Talk:Terms of use/Archives/2012-04

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May 20, 2012

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:NaBUru38&diff=3643997&oldid=1474738

To anyone who still has this page on their watchlists: It appears as if these new terms will come into effect on May 20, 2012. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 16:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

We've got more announcements on that shortly.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/New_Terms_of_use – Will the new Terms of use become effective in April or May? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

May. Thanks, Michael. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
You're welcome. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

4. Refraining from Certain Activities

That section seems overly harsh. While I certainly agree with the principal idea behind it I would have appreciated if some of it had been toned down a bit, particularly concerning bullet points such as "Harassing and Abusing Others", which may be a bit hard to assess objectively. Maybe it would have helped to rephrase the last sentence as "We reserve the right to exercise our enforcement discretion in the case of severe or repeated violations with respect to the above terms." Nageh (talk) 12:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Others are expressing concerns with the "Harassing and Abusing Others" as well:
I also share the concerns that Thekohser brought up. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:47, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Nageh, you've got it exactly backwards. "We reserve the right to exercise our enforcement discretion in the case of severe or repeated violations" means "We will mindlessly enforce these points in all minor, moderate, and one-time incidents." The whole point of the existing sentence is to indicate that they will use discretion, i.e., frequently overlook, minor incidents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
But ... how will you determine what your "enforcement discretion" will entail without getting involved in content? Are you just going to do a "bad word" filter type thing? Or are you going to be more investigative? Addressing stalking, incivility, disruptive editing (whatever that is), copyvio/plagiarism, endlessly discussing other editors on talk pages, or what? How far does this go? Pornography and sexist comments on talk pages? MathewTownsend (talk) 01:55, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Office actions are occasioned by an official, formal complaints made off-wiki (e.g. mail, email, telephone calls or personal meetings). Most of the time, these do not concern user behavior, but rather are about the content of an encyclopedia article. The complaint must be legitimate, not a demand for preferment or attempt at intimidation. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Update on schedule

We'll be launching banners on April 25 announcing the new TOU, to be effective on May 25. We delayed the launch in order to improve translation quality for supporting materials.

Notification will be prominent: via the Centralnotice system, putting a (reasonably sized) banner at the top of the page. No logo, text only. It will run for 30 days to give notice of the change. Then, on May 25 we migrate the new TOU to replace the old TOU, and we're up and live.

As always, happy to take questions.  :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 08:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Philippe,
Thanks for the update! Is this notice only available to logged in users or all? (I assume the latter) And I also assume it will be removable (both logged in and logged out - if they have clicked it away, they can be considered to have read?) Effeietsanders (talk) 12:32, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
It will be to all users, and removable, correct. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

meta:Terms of use and wmf:Terms of use

What's the difference between meta:Terms of use and wmf:Terms of use? -- Jtneill - Talk 18:40, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

wmf:Terms of use are still officially in force until the final role out of meta:Terms of use. At that point, we're expecting that these will replace those. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

self-referential nutshell

The "human-readable summary of the Terms of Use" says "[the user must] adhere to the below Terms of Use..."

This defeats the purpose of a human-readable summary. John Vandenberg (talk) 00:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, John. The human-readable summary can't replace the full text of the agreement. It was inspired by the Creative Common version of the same; their disclaimer describes that as "the user-friendly interface to the Legal Code beneath", but they note that "This Deed itself has no legal value".
That said, it does kind of make it less useful as a summary if they then have to read the full TOU anyway. :) But the summary is much lower-weight than the TOU itself, and it should be easier to make any necessary changes.
Geoff, what do you think? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
As usual, John makes an interesting point. The language at issue is: "You adhere to the below Terms of Use and to the applicable community policies when you visit our sites or participate in our communities." The purpose of the language is to make clear that there are rules of the game that users must follow, including the TOU and other community policies and that they apply not only when you visit but also when you participate. Put another way, the objective is to convey that the TOU is not the exclusive policy that needs to be followed: You need to follow other applicable community policies as well. And the TOU and other policies apply not only when you participate but also when you visit.
I can see an argument that there are better ways to phrase it (though I'm personally fine with the present construction). However, this summary was the subject of much discussion with the community and finalized after obtaining a consensus. The Board has also approved it. If there is a need to change, I suggest we take it up during the next update (probably in a couple of years).
Thanks as always for your thoughtfulness, John. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I have been away/busy/etc and unable to respond until now. The nutshell should not refer to the 'legalcode'; it is suppose to be the human readable version. If you look at the the human readable version of the CC licenses, and the nutshell on policy pages, they summarise the legal code as best as possible, ignore parts which cant be summaried, and are accompanied with an explicit or implicit general disclaimer that the summary isnt authoritative (e.g. "This Deed itself has no legal value"). We already have a disclaimer like this above/before the human readible nutshell; the human readible version does not need to have one item which does this again. The disclaimer is not written into the human readable version; to do so is superfluous, undermines its utility as a summary. To rectify this, we should change:

Terms of Use and Policies — You adhere to the below Terms of Use and to the applicable community policies when you visit our sites or participate in our communities.
to
Community Policies — You adhere to the applicable community policies when you participate in our communities.

This definitely can't wait a couple of years. I hope that this human-readable summary at Terms of use-Summary can be improved incrementally as humans find better ways to summarise the legal code. Obviously strong consensus and possibly even BoT approval will be needed, but given the disclaimer that "It is simply a handy reference for understanding the full terms", it should be possible to have sane improvements made without too much fuss and BoT approval. John Vandenberg (talk) 08:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Translating the Terms of Use centralnotice

Where can I translate the Terms of Use centralnotice that it isn't displayed in English but in Wikipedia resp. user language. Regards, --Michawiki (talk) 20:12, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

If you'd like to drop it on my talk page, with a note as to which language, I'll happily integrate it. Thanks! Philippe (WMF) (talk) 20:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Or you are welcome to start Terms of use/Banner to create your own language version like as the Dutch one. I don't oppose to centralize all submission to Philippe's talk, though. --Aphaia (talk) 23:34, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Distribute Wikipedia

I have been advocating for the idea that Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) should become a wikipedia:en:distributed system for at least six years, and this would be a good time for that to happen, in order to help preserve internet freedom (see the previous section). I have been working on a related project that is actually much more ambitious (so ambitious that even the proposal document is not finished yet...), though to make things simpler I foolishly gave up on making the initial version a real distributed system until recently (a newer, plain wikipedia:en:unicode, diagram of how a distributed, wikipedia:en:semantic web version of the idea would work using wikipedia:en:FOAF+SSL is all I have to show). Creating a distributed system where privately hosted (in many cases by Wikipedia-specialist web-hosting companies and organizations) flagged-revisions-like article variants could be selected for display by one of several competing but closely-synchronized article-name-redirection organizations, which really ought to not need terms of use due to the triviality of their essential task, would be much simpler (though that is not saying much). Other architectures would also be possible, but of course the hardest part would be getting people to agree that a particular distributed architecture ought to be recognized as the successor to Wikimedia's servers. Esetzer (talk) 05:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

the purpose of this talk page is to enable users to leave comments on the terms of use, not to advertise unrelated ideas. —Pill (talk) 05:32, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
The idea is related because it would greatly reduce and distribute the legal risk that the terms of use are intended to address. Esetzer (talk) 05:54, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Go ahead: If you want a free speech platform, or a distributed system, or whatever else, then nobody here is stopping you. The freedom of the press has always belonged to the person who owns the press. The WMF happens to own these. They're telling you how their sites can be used. If you don't happen to like their term for their sites, then go get your own, and decide how you want your site to be used. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
That is obviously a possibility, but the purpose of this section I created is to suggest that the Foundation ought to consider supporting an effort to make a distributed system version of Wikipedia because such a system would be far more consistent with their stated ideals than enacting the new terms of use would (even considering the risks of changing the nature of Wikipedia collaboration somewhat, etc.). Of course it is optimistic to suggest that an organization willingly split itself up, even when there is a promise of reduced legal problems, but it does sometimes happen even in far less idealistic fields of endeavor. Esetzer (talk) 19:05, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Items to be considered next time the Terms Of Use are revised

Suggestions for changes to the Terms Of Use to be considered next time the TOU are revised:

Make the split between the WMF and the Projects more clear

The Terms of Use is idea that the WMF has certain rules and responsibilities which are distinct from those of the groups of volunteers who run the various projects and their language editions.

The WMF owns the trademarks and hosts the websites but does not run the projects. They rarely intervene in projects or project content.

The 'Community' runs the projects including deciding site policies about what content and behaviour is and is not appropriate and banning users who breach those policies.

This distinction is behind a lot of the TOU but I'm not sure the distinction is as obvious to users as it should be. Before the TOU are updated I think there should be some research to check if this distinction is understood. Filceolaire (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "run the project". A WMF project can't be started without the WMF's explicit approval and direct support, and they do sometimes shut them down. They also hand down mandatory requirements for policies on occasion (e.g., copyvio, child protection), and they block and ban users on occasion. It might be more accurate to say that the WMF does not create the content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. The split is not completely clear and the TOU could be clearer on where the split is. Filceolaire (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Right to Fork

Is there a benefit to making the 'Right to fork' the projects clear in the TOU with a commitment from the WMF to make this possible? This would create a gold standard for how we expect Free Culture projects and projects which would like to be seen as free culture projects to behave. People do look to us for a lead and an example.

Could we make a 'licence to fork' the max anyone could get in a dispute (instead of the $1000 in the Limitation of Liability clause)? I think this would be a nice ideological hack against people who sue demanding we change something. Filceolaire (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty much making "what you already own" be the reward for prevailing in a dispute. The right to fork is inherent in the CC-BY-SA license.
Previous people who were advocating for this were demanding not license rights (which they already have), but technical assistance (one recommended the right to make an unsupervised trip into the server room to copy whatever files he wanted). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Sigh. Do we need to go through this again? I was just thinking what a nice thing it would be to have an "FAQ" - Frequently Argued Questions - about the various disputes over these Terms Of Use. By which I mean not a Wikimedia Foundation puff-piece, but e.g. "The Right To Fork - is it a trivial legal defense against copyright law claims, or a does it have any practical effectiveness implications?". -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:17, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes WAID. Clever eh? The right to fork is way more than other websites offer so it seems unreasonable for people to ask for more than that and if the most they can get at the end of the court case is what we are offering to give them for free with no court case then why bother going to court?
Well it might work - and if they sue us anyway it makes them look like assholes. Filceolaire (talk) 23:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Rewrite

I think this would be clearer if it was divided into separate sections:

  • TOU for readers
  • TOU for editors and contributors
  • TOU for re-distributors
  • TOU for lawyers (all the bits about jurisdiction and liability and what to do when there is a dispute).

Each of these people can then quickly go to the bit that applies to them. Legally the TOU for lawyers apply to everyone but if you read them they are all about disputes. If you just want to comply with the TOU then you are not really interested in what happens to people who don't - though I'll understand if a link to the TOU for lawyers has to be added at the end of all the other sections. Filceolaire (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Licenses for 'Books' and printouts

The export function and the 'Book' function seem to be carefully designed to produce documents which comply with the license requirements for redistributing our content so that they could be copied as is and handed out or sold. Can we make a comment in the TOU that these are designed so they can be distributed as is and they should comply with the license requirements. If not then maybe a link to a separate page of guidance for re-distributors. Filceolaire (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Technical stuff, like what is exported when you click a particular link, should not be included in an agreement like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, you have finally agreed with Filceolaire.
The exported version (XML,ODT and PDF) isnt different from reading the HTML. They are all technical. :P
Filceolaire has been very consistent in trying to clarify that the ToU for readers/reusers are very different from people who click the save button on a WMF site. Clicking the save button is contributing to WMF projects, and the WMF needs a way to terminate that if a person is constantly causing problems. However a reader/reuser has a GDFL/CC-BY-SA contract at their disposal, and the ToU cant overrule the license - the only miuse by 'reading' that I can think of is rapid automated fetching of content resulting in server overload. John Vandenberg (talk) 00:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Filceolaire and I often agree.
The problem with treating "readers" and "contributors" separately is that I am both, every time I use the WMF sites, and so are nearly all of the people who fall into the non-reader categories.
Rapid automated fetching would presumably be a misuse by a non-contributing user, and the licenses do not protect this. The license gives you the right to read (copy, modify, etc.) the content, but it does not give you the right to read the content on the WMF websites. The WMF can revoke access to the WMF's copies of the licensed content whenever they choose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
As you say the TOU don't have a lot to say about restricting the readers - Don't try to download the whole thing all at once; Don't treat this as legal or medical advice.
The important TOU for readers are the extra rights our readers have and that readers of other sites don't - you can save, you can print, you can link to anything.
Many people fall into more than one of the categories above however, as I read the TOU I noticed that most of the paragraphs in the TOU apply to only one of these. The paragraphs that apply to readers, reusers and editors are the bits I suggest should go in the 'TOU for lawyers' section - stuff that only applies when there is a dispute. Maybe 'What happens when there is a dispute' would be better heading than 'TOU for lawyers'
I think it would help people find the bit that applies to their current situation if the paragraphs in the TOU were grouped as I described above but maybe they should all be on the same page with separate headings rather than separate pages. Filceolaire (talk) 23:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
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