09:08am] shimgray (...so don't buy the letterhead just yet...)

[09:08am] StevenW Indeed

[09:08am] geoffreybrigham I have 5 versions of business cards

[09:09am] Philippe heh

[09:09am] tommorris Moonriddengirl: as a Wikinewsie and British citizen, there are certain aspects of British law that scare the living shit out of me. will the fighting for content include having at least some assurance that the Foundation will help if something stupid happens legally.

[09:09am] geoffreybrigham So ... there is some misunderstanding out there.

[09:09am] saper geoffreybrigham: is this also about helping out with single litigations, whether defensive (against community members) or offensive (foia requests, request for re-use of public information)?

[09:09am] geoffreybrigham When we say advocacy, we do not mean lobbying

[09:09am] StevenW We'll take tom's question first :)

[09:09am] Philippe tommoriss is up first… geoff is respondng

[09:09am] geoffreybrigham tommorris - things are things we want to think about

[09:10am] Seth_Finkelstein @geoffreybrigham - I don't think "misunderstanding" is the right word. My word would be "cynicism".

[09:10am] geoffreybrigham and shows exactly why we are moving in this diretion

[09:10am] geoffreybrigham So ...

[09:10am] geoffreybrigham we can't be a lobbying firm for a number of reasons ... not consistent with mission, legal restrictions, etc.

[09:10am] saper geoffreybrigham: do you mean "lobbying" defined as in 501(c)3?

[09:10am] geoffreybrigham However, I'm often asked to summarize pending legislation (way before SOPA)

[09:10am] geoffreybrigham we

[09:10am] tommorris there are certain stories that, say, the NYT or Guardian could publish but Wikinews couldn't because of the fact that we don't have legal backup

[09:11am] geoffreybrigham put resources against that.

[09:11am] geoffreybrigham and I want to get a sense from the community if that service helps them.

[09:11am] Ironholds tommorris: and because it takes you 3 weeks to agree on the placement of commas

[09:11am] tommorris Ironholds: oh, do fuck off. ;-)

[09:11am] jeblad on legal issues; sometime the free content freaks are a bit out of line with local laws. If anyone have time later it could be nice if there were some clearificatins on responsibillity. Especially who to point to in case of fuckups.

[09:11am] geoffreybrigham We need to figure that out.

[09:11am] geoffreybrigham tommorris

[09:12am] geoffreybrigham that is why we want to have the discussions and understand the needs

[09:12am] Philippe It's premature to commit to anything, actually, because we're not sure what is needed yet.  :)

[09:12am] geoffreybrigham we will have finite resources, but, if this is a priority for the community, we need to know it so we can plan from a budgeting perspective

[09:12am] shimgray geoffreybrigham: doing this for existing legislation would be good as well; hiring someone to write a fairly clear report on some of the stuff we've had to figure out from first principles, like image panorama rights.

[09:13am] tommorris there'll be issues with more cynical members of the communities saying "well, which community? Just enwiki?"

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[09:13am] StevenW Saper's question is up next...?

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[09:13am] geoffreybrigham So one idea is to build out an international team ...

[09:13am] yannf hello, I have questions ;)

[09:13am] saper panorama rights or evaluating ridiculous screenshot policy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Screenshots

[09:14am] geoffreybrigham To have French-speaking, Japanese speaking Maggies who can help the liaison with the community

[09:14am] geoffreybrigham But these are ideas we want to try out with the group.

[09:14am] StevenW Maggies as in Moonriddengirl

[09:14am] saper StevenW: "is this also about helping out with single litigations, whether defensive (against community members) or offensive (foia  requests, request for re-use of public information)?

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[09:14am] jeblad local law != english law != american law... or well, american law is more or less global law if you ask anyone from the states.. ;p

[09:15am] geoffreybrigham shimgray: if the community feels there is a need for that, I could see hiring someone who tracks legislative initatives.

[09:15am] geoffreybrigham More as an educational initiative, not a lobbying one.

[09:15am] Philippe (discussion of these issues to take place at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Community_Advocacy  - the brainstorming page - by the way)

[09:15am] Ironholds that would be really useful, methinks

[09:15am] Ironholds someone whose job is basically to translate lawyer into editor

[09:15am] geoffreybrigham We will continue to represent the foundation - it is our only client.

[09:15am] shimgray and translate editor questions into lawyer ones!

[09:15am] Ironholds and keep people in the know as to what is passing where

[09:15am] geoffreybrigham But we may become more proactive in committing litigation resources to defend content.

[09:16am] Ironholds shimgray: you just add "As my learned friend says" to the beginning of any quote. Sorted.

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[09:16am] geoffreybrigham We have internally been thinking of other ideas ...

[09:16am] geoffreybrigham like is there a need for OTRS training

[09:16am] shimgray geoffreybrigham: of the 95% you don't take down, how many do you actively combat and how many are just invalid requests to begin with?

[09:17am] geoffreybrigham should we be supporting ArbComs internationally better?

[09:17am] Philippe shimgray: most of the requests we get are validly formatted.

[09:17am] shimgray (going back to the 5% takedown figure from earlier)

[09:17am] geoffreybrigham shimgray - we "combat" most of them.

[09:17am] saper geoffreybrigham: oh noes (with arbcom)

[09:17am] geoffreybrigham Michelle works all day talking to aggressive lawyers and convincing them that their position is wrong.

[09:17am] saper we have enough problems with professional judges on ours :)

[09:17am] geoffreybrigham She is pretty amazing.  In my mind, an unsung hero.

[09:17am] Ironholds geoffreybrigham: then how the hell is she always so happy and friendly?

[09:18am] • Philippe still wants to get her a bell to ring every time she talks a lawyer down

[09:18am] geoffreybrigham Beats me ... we do give her drugs every morning

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[09:18am] Ironholds ah, that would be it

[09:18am] DQ|school I remember Risker commenting on them having to deal with the new privacy policy a whlie back with enwiki ArbCom, so stuff like that would be covered by this?

[09:18am] Ironholds you need to start dosing Philippe with the same

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[09:18am] saper geoffreybrigham: any chance to develop a hard stance against DMCA requests so no "office actions" are needed?

[09:18am] Philippe Ironholds: I'm already on triple doses

[09:18am] geoffreybrigham Yes, DQschool

[09:19am] Ironholds Philippe: I did wonder why you keep muttering about crystalline spiders.

[09:19am] geoffreybrigham We want to involve the community more in policies ... similar to what Maggie and Philippe did with the terms of use.

[09:19am] Ironholds anyway, I'll shut up and play nice

[09:19am] geoffreybrigham We are looking at a revamp of our privacy policy.

[09:19am] Philippe saper, are you asking if we can just ignore DMCA takedowns?

[09:19am] geoffreybrigham If we go that route, we want to perfect methods of working with the community on that

[09:19am] Philippe Because the answer to that, saper, is no.  :)

[09:20am] geoffreybrigham Also ... if there are big non-legal initiatives from WMF, we need to develop good methods to get community input.

[09:20am] geoffreybrigham That is one kind of advocacy ... making sure the community voice is heard.

[09:20am] StevenW Example of that kind of initiative?

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[09:20am] Philippe Who knows?

[09:21am] Philippe We'll figure that out as we go a little :)

[09:21am] shimgray stuff like the IEP would seem to be a good example, looking retrospectively

[09:21am] geoffreybrigham saper: yes, if we have the resources, we may consider litigation that advances open and free knowledge principles if they impact Wikimedia directly.

[09:21am] shimgray though it's always easy to tell what was contentious after the fact :-)

[09:21am] geoffreybrigham we will want to discuss that.

[09:21am] DQ|school geoffreybrigham: with the current privacy policy and identification to the foundation, why do you guys check so little information basically verifying age and name? I always thought it would be more than the current process and was a bit suprised.

[09:22am] Ironholds shimgray: hindsight is 20/20. Well, it *was* 20/20.. ;p

[09:22am] geoffreybrigham DQ: lots of discussion about that.

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[09:22am] Philippe DQ, we're also looking for obvious red flags.  For instance, if you last name is "on wheels" or something, I might ask for an explanation :)

[09:23am] geoffreybrigham We are looking at that now.  As a matter of principle I think we must exercise best privacy practices.

[09:23am] geoffreybrigham I expect we will be discussing that quite a bit if we propose a draft of the new privacy policy to the community.

[09:23am] geoffreybrigham I think it won't happen for a few months though.

[09:23am] Ironholds Philippe: to be fair, we have a Justin Kuntz, so...

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[09:24am] • Philippe 

sticks tongue out at jeblad

[09:24am] StevenW One thing you hinted at saper: we don't know very much about non-English ArbComs

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[09:24am] jeblad Better change back before someone goes havoc

[09:24am] StevenW heh

[09:24am] Philippe There's a limited lifespan on Willy-on-wheels jokes, i guess :P

[09:24am] StevenW Philippe: I seem to mention the announcement said something about better coordination with functionary groups like that?

[09:24am] Moonriddengirl It would be great to get insight into other communities.

[09:25am] geoffreybrigham One of the points I want to underscore is that, as we grow the department, our focus will be on not only English Wikipedia, but the other projects as well as the international community.

[09:25am] Philippe StevenW: It did.  You're correct.  One of the things that I'm most pleased with, we did long before the department was formed… which was to work with the checkusers across all projects to get them to work together a bit more cross-functionally.

[09:25am] geoffreybrigham I really want to get us to a point where we feel in a comfort zone that we understand the global community point of view.

[09:25am] DQ|school I hope that's true, but also cross-project, not just cross language

[09:25am] geoffreybrigham with any specific project or initiative

[09:25am] Philippe DQ|school: I agree.

[09:26am] jsalsman Do advocacy restrictions that limit what the Foundation can do have any impact on the community? For example let's say some Wikiproject somewhere decided they wanted to actively oppose a candidate?

[09:26am] StevenW Yeah, I think Commons is going to be/has been very important to this dept.

[09:26am] Philippe StevenW: I do too.

[09:26am] geoffreybrigham So WMF can never support or oppose a particular candidate.  An individual in the community obviously can in his or her personal capacity.

[09:27am] jeblad Educating OTRS members seems like a very good idea.. Got a comment today about OTRS was a front for "Wikipedia", someone had not read that info-no is the queue for "Wikimedia".

[09:27am] geoffreybrigham I would advise against a project doing so.

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[09:27am] geoffreybrigham I noticed also on foundation-l that some people were confused about the specifics of the new department.

[09:27am] geoffreybrigham But that is a bit expected

[09:28am] geoffreybrigham We really want to get community input before we finalize our mission

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[09:28am] Philippe http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Community_Advocacy  <---- plug

[09:28am] geoffreybrigham Once we get that input and brainstorm together, we will put together a strategy plan and present it within the Foundation.

[09:28am] DQ|school jeblad has a point, is there any general training for OTRS members on what should/shouldn't go to legal? because I think we could all benifit on a lesson on what the legal team should/wants to deal with.

[09:28am] geoffreybrigham Assuming it gets internal approval, it would be presented to Board for its information

[09:29am] geoffreybrigham Right ... we could do better on OTRS training.

[09:29am] jsalsman How about supporting some new legislation that would help us, but only tangentially; a lot less concretely than opposing a bill that would obviously hurt us? Are there any community or Foundation restrictions there?

[09:29am] Philippe DQ|school: the OTRS team has some internal documentation on that.  :)  It's on the wiki.  But it's on the list for Michelle and I to talk about.

[09:29am] geoffreybrigham Up until now, we have only 3 attorney to take care of all the legal issues of the 5th largest website in the world.

[09:29am] Philippe it's not entirely consistent, DQ|school

[09:29am] DQ|school that would be why, and mabye a reason to look a little more on OTRS wiki too :P

[09:30am] geoffreybrigham With this new department, I hope we can redeploy some internal resource and maybe obtain new resources that allow us to support the community better like OTRS

[09:30am] geoffreybrigham training

[09:30am] Philippe (and three feels fantastic.  I remember when we had one… back in my day… uphill, both ways!)

[09:30am] geoffreybrigham I personally don't think that we pay enough attention to our administrators and functionaries.

[09:30am] • Philippe cheers

[09:30am] jsalsman hear, hear!

[09:30am] geoffreybrigham I would like to hear from them internationally what their needs are.

[09:30am] jsalsman I think a lot of them are flat broke

[09:30am] jsalsman seriously

[09:31am] yannf I think Commons would benefit greatly from some legal advise

[09:31am] geoffreybrigham for example, should we set up conferences and provide grants for them to come together and share best practices?

[09:31am] yannf for borderline cases

[09:31am] shimgray yes.

[09:31am] geoffreybrigham that is the kind of community advocacy I'm talking about

[09:31am] shimgray (in short!)

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[09:31am] yannf in this in the plan?

[09:31am] geoffreybrigham I think we need to put our administrators and functionaries front and center ....

[09:32am] jsalsman well, that's in my plan

[09:32am] geoffreybrigham We need to show our appreciation as a Foundation (and a community)

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[09:32am] geoffreybrigham So I want us to think of ways of doing that within resource constraints.

[09:32am] StevenW just the departmental plan yannf, or the strategic one?

[09:32am] jeblad Several projects need clearifications on blp-stuff, I think that is one of the most common complaint on OTRS

[09:32am] yannf biggest issue now is URAA

[09:32am] Moonriddengirl yannf: I can tell you that Commons has reached out for legal advice on several borderline situations since I became community liaison.  [09:32am] jeblad Perhaps a little to specific for this discussion

[09:32am] shimgray hmm. the proposed support is very meta - administrators, functionaries, otrs, all people doing back-end work. there have occasionally been rumblings from the community that "pure" content contributors aren't well-supported by the WMF; do you feel there's a place for that sort of outreach and support within the new department?

[09:32am] Moonriddengirl The legal department is actually working on URAA right now.

[09:33am] Philippe shimgray: I do.

[09:33am] yannf this has consequences on many projects, not just Commons

[09:33am] geoffreybrigham So what are people thinking about this new department and the process we have laid out to get community feedback on its strategy?

[09:33am] Maryana shimgray: that's the work that stevenw and i primarily focus on

[09:33am] yannf Moonriddengirl, ok, is this documented somewhere?

[09:33am] Moonriddengirl yanff: it will be when they're finished. :)

[09:33am] StevenW Yes

[09:33am] Philippe yannf: we're enormously bad at that.  We haven't told people very well about what we do on a daily basis

[09:34am] jsalsman I think it's fantastic.

[09:34am] Moonriddengirl yanff: their conclusions will be published.

[09:34am] Philippe We need to be better at that

[09:34am] shimgray *nods* and that folds in here too? I really just want to know who to point people to when they want to bug someone about it :-)

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[09:34am] geoffreybrigham I think that, once we get strong input from the community, we will have a strong and clear plan.

[09:34am] geoffreybrigham We can then use that to argue for resources.

[09:34am] geoffreybrigham I frankly think this can be pretty exciting if done right.

[09:35am] geoffreybrigham I caution however that resources will always be finite, so we need to understand that during a budget process.

[09:35am] yannf ok, I feel better than we don't only take our decisions on semi-educated guess work ;)

[09:35am] Philippe Geoff has caught the community bug.  :)  He's starting to like this whole 'community' thing.

[09:35am] DQ|school lol

[09:35am] gmaxwell Philippe: that will be cured in no time, I' sure.

[09:36am] geoffreybrigham I will tell you that the terms of use experience made the community the best part of my job.

[09:36am] gmaxwell It's like chicken pox... almost everyone gets it, but only a few people get it more than once.

[09:36am] Philippe gmaxwell: I try to beat it out of him, but he's shifty.

[09:36am] gmaxwell (and hopefully you get it while you're young…)

[09:36am] geoffreybrigham I've said this way too many times, but the community proves itself over and over again as being really smart and thoughtful.

[09:36am] geoffreybrigham That is why I want to try to build a department with its input and insight.

[09:36am] gmaxwell (as there can be complications if you get it as a full adult)

[09:36am] geoffreybrigham A bit new in approach ...

[09:37am] geoffreybrigham but we will be really better because of it.

[09:37am] Philippe BTW, I've started to use comparisons of things for our discussions…. the Terms of Use, for instance, had discussions about it that were longer than the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's classic.  That's how thoughtful our community is.

[09:37am] DQ|school now one concern I have is users identifying with personal ID to non-foundation staff...the idea scares the crap out of me, and i'm glad it's not on enwiki. Does this data not fall under the privacy policy, and should it not be ONLY handled by the foundation?

[09:37am] jsalsman I predict that the community input will just be more of what you already have on foundation-l: a bunch of people who think it's great, and a few people who think it's ominous or bad, and a whole lot of people who want to know what you will actually *do*

[09:37am] DQ|school (for unblocks usually related to socking)

[09:37am] Seth_Finkelstein @Philippe - err, you mean "argumentative".

[09:37am] Philippe DQ|school: to clarify, you're talking about the Dutch wiki, yes?

[09:37am] DQ|school yep

[09:37am] Philippe Seth_Finkelstein: no, I don't.  I mean thoughtful.

[09:38am] geoffreybrigham jsalsman - you may be right.  But I have experience getting things done, and so does Philippe.

[09:38am] Seth_Finkelstein Volume is not the same as thoughful. I was in some of those discussions, and the distinction to me was manifest.

[09:39am] geoffreybrigham ok .. michelle said that just sounded like a political ad

[09:39am] • Philippe cues the scary announcer voice

[09:39am] geoffreybrigham what I mean is that, once we understand the community needs, we can plan against them and get it done.

[09:39am] geoffreybrigham i believe this department is that commitment.

[09:39am] Moonriddengirl jsalsman: I hope it will become obvious to the community what we do. :)

[09:40am] • Philippe wishes to point out that Geoff dressed up for IRC.

[09:40am] Philippe He's wearing a jacket.

[09:40am] geoffreybrigham need to show respect

[09:40am] DQ|school XD

[09:40am] StevenW haha

[09:40am] geoffreybrigham lol

[09:40am] DQ|school i've been on IRC in my PJs :P

[09:40am] Philippe we're just lucky Steven has on pants.

[09:40am] StevenW I was a blogger for so long. It's an instinct.

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[09:40am] Philippe lol

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[09:41am] jsalsman okay, well I guess the first thing I need is to know who in Zack's department will be point of contact for editor recruitment efforts

[09:41am] • DQ|school would like to point geoffreybrigham to his previous comment

[09:41am] Philippe jsalsman: that hasn't changed.

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[09:41am] jsalsman who then?

[09:41am] geoffreybrigham Got it.

[09:41am] StevenW jsalsman: you can talk to me and Maryana

[09:41am] jsalsman okay

[09:41am] geoffreybrigham As I understand, NL has its own policy on this.

[09:41am] jsalsman GerardM-: welcome!

[09:41am] GerardM- :)

[09:42am] geoffreybrigham I think people need to understand that they are disclosing to non-WMF personnel.

[09:42am] geoffreybrigham IMHO, NL should reconsider the policy and I will be happy to provide legal advice from our counsel in Europe.

[09:42am] ToAruShiroiNeko did you mean Council of Europe?

[09:43am] Philippe no, our legal counsel in Europe

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[09:43am] ToAruShiroiNeko ah

[09:43am] ToAruShiroiNeko I was going to be shocked :p

[09:43am] geoffreybrigham We work with a large network of attorneys worldwide.

[09:43am] Philippe (almost all of whom generously donate their time)

[09:43am] geoffreybrigham but we have not yet taken over European policy-making institutions ...

[09:43am] jeblad Is anything published about that network?

[09:43am] Philippe yet

[09:43am] geoffreybrigham :)

[09:43am] geoffreybrigham No ...

[09:44am] jsalsman GerardM-: do you know whether LangCom has already approved non-English simple wikipedias, and is just waiting on a way to provision them without creating new wikis? I have a memory that was the case about a year ago, and it came up on the LCA brainstorming page this morning

[09:44am] geoffreybrigham they are contacts we have developed over time.

[09:44am] ToAruShiroiNeko geoffreybrigham can I ask these attorneys questions?

[09:44am] Philippe jsalsman: can I ask that that be done privately?

[09:44am] ToAruShiroiNeko because I have questions regarding copyright

[09:44am] geoffreybrigham pretty common for a General Counsel to rely on expert advice in other jurisdictions

[09:44am] Philippe so as not to sdistract from the full channel?

[09:45am] geoffreybrigham So ToAruShiroiNeko ....

[09:45am] DQ|school geoffreybrigham: I think we can all agree that we would prefer that they understood that, but users are niavie (spelling?), and not likely to understand the full effects and think it's somewhat foundation related. I've seen community projects or policies shut down over less...why hasn't this one happened yet? (I doubt this is within the scope of foundation controlling content)

[09:45am] geoffreybrigham As we pointed out in the announcement, we can only have one client, the Foundation, for ethical reasons.

[09:45am] geoffreybrigham We often provide unofficial thoughts to the community on questions when they ask.

[09:45am] geoffreybrigham But it is only for preliminary discussions.

[09:46am] geoffreybrigham That said, we can discuss whether the community wants us to devote more resources for this.

[09:46am] geoffreybrigham Going to other attorneys is expensive, and I have a budget.

[09:46am] jsalsman Philippe: at the current pace of 5-10 lines of text per minute, I hardly think a simple yes/no question that you've already asked me is going to sidetrack everyone

[09:46am] geoffreybrigham But this is part of the discussion that we are proposing with the new department.

[09:46am] ToAruShiroiNeko umm ok

[09:46am] Philippe jsalsman: humor me? :-)

[09:46am] ToAruShiroiNeko so how can I submit questions to the crowdsourcing structure?

[09:46am] StevenW Via reddit

[09:46am] StevenW j/k

[09:47am] • Philippe sends StevenW out to the hall.

[09:47am] geoffreybrigham It is not uncommon - with respect to a question that is of great importance to the community and WMF - that I engage outside international counsel.

[09:47am] geoffreybrigham So it is entirely possible.

[09:47am] ToAruShiroiNeko StevenW are you a b'crat on wikimedia.org btw? :/

[09:47am] Philippe wikimedia.org isn't a wiki.  :-)

[09:47am] geoffreybrigham The question is whether we can provide it as an ongoing service with our limited resources today ... and there I don't feel comfortable making that commitment.

[09:48am] ToAruShiroiNeko mediawiki.org

[09:48am] ToAruShiroiNeko gah

[09:48am] ToAruShiroiNeko geoffreybrigham my question is in regards to copyright of content created by internaitonal organizations such as UN, NATO etc

[09:48am] ToAruShiroiNeko where the location material is produced is exempt from local law

[09:49am] geoffreybrigham ok ... I understand.

[09:49am] ToAruShiroiNeko you cannot even get car insurance claims if you have an accident inside the headquarters

[09:49am] Philippe ToAruShiroiNeko: (list of mw.org crats is at http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListUsers&username=&group=bureaucrat&limit=1000)

[09:49am] jsalsman geoffreybrigham: I had a question earlier I think maybe got overlooked: What are the Foundation restrictions, if any, on supporting some new legislation that would help us, tangentially; as opposed to opposing bills that would obviously hurt us?

[09:50am] ToAruShiroiNeko Philippe right

[09:50am] StevenW ToAruShiroiNeko: do you want to email Michelle about it?

[09:50am] geoffreybrigham So jsalsman ...

[09:50am] StevenW mpaulson@wikimedia.org

[09:50am] ToAruShiroiNeko StevenW ok

[09:50am] StevenW Thanks :)

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[09:50am] ToAruShiroiNeko foundation copyright person right

[09:50am] Philippe Foundation legal counsel.

[09:50am] geoffreybrigham there are limits on what can be resourced towards "lobbying".  I don't have the precise language in front of me, but there is an exception if a piece of legislation directly attacks the organization ....

[09:51am] geoffreybrigham Practically speaking, we want to play it safe at the Foundation in this area.

[09:51am] geoffreybrigham There are different elections that nonprofits can do if they want.

[09:51am] geoffreybrigham For example, you can do a section (h) election which provide clear limits.

[09:52am] jsalsman section (h)? Is that like a re-incorporation under different tax code?

[09:52am] geoffreybrigham you can also form a 501(c)(4) organization ... but that requires a real commitment to lobbying.

[09:52am] Ironholds jsalsman: speaking as an individual, I think you need to look at practical restrictions as well as legal ones

[09:52am] geoffreybrigham I think places like Sierra Club, etc. take that route (but not completely sure)

[09:52am] Ironholds so, the foundation could lobby for good bills and against bad ones, sure, if the law permits

[09:52am] Ironholds but even if the law does permit...after the third wikimedia campaign, people stop caring ;P

[09:53am] geoffreybrigham The lobbying issue is one we need to be careful with.

[09:53am] StevenW So we're rounding the corner on 10 minutes till we're out of time. Just in case anyone has any questions they've been sitting on. :)

[09:53am] geoffreybrigham I firmly believe we need a community mandate to go that direction.

[09:53am] ToAruShiroiNeko foundation should avoid politics in general

[09:53am] geoffreybrigham Yes ... i think we have answered all questions unless someone says otherwise.

[09:54am] DQ|school I had one

[09:54am] DQ|school re. identification to non-WMF staff groups [12:45] <DQ|school> geoffreybrigham: I think we can all agree that we would prefer that they understood that, but users are niavie (spelling?), and not likely to understand the full effects and think it's somewhat foundation related. I've seen community projects or policies shut down over less...why hasn't this one happened yet? (I doubt this is within the scope of foundation controlling content)

[09:55am] yannf geoffreybrigham, advice on derivative works would be great

[09:55am] yannf this is a difficult area

[09:55am] geoffreybrigham DQ - I understand what you are saying.  I think you need to raise it with the NL community.

[09:56am] geoffreybrigham yannf:  thanks.

[09:56am] jeblad Legal training of OTRS members,.. and how to know who to point to when some editors refuses to play nicely ..

[09:56am] geoffreybrigham will put it on our list of things to talk about.

[09:56am] geoffreybrigham for example, we could write white papers on particular issues of for the community

[09:56am] geoffreybrigham but we will need to be resourced for that.

[09:57am] Philippe jeblad: Michelle and I are going to spend some time with the help pages for OTRS and try to clarify when to send things to legal.

[09:57am] geoffreybrigham (again it would not be legal advice, since we can only advise the community - but it may be helpful information as the community figures out the issue.)

[09:57am] geoffreybrigham only advise WMF I mean

[09:57am] jeblad ..perhaps a way to put high voltage on the editors keyboards, .. hm, .. adding that as a bugzilla item..

[09:57am] Philippe jeblad: something tells me there may be ethical constraints there.

[09:57am] shimgray jeblad: if you've problems with OTRS users, you may want to flag them via http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Otrs#OTRS_administrators

[09:57am] Philippe not to mention technological ones.

[09:58am] geoffreybrigham It would be something like a legal newsletter.

[09:58am] geoffreybrigham I get those all the time.  They are not formal legal advice to me, but I find them useful in figuring out legal issues.

[09:58am] StevenW Do we mean something like the Research Newsletter that gets incorporated into the Signpost?

[09:58am] yannf geoffreybrigham, there are currently discussions about Disney characters and stuffed toys

[09:58am] jeblad shimgray: not otrs users, editors that does not follow core content policies

[09:58am] StevenW Because that would be fantastic

[09:59am] jeblad but better not be specific

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[09:59am] shimgray ahhh. whoever the local community gives big sticks to :-)

[09:59am] • Philippe wants a big stick.

[09:59am] StevenW Alright, I think we're out of time.

[09:59am] geoffreybrigham Yannif: maybe another white paper or newsletter?

[09:59am] geoffreybrigham Folks thanks again.

[09:59am] DQ|school no beating Ironholds with it Philippe :P

[09:59am] geoffreybrigham I want to congratulate Philippe on his promotion.

[09:59am] jsalsman StevenW: I'm going to go ahead with the three-year old inactive admins survey and send you access to the results spreadsheet

[10:00am] geoffreybrigham He is going to be awesome.

[10:00am] Philippe /me blushes again

[10:00am] Moonriddengirl Philippe will be fantastic in this role. :)

[10:00am] Philippe Thanks ya'll.  :-)

[10:00am] yannf geoffreybrigham, yes

[10:00am] geoffreybrigham And we are so lucky to have Maggie on our team.

[10:00am] Philippe Maggie is reponsible for what sanity i have left.

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[10:00am] Philippe She makes it her job to counterbalance Oliver. :)

[10:00am] geoffreybrigham will someone give michelle more drugs?

[10:00am] DQ|school I want to thank everyone in this department in working for the community and handling the difficult tasks and long list of tasks.

[10:00am] Ironholds Philippe: she is? we're doomed.

[10:00am] StevenW Thanks everyone. I'll post the logs shortly...

[10:00am] Philippe Thanks, DQ! :)