Wikimedia Foundation Legal and Safety Contacts FAQ
Many countries require websites to show clear contact information for legal and safety reasons. Wikimedia projects have handled this variably, resulting in inconsistencies and outdated or missing details. To fix this, the Wikimedia Foundation has created a single “Legal and Safety Contacts” page, to be linked in the footer of each wiki page. This will ensure that everyone has access to accurate and up to date Legal contact information. If wikis have existing “Contact” pages and links, the community will update these to prevent confusion. We will insert the new links on different wikis in stages, based on our assessment of legal risk and necessity. Translation of the new page legal contacts page will be gradual, and we hope that people will volunteer to help.
FAQ
Why is this necessary?
Many countries have laws that require websites to clearly show how to contact the organization that operates them. This contact information can be used for things like reporting urgent issues or sending official legal notices (for example, if a court case is being filed). Usually, websites meet these requirements by including a “Contact” link in the footer of every page.
Until now, Wikimedia projects have handled this in different ways – usually, the community itself has created a Contact page (often copied from another wiki). The pages linked from this Wikidata item show how inconsistent things have become. Some wikis now provide very outdated or incorrect information—such as old office addresses or staff members who no longer work here. Others, including well-established ones, don’t have a contact link at all.
Because of these gaps, the Wikimedia Foundation has even missed important legal notices, including one case where we lost in court without knowing a lawsuit had been filed. Creating a new, consistent “Contact Us” page will help prevent problems like this and ensure people everywhere can easily reach us when they need to.
What’s changing?
The Wikimedia Foundation will create a new “Legal and Safety Contacts” page on https://foundation.wikimedia.org. This will contain legally mandatory contact details, and some other contact details that people can use if there is a safety-related emergency. Over time, this page can be translated into other languages (which is also what happens with the Foundation’s Privacy Policy, the website Terms of Use, etc). The Wikimedia Foundation can easily keep this page up to date, for example if our contact details change, or new legal requirements apply.
We will add a link to this new page in the footer of wiki pages (i.e., at the bottom of the page).
What if a wiki already has a “Contact” link?
If your wiki already has a more general “Contact” page (for example, the Wikipedia:Contact pages on French-language Wikipedia), that link can stay. However, the link and/or page should be modified to avoid any confusion with the new Legal and Safety Contacts link we’re adding.
- If a community “Contact” link is already in the page footer, we will give that link a new title. We will do this to avoid confusion with the new link we are inserting into the footer. However, the community can later change this to other preferred wording.
- If the community’s “Contact” link is instead in the sidebar, we will leave it untouched. The community can decide what to do with it.
If your wiki already has a page that specifically includes the Wikimedia Foundation’s contact details for use by lawyers, law enforcement authorities etc, then the community will need to change that page, or remove it, to prevent overlap. For example, German Wikipedia’s “Impressum” page could be renamed to “Disclaimers”, and the Foundation contact information at the top of that page could be removed. The modified page would then focus on general warnings or disclaimers—like this French Wikipedia page. We are not reviewing or proposing any changes to “disclaimer” pages at this time – our current project only concerns Legal and safety contact information.
Does this change where people need to report things?
No. First and foremost, content issues should still be reported directly to the wiki community, and official legal complaints, documents (etc) should still be sent directly to the Wikimedia Foundation. Our project does not change this, but it will hopefully result in less misdirected communication.
I thought the Volunteer Response Team (VRT) worked for WMF anyway? Why does it matter whether things go to info@wikimedia.org or legal@wikimedia.org ?
The VRT reads and replies to emails sent to addresses like info@wikimedia.org, info-es@wikimedia.org, etc. It does not legally represent the Wikimedia Foundation. The VRT can be a great way to get help, even for lawyers and their clients, especially since VRT members can decide to edit project content themselves. VRT members act as individual members of the community, applying community policy. Their actions are not subject to WMF’s Office Actions Policy. WMF does not tell VRT members what to do, or what to change.
This is a common point of confusion, for lawyers sending a complaint about project content. Even in lawsuits, we often see lawyers telling a judge that they notified WMF, and WMF made edits to a Wikipedia article - when in fact, it was a VRT agent, acting independently of WMF. Legally, there is a significant difference. Our new contact page will clearly explain why it can be a good idea to contact VRT, but why that is not treated as legally equivalent to contacting WMF.
The new page hasn’t been translated into my language
We strongly encourage volunteers to contribute to a translation. By helping translate it, you can have a lasting impact on people’s ability to get help on Wikipedia, for many years ahead. General guidance is available here: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Translations_guidelines
Can I suggest a better translation for the new link?
Thank you! Leave a talk page message so we can consider it.