User talk:Philippe (WMF)/Archive 2

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sent you urgent email. Matanya 09:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA protest at sister projects

Hi Philippe. Has anyone developed an English language banner that could be displayed as a site notice at sister projects during the en.Wikipedia blackout? If there is one available, I will seek a quick consensus to use it at my home project, en.Wikiquote. Thanks. ~ Ningauble 16:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

We have not - you may be able to steal something from WP:SOPA/Proposed messages... Philippe (WMF) 19:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess there isn't enough time to cobble something together and act on it. Thanks anyway. ~ Ningauble 19:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I think there's time, if someone from the community wants to run it - but our tech staff are fully resourced today, just trying to figure out how to make this thing work. :( Philippe (WMF) 19:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Blackout screen protection

Hello Philippe, from your message in here, it seems that you're going to use this image for blackout screen, please leave a message on here and let us know if this or any other images should be protected, thank you.   ■ MMXX  ^talk  23:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

CentralNotice SOPA on Vietnamese Wikipedia

Hi Philippe. Our community decided to use CentralNotice for protest SOPA (see vi:Wikipedia:Thảo luận/Đề xuất tham gia phản đối SOPA). We hope to show banner at the same time the English Wikipedia. So we can use the banner same as PtWiki?. These data translation:

• url: http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ph%E1%BA%A3n_%C4%91%E1%BB%91i_SOPA
• text1: Wikipedia cần sống trong môi trường internet tự do.
• text2: Chúng ta đang bị SOPA đe dọa, hãy tham gia phản đối để bảo vệ Wikipedia!
• button: Đọc thêm.

Thank you very much. --minhhuy ^(talk) (WMF) 02:39, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Jalexander solved. Thank you again :). --minhhuy ^(talk) (WMF) 03:05, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Failed implementation of en. consensus: blackout

Dear Philippe, per http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_wiki_feedback#Failed_implementation:_blackout which indicates that the work around is trivial and well known, what steps are WMF taking to implement en.'s decision; despite the current failed implementation. this message has been sent to Sue Gardner's meta talk page as well. yours with thanks, an en. editor, Fifelfoo 08:55, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll say it - this one took us sort of by surprise. Nobody saw it coming - including the scores of people (volunteers and staff) who weighed in on the implementation plan. I'm not certain what the current work status is, but I'll try to find out. Philippe (WMF) 17:34, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I discovered the workaround within the first two minutes of the blackout. Still, I don't think this can be considered a failure. The objective was not really to deny access, but to emphatically draw attention to the issue in a manner that cannot be ignored. I would say that it is a complete success! ~ Ningauble 17:43, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that we can evaluate what the immediate "objective" was. There was a clear consensus developed around a long term objective of stopping two US bills from affecting the encyclopaedia. The closing summary on en. related primarily to a chosen action rather than an objective for that action. This may be sub-optimal decision making, but it was the decision making that existed on en. I understand the limitations (the extreme limitations) of rapid development for a leading website. Thank you for looking into this issue Philippe—it seems that the en. community may need to request development of a suite of tools for this kind of situation so we know what we ask for and can get! Thanks for all your work. (I have raised some other issues related to evaluation of consensus evaluation when replying to Sue). Thanks again Philippe. Fifelfoo 22:15, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: CentralNotice for WMPL

Hi Philippe!
Could you please have a look at my answer to Nemo's question? I think it sums up the situation quite well. (Anyway, I am not going to insist on not geolocalising the banners if there's such a big opposition :-))) Thanks! odder (talk) 09:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

And please do not say I did not tell you this

Hi Philippe (WMF), I've just noticed this exchange at Alison's talk page, and then I noticed this post by you and now please take a look here. As you could see this user (I believe he is very young) wrote an unblock request in which he directly mentioned (complained) about Gwen Gale, and she was the one who declined his unblock! Doesn't she understand that this user feels hounded by her? I documented this misuse of tools yesterday in my RFC. Of course nobody payed any attention. Is next Gwen's victim is going to harm himself under indifferent watch of arbcom and WMF? Could you sleep well with a protected bully at the run? BTW please also notice her idiotic explanation about email. The user said he cannot email because she blocked his email, and her response is: "By email I have not meant clicking an "email" link on a Wikipedia website page. I mean email (as in "off-wiki" as I've said before). I have meant you must use a non-Wikipedia email service, such as the one provided by your Internet service provider or a web-based email provider like Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)" The user was not asking how to use his email. He was asking what email address to send his email to. Of course, if she has given him email address of arbcom, he would have been ignored anyway. But the bottom line the user felt so desperate because she was the one who bullied him once again as a heavily involved admin. I am not saying his unblock request should have been accepted. I am saying Gwen Gale should not have been the one to decline it. --Mbz1 05:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

There is much more going on with that situation than you are aware of, and I find your attempts to twist it to fit your pet argument quite sad, really. Please leave that kid out of this dispute, it's the humane thing to do. Philippe (WMF) 05:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

No matter what is going on with this situation Gwen the bully should not have been the one to decline this unblock. Period. That kid needs kindness and understanding not bullying. I saw what was coming before it came, you did only after. I documented the abuse. Nobody reacted. So it is a question who knows more, or should I say "understands more". I could only say this: I know enough to be sure that, if this kid's unblock request would have been declined by another admin, who kindly explained to him how to email to arbcom and even to himself, nothing of what happened later would have happened. I know wikipedia is not a therapy, but it should not be a site that allows supports bullying either. --Mbz1 05:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I will not discuss that situation that you linked to above further. Philippe (WMF) 05:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I had no doubts you would not. You're even afraid to agree with me that Gwen should not have been the one to decline this unblock. Well, I am doing what I could to protect victims of bullying, and I am proud of what I am doing!--Mbz1 06:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

On a differnt note

I of course am not aware of everything, but as much as I'm aware I'd like to offer an advise of how to help the kid. Maybe he could be allowed to write what he wants to write about that ZOO or whatever at his talk page. Then somebody kind and nice could help him to fix his writings, explain to him what he did wrong, and how to do it right. Maybe eventually something he's written could be added to an article. I am sure this will make the kid happy. He only needs some kindness and understanding, and I am sure many wikipedians will be happy to give it to him. I myself will be very happy to talk to him, to help him, if he's unblocked on commons or meta because I know how he feels.--Mbz1 07:52, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Gee, Mbz, I sure do wish someone tried that. I'm not going to discuss this situation with you at all. Period. Philippe (WMF) 08:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

email

Hi, I sent you email.--Mbz1 19:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Hope you do not mind

Hi, I hope you do not mind, but I moved your comment here to a new separate section, and I am going to respond it there. If you mind, please feel free to move it back. Regards.--Mbz1 04:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi again. As you have probably saw I responded your comment. So far your comment was the best comment in this RFC because it was made in a good faith, and it was a comment about specific content. I'd like to ask you to tell me, if you agree with me now, or you still believe the block was right. I also would like to ask you to participate in discussion some more, to bring up all the questions you have. I am far from saying I am absolutely right in everything I wrote, but the only way to prove I am wrong is to talk about specific cases. Screaming at me without providing any differences (like some users did) will not help. Bullying me on English wikipedia for RFC I filed on Meta (as arbcom did) could only produce an opposite reaction. The only thing I want is that somebody will talk to me as you did last night, that somebody explained what did I do wrong, but not in general terms, in specifics. Is it so much to ask for?

Another thing is that bullying is a serious problem. I believe that although most situations could be decided by mostly anonymous admins and arbcom, there are some situations, in which WMF should get involved. I believe that misusing administrative tools while involved is bullying.

Thanks.--Mbz1 18:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

There is now a thread on w:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Persistent_off-wiki_and_cross-wiki_harassment about this. ASCIIn2Bme 03:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Congrats

on your promotion. :-) Best of luck with it. PeterSymonds (talk) 08:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Loss of good tools

Gday Philippe. Do you know of a process where really decent tools like SoxRed's at tools: eg. SoxRed's (disabled) can be saved and brought over to WMF, eg. somewhere like the new Labs. Some of these more stable and globally useful tools are worth saving. billinghurst sDrewth 10:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a fascinating question, Billinghurst. I don't know the answer, but I think that if someone was willing to pick it up and own it, we could get it set up on labs. I'm going to point User:Eloquence to this thread in hopes that he can shed some light on it. But regardless, without someone who is willing to maintain a tool, it will die a slow death, as the WMF has no resources to commit to maintenance of those tools. Philippe (WMF) 10:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem for the particular tool is resolved (while the person retains focus), though the general issue still stands. It sits in the grey area of responsibility where all circles meet and overlap, or leave a nice gap. billinghurst sDrewth 01:33, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm absolutely pleased that this one is resolved, but agree the general issue is still there. Can I suggest that you document it at the LCA brainstorming page? The more I think about it, the more I think it's an area where we could intervene to advocate on behalf of the community. Philippe (WMF) 01:51, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure boss banana. I'll copy the conversation to there. billinghurst sDrewth 03:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Copying didn't seem to fit, so I tried to turn it into something that flowed. Well, best attempt. billinghurst sDrewth 04:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I have skills to kill and restart jobs, change lines of text here and there, I am just not a programmer. Even if we could find scope for some of us drones to keep tools running "as is" and have a schema where someone could come along and adopt them and make them better. Even if they then hand them back to drones once improved. At this time it seems that the scheme relies on a good programmer then to take on the role of sys admin, and we all know that is unlikely to be continuous with their creativity. Even if WMF could look to a scheme where we can have script sitting that would be great. billinghurst sDrewth 10:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

My opinion: Toolserver can partly deal with this itself. Whenever an account expires, they should send mail to the Toolserver mailing list offering that dev's tools up for "adoption," and they should also allow adoption by any interested developer at any time. If the WMF devs also keep up on these announcements, they could take note when especially important tools are about to go away and decide whether it's worth the investment. Just as importantly, Toolserver needs to do more to support tools that are actively maintained by two or more developers, which would greatly lessen the chance of orphans appearing in the first place. I also think WMF should seriously consider adopting tools that have become central to the functioning of the projects, even before they become orphaned. Dcoetzee 10:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This not needed, either. See tswiki:Multi-maintainer projects. Nemo 10:30, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

please comment

On the identification notice board talk page. Thanks, The Helpful One 16:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Account purpose

I see that you're commenting on several RfC and related discussions not possibly related to your WMF role. As it seems that your edits are in your capacity as en.wiki volunteer, I'd like you to clarify why you're making them with your official account. Your user page may use some update. Thanks, Nemo 10:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I presume that your question relates to Mbz1. If that's the case, no, this was the correct account to use. The separate work account is used to delineate when something is work related versus person. In this case, my first contact with Mbz1 (and further, subsequent contacts) are all related to work. I assure you, I wouldn't be engaging in that situation voluntarily. Philippe (WMF) 15:37, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

(A)musing suggestion(s)

[RHETORICAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS]

1. Another option than the recent spectacle would perhaps be a fellowship to Wikimania and a ceremony in which a suitable statuette would be awarded_{(Oscar-sized Joan of Ark? :-)} ... presented by an actress_{(hired to play the subject of some contentious page)} who would then apologize for any mistakes that have been made, followed by a round of applause for all the good work done. Despite the danger of a food fight at an awards luncheon, if the Foundation is willing to match funds, the rest might possibilty be summoned. :-)
2. The Foundation might create a website (set unsearchable by search engines) in which anyone who feels they are being mistreated on Wikipedia may document diffs and annotations (with an identify-verified account, to prevent data manipulation). Software could then be developed to regularly process the information to determine if there are common sources of grief, etc. (As opposed to the treatment of documentation of actions as harassment to be deleted.)

   [No reply necessary, except to specify an amount to be raised in #1 :-) Feel free to transplant/delete with impunity]
   -- Proofreader77 00:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Given the strangelovian aspects of some parts of this community sometimes (and I include myself in the pie-throwing bit), I can see true value to the awards ceremony that you cite.  :) Philippe (WMF) 01:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

PS Must be sure to invite the Banned Wikipedians Tabernacle Choir for a rousing rendition of Taylor Swift's "Mean" (a song inspired by criticism that a Grammy performance of hers would destroy her career ... which last night won her two Grammys; perhaps the best example of how to channel one's irritation with slights to one's ego that can be imagined).
Cheers :-) -- Proofreader77 03:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Swift coda re "amenities"

Not a complaint (and already addressed sufficiently in any case), but as a context for a general point to highlight in the midst of recent events: blocking should be to protect the projects — not (social) punishment. The social dynamics of blocking as punishment/shaming/exclusion/etc is an issue that must be addressed_{(probably by technical design of process mechanisms to depersonalize them [e.g., an extension of how templates are used to make warning impersonal]} as Wikipedia adjusts to the (dominant) socio-cultural role that it has achieved. In brief: perhaps surprisingly contrary to current general enthusiasm for "social media" in the world at large -- Wikipedia must evolve to diminish (historical/developmental) "social" aspects which generate requirements for far more attention than can possibly be focused on such matters ... and so with limited resources of time can only result in frequent unsatisfactory handling of situations (which can produce even larger expenditures of time addressing the fallout (e.g., recent events).

[no reply necessary / feel free to delete/transplant/etc with impunity].
And yes, perhaps I'll try to line up Taylor Swift for a pro bono performance of her 2-Grammy-winning song at Wikimania. ;-)
-- Proofreader77 20:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

PS (Un)amusing aside

In the context of that, fyi this (noting: mailing list leak as one precursor of current events) -- Proofreader77 22:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Seriously?

[1] Did you really mean it when you asked someone to delete information and emails from their own, personal computer equipment? Did WMF's counsel really tell you to request that, or did you make that up yourself? Cla68 (talk) 23:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

In a meantime

While John is not active, and you are here, maybe you'll be able to calculate number of years I "defamed" Gwen Gale. Tip: the members of govcom arbcomwere not able to solve this problem :-) Are you?--Mbz1 (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no such thing as govcom, and your continued references to it as such are intended to enflame. I will not respond to actions delivered in that way.

Further, I will not opine on the question you ask, as it's outside the purview of what I do. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 03:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Phillipe, I replaced "govcom" with "arbcom", but I learned to use this word from English wiki admin HJMitchell. I was told that I have to learn from admins because they are admins.

I did not ask for your opinion. It was a math question only (I thought WMF employees know math), and honestly I just good a very good laugh over yours "I will not opine on the question you ask, as it's outside the purview of what I do." I am still laughing, so thank you for this :-)--Mbz1 (talk) 03:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

We are trained on math, of course... but I choose to believe that this exercise of it is outside the purview of what I do. I'm glad to give you humour. We need more of it. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 03:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, then one more question please:May I please ask you to opine who in your opinion is the right person to opine on my math question? :-)Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• OK, Phillipe, let's put jokes aside. I just found this edit. It was posted to my talk on March 19,2011. Surely Gwen would not have given cookies to somebody who has been defaming her. It is me who is being defamed with this record because this record is a lie as I have proven beyond any doubt, and defamation is in purview of what you as WMF employee should take care of. If you do not, it will look very, very ridiculous at least. --Mbz1 (talk) 04:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Mbz1, your understanding of what WMF employees do is far outside of the mainstream. The vast majority of people on the projects do not want us interfering with block logs or making decisions as to the acceptability (or not) of blocks. I remain convinced that is a correct opinion to hold and will (for the nth time) decline to involve myself in yours. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 06:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, see here. Arbcom refused to do it, you did too, but tarc did (Of course I have never asked tarc to do it)! It is the best confirmation of how badly, how unfairly I was treated by arbcom. They even refused to act on an absolutely legitimate request to fix a lie.They refused to take a case with no explanation why. That's why I have never gotten a dispute resolution. If you do not believe me, let's have a sitting arbitrator to confirm my words: "But equally, there never was an RfC, there never was a massive Arbcom investigation. Everyone Mbz1 mailed it to looked at it and said "can't see it myself" and left it at that, often I suspect without emailing their response back to Mbz1." I was bullied by arbcom! It is very sad.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI: comment re "extraordinary circumstances" (since 2/11)

Noting my comment in the context of your topic User_talk:Nemo_bis#Comment -- Proofreader77 (talk) 09:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Note: The phase I have described as "extraordinary circumstances" (which meta admins were suddenly faced with) was initiated by this Feb 11, 2012 AN/I post_{(defining a situation as one demanding action, linking to meta, and simultaneously calling for community ban of two editors based on the definition of the situation provided).} As I have mentioned, I have followed events with some care. If you have any questions, feel free to email me (for diffs, etc, except IRC transcripts). -- Proofreader77 (talk) 09:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

question

Last time we talked you said you could not opine on a math question I asked. I wonder, if you could opine on this policy. Of course children should be protected, but not only from pedophiles. They also should be protected from bullies. Do you agree with that?--Mbz1 (talk) 03:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I gotta tell you, Mbz1, I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish with that question. So no, I'm not going to comment on broadly specific statements that could be misinterpreted. Sorry. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to respond to talk page requests from you about this topic (Gwen, the RFC, and bullying, widely construed), again. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 03:56, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. No worries. :-)

See, you defensive reaction to my question speaks for itself. I did not mention Gwen Gale. It were you who associated my question about children protection and bullying with Gwen Gale. Good for you! You're getting there :-)

On a more serious note (because bullying of children is not a laughing matter), the only thing I wanted to accomplish was sharing my opinion about protecting children from being bullied on wikipedia with the owner of the site - WMF. I strongly believe the policy should be changed to reflect bullying too. --Mbz1 (talk) 04:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Question for you

Hey, can you take a look at Talk:Survey of how money should be spent/Questions#"chapter committee"? Jon Harald Søby (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Formal objection re MfDs

Within the context of your reply here, I formally object to that editors barrage of March 1, 2012 MfD's of the subpages of w:user:Proofreader77.

• See March 1 contributions of that editor.

Noted for the record. Formally notifying office asserting improprieties for later discussion of 11-23 February events. -- Proofreader77 (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, noted. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment/Larger frame: The dishonoring of the past labors of volunteers of the project should cease as a systemic (social dynamics) pattern. While "systemic" may be almost too complex a word for the actions of a relatively small number who cause an outsized share of the unnecessary grief/humiliation which most certainly degrades (some troubling) statistically-evident trajectories of the project — the acceptance of such behavior as within the norms of the community is where "systemic" comes in. [Clarification of issue/no response necessary]

re the specific instance - The MfDing of user space subpages is a common form of humiliating gesture (in this case, removing some custom user-page templates, thereby damaging the design of the—at this time—hidden user and talk pages — which affects their appearance in the history, and will cause wasted time to recreate them should the user page be unsealed in the future.)

Whatever policy is claimed as a basis for such MfDs, the timing clearly taints these particular actions (especially by this particular proposer in this context) with impropriety — but even absent the matter of timing, the action is commonly abusive and serves no benefit to the project — but rather, damages it.-- Proofreader77 (talk) 03:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

“ ... the atmosphere of Wikipedia encourages and rewards people using policy and processes to belittle people who cannot fight back,...
Floquenbeam re MfD's of Proofreader77 subpages / 03 March 2012 email to Proofreader77 (specific quote excerpt published on-wiki with permission) ”

• Note: I submitted an (unusual) OTRS ticket^{#2012030210004213} for documentation. (Comment: It was difficult to determine how to do that, and I may have sent it to an incorrect email address — I had to look through the page history to find a version where someone added an email address to help people who could find it.) My first OTRS ticket, I think. -- Proofreader77 (talk) 10:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• UPDATE - OTRS TICKET #2012030210004213 (concluded):
  In my concluding response I used the rhetorical categorization for the MfD's as a community practice problem of volunteers' "identity desecration" (note: extension of the common phrase "grave dancing" for celebration of users being blocked/banned, and thus tomb desecration, i.e., "identity desecration"). And I highlighted that, in this instance, that action is being taken by an administrator who has recently demonstrated temperament unbefitting an administrator e.g., here, and when responding to notification of this topic, here. Edit summary: "(don't care one bit).": Obviously. And well phrased: one bit. Conduct unbecoming. And given the timing with respect to events of 11-23 February 2012 — outrageous.

  (Note: Tweet to @Jimmy_Wales).

  Summary: I submitted an OTRS ticket to inform the en.wikipedia community of these improper actions, and mark that in the timeline. Comment: I'm a very disciplined rhetorical agent. I do not break rules, make mistakes, or respond to baiting. The only "wiki crime" I am guilty of is documentation of administrative misconduct and/or improper discussion interference.

  BIO NOTES: I've deleted vandalism from 5,000 pages of en.wikipedia, current-events wrangled NPOV on controversial BLPs (e.g. Sarah Palin [during 2008 election], and Roman Polanski [after his arrest in Switzerland]), donated $1,100 so far to the Wikimedia Foundation, am a resident of California, a U.S. citizen ... and have spent some time in Hollywood, and will again. :-) And, oh yes, I've written over 1,000 rhetorical sonnets, not to be confused with poetry. Disciplined communication.

  BIG PICTURE: Some of the hard/thankless work of making Wikipedia work ... requires standing in a vortex of public contention, and balancing it into NPOV. Counterbalancing POV attacks. I didn't have any blocks in my blocklog UNTIL someone (now banned) dumped me improperly into ANI ... and from that point I was deflected into a (not by choice) study of the problems of the social dynamics of the project pages of en.wikipedia. I'll conclude this elaborate note by pointing to the green box on my user page here on meta. Ponder the barnstar at the top. -- Proofreader77 (talk) 23:58, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Other users should be able to get a proper historic view of the user page and user talk page of a blocked or banned co-user. For that reason already, (non-offensive) user-space templates should generally not be deleted, even if the user page and user talk page are currently blank. Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Follow-up comment (+18 days)

A quick note mostly within the context of number of active editors.

1. Result: All Proofreader7 subpages kept except one alternate sandbox_{(note: it appears because it contained some documentation of diffs — noting general issue of "deleting documentation" for future discussion.)}
2. Very few eyes at WP:MfD at all — and finally someone had to ask at AN for someone to come close the backlog. Comment: These are not "community" decisions.
3. Anecdotal data point. (Since one of my MfD-nominated subpages made a brief satiric comment about w:WP:DRAMAOUT).
   • Note that w:WP:The_Great_Wikipedia_Dramaout/4th/Log (for March 1-5/2012) has zero entries.
   • (For comparison, see previous w:WP:The_Great_Wikipedia_Dramaout/3rd/Log and w:WP:The_Great_Wikipedia_Dramaout/2nd/Log)
   • Comment: A very random anecdotal data point, but the MfD nominations caused me to return to watchlist watching for two and a half weeks, and my general impression is that activity is "lower."

While the MfD'ing of Proofreader77 subpages was, in general, a waste of time (ignoring the fact it was wrong to do), the hours of watchlist-watching attention was perhaps worth the insights.

[no response necessary at this time] -- Proofreader77 (talk) 22:42, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Term expired of the ombudsman commission

I thought you're the one handling those things usually, see Talk:Ombudsman commission#Term expired. Thanks in advance! Trijnstel_talk 11:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Template:User info

As far as I can tell, you provided absolutely no attribution for this local template. Please don't do that. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh! You're absolutely right. That's bad. What's the best way to fix it at this point? Philippe (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps saying in the edit summary it was copied from this revision (link included) would have sufficed? The Helpful One 00:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it would have then. But I'm asking how best to do it now. :-) If that's still the right answer, I'm happy to do that. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 00:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I put a note on the talk page and there's now a note in the page history (sync with master ...). I think that's sufficient. It's not a big deal, I just wanted to make sure it didn't become habit. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I likely did the same thing on en at Template:Staff info. Thanks for pointing it out, and for fixing it. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

---

Unrelated to the above, I'd like to actually have the template be a generic user info template, if possible (as indicated by my page move, I suppose). The title is an unused redirect at the English Wikipedia, so it can be switched there as well. There's nothing really tying this particular design/system to Wikimedia staff. I specifically added an organization/company parameter for this reason. I can't really see how this would be an issue, but just letting you know. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

N.B.: one of the reasons why I had it as a staff named template: on the staff version, I included the mandatory legal disclaimer language, which we've had trouble getting folks to all use. I'd like that to be in the staff version, but I see no reason why there shouldn't be a non-staff version as well. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC) I see what you did there. Very nice. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

---

Also unrelated to the above, global transclusion was just around the corner at some point... kinda fell apart somewhere, though. Babel being moved into an extension probably didn't help. Maybe someone knows the status of that... --MZMcBride (talk) 03:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Was it ever "just around the corner"? I thought I seemed to remember it always being A Big Deal, but maybe the fog of time clouds my memory there. I'll ask around and see if I can find out what the current status is, but I don't think I've seen it on any of the roadmaps. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Donations question

Hi. I realize you don't deal with this any longer, but you probably have a better idea than I do regarding the donations answer I posted here. If you could take a look, that would be great. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I did so. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Why did you block a user without a reason?

please reply at commons:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems/Geni's_allegations_against_Beta_M#Global_lock --Saibo (Δ) 02:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

PD-Italy

Hello Philippe. I am mainly an Italian user of Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Meta-Wiki and Wikimedia Commons. I appeal just to you after talking to the users of the community. There is a problem regarding the maintenance of a specific license template on Commons: "PD-Italy". In fact, the template was recently the subject of a request for cancellation. But, it ended resulting that we must maintain it. Now so, the template can be used on Commons. The problem to which I refer is not the cancellation, but the template itself. (The template "PD-Italy" allows you to upload to Commons the majority of the files that come from Italy regarding persons, buildings and works that are older than 20 years. You can see this here [2].)

The problem is that, even if now this license tag is accepted, there are, such as it was expected, many superstitious users that believe this license will be eliminated soon, even if it is not possible. The fact is that no one knows exactly how to behave and this creates a serious inconvenience to many users and to the Wikimedia projects. Indeed, the Wikimedia Foundation, unfortunately, hasn't yet considered this license and analyzed it. As a result there is a big mess on its use. I know for you this is a minor problem compared to many others, but I hope addressing to you to know something from the Wikimedia Foundation.

Now I describe you the difficulties in this state of uncertainty in my point of view.

• 1) in Italian Wikipedia it was placed a notice that ask users to not upload the file with PD-Italy because on Commons is prohibited. Instead Commons accepts them.
• 2) At Commons the users don't know what should they do.
• 3) The most IMPORANT of all: Who loses are the articles on all projects of all languages ​​that can not benefit from a large amount of images.

P. S. I had taken the commitment to upload it to Commons using bots in order to offer them to it.wikiquote (where they are most active) but I went up against a rubber wall. Please help me.  Raoli  16:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Raoli, I'm looping in Maggie, our community liaison on this and asking her to track it for me. Maggie, can we ask Legal to do some general background research on this? Philippe (WMF) (talk) 04:23, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Philippe, Raoli. I will certainly ask them to do so.

Raoli, while the legal team of the Wikimedia Foundation is generally very busy with Foundation work and is only able to offer legal advice to the Wikimedia Foundation, they recognize that the community may sometimes need background in creating their own policies, particularly in relation to legal matters. They may not have time and resources to offer assistance in all cases, but do try to assist where they can. They try to prioritize issues of wide-reaching impact that may be difficult for the community to research on their own. This one sounds to me like one of those. :)

If they are able to evaluate it, it may take a few weeks. It may be a few days before I get a response, but I'll let you know as soon as I do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

It would be very nice of you Philippe and Maggie and of all legal staff if you cared about this problem. :) Of course, I consider - on a scale from 1 to 10 - 8 the importance's level of this request. I'm sorry to give you additional work. It isn't my intention. I deeply appreciate your interest on this question. As far as I concerned this topic is important in order to avoid future legal troubles. I can, therefore, end by saying that I will wait as long as necessary. The important thing is that the Wikimedia Foundation solves this problem.  Raoli  11:51, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Raoli. I just wanted to update you to let you know that they're still talking about this one. It came up as recently as yesterday. I'm afraid I still don't know what, exactly, they may be able to do, but I wanted to let you know that it hasn't been forgotten. The bulk of the law department is currently in Germany attending the chapters meeting. They realize that this one is a difficult case with wide-ranging impact. I suspect that beyond the ordinary time constraints it's a bit challenging in that it concerns international copyright law. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much!  Raoli  14:10, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

First of all I apologise with Philippe for invading his talk page (am Sergio, administrator on Commons). Actually there was a "small" problem on Commons about PD-Italy. Mainly because some years ago a group of German users, on the (wrong) ground that a German court had ruled that a (German) photo of a (German) photographer had to be protected according an EU Copyright law that cancelled any previous exception allowed by domestic law. Thus on this ground those German users filed the template PD-Italy for deletion because "EU law made no exception"; as consequence all the pictures uploaded and tagged with such template would be deleted.

To make the matter a bit clearer the Italian Copyright law states that every non-signed non-artistic photographic work enters the PD the 1st January of the 21st year following its first publishing in Italy, provided that it was produced in Italy (to cut short, a non-signed photo of the 1990 World Cup held in Italy is in public domain since 1 Jan 2011, and currently is in PD any unsigned photo produced and published in Italy until 31 Dec 1991). The law states that "This applies worldwide". That means that not even outside of Italy the copyright can be enforced, because of mutual agreements. Though Italy enacted the EU Copyright law, the 20 years term for PD was not changed.

Another German users' issue was the nature of non-artistic work: for the German a work is "artistic" just because the photographer points the camera and clicks the shot button; for the Italian law this is not enough, as the nature of "artistic" is not related with the photographer's will but rather with the photographed subject: i.e. a normal everyday scene of life (people walking, footballers playing a game, and so on) is not considered "artistic", if shot as they happen. A model posing in a certan way and photographed with particular lights is instead an "artistic" work and is protected by the general copyright law (70 years PMA, in Italy).

The debate was very raw and unfortunately also went into nationalism and mockery (such as "you didn't win the war and don't rule the world", "ok, now we are at Godwin's law", "you are crap at football and will never win against Italy" "f*ing bloody krauts" and so on :-) ).

Some years later the whole deletion process was revised and generally everyone agreed that it was based on an inconsistent ground: simply Germans thought that since a court of their contry had stated that EU Copyright law overruled every exception there the situation had to be the same for Italy, which was - and to date still is - not.

As precautionary measure can be safely uploaded on Commons those photographs (produced in Italy) that were undoubtely in PD in the USA until 1 Jan 1996 (before the URAA that didn't restore copyright for the works in PD because of copyright expiration: it simply extended the copyright terms for those works which copyright hadn't expired yet), thus produced in Italy until 1975. Because of that now there are files that are considered safely PD both in Italy and the USA (the ones produced and published first until 1975) and those that are PD for Italy only (as for now those that are produced and published first in Italy until 1991). Of course we are talking about non-artistic photos.

Thanks for the space :-) -- Blackcat (talk) 21:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Blackcat. So, is the problem considered closed? :)  Raoli  02:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

If so far, no one could give me a satisfactory explanation, now now instead all has changed. I thank all the staff who are engaged in solving this problem now in the past. In particular I thank you Maggie and Philippe to having listened my question and be committed to give me an answer. Thanks WMF! :))))))))  Raoli  20:29, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

That's very interesting background, Sergio. It's not my talk page, but I personally am delighted that you "invaded". :) Thank you for explaining what happened and how it resolved. Raoli, I'll let the legal team know that the community is comfortable with this now unless you tell me otherwise. Work has been derailed a little by the recent meeting in Germany (preparing for, attending, catching up after), but they're getting back into regular schedule now. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 10:57, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to also thank you, Blackcat, for the background and info, and Raoli for raising the issue initially. I'm sorry we couldn't get to a quick resolution on this one, but I want you to know that we're trying hard to be more responsive, and I hope that getting answers like this isn't a huge thing in the future. Maggie tried hard, but real-world schedules and geoproximity just didn't cooperate. --Philippe (talk) 11:09, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

WMF accounts

Hello, Philippe, every day I realize how awfully difficult even our "new" SUL system is. See [3] [4] [5]. We could improve the help pages, but don't you have some booklet with basic instructions for WMF staffers, contractors, interns and whatever who need to interact with the community or use public wikis? I've no idea how we could help them to be less confusing. Nemo 20:45, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

We're starting to build out that sort of training material now. It's been woefully neglected.  :( Philippe (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

My ACC application

Hello Phillipe,

I have recently requested access to the ACC interface. I read the instructions wrong - I inserted the diff to a message on my talk page! I'm a little confused how I identify myself too, could you help me through this please?

Thanks. Osarius (talk) 13:42, 23 March 2012 (UTC) (I'm usually on en:Wikipedia, please reply/tb on my talk page).

Actually, after reading through the ACC registration again, I appear to have done the right thing. Apologies. Osarius (talk) 13:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

question

I'd like to ask you, if you got my email from a week or so ago, and if you did, was there a particular reason for not responding it? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:47, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm on vacation. But also, when I have answered you in the past, you have chosen to disbelief or ignore what I said, so I don't see much point in further engagement. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

May I please wish you to have a very pleasant vacation? Where did you go? I like hearing stories about people vacations. It is almost as going on vacation myself :-)

I do not recall ignoring any of your emails. I usually do not ignore emails. I am sorry, if I did.

Anyway, I'd really would like to get a response for my last email please. Remember it was a technical question. I asked you, if you could help me to remove my real life name from the history records of thousands of images I uploaded to commons. I have no access to history, and even admins do not, only oversighters could do it. One of them helped me with a few images, but this manual work takes forever, and I have no right to ask him to spend hours doing this for me. On the other hand I believe it could be relatively easy done by a developer. It is a legitimate request because it is about my privacy and impact on my real life. Would you help me please?--Mbz1 (talk) 00:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

PGP key for secure-info

Hello, I'm looking at identifying to WMF so that I can become a UTRS developer. I would be comfortable sending a scanned copy of my ID to the secure-info mailbox if I could encrypt it to a foundation PGP key first. Do you know of one that I could use? Crazycomputers (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey Crazycomputers, Philippe is out for the week at a conference but if you want to encrypt it with My ID (The box is handled by Philippe, Maggie and myself) you can then send it to secure-info and I'd be happy to process it. Jalexander (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, James! If it's not an imposition, since I'll be sending you personal identification, would you be willing to sign my key? I have four UIDs on my key; I'd only ask that you sign the UID representing the email address I send from. Crazycomputers (talk) 01:28, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Identification noticeboard

Hi Philippe,

You recently added "Piko" in the ID noticeboard. Could you please rectify that and put "Piku", the user's actual name? Thanks! Elfix 16:04, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, done. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:Wikimedia Foundation staff

Hi. When you have a minute, can you look through Category:Wikimedia Foundation staff and remove the staffers who no longer work at the Wikimedia Foundation? I knocked out a few already:

• User:Rand Montoya
• User:Daniel Phelps
• User:AJ WMF Intern
• User:Aaron (WMF)
• User:Eekim

Beyond removing the category, some of these user pages probably need to be edited (e.g., User:Rand Montoya) to remove outdated or misleading contact information. I'm much too tired to do this right now, though maybe I'll have more energy tomorrow. Any help would be appreciated. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:50, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - good point. I'll check with Office IT and see if removal of that category is something they can do when they close down "work" accounts as people leave us. That might help out some. In the meantime, I've gotten started by removing the category from several. I'll make sure userpage edits for them as I have more time. Appreciate the note, thank you. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 13:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I just saw Template:FormerStaff. Looks good. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 15:47, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think Thehelpfulone is planning to copy it to enwp for use there as well. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Commons help

commons:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems/Geni's_allegations_against_Beta_M#Is_there_any_need_for_a_banning_policy_proposal_anymore.3F, [6] – Can you please help answer some of Geitost's concerns? He or she is confused. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:25, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Foundation wiki feedback

Translation correction requests are coming in regarding wmf:Terms of Use (2012) and its subpages. I'm still trying to work out who ordered that those pages be fully protected and why. Until that gets sorted, someone (at the Wikimedia Foundation, I suppose) will need to respond to those translation correction requests. --MZMcBride (talk) 12:48, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

You're still trying to work it out?  :) That seems odd, since I'd think the first step would be to just ask me. :-) Maggie was directed to protect them (by me) and I've just unprotected them. There are some... differences of opinion... as to whether they should be protected (as officially approved policy, which is legally binding and therefore can't be fluid without triggering issues around giving notice of changes) or not. For now, we'll try unprotected. We're also pushing the roll-out by 5 days in order to give more time to correct the translations. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Related: <https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mdennis&oldid=80501#Page_protections>.

The first step was to ask the person who protected the pages. ;-) Thanks for the unprotections; much appreciated. I understand the concerns regarding changes, but there are surely other examples of policies (and resolutions) that have been left unprotected without issue. Maybe just the English version could be protected (surely the English version controls anyway)? But even that seems unnecessary. And as noted at the link, the protection system is noisy and disruptive. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

The issue isn't that it's policy, it's that it's a legally binding contract.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it is a legally binding contract for a lot users (e.g., anyone under the age of majority). And even for the users who are able to enter into a contract, I've never been completely clear about the (legal) enforceability of such terms. Surprisingly the Wikipedia article on the subject is very bad. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Brazilian Polish

Hey, Philippe!

Can you review "Terms of use/Introduction/pt-br", please? This page seems to be in Polish instead of Brazilian Portuguese. Tell me if there is any help needed on translating to pt-br. Regards.‴ T_ele^s (T _{@ L C S}) 00:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Teles! Yes it seems like you're right - that looks like a mistake from when it was added to the Foundation Wiki, wmf:New Terms of use/pt-br. I'm not sure if Philippe has a professionally translated Portuguese version that you can just check, alternatively, if it's not too much work, feel free to translate the text "from fresh" into both pt and pt-br. :) The Helpful One 00:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

you didn't know about Brazilian-Polish? Oh come on, it's directly related to Armenian Spanish! Now think on that while I go fix that numbskull mistake I made with pt-br. Thanks! Philippe (WMF) (talk) 09:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Hehe... it is a lot better now! I'm pl-br-1, so I couldn't read the old version as Google translator still doesn't have Brazilian Polish. Thank you and THO‴ T_ele^s (T _{@ L C S}) 16:59, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

弊社

Philippe, while I generally welcome your / WMF efforts to reduce volunteer burden, I must say I am not happy to see recent your maneuver like the first revision at MediaWiki:Centralnotice-TOU top-introtext/ja: I was asked to correct it by a volunteeering editor who was upset. That word you put is used almost only by a for-profit company and thus disastrously misleading. She (and I) guess you use the external translation company or contractor who is not familiar with the movement. I don't object that in general but strongly recommend you to ask volunteer community for advice and opinion. Cheers, --Aphaia (talk) 16:48, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Whoa, wait a second, Aphaia - we DID ask.  :-) We accepted corrections, and we've been welcoming them. How about a little AGF, huh? I have to tell you, I'm in a rock and a hard place - last time we did ask for translations, and I got crucified by some members of our German community, including a public blog post. This time, we used a private service, and I'm getting this from you. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, if volunteerers were asked, so it's rather a result of wrong communications which we all would like to improve definitely. At least I was got up by those upset people at 2am, just in time I'm retreating to bed, so do you think it natural for me to assume they hadn't thought they were in loop?

I guess you may agree the quality of the translation is another matter and that you are either unhappy to spare the image WMF is now a for-profit. Relying on a private service is okay, but you should be aware it has its own risk, and affects both WMF and the volunteer community. If you think ASM works well, respectfully I disagree. It may be okay within us volunteers, but now that customly external people in Japan mention WMF for-profit frequently and even ask for legal sanction, such carelessness makes our request for collection to media very difficult - in circumstance WMF shows itself as a for-profit in its staffer wording. --Aphaia (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm being dense, but.... ASM? Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

AGF. You are better to keep away being dense, man. --Aphaia (talk) 19:34, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Not that it's particularly important, but one isn't "in a rock and a hard place," one is "in between a rock and a hard place." :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I sit corrected. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Honestly I am not sure what made you insist the community was invited after seeing Terms of use/Banner was created just today, I would like you to realize this translation was very poorly organized so that I failed to see how you guys tried to get the community involved so far. I hope you take lessons and don't stress to advocate your private company more than the community which has engaged to volunteer providing good and accurate translations. --Aphaia (talk) 23:49, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Aphaia, I'm sorry, but your implication is just wrong. See, for instance, this link, wherein a Japanese contributor provided the banner translation to staff after community consultation. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 06:42, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

No you are wrong. Now I realize the things are much worse than what I perceived. On the link you showed, I see Whym propose a correction and that you guys ignored his. The banner you created and that appeared yesterday was not what Whym had proposed Mdennis. Asking for consultation and then ignoring is much worse than forgetting to ask for consultation, in my opinion. Sigh. --Aphaia (talk) 08:17, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

What was the source of complaint when the Germany community disliked the community translations in the past? –SJ talk  09:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

TOU_top in Estonian

Hei! I don't find a specific page for this translation. So I'll report it here. Please add following messages: Meie uuendatud kasutustingimused jõustuvad 25. mail 2012. aastal. Loe veel. Thanks! 90.190.114.172 18:49, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Done - thanks. The Helpful One 18:53, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I changed 2005 to 2012 as I think that's what you mean. The Helpful One 18:53, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, silly me. Thanks again! 90.190.114.172 18:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Hm, apparently there has to be a space in front of "jõustuvad" in this message. 90.190.114.172 19:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

This missing space still needs attention. 90.190.114.172 20:41, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. The Helpful One 20:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

TOU eo

Here is the Esperanto translation of CentralNotice TOU

Niaj ĝisdatigitaj uzkondiĉoj efektiviĝos la 25an de majo 2012. Eksciu pli.

Please note that CentralNotice French version links to English page while the French page exists http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/New_Terms_of_use/fr

Thanks --Arno Lagrange ✉ 20:54, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Added the eo TOU translation thanks. Not quite sure why the fr one isn't working, I added some underscores, maybe that fixes it? The Helpful One 20:59, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for having added Esperanto translation. But why do you link to English instead of Esperanto one http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use-Summary/eo ? --Arno Lagrange ✉ 21:35, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi! That's because that's the only part of the Terms of Use that has been translated, wmf:Terms of Use (2012)/eo does not exist yet and so it hasn't been linked to. If you are able to work on the translation of the rest of the page here on Meta-Wiki, Terms of use/eo, I will be more than happy to transfer it onto the Foundation wiki. The Helpful One 16:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Please updtate eo translation : there was a mistype in it. (Eskciu pli -> Eksciu pli) --Arno Lagrange ✉ 15:38, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Translating Terms of Use centralnotice

Hi Philippe,

thank you for your reply on this talk page and your help.

The languages I want to translate into are Lower Sorbian (dsb) and Upper Sorbian (hsb):

dsb: Naše zaktualizěrowane wužywańske wuměnjenja nabydnu płaśiwosć 25. maja 2012. Dalšne informacije.

hsb: Naše zaktualizowane wužiwanske wuměnjenja nabudu płaćiwosć 25. meje 2012. Dalše informacije.

The links in the first sentence are the expressions "wužywańske wuměnjenja" resp. "wužiwanske wuměnjenja".

Regards and thinks, --Michawiki (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Done for both. Thanks. The Helpful One 21:03, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, the translations work perfectly. --Michawiki (talk) 21:21, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Nutzungsbedingungen TOU translation

As mentioned in german wikipedia, "Lektoren" in the TOU Nutzungsbedingungen is very confusing! (like "lector" instead of "contributor"). I tried to improve the translation here, but no idea whether that leads to anything. Even that page was rather hard to find. You make it really hard to give feedback at a relevant place. Which is why I am ranting on your talk page ;-) --Atlasowa (talk) 10:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, I've synced your change across in this edit. To translate pages, there's an option on Terms of use/Introduction/de above the languages that says "Translated version" that will link you to <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Translate&group=page-Terms+of+use%2FIntroduction&task=view&language=de> where you can update the translations. This is standard for all pages that use this new Translate extension on Meta. The Helpful One 16:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I think I used that Translate extension thing, and by stalking Philippe's contributions I even found Foundation wiki feedback. If my confusing translation experience is similar to what the wikipedia newbies go through, then I have a new appreciation for them - and some extra goodwill for ranting ;-) --Atlasowa (talk) 08:58, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome! The issue with the Translate extension was filed as a usability bug recently, so hopefully the link will be more prominent in the future. When you try to edit any page on the Foundation wiki, if you don't have a user account then you will get a message telling you that you are unable to edit the page as editing is restricted and you will be provided with links that allow you to automatically create a new section on that Foundation wiki feedback page, so most people that try to edit it will get to that page, or at least we hope they will! Of course, the majority of the readers of our sites are not editors so making a link or notice saying comment at here on Meta might something to consider. The Helpful One 11:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Having said this, we need to bear in mind that the Foundation wiki is meant as the public face of the Wikimedia Foundation, Meta-Wiki is more of an internal wiki and as such we don't necessarily want to bring our readers here. The Helpful One 11:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. You're right, there is a small print link to meta. I may be afflicted with banner blindness... --Atlasowa (talk) 18:05, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

A place to share comments, ideas, and quesions

Talk:Terms_of_use#Banner_message_problem – Can you please add a link to Talk:Terms_of_use on wmf:Talk:Terms_of_Use_(2012) and wmf:Talk:New_Terms_of_use/en? The average user doesn't know where to post complaints or ask qestions. wmf:New_Terms_of_use/en doesn't include any contact information. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

But they are directed... when they hit the edit button, it links them to Foundation wiki Feedback, which is an entirely appropriate place for that. I don't see the need for further information. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Alright. I finally found Foundation_wiki_feedback. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 01:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

It is less than evident (IMNSHO), when people are wanting to look to something that readily and overtly tells them where to give feedback, they are faced with a mini wall of text, so we are not making it easy for them from that specific page where people are being directed xwiki. One would think that a simple overt link on the talk page would make it easier for people. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:13, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I never considered clicking the "edit" / "contribute" button since I knew that editing is only for users with wikimediafoundation.org accounts. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, guys ... the feedback period is over. What are we supposed to do with it? The Board has already approved the TOU. It's not going to change at this point. So it seems disingenuous to invite feedback that we aren't going to use. But I'll bring it up with Geoff. --Philippe (talk) 02:33, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terms_of_use&curid=659499&diff=3712476&oldid=3708275. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Forum#Data protection, MediaWiki and watch list

Interesting complaint brought up. Would you care to comment on it? Killiondude (talk) 16:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Will be doing so today.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 17:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Twitter location

@wikipedia is in San Francisco? --MZMcBride (talk) 23:47, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Im not following the question... yes, the people who run that handle are in SF, I believe.... Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I think he means the byline on the profile, next to the URL (third/fourth line from the top at https://twitter.com/wikipedia. Probably something more global or geeky (the interwebs) might be more appropriate, but I am not sure Twitter allows that. --Bence (talk) 00:45, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I blanked the location field. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 07:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, all right. Thanks. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 22:54, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Implications of 2257 record keeping requirements for editors?

Philippe, a question has come up in an off-site discussion about how 2257 record keeping requirements might be impacting Wikimedia contributors. Now, IANAL ... could you give me some feedback on the following?

Commons has a template, Template:2257, which states

Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act warning

This work, which was made after November 1, 1990 and depicts one or more actual human beings engaged in sexually explicit conduct—including but not limited to "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person" (USC 18 § 2256)—has record-keeping requirements in the United States under the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act (18 U.S.C. 2257). Any content reuser in the United States who "publishes, reproduces, or reissues" this work and also qualifies as a "secondary producer" under this Act must document the age and identity of all performers depicted, or face penalties of up to five years in prison per infraction. Wikimedia Commons is not obligated to keep these records and is not responsible for failure to acquire records by content reusers. This notice is only a warning, and the absence of this notice should not be interpreted as indicating an absence of any legal obligations.

This template is, for example, used in all the files listed here.

It seems quite correct that Wikimedia Commons, being covered by 230(c)(1) safe harbor provisions, does not need to keep records. However, this does not seem to be the case for individual users and editors of Wikimedia websites dealing with such materials. Recent US court decisions have found that use of the Internet in itself satisfies the "interstate commerce" element of US federal law, i.e. "trade, traffic or transportation" across state lines ("the Internet is an instrumentality and channel of interstate commerce"), so that anything done on the Internet falls under interstate commerce regulations, whether done for profit or not (i.e. it would seem to apply to "traffic" and "transportation" as much as to "trade"). Is that correct?

The above template text makes reference to "secondary producers". According to the US legal code, the definition of "producing" includes such seemingly innocent acts as merely

(iii) inserting on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise managing the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, sexually explicit conduct

Accordingly, the law's definition of a "secondary producer" also includes the following:

(2) Secondary producer is any person [...] who inserts on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise manages the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct [...]

Now, Commons and Wikipedia are computer sites or services. Note the absence of any mention of for-profit purpose in the text, or any exemption of non-profit sites.

"Manage content" means "to make editorial or managerial decisions concerning the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service, but does not mean those who manage solely advertising, compliance with copyright law, or other forms of non-sexually explicit content." Read literally, this extends record-keeping requirements to

• Commons and Wikipedia admins who close deletion discussions as "Keep",
• Commons and Wikipedia users who vote "Keep" in a deletion discussion, or even just add a category to a file,
• Wikipedians who insert such images in Wikipedia.

I am not aware of any Commons and Wikipedia users keeping such records. There are, in theory at least, criminal penalties for secondary producers who fail to comply with 2257 record keeping requirements. Now, the 2257 requirements are fairly new, and so far there has only been one prosecution ever, of a commercial site, but everything on Wikimedia sites is publicly logged for eternity.

I note that there is also a requirement that

(d) A computer site or service or Web address containing a digitally- or computer-manipulated image, digital image, or picture shall contain the required statement on every page of a Web site on which a visual depiction of an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct appears. Such computer site or service or Web address may choose to display the required statement in a separate window that opens upon the viewer's clicking or mousing-over a hypertext link that states, “18 U.S.C. 2257 [and/or 2257A, as appropriate] Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.”

I have never seen such a statement in Commons or Wikipedia. Do we need to think about having one on every page that contains an image of actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct? Or have I got something wrong? Best, --JN466 06:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jayen,

IANAL, but I work with a few. They can't provide legal advice to individual editors, of course, but may be able to shed some light on this. I'm passing it to them. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 06:26, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jayen, I spoke with the LCA team about this today. We use a triaging system to evaluate what things need to get dealt with immediately and by which attorney. In this case, they'd like to task one of our really qualified legal interns to do some research on this and write up some background materials, which the staff attorneys will review. However, we're currently in the downtime between groups of interns, so - realistically - we're unlikely to provide any useful feedback to you within 30 days or so. If that's okay, i've got this added to the list of things for those folks, and you're more than welcome to prod me for status in the meantime. Thanks. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand that any WMF attorney can only represent one client. But going forward, I really do hope that the Community Advocacy department will develop the capability to advise volunteer editors on legal ramifications of their participation in WMF projects, or to just clarify the lie of the land for editors.

In the UK we have a charity called the Citizens Advice Bureau. If the Community Advocacy function could develop into an analogous Community Advice Bureau, that would be great! Simply having answers from legal experts to a list of FAQs would be helpful. Is this something you would entertain? Regards. --JN466 06:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting question, and one that I'll put to the team. Personally, I'd love to offer something like that, but I don't know if it's within the bounds of 1) legal ethics or 2) resource constraints. But I'll ask around and see what I can find out.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 07:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I should second the idea that the WMF should provide some legally informed statement to advise uploaders. The issue was discussed at the version of Commons:Commons:Sexual content put up for a vote ([7]). This cited a very brief statement by Mike Godwin. I hope that Wikimedia's opinion will align closely with the EFF position, while advising editors of the issues currently under litigation. Wnt (talk) 14:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I feel Mike could have made it clearer in that post that according to the wording of 2257, "producers" seems to include any and all individual Wikimedians who have anything whatsoever to do with managing this content, or with reusing it in other Wikimedia projects, even if the Foundation itself, as an organisation, is in the clear. At the time, I felt included in the "we"; but it may have been "we, the Foundation, as opposed to you, the editors".

Just to give an example, if an editor inserts an ejaculation video in the Wikipedia article on ejaculation, and they do not have the documented name, age and consent of the person depicted, they may have broken the law, and done so in a very public manner, with their user name and edit logged permanently for public view.

I would suggest that the new terms of use could state this point more clearly. YouPorn for example say, in their Terms of Service (www.youporn.com/terms/),

You shall be solely responsible for any and all of your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting, uploading and publishing them. Furthermore, with User Submissions, you affirm, represent and/or warrant that:

[...] you have inspected and are maintaining written documentation sufficient to confirm that all subjects of your submissions are, in fact, over the age of 18 years.

You have the written consent, release, and/or permission of each and every identifiable individual person in the User Submission to use the name or likeness of each and every such identifiable individual person [...]

I believe the rules for uploading sexually explicit content in our terms of use should look much the same. --JN466 14:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget that by transferring something from flickr, you have to legally agree that you have the information already. Those who are transferring over thousands of images probably don't have those records. Even if the license is right on flickr, that doesn't make the image legally sound if it is pornographic, and the reuploader is liable. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

• One aspect that I have not seen discussed anywhere is this: Commons is designed to reuse, redistribute, alter, etc. right? The definition of "producer" would then apply to anyone who alters the work and re-uploads. Thus, they need to have records of any person depicted in a pornographic image. How can we have a site that claims you can freely alter these images without warning them of the records needed? There are a lot of people potentially put at jeopardy on Commons because we don't bother to warn them that they are producers of content by editing the content. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
  • That is what the 2257 template I mentioned above is for. However, that template is not consistently applied. When it comes down to it, it is probably the reuser that is legally responsible for their own actions. That appears to include every individual Wikimedian who adds such an image to a Wikipedia article, or participates in managing this content, without having a record of the person's age, name and consent. --JN466 12:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Hi everyone. As Philippe mentioned, I am a legal intern with the Foundation for the summer. Please have a look my preliminary background research on section 2257. It is not legal advice or a representation of the viewpoints of the Wikimedia Foundation. It may contain errors and may be incomplete. Jking (talk) 16:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Many thanks for your quick work, Jesse. --JN466 09:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Jesse, I've had a look over the page now. There are two more points :

1. According to [8], (d) A computer site or service or Web address containing a digitally- or computer-manipulated image, digital image, or picture shall contain the required statement on every page of a Web site on which a visual depiction of an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct appears. Such computer site or service or Web address may choose to display the required statement in a separate window that opens upon the viewer's clicking or mousing-over a hypertext link that states, “18 U.S.C. 2257 [and/or 2257A, as appropriate] Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.” Should Wikimedia contributors' practice be updated to reflect this requirement?
2. Consent: According to the 2011 board resolution, persons depicted in a private place or situation need to have given their consent to the Wikimedia upload (this reflects that Wikimedia has sometimes been used for uploads of so-called "revenge porn" which was then kept and used as "educational material"). Similarly, I noticed that YouPorn's terms of use, for example, require written consent from the performers or models, as noted above. Are there any legal considerations (privacy etc.) that come into play here, in addition to the sentiments of the board resolution? --JN466 13:15, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Regarding question 1, I think the above discussion may have overlooked an important detail about §2257's "Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement"; that is, that this statement must include details of where these records may be located (§ 2257(e)(1)). If individual editors are maintaining the records relevant to them, this could quickly get messy, especially if these record-keeping requirements apply to all (US-based?) editors involved in editorial decision-making regarding an image (e.g. all participants in a deletion discussion). A central repository would avoid this problem (though no doubt suffer from others). --Avenue (talk) 10:59, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Good point. As for whether this applies to US-based editors or to all editors, the Wikimedia Terms of Use are clear on one thing: everyone's participation is predicated on their being willing and able to comply with US law (as well as applicable laws of the country in which they are). --JN466 14:20, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Terms of Use update translation error

Cannot create a translation for this update (I try create translation into Russian). Translation tool returns error (as popup error messagebox):

Unknown error: "tpt-unknown-page" (unknownerror) 

Trying to do it manually causes an error message:

Unauthorized
You do not have permission to create pages, for the following reason:
This namespace is reserved for content page translations. The page you are trying to edit does not seem to correspond any page marked for translation.

--Kaganer (talk) 14:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you were too quick for the bot? I tried testing it out myself and it seems to be okay now. :) If it's still having problems, please let us know, and I'll see what I can find out! Alternatively, if you translate it here, I'll make sure it winds up on the Foundation wiki one way or another. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

This rare situation ;) All is done. Thanks! --Kaganer (talk) 15:27, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Great! I've incorporated your translation. Thank you very much for your swift assistance. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Heh, not quite, I needed to mark the page for translation, which seems to have fixed the error. :) The Helpful One 15:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, now I will know ;) Thanks for decisive participation ;) --Kaganer (talk) 17:34, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Typography in the Terms of Use

In relation to Foundation wiki feedback#Updated terms of use summary uses spaced em dashes. It should not, while the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style certainly has no bearing on the Foundation's work, perhaps other, authoritative style guides (like the Canadian, Chicago, and Oxford guides) which discourage a spaced em-dash should be taken into account. As an unabashed stylistics pedant, I also consider "blah blah foo — bar lorem ipsum" to look just horrible :-). AGK [•] 22:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Logos and trademarks?

Hi. I hear you're making trouble regarding the Wiknic logo? What's the issue and where is this being discussed? I'm happy to weigh in. There are about a million derivatives of the Wikimedia logo and any derivative completely side-steps any trademark questions, as far as I'm concerned. What's going on here? --MZMcBride (talk) 17:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about, MZ. I have no issue with that logo, and haven't had any conversations about it. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

CentralNotice usage guidelines

Um, nice try, I guess. Not a chance in hell that you're somehow empowered to appoint a Chancellor of CentralNotice, though. What's wrong with you recently? --MZMcBride (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree, why was this done? It seems to be an attempt to enforce your will about the Wiknic notice, which was taken down for anonymous users without community involvement, by fiat. The current page already mentions the special authority staff have when it comes to fundraising banners, so I don't see why this would be necessary. Dominic (talk) 18:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't appoint. :-) I don't have that power, you're quite right. But the WMF needed to delegate someone to be our voice on it, and that's what we've done. But no, I didn't do it. I just documented it. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

• Separating the discussion because it isn't a Philippe only thing. Moving (and copying these comments) to Talk:CentralNotice/Usage guidelines. (Note: I'm writing my own response too so there will be a small delay in the repost) Jalexander (talk) 21:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Identification of "old" CUs

Hi Philippe. Please take a look at Talk:Identification noticeboard#Should I be in the list?. I assume you know the rules better than me. :) Regards, Trijnstel_talk 18:29, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, I've responded there. I suppose I should audit those against the noticeboard. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:42, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, no. Trijnstel_talk 18:54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Questions for Jesse

Philippe, will Jesse be able to look at the two questions I asked at the bottom of the section above? --JN466 13:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jayen, I'm not sure - he's detailed to a couple of other things right now, and has a pretty tight calendar. I don't know if he has any more cycles for this project, but I'll ask. Regarding those two questions, in brief, though:, the Foundation's Legal and Community Advocacy Team won't advise projects on internal policies or processes... we lay out the general legal framework, but going much closer to legal advice is a bad idea. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:54, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use require contributors to comply with applicable US law. For this requirement to be meaningful, however, there needs to be some clarity on what the legal requirements are. I would have thought that the Foundation would at least have an internal view on the matter. Put another way, I would see the question of whether or not 2257 compliance statements are a good idea as part of the basic legal framework that the Foundation can have a view on when assessing contributors' compliance or non-compliance with its Terms of Use. Likewise, contributors have a right to know which behaviours might or might not lead to their having their editing privileges revoked by the Foundation. I can understand the reluctance to take a stand on the issue one way or the other, but it is an important issue that IMO it would be better to have settled, one way or the other. --JN466 04:36, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

DE-wikinews changes

For some clarifying: user mabdul is not an active user in de-wikinews. The consensus he claimed for the changes in picture-Licences yet was not even asked for within the very,very small comunity of active users. Despite this: I, as a high active user strongly support any EDP to give de-wikinews a maximum of freedom in using pictures beyond the limitation to the now given range of possible picturelicences. (This is due to my vision of a real successful (german) wikinews). Regards. --Itu (talk) 18:53, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Itu, without divulging the contents of the email I received, I can safely tell you that everything you said above directly matches to what mabdul told me. I see no deception or ill intent in what he said: he did not claim consensus and specifically said he was not an active community member. I believe he's been fairly representing himself and saying clearly that he's not trying to represent the community.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi. In no way, i would have described mabduls actions as a deception or bad intention(as i fully agree with that intention!), thats far beyond what i said. I would have killed him, but he's still alive ;). But in fact mabdul for now acts 'self-driven'. I had to search some minutes: madbul spoke about 'somehow consensus' at #wikimedia-office at frenode, what's not true as i do not remind any votes or statements of support(nor decline!). I do not know what exactly he wrote in his email, but i do not recognize a special need for private communication in this issue. The Point still is, that not even my support in this case is enough, we need in fact some consenus at de-wikinews (regardless how formal!) and in my opinion a small consensus should have been the first step.

But now i will look what you/wikimedia will respond. I think its a good choice to give statements at our „village pump“. Regards. --Itu (talk) 21:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

"Declaration of Internet Freedom"

FYI (if you're not already aware of it), this caught my attention and may be something of interest. -- RA (talk) 20:31, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

email

I sent it through your en:wp user name.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:58, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Updating Office action policy

I'd like to bring your attention to the recent update with Office actions. The current policy should reflect the new developments. Your comment would be appreciated. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

WMF legal

There is concern by a BLP on en:wp about an IP vandal that libelled the BLP. I don't know if the BLP will pursue it to court if the ISP helps indentify the vandal. The article is due to be deleted soon. What is the WMF policy concerning the histories of a deleted article for court purposes? I assume that a deleted article is still accessible for purposes such as this. The edits were never oversighted nor rev-deleted. If they are can we assume that they are still accessible as well? I don't get over to this wiki much so you may wish to respond by email or my en:wiki talk page.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:17, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Article histories, and anything that we store, remain subject to court orders. If ordered to provide the history by a court of competent jurisdiction, we will do so. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Resolved.

. Thanks. I will relay that info to the BLP.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

RfD

Hello Philippe. Please see here when you've time. Regards. — MA (audiencia) 11:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: tpi.wikipedia- your message in the Local pub (Bung ples)

Philippe - thank you for your comments on the proposal for removal of GS access to tpi.wikipedia.org. I assume you found out about it through the thread on the Stewards Noticeboard here, so in my best, poised condition possible, I will explain in a slightly less impolite manner than I managed there, what the issue is.

As Seb az86556 pointed out on the SN, the proposal for Global Sysops was passed by a majority of the larger Wikipedias, leaving the smaller ones like ours in the dark, and without a voice. Where a community as small as ours exists, it is rare to find anyone commenting on anything. A proposal that sits without objection at tpi.wikipedia is generally taken as being read, quite simply because the community is so tiny that no procedure for gaining a consensus exists. I gained my administrative privileges the same way; we implemented the abuse filter sitewide in the same way.

My concern with having people performing actions there, is that they may not understand how our little fold works. Take the issue I raised concerning Vituzzu, for which albeit he has now apologised. He comes on to the site in his capacity as a steward, unblocks a bot which I blocked (for what I considered to be a valid reason, despite my wording it wrong), and I then discover that he owns said bot. Now anywhere else, that is abuse of administrative privilege - to unblock yourself or one of your alternate accounts. Here, I got shot down because I was apparently the one in the wrong for blocking it in the first place.

Without any indication of who owned that bot, and nothing on the user or talk pages, I consider myself well within my rights as an admin to have blocked that bot (Irclogbot) - the name suggested to me a bot which logs IRC conversation back to Wikipedia, something we forbid.

All I was after was a bit of common courtesy, as an active administrator. Leave a note on my talk page, ask me to unblock the bot, and if I don't respond, then I don't mind if someone does it. But to simply walk in and unblock their own account without so much as a "hello" is what got my hackles up.

It discourages me to think that I'm working on a Wikipedia which has such a tiny little voice that nobody up in the higher echelons of decision making listens. We have to have 5 active users to get consensus. I don't even think we have 5 active users. But that's not mentioned in the section you go to in order to find out about opting out of the GS policy. It should be made clear.

But again, as nicely quoted by Seb az86556 - "[you're] in the same quagmire as every other small wiki." - Oh how true that is.

BarkingFish (talk) 22:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of Office actions

Philippe,

Actions by the office used to be limited in scope to deletion of content that posed an imminent legal risk to the Foundation. After the Wikipedia ACTRIAL overrule, and the Commons ban issue, that seems to no longer be true, and Office actions seem to now be applied well outside of that old scope. I haven't received any feedback from the Foundation at the m:OFFICE talk page, and since it ultimately concerns WMF, I think that would be useful. Since policy should follow practice, I would like to change the OFFICE policy to read the following:

• The Wikimedia Foundation owns the Wikimedia sites, and as such retains final authority over them. Any action undertaken by WMF may be marked or noted as an official act of the Wikimedia Foundation. Such actions overrule normal mechanisms such as community consensus and are final. Users with technical privileges allowing reversal of these actions may have such privileges revoked if used to do so without explicit permission from the Foundation.

I think this would be simple and reflect current practice. Would you have any trouble with changing the policy page to such? Seraphimblade (talk) 04:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'd actually prefer not to make that change, I think. I have a couple of reasons why: first, ACTRIAL was not an office action. It was a decision made by the engineering community, which doesn't meet the definition of office actions. Those decisions have historically been made by that community and that continues. There is no shortage of examples throughout the history of Wikipedia, including when Brion and the engineers interceded about anonymous editing, etc. So your case is built on a flawed premise, if you're considering that as a pillar of it.  :)

The commons ban was an extraordinary act, and hopefully will never need to be repeated. I believe in writing policy to the norm, not the exception. While it's possible that there may be a time when we need to act outside the norm again, I think attempting to proactively create policy like that is liable to cause problems. I'd prefer to leave it as is. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 04:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Fae

• en:User_talk:Philippe#Fae.27s_statement
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AF%C3%A6&diff=503503595&oldid=503501914

Are you ever going to clear up the confusion? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 23:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I have made all the statements that I intend to make on this. Theres no way to engage with this without massive drama, so I choose not to. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 10:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You should've said something to the community. Peace is a means, not an end. Peace / "no drama" resulted in confusion, distrust, and a lost of faith in the WMF. I don't believe in peace for the sake of peace; I believe in peace when peace produces good results. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:44, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm in possession of all the facts and you are not. It is my belief that no good would have come from issuing any further statements. I'm sorry you disagree. This is my final word about this. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I quite understand the dilemma, Philippe - making a statement either way would either paint Fae as a liar or ArbCom as idiots. Neither option is very palatable, is it, so you choose to remain silent. It's the politic thing to do but I'm afraid many people would not see it as a particularly ethical course of action. "Truth never damages a cause that is just." Prioryman (talk) 07:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

@Philippe: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/9447161/Wikipedia-charity-chairman-resigns-after-pornography-row.html – This is the result of your actions and your subsequent silence. Are you proud or ashamed of that silence? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 03:03, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Michael, there is a longstanding principle on meta that we don't export disputes from other wikis to this one. Please follow that principle. And oh - by the way - I'm older than 12, and can't be baited by transparent attempts like the one above. :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 03:28, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Philippe, that was a dishonest response. Meta is for cross communication of all types and Wikimedia Chapters are inherently connected to Meta regardless of them having an individual Wiki for their internal use. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problem with File:Comparison of Projections with Chapter Input - APPENDIX A.pdf

Thank you for uploading File:Comparison of Projections with Chapter Input - APPENDIX A.pdf. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the file. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their license and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at this page. Thanks again for your cooperation. MGA73 (talk) 17:59, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please also check the other files at Special:ListFiles/Philippe_(WMF). --MGA73 (talk) 18:01, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Voting changes

Why are there such changes to voting eligibility? It seems you are using eligibility based on the image filter referendum in part. However, neither had consensus to have such limited voting eligibility and there was no discussion. Furthermore, you limited the time to one week, which is extremely short on Meta. We do have standard RfC traditions here and it seems like this has been abruptly changed. Meta is still a community project, and isn't the Foundation project, so I find this a little concerning that you have taken it upon yourself as Staff to make these changes. It also crosses potentially crosses the line for the immunity, and I am surprised you are doing this on the WMF account. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I am doing it as an assignment from the Deputy Director, who is running the integration process. To what are you referring, regarding changes to voting eligibility? This is not an RfC - it's a straw poll; RfC policies quite simply don't apply. Yes, the time was limited to one week: that's a requirement in order to stay on the integration timeline. I assure you that our immunity is not compromised by this; it has sign off from the General Counsel. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If you are doing it from the Deputy Director, then you are interfering with content and violating the protection. This has been talked about a lot. And we don't have straw polls on Meta, so making things up as you go along without community input it bad. Meta is run by the community. The Foundation has the Foundation wiki for a reason. The General Counsel has been wrong many times, and the failure in Germany should have had anyone on that case replaced for failure and bad advice. You guys are putting the content of myself and others at risk for what reason again? Ottava Rima (talk) 01:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Ottava, meta is an organizational wiki. Foundation staff has always engaged here. I've been assured countless times that we're well within the limits of Section 230 to do so. I'm sorry you disagree - I'll go with the folks with law degrees who are unanimous in this. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Meta is our Wiki. I have been on this Wiki for a very, very long time. Don't talk down to me. You have the Foundation Wiki. You do not control the policies and content of this Wiki or any others. You cannot violate consensus and make up things. And if you cost the Foundation millions of dollars when that lawsuit fails and for violating our protection, I hope you apologize and resign. Our donations are for our servers to host our content, not for political shenanigans, attacking businesses, and going against the law in trying to control content. Oh, and by the way, you already lost in Germany from that failed counsel. There are many outside lawyers expecting Wikipedia to go down hard. Take your head out of the sand. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I remind you, Ottava, that I was a meta editor long before I joined the staff of the Foundation. It's my wiki too. :-) I'm sorry you feel I'm talking down to you - that's not the intent. I've laid out clearly what legal practitioners say. You disagree with them - that's fine. But I choose to go with the group of people who are paid to make that call. At this point I'm disengaging from this conversation, because it seems obvious to me that you're coming at it from an immovable position; I'm not interested in continuing to try to change your mind when it's made up. That's a waste of both of our time. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Saying you were a meta editor means that you had experience and should have known better. That means you can't play ignorant. We have admin elected by the community, not appointed by the Foundation. There is a very good reason for that. And I don't care what people who are paid for the Foundation tell the Foundation - they have been wrong in the past and are not top rate. Put your money where your mouth is and promise to resign and fall on the blade if the law suit goes badly for the Foundation. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Travel Guide: Naming poll open

Hi there,

You are receiving this message because you edited the initial naming straw poll for the Wikimedia Travel Guide.

The proposed naming poll is now open and you can vote for as many of the proposed names as you wish, if you are eligible. Please see Travel Guide/Naming Process for full details on voting eligibility and how the final name will be selected. Voting will last for 14 days, and will terminate on 16 October at 06:59:59 UTC.

Thanks, Thehelpfulone 23:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Ping

I thought you wanted to speak to me? Anyway, I'm on IRC now. :) Trijnstel_talk 15:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Licensing question

Sorry to bother you but I was not sure who to turn to, but need your help or direct us to someone who can help us clarify about this discussion with a global sysops on wikipedia article lisensing? Thanks and regards.--Lam-ang (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Lam-ang, let me see if I can get one of our lawyers to weigh in. No need to apologize for bothering me, it's what I do. :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Sue Rangell

Hi Philippe, there's no such global account for that username! --Vituzzu (talk) 23:13, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, that was supposed to be a w: account. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

No pb, my aim was just fixing the problem ;)

--Vituzzu (talk) 23:04, 27 December 2012 (UTC)