User talk:Geoffbrigham

Welcome to Meta!

Hello Geoffbrigham, and welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). Happy editing!

-- 18:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

A Community health barnstar for you!

	Community health
	I appreciate the work you are putting into re-writing the TOS. The end product will be much better because of your patience in answering questions and explaining your thinking here on meta. You have shown yourself to be a true wikimedian at heart, and someone who has the best interest of the community in mind. --FloNight 22:25, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Legal Counsel Opinion

Please read. I would like an official opinion of our legal counsel over such matters. I find it a little unsettling that people are trying to use "de minimis" as a way to rationalize keeping of an image when the copyrighted part of the object, i.e. the picture, is the focus of the image and plays a large role. I am especially bothered by this when this important paper that is linked in our de minimis policy at Commons says that de minimis is not being recognized as it once was by our courts and only applies on matters when the average person cannot identify the material.

I would also like the opinion regarding matters when there is a "useful object" that has a sticker on it or other identifying markers that contain potentially copyrighted information, especially when the stickers have company logos and trademarks that are beyond simple text. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

TOU

Hiya

Please send us a reminder when you are done updating the TOU so that we can further comment. Cheers. Anthere 09:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for the compliments. If I ever thought you were too far off base, you would have already heard from me.

I'm happy to be able to make suggestions, and even happier when I know that I can rely on you using your best judgment in freely accepting or rejecting them. If I thought you were simply a scribe who was taking orders from amateurs, rather than a well-informed, thoughtful professional who isn't afraid to reject suggestions, then I'd feel much more constrained and much more worried. Under the present circumstances, I can make a suggestion in full confidence that good ideas will be considered and bad ideas will be ignored. It's very pleasant, very functional, and very freeing.

I think you're doing a great job with this discussion. Thanks. WhatamIdoing 19:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

thx

Thanks for your work @Term of use. :) Seb az86556 09:39, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm

[1] I think this is unfair. The WMF needs the right to ban per OFFICE violations and other serious matters that cannot be dealt with by the community because of both privacy and legal concerns. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Quoted from English Wikipedia

Dear Mr. Bingham:

I wrote this on English Wikipedia, which seems not to have been actively monitored. I remain interested in your opinion.

Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:50, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Children as administrators

Dear Mr. Brigham:

At a recent RfC on allowing non-administrators to view deleted pages, you stated that the proposal would probably create legal problems in the short run (and Congressional acts as a possible longer-run consequence).

“	I've been asked to step in and give the Foundation's legal view on this question. My view as the Foundation's general counsel is essentially the same as that outlined by Swatjester [below]. Allowing non-administrator users to have access to deleted pages would vastly increase the frequency and volume of legal complaints. (It could have even worse consequences than that in the long term, up to and including corrective legislation by Congress, which would be a disaster.) It is difficult to overstate how much legal and practical difficulty this would cause the Foundation. To be frank, community adoption of such a disastrous policy would create an actual emergency that would likely require Board intervention. I normally favor and support community-driven initiatives, so please believe me when I say I am not raising this set of concerns lightly. The current system is not broken -- so the best advice is 'don't fix it.' MikeGodwin (talk) 13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)	”
—13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC) Mike Godwin, legal counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation

“	I have been asked a couple of times whether, as WMF's present general counsel, I share Mike's view as expressed above. I can confirm that I fully agree with Mike's assessment. Geoffbrigham (talk) 02:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)	”
—02:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC) Geoff Brigham, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation

Your response provokes me to ask two questions:

1. Is there any legal concern with allowing children (minors) to become administrators, which allows them to view deleted content?
2. Should not Wikipedia require that all administrators affirm being 18 years old?

Thank you for your attention. (I would understand if you would prefer not to state anything at the present time or here.)

Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Yepp, lemme chime in and say I'd like to have this answered as well. thanks. Seb az86556 00:19, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I should have cross-posted my answer here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Geoffbrigham#Children_as_administrators Cheers. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Public campaign finance

Hi Geoff, thanks for asking Mike about ways to avoid constitutional amendments last night. If you feel like fighting corruption in Washington, please see w:Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Ideas#Suggestions and w:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Best way to get lobbying money out of Congress?. I sent Mike email as he requested. Tashir 19:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

'Safeguarding'

It would be much appreciated if the issue of 'safeguarding' (in relation to children and other vulnerable groups) was raised by yourself for community debate during an appropriate 'office hours' session.

This is being raised with you, as you appear to be the most appropriate WMF representative to initiate a debate on how compatible various projects policy (and unwritten custom) are with various jurisdictions approach to 'safeguarding'.

It is appreciated your primary experience would be with the US situation, but a debate would need need to take into account the differing approaches of other jurisdictions, such as the UK.

Sfan00 IMG 20:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe Google and every other search engine should safeguard kids before nonprofits are expected to? But why do you even care? [2] James Salsman 05:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Your recent edits...

See Special:Contributions/Geoffbrigham...aren't you supposed to be on holiday? :-) Mike Peel (talk) 18:57, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I hate to say it but I'm addicted to you guys. 12-step program is clearly needed.  :) Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Step 1, go somewhere without internet access (I recommend somewhere very remote and hilly like Scotland). Step 2, wait for internet withdrawal symptoms to fade away (this may be the tricky part, and may take a while). Step 3, relax and enjoy yourself. For Steps 4-12, see step 3. Mike Peel (talk) 20:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Italian website blocked for one defamatory phrase by all 226 Italian ISP’s

Hello Geoff, I think this might interest you: Wikimedia_Forum/Italian_Wikipedia#February 2012: Italian website http://vajont.info/ blocked for one defamatory phrase by all 226 Italian ISP’s. I saw german press coverage alluding to the Italian Wikipedia strike. Best wishes --Atlasowa (talk) 11:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Atlasowa. Yes ... this is concerning. I have asked one of our legal interns to post on our censorship wiki page. I appreciate these updates. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Updated the court decision of March on Legal and Community Advocacy/Censorship#Italy. Best wishes --Atlasowa (talk) 15:37, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Commons, Meta, and child protection

commons:Commons:Child_protection, commons:Commons_talk:Child_protection, Talk:Pedophilia#Update – Can you please provide some advice on Commons and here on Meta? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:13, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I will take a look at this and post on the page. Thanks, Michaeldsuarez. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Michaeldsuarez - In light of the extensive discussion underway, it is a bit unclear to me what questions you would like me to provide thoughts on. (I of course can only represent legally the Wikimedia Foundation, not the community, on these matters, but will be happy to provide some ideas for purposes of the discussion.) The Wikimedia Foundation does take child protection seriously. We believe that the community should make responsible decisions for the good of the projects and their users. The updated terms of use (Sec. 4) set out specific prohibitions on certain behavior, but the community is free to provide for more protective measures, as English Wikipedia did on the matter. Geoffbrigham (talk) 08:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

To make that link work, you have to first tell it to look for the page on the English Wikipedia, thusly: en:Wikipedia:Child protection. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:18, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, WhatamIdoing. Made the change. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

While we're on the subject, sometimes you have to add a colon at the start, like this: [[:Category:Whatever]] (or [[:commons:File:Whatever]]) to make the link show up. If you type a link in your comment and it's invisible when you preview the page, try adding a colon at the start. The colon seems to signal "make this be a clickable link". The different wikis seem to be configured slightly differently, and some of them require this more often than others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

terms of use -- copyrights

Hi Geoffbrigham, with respect to the new terms of use, I'm seeking your advice on a translation issue in section 7, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use#7._Licensing_of_Content. It says there, for instance, "Text to which you hold the copyright" -- however, there won't be a good literal translation of that in at least many European jurisdictions. For instance, in the French translation, it is translated "Texte dont vous détenez les droits d’auteur" -- which is the literal translation but doesn't capture the full meaning of "copyright," since the French "droits d’auteur" conception is bound to the author, and cannot be transfered to, say, a company, giving a somewhat inaccurate impression of the underlying statement in the Terms of Use. The same problem occurs in German with the local term "Urheberrecht". Hence, I've kept the English term "Copyright" in the German translation for now, but I don't think that is particularly helpful. How should we deal with this? I see several options: 1) use the local term for "Copyright" (literal translation); 2) use the local term for "Copyright", but add the original term in brackets, i.e. Text, an dem Sie Urheberrechte ("Copyrights") halten; 3) do not translate "Copyright" at all to reflect the different underlying conception, 4) translate "copyright owner" as something like "owner of respective/required rights", "owner of copyrights or sufficent rights of use".
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance, —Pill (talk) 11:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Pill, thank you for your invaluable work on this. We so much appreciate it. With respect to your question, I would choose Option 2 (especially since the English version is controlling). Thanks much for your thoughful question and setting out these options to make it easy for me. :) Cheers. Geoffbrigham (talk) 03:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your quick reply. Cheers, —Pill (talk) 15:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Wanted

to point u there: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pedophilia#Is_there--Angel54 5 (talk) 21:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

DMCA notice to dropbox for a Wikipedia document

Hello Geoff! FYI, yesterday a german journalist (Mario Sixtus of the Elektrischer Reporter show on german state TV ZDF) twittered that this document on dropbox.com was blocked by a DMCA takedown notice from the german PR crisis manager Wolfgang Stock. The document in question is a copy of this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IQWIGundCo.pdf and I don't see any legitimate copyright claim, but a lot of embarassing facts. It is a documentation of the paid-editing and astroturfing activities of Wolfgang Stock and wiki-watch regarding Wikipedia. This scandal (short english summary) got quite some news media coverage in 2011 by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Spiegel and others (see also a video by Spiegel online). Der Spiegel even included the dropbox-link in its article on wiki-watch. Mario Sixtus has filed a Counter Notification. We 'll see what happens next. Best wishes --Atlasowa (talk) 17:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Atlasowa. I will ask someone to look at this.

Michelle just gave me a briefing. This is between third parties so there is little that we can do, but I agree that it is worth watching. Thanks for the heads up. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The dropbox-link is back and working. For some background info see this german blogpost (no details). Best wishes --Atlasowa (talk) 09:15, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Resurrection of Italian "Blog Killer Law"

Italian Wikipedia is discussing Open Letter/ Banner. See links on Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Censorship#Italy. --Atlasowa (talk) 11:10, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again for letting me know. This is quite interesting. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

FYI

Hello. There's a legal question for the Foundation at the Wikimedia Forum here. I thought letting you know was appropiate. Regards. —Marco Aurelio (audiencia) 13:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Marco. I believe Philippe and Kelly addressed it. I appreciate your letting me know. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Kudos

You probably don't follow Jimmy Wales' talk page on en.wp, so I thought I'd pass along his compliment: he thinks the Foundation's handling of the Terms of Use discussion was "superlative". Congratulations to you and your team for earning such high praise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you WhatamIdoing. Our team deserves some credit, but most really goes to the community, especially thoughtful contributors like yourself. You folks really made it a better - less legalistic - document. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Note he's basically slapping down Esetzer in that comment, so there's a certain nuance which should be kept in mind. Anyway, I'll put in my compliments as to your politeness and professionalism in the process. I'm not sure about certain aspects of the evolution of various provisions, but either way, it was all well-played on many levels. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)