User talk:Philippe (WMF)

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Archives
2010–2011 2012

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Beyond removing the category, some of these user pages probably need to be edited (e.g., User:Rand Montoya) to remove outdated or misleading contact information.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, [1] – 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 ([2]). 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 [3], (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)

Unanswered question

Hi Philippe, I would like to know if you may give an answer to this unanswered question of 2 January 2013. Thanks. Yoav (talk) 08:46, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

January 2013 metrics meeting agenda item

Hi Philippe, you're mentioned on the agenda but I didn't see your presentation. Did it get skipped? --Pine^✉ 23:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

(tps) Hi Pine, yes it did. Erik said that it would be shifted to the next one on IRC and at about 53:55. Thehelpfulone 23:16, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! --Pine^✉ 23:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

WebCite

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=WebCite&diff=5244937&oldid=5244875 – Can you please clarify? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:51, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

WMF budget

Philippe - I have a few questions about the WMF budget if I may, for the Wikipedia book which is nearing completion, except for a chapter about the WMF. This refers, pp 58 and 59 especially. Would you be able to help? If not, is there someone else from the Foundation who could comment? Let me know. Peter Damian (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to say definitively who (if anyone) might be best positioned to answer you, without knowing the nature of the questions. "The budget" is rather a broad topic :-) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Narrowing this down. Pp 58-9 contain some figures about the plan [4]. I can get the numbers for the 'plan' to add up on p.58, namely to $17,558. However the corresponding column on the next page is a mystery. The total is given as $42,070, but I can't make sense of it. If you add the numbers in that column to the total on the previous page, you get $45,179, leaving $3,109 unexplained. Peter Damian (talk) 17:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ed, did you see that some items carry a footnote saying "This is included in the FDC allocation, which is a separate line item. It is not double counted"? Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I did, but it still doesn't make sense. If you eliminate the four items which total $4,459, you are left with a sum total of $40,720, which is different from the stated total of $42,070. Peter Damian (talk) 12:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

The numbers add up correctly to 42,070 when entered into Google Calculator. It will be difficult to help you without knowing exactly how you arrived at different sums. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Oops the reason is I keyed in one of the numbers wrong 1,502 for legal, not 152. My mistake (although the FDC allocation bit was genuinely confusing. Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 19:28, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Meta:Centralnoticeadmin

Hi Philippe. I changed the end dates of two staff members on Meta:Centralnoticeadmin from "indefinite" into "1 July 2013" as that was mentioned on Meta:Administrators before. I know that you probably did this on purpose, but since they can edit in the MediaWiki namespace with this right I think it's important that people only have it when they need it. Why did you fully protect Meta:Centralnoticeadmin btw? I don't think that's needed ... oh and I posted a note on Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat that bureaucrats can now give this right to people who need to manage the CentralNotices instead of giving administrator rights. With regards, Trijnstel_talk 17:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Community advocacy

Philippe - again for the book. What is 'community advocacy'? It's not stuff like trademarks, copyright and so on, which I assume is handled by the main part of the legal department. What does your team look at? Grateful for any help. Peter Damian (talk) 09:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi - you may want to look at slides from February's Metrics and activities meeting where Philippe talked about this, you can see the video on YouTube. Thehelpfulone 14:17, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

thank you mr helpful! that was very helpfulPeter Damian (talk) 11:54, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Meanwhile, having looked here. Three initiatives are referred to 1. "Support our non-English speaking communities, by e.g. translating summaries of critical initiatives to top sites, monitor discussions, and summarize them back". This is clear and self-explanatory 2. "Identify and learn from top Wikimedians worldwide.Figure out who these people are, so that we can learn from them". This is not at all clear. Who are the 'top Wikimedians'? How do you identify one of these? And what did you learn from them? Question: would a top content contributor to one of the Wikipedias count as a top Wikimedian? Have you identified any of these? If so, what did you learn? 3. "Build a small, diplomatic, and multi-lingual team of Community Advocates. Not just translators: they’re familiar with the communities and able to step into difficult situations and give us context". OK so the 3rd of the three activities is to build a team of people to do the first two inititiatives. Of the first two, the inititiative explicitly says 'not just translators', so that seems to rule out the first inititiative. So the team is actually focused on identifying top Wikimedians and learning from them? Peter Damian (talk) 12:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Likewise the video repeated the slides, although there was a little more colour on what initiative 3 might be like. Philippe's presentation is around 43:00, by the way. Peter Damian (talk) 13:01, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter - actually, close but not totally accurate. For instance, I don't say that they're not translators - I say that they're not JUST translators. They'll be doing a good deal of translation work, no question. But we want more than passive translators, we want people who are (or can become) experts in the communities that speak the languages they do.

As for the definition of "top Wikipedians", you're exactly right. A top content creator would absolutely be someone we'd pay attention to. We're also looking at those who are influential (in whatever respect) in the communities, in an attempt to learn from them, and to open up lines of communication. We're making a special effort, in other words, to dig past the people who easily communicate with the WMF, and find the ones who are doing work on the projects that DON'T easily and naturally seek us out.

We have done some extremely brief pilot testing into our ability to locate those people, and I'm pleased with what we've found so far. However, because I was delayed on hiring, I am not yet able to confidently say what we have or have not learned. Frankly, it needs more study. I'm just now to the position where I'm about to make an offer to the first member of our team to be hired since the department was announced (excluding Maggie, of course, who came over with me).

So we have three initiatives, yes - 1) hire a team, 2) seek out top Wikipedians, and 3) Support the non-English speaking communities, and learn from them. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 13:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Philippe. I'm a bit miffed I wasn't contacted, for all the work I have done building up Wikipedia's entries on Medieval Philosophy. (Only joking). Peter Damian (talk) 20:05, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm certain that must be because we're working on the non-English wikis. :-) Couldn't be anything else... Philippe (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia humor

I don't know how much sense of humor you have, but I hope you'll enjoy this. Scroll down to the bottom of the quote list to see the quote in a format that's easier to read. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=IRC%2FQuotes&diff=5259569&oldid=5259076. --Pine^✉ 18:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Global bans RFC

I thought you would like to know that Requests for comment/Global bans has been closed. --Pine^✉ 21:24, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

ID

Hi Philippe. I'm still waiting for the verification of the ID of someone. Could you check if it arrived in the secure mailbox? With regards, Trijnstel_talk 23:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Not yet - can you email me a username or something, and I'll do a search to see if some weird rule caught it? Philippe (WMF) (talk) 23:55, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Harassment comment

FYI: Talk:Harassment_policies#A_meta_approach –SJ talk 

Re: CentralNotice

Hello Philippe! Est-ce que vous parlez français? Je demande car vous portez le même nom qu'un de mes amis! Quelle coïcidence.

Just in case only your name is French and not you (!), I'll continue in English. First, thanks a lot for your help and corrections! I clicked on the link you sent me but the banner doesn't show. Is it because it's not 00:00 UTC yet? I hope everything is fine!?

Let me know if you think of something... Benoit Rochon (talk) 21:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

A request

May you, as a relatively familiar folk with the situation, please look into this. Cheers. --Gryllida 05:37, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I responded there. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 08:51, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Office actions#"Official, formal complaint"

Hello, there's a question for you. :) Thanks, Nemo 14:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I responded there. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I've replied there by the way, let me know if I didn't answer your question. --Nemo 09:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointer, and I apologize for the delay. I've been out of the office. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 09:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Transparent WIKIMEDIA badge

Hi Philippe, do you know who might advise me regarding a WIKIMEDIA badge version for www.wikivoyage.org? We are working on a new www.wikivoyage.org "portal" page with an image background. The current prototype is Www.wikivoyage.org template/temp v8 (it's HTML--to view it, under the drop down arrow next to the Search box on that page select "Preview HTML"). Because I have placed the WIKIMEDIA badge on an area of the background image there that is shaded, the standard badge which is for display on light backgrounds jumps off the page a bit more than is desirable there. So, for the prototype I did a version of the badge with a sightly transparent background so that it blends with the www.wikivoyage.org prototype's background image and does not jump off the page too much. But it needs fine tuning, and branding approval. I'd like to find an SVG of the WIKIMEDIA badge to work from and to run what I develop by someone who can approve it, as it's a Wikimedia branding issue. Who should I contact? Thanks! --Rogerhc (talk) 04:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Roger,

I would start with Jay Walsh... jwalsh@wikimedia.org. I think he's out of the office for a few days, so James Alexander (User:Jalexander) would probably be able to help you.... I'll ping him. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 04:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I love the new draft! It's really very beautiful. I'm happy to help with he branding approval as you tweak it but am still looking for a better svg version of the bad for you. It's one of those things that probably exists somewhere but since it's used only on our sites and only in a relatively similar location god knows where. Hopefully I can find one either tonight or tomorrow. Jalexander (talk) 06:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Continued at User_talk:Jalexander#Transparent_WIKIMEDIA_badge --Rogerhc (talk) 18:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your help with making things run smoothly today. --Pine^✉ 04:21, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I'm happy to help out. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 04:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

FYI: policy proposal from stewards

Hi Philippe. A courtesy to let you know that on behalf of the stewards I have submitted an RFC to the WMF community.

• Requests for comment/Activity levels of advanced administrative rights holders

— billinghurst sDrewth 14:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, billinghurst. I very much appreciate the notice. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 10:36, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Aside: PT request

Dear Philippe - so great to see you in Milan. I regret having to return early thanks to the LHA strike.

I overheard people talking about this pt:wp thread which was only partly resolved. I hear this is still remembered negatively as a sign of non-support; which surprises me b/c I don't think there are very many such explicit public calls for legal aid. (and also b/c the people complaining include, e.g., Teles)

This seems to be a very high-return investment in trust and a 'sense of security'; and a matter of communication more than policy. Plus perhaps payment of a small total amount, across all languages and communities. (e.g., if we allowed spending 5%/year of our "emergency legal support reserve" on reimbursing personal legal expenses incurred by volunteers in such situations.) I'm just sharing this as I came across it, to get it off my mind. While I am always interested in your reflections, there's no need to reply.

Be well, –SJ talk  01:03, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi SJ - it was great to see you as well. Thanks for calling this to my attention, I'll make sure that Geoff is aware of it as well. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 08:21, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Ahh, space-counting :) –SJ talk  02:09, 17 May 2013 (UTC)