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Response request

Re: Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#Break_for_additional_comments_3, we are still waiting for a response from the WMF regarding this matter. "Monday at the latest" was last week... :-) Buffs (talk) 15:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I know. :) As I mentioned yesterday, I sent an inquiry in on Friday and will talk to them during my scheduled phone call today, but the San Francisco office is not yet open, so I probably won't have an update for a few more hours. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Well wake them up!!! Oh...wait...It's 5 AM...
In all seriousness, thanks! Buffs (talk) 18:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
LOL! Well, we spoke about it yesterday. I am assured that it is on its way, and trust this is so as I've just gotten the mammoth response to the Commons community question: [1]. I think we should have this today or tomorrow. Sorry for the delay. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Buffs (talk) 21:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
While the confirmation by the legal office is warmly welcomed, there was no disagreement over the PD status of the said content. Content is currently in the Public domain as far as US law is concerned, there is no one disagreeing with this. Did the legal team consider what happened with PD-Soviet images? We have case law to consider that was not even glanced over. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 22:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
The entire statement of the legal team is reproduced at that page. There was no additional communication to me. It's very unlikely that they will have had time to read over the page and the existing arguments. If there is precedent that you'd like them to consider, I'd be happy to pass along specifics. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I can do better than that. Commons:Template:PD-Soviet is the basis of my argument at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#Usage_Option_5. I worry that history will repeat itself and it is very difficult to deal with a sudden flood of copyrighted content that used to be PD even if clearly marked. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 18:57, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Are you asking what the position of the legal team would be if the copyright status of images from a certain country were to change? If so, I think we have precedence for their stance at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/All files copyrighted in the US under the URAA. Based on that, they would likely recommend review and consideration of the usage of each file. Speaking from my personal perspective, I'd say it seems like it would be very useful to categorize these images, if the community decides to accept them, so that they can easily be accessed and reviewed if that happens. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Yahoo! ID

Ping! Have Erik or Philippe gotten back to you regarding a Yahoo! ID? I don't mean to be a bother, but we're all missing CorenSearchBot's functionality very much. :) — madman 06:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I know. :/ It's been a week today since we last tried to touch base with Coren. I've pinged to see if we should move ahead. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Dana e-mailed me account information. Thanks! — madman 23:59, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Fabulous. :) Thanks for updating me. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

question

Hi,

What is WEP - what does it refer to?

Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It stands for Wikipedia Education Program. You can read more about it on the Outreach wiki, at Outreach:Wikipedia Education Program. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Request for help with a technical issue

Hi Maggie, first, mucho congrats on getting a full-time position, that's great news. :) Please keep me in mind when you hire an sssistant, I make very good coffee and am a good desk-neatener.

I wonder if you could help with some liaison. You can read the thread at VP/T here. The short story is that when anonymous readers use redirects, such as WP:RD/L, they often get outdated versions of the target page. This seems to be a problem with the way our servers handle caching of page versions. I tried raising the issue on the #wikimedia-tech IRC channel but didn't really arouse any interest, and I don't really know where to go next. Could you ask someone from the operations side to take a look at the VP/T thread and comment there? I know there have been problems in the past with stale redirects and operation of the job queue but I'm not sure if they are considered solved. The problem is pretty much beyond what any of us locals can help with, so I think we could use some heavyweight tech support, even if it's just to say "can't be fixed" or "don't care". The problem seems to affect usability of the wiki for anonymous editors, if you can help with getting it looked at, that would be great. Thanks & regards! Franamax (talk) 23:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

LOL! When they let me hire an assistant, you will be the very top on my list. While I get my caffeine cold and in a can, I could so use some desk-neatening! I'm popping in under my volunteer hat just to thank you kindly, and to let you know that I will follow up on this (and the above) tomorrow. Right now, I'm hustling to get as much done at WP:CP as I can. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Okay. I have started my chain of inquiry. I don't have an answer for you yet, but I hope to have one soon. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm told that this is likely to play a part: Wikipedia:Purge#How it works. But the question is evidently complex, and it has been passed along to the engineering list. I hope to hear something back soon. The problem with lists, rather than individuals, of course, is that sometimes nobody "owns" an answer, so you don't get one. :/ --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the update. The section you link doesn't say anything about how redirecting pages are handled when the underlying target page is changed (and I have a different quibble with the way it's worded too). I spent a few hours on a journey through an older version of the MW source code and found the function where all the various stuff described actually gets done (invalidating other pages, updating what-links-here, categories, blah blah) but never did actually find code that makes sure the redirect gets updated. That seems mind-boggling to me, how many times have I given an IP a link to a discussion using an abbreviation (like WP:AN#Important_discussion) and they click it and get a stale page (and are somehow supposed to know how to purge it)? I'd really like to know if that's actually the way the software works, I may need to change my communication strategy... Franamax (talk) 00:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm checking to see how long I should wait for the Engineering list to respond, if they're going to, or if I can find somebody else to talk to directly. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I've been pointed to an alternate contact point; if I get nothing before Monday, I will follow up there. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi Maggie, is it time to file this under "they're not saying"? This has come up again at VP/T, so I think it's time to change some wording at WP:Purge and WP:Redirect. It will look a bit silly to say "we're not sure what happens", but if that's all we've got, it needs to be said. There was a suggestion at the now-archived first discussion to file a Bugzilla report, I've never done that before and not sure if it will go anywhere that way, but I might give it a try. Franamax (talk) 21:19, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I haven't entirely given up, although I'm having some problems getting an answer. Since the Engineering list never said anything, I contacted that "alternate contact point" on February 2nd. No response, so I pinged him again on February 9th. Still no response. I asked a colleague to try pinging him day before yesterday, but that hasn't led to any response, either. Let me try somebody else. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Somebody else (specifically User:RobLa) is a winner. :) Evidently, the engineering list did say something, but unfortunately nobody told me, so I didn't know. According to them "problems with squid cache of redirects for anonymous users is a classic problem" with three bugs ("some of them related to variations with urlencoding of parentheses in the url):

Rob expands that "this would be a major engineering project to fix this problem" and speculates that it would be a very time-consuming repair from "a pretty specialized engineer." He believes that the complexity of the problem may be why it hasn't been focused on, simply because it may intimidate those who look at it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:16, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much for the help on this Maggie, I think there is enough here to put together some decent rewording for the relevant project pages. I still think this is a huge barrier to usability, especially for newer anonymous editors (who might become registered long-term editors) who are just not going to understand why the link someone gave them doesn't lead to anything - but I suppose I should learn the software myself then. Anonymous editors and readers don't have much of a voice on this project, or this would have been fixed years ago, no matter how difficult it is. :( Franamax (talk) 07:19, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, that's part of what I'm here for. Let me see what I can figure out in terms of if there's any way to escalate the repair of this. Not sure if I can, but it's worth exploring. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Okay, if you're willing and able, what might be helpful here is if you wrote up a paragraph explaining the impact of this bug - what makes it a huge barrier to usability - which I can present along with a request to expedite. This is in keeping the whole "liaison" thing. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
It looks like a strategic design error to me. If the wiki redirects generated am HTTP redirect the problem wouldn't exist, however we are backed into a corner because of transclusion. I might be wrong. Rich Farmbrough, 14:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC).
Alas, I'm afraid I have no idea. :/ But I'm happy to pass along any insights or thoughts that might lead to a fix being expedited! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
I just noticed this discussion. Confused unregistered users have many times posted about this at Wikipedia:Help desk. Usually they don't realize one of the versions is a redirect. They click "Edit" on the redirecting page and don't understand why the wiki source is different from the displayed content. The reports are frequent enough that Gadget850 recently made a stock answer at Template:HD/redirect (documented at Template:HD). I expanded it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, PrimeHunter! That's interesting. I need to track some of those conversations down. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Here are more from Wikipedia:Help desk: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
Here are a couple from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical): 14, 15. The first says "This problem has been reported by anonymous editors on the RefDesks for at least a year now". I don't follow Wikipedia:Reference desk closely and haven't searched for reports there.
There are also sometimes reports of unregistered users seeing old versions of non-redirect pages but this is less frequent, especially considering that non-redirect pages get far more page views. I have omitted these reports. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
That's fabulous! Thank you so much. :) I'll put something together with this. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

don't know who to contact

Hello,

I've reviewed an article Douglas W. Owsley for GAN that contains a lot of close paraphrasing or copy paste. And it's by an "Online Ambassador, member of the Ambassador Selection Team, and member of the Ambassador Steering Committee", according to the editor's user page. My review is here: Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1. I'm concerned that these Online Ambassadors don't understand the problem. I'm contacting you because I knew User:Moonriddengirl's page, and it sort of said to contact you here. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:11, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) Who you'd contact would depend on what kind of help you need. As User:Moonriddengirl, I'm a volunteer who helps contribute to (when I can!) and maintain content on Wikipedia. I work a lot in copyright issues. As User:Mdennis (WMF), I'm here to facilitate communication and relations between the Foundation and the volunteer communities. I'm not allowed, in that capacity, to contribute to and maintain content on Wikipedia, unless directed by the WMF or in accordance with Wikipedia:Office actions. Part of that work is removing copyright violations, but when we receive a DMCA "take-down" notice.
So, what I can do as Community Liaison is speak on your behalf to the Global Education Program Communications Manager, to ask her to look into whether and how Online Ambassadors are acquainted with core policies such as copyright. While I understand that these Online Ambassadors may typically be simply experienced Wikimedians who are willing to help out, if there is a pattern of problem it may suggest need to evaluate aspects of the program. For instance, when copyright concerns were raised with the Wikipedia:India Education Program, the WMF analyzed that pilot program and will, I believe, be instituting recommended changes in any future initiatives to alleviate the problems there. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Maggie, I can assure you that the WEP and Steering Committee is committed to high standards of quality, as I personally support. That said, there are instances of OAs coming on board that do not have a thorough knowledge of WP policies and guidelines. We will be addressing these issues in SF next month and I will be making recommendations for solidifying minimum criteria for appointment of Ambassadors. Note that Frank thinks it's best that RAs and CAs have little WP experience. The battle for quality is ongoing. For an example of a current OA applicant that does not meet the criteria, see Wikipedia:Online_Ambassadors/Apply/Pine#Discussion. It's puzzling, but other editors sometimes feel overwhelmed to the point that just want to accept any warm body. Maggie, the appropriate contact person at the WMF is not LiAnna, but Jami. I would certainly appreciate your attention or overview of the Douglas W. Owsley article in your personal capacity as User:Moonriddengirl if you are able. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 15:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Cindy. I wish I could, but having been invoked in my staff role I can't take any part in evaluating the content. I haven't looked at the article or the GA discussion for that reason. If there is assistance needed with evaluating copyright concerns, I might recommend User:Dcoetzee, who is also I believe an ambassador but who has worked many years on copyright matters (and actually wrote Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing). I think he has very good judgment in this area.
I haven't passed along any messages yet, as I am waiting to hear if there is need. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Turnitin updates (at your leisure, but it's starting to get exciting)

Hello, Mdennis (WMF). Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Ocaasi t | c 18:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Ocaasi. After the weekend (and a paper I had due on Friday), my mailbox is pretty full, but I'm working on it now and hope to be able to respond to you soon. I look forward to reading about the updates! I'm pretty enthused about the idea. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Mdennis (WMF). You have new messages at Jimbo Wales's talk page.
Message added 22:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for offering another way to ask the WMF besides Jimmy Wales' talk page. Jasper Deng (talk) 22:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Two

Hi! Welcome to the second edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

  • Teahouse celebrates one month of being open! This first month has drawn a lot of community interest to the Teahouse. Hosts & community members have been working with the project team to improve the project in many ways including creating scripts to make inviting easier, exploring mediation processes for troubling guests, and best practices regarding mentoring for new editors who visit the Teahouse.
Springtime means fresh tea leaves...
  • First month metrics report an average of 30 new editors visiting the Teahouse each week. Approximately 30 new editors participate in the Teahouse each week, by way of asking questions and making guest profiles. An average of six new questions and four new profiles are made each day. We'd love to hear your ideas about how we can spread the word about the Teahouse to more new editors.
  • Teahouse has many regulars. Like any great teahouse, our Teahouse has a 61% return rate of guests, who come back to ask additional questions and to also help answer others' questions. Return guests cite the speedy response rate of hosts and the friendly, easy to understand responses by the hosts and other participants as the main reasons for coming back for another cup o' tea!
  • Early metrics on retention. It's still too early to draw conclusions about the Teahouse's impact on new editor retention, but, early data shows that 38% of new editors who participate at the Teahouse are still actively editing Wikipedia 2-4 weeks later, this is compared with 7% from a control group of uninvited new editors who showed similar first day editing activity. Additional metrics can be found on the Teahouse metrics page.
  • Nine new hosts welcomed to the Teahouse. Nine new hosts have been welcomed to the Teahouse during month one: Chicocvenancio, Cullen328, Hallows AG, Jeffwang, Mono, Tony1, Worm That Turned, Writ Keeper, and Nathan2055. Welcome to the Teahouse gang, folks!
  • Say hello to the new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, as being welcomed by experienced editors is a really nice way to make new editors feel welcome.

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. -- Sarah (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Terms translation into Polish

You were close. "Our updated Terms of Use will become effective on May 20th, 2012. Find out more." to Polish should be "Nasze zaktualizowane warunki korzystania wejdą w życie 20 maja 2012 roku. Dowiedz się więcej." In the future, you may get an even faster response at en:WT:POLAND. There is also Polish Wikipedia IRC channel. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 15:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

PS. [2] is in fact in need of a clarification, as it uses both the term "warunki korzystania" (in page title) and "warunki użytkowania" (in body). I don't have the right to edit it, but I'd suggest unifying them to the wk variant (quick google fight suggests 5:1 dominance for that version of the term).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 15:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Terms of Use update / Ninth Circuit

Hey :) Have you (personally or people in general) given any thought to the copyright implications of the Terms of Use clause "If you seek to file a legal claim against us, you agree to file and resolve it exclusively in a state or federal court located in San Francisco County, California."? I'm guessing that means the WMF image hosting now falls within the Ninth Circuit, which means adhering to that interesting translations-made-between-1909-to-1923-abroad case (that name of which I can never remember) at the very least. Thanks, - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 17:04, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I hadn't. :D But as liaison I can and will pass it along to the Legal Team in case it's something they haven't considered. Thanks! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Bleh, just realised I was self-contradictory there. Said case (Twin Books v. Walt Disney Co.) is, of course, not an image case at all but a case about hosting certain texts (also an interesting issue). Ooops! :) - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 01:59, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Image hosting, text hosting. We host it all. :) Yes, we are Ninth Circuit. We've been Ninth Circuit since the head office relocated. I'm not entirely sure when that happened, since I didn't pay much attention to the Wikimedia Foundation then. I've had very little to do with that document (not at all in this hat but little in my volunteer account), but speaking solely as a volunteer it seems like we need to do something about Wikipedia:Public domain, at least to correct this: "Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation, its legal body, are based in Florida, United States." I'll see if I can get any feedback from the WMF legal team on how the Circuit change may impact our presumed date of PD, but it may be a while as they are currently sans interns and slammed. (As an aside, have you ever read Twin Books v. Disney. My goodness. Quackenbush was feeling whimsical that day: "The first appearance of the German speaking Bambi in Germany in 1923 by publication contained no notice to the world that Mr. Salten intended to protect the young German fawn.   Therefore, Bambi was fair game for any deer hunter in the world outside of Germany.   However, in 1926, Salten must have realized this potential danger, and therefore, he republished the German language Bambi, A Life in the Woods in Germany, this time with a notice of United States copyright, in an attempt to afford Bambi some protection from the dangerous American hunters.") --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 10:37, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The most failing area of Wikipedia: NFCC

I don't really know how or where to start, but I believe there are few other areas of Wikipedia that are in such a need for reform as the entire NFCC area. As you probably know, we have a policy regarding the use of non-free content on Wikimedia projects, the Resolution:Licensing policy applying to all Wikimedia projects, including the English Wikipedia. In accordance with that resolution, Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria serves as the EDP of the English Wikipedia. So sometime ago I decided to begin to work in that area and enforce the NFC criteria (actually only 9 and 10c). I know the people willing to do this work can be counted on one hand, which is not surprising, since I've never seen anyone receiving a barnstar for doing that work (and none exist at Wikipedia:Barnstars :) ). In fact, the NFCC enforcers seem to be generally regarded as disruptive and as zealots. I tried to establish a WikiProject to address the issue of NFCC violations (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/NFCC Enforcement), however that attempt failed. I also proposed to create a bot to enforce 10c (see Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 6#NFCC enforcement) which was also shot down (and yes, I know one particular user did 10c enforcement via a bot in the past, but I don't want to expand on this further here).

In short words, the situation is as follows:

We have a policy, that is being violated on numerous occasions. As of 2012-04-22, there are 440933 non-free files on this project and many of them are used in violation of at least one of the NFC criteria. Another problem is that criterion 8 is extremely subjective and an objective determination of whether a file satisfies the criterion is in most cases impossible. Furthermore the practice on Wikipedia is already largely out of sync with the policy and guidelines (for example, it is a common practice to place images of album covers in the infobox of articles, although such use does not comply with WP:NFCI#1). An example of this is the use of File:Rebirth (Pain Album Cover).jpg in Rebirth (Pain album), which clearly violates NFCI#1 and likely also NFCC#8.

I also had a lengthy discussion with another user about this topic here. Of course that was just a discussion between two users and in no way representative of the community as a whole.

Anyway I would really like to have an opinion from the Foundation on this issue. I know this is a lot of stuff, but the situation is quite unsatisfactory in my opinion. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 16:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I will speak to the Foundation to see if they have a statement on the matter. It may be a while before I can respond; they tend to be busy, but I will certainly bring the matter up at the Legal and Community Advocacy team meeting later this week. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I have an opinion from the Legal and Community Advocacy Team:

At the Wikimedia Foundation, we stand firmly behind the Licensing Policy adopted by the Board on 23 March 2007. We recognize that developing and maintaining Exemption Doctrine policies (EDPs) on individual projects is a challenge and appreciate the efforts that the English Wikipedia and similar projects have put into this difficult work. Where uncertainty develops about what an EDP should contain, we would encourage community volunteers to return to the Licensing Policy and review it to ensure that their EDP follows its principles and recommendations. We hope that where differences of opinion develop, volunteers will follow their dispute resolution processes to try to develop a consistent, coherent view of their EDP and how that EDP should best be maintained and enforced to uphold our shared values and mission.

Speaking from my own perspective here as a community volunteer, I do know how serious and tricky the issue is. :/ I hope that you'll be able to draw the community into a thorough discussion of the matter - maybe an RFC? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, an RFC is something another user and I also thought about. The idea was to begin with some kind of poll to get an impression of what the community thinks about this issue. The discussion resulted in me creating this draft page. We also had the idea of starting individual RfCs on NFCC#1, 3a, 8 and 10c. The question is, how to formulate it so that useful data can be collected. Perhaps it should start with trying to determine how much WP:NFCC#Policy is effective in achieving the goals of Resolution:Licensing policy. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 19:17, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Well, in my staff role, I'm afraid that's a bit out of my area, since it's purely a community matter. But based on my own experiences as a volunteer - and not meant in any way to suggest that this is a WMF position, because this is just me talking :) - I think that asking the community to go back to the EDP and make sure that the NFCC and NFC are in line with it might be a good way to start. It certainly falls in line with the WMF opinion. If there are any deviations or points of unclarity, that might show a good area for the community to focus on developing/refining/revising process or policy.
I wish you luck with this! Personally, I think it's a big challenge, but a much needed area for clarity. As a volunteer, I have been long perplexed myself by certain areas of NFC, and I think there's a lot of conflict among good faith users who are trying equally hard to do the "right" thing, but not agreeing on what that right thing is. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughts on this. As someone who has done some work in that area I can confirm that there IS a lot of conflict. I think I will begin with a thorough analysis of the resolution text and the text of WP:NFCC and check how the NFCC policy (EDP) could perhaps be modified while staying in line with the Resolution Licensing Policy. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 13:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
If you are proposing a revision of the EDP, consider proposing something which would make it less vague. It is very easy to add {{di-replaceable fair use}} if someone uploads a photo of a person who is still alive (I see many of those when watching the latest uploads at Special:ListFiles), but discussions on WP:NFCC#3a and WP:NFCC#8 tend to be much more complex due to the ambiguity of the formulations of those two rules. French Wikipedia recently had a vote with the outcome that fair use of stamps and and coats of arms never is allowed, but I don't think anything like this would be accepted by a majority of English Wikipedia users. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I am very uncomfortable with NFCC#3a and 8. They are defined in such an ambiguous way that makes an objective determination of whether the use of a non-free file satisfies the criterion practically impossible which makes these criteria pretty much useless. I am all for reformulating them such that they are less vague or replacing them with something else. I think I need to think about a good formulation for an EDP. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 11:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Courtesy note

I've mentioned you, in a positive light, here and thought it would be courteous to let you know about it. No response necessary, just a courtesy note. Best regards. 64.40.54.43 (talk) 16:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Looking for a name

Could you take a glance at 2012043010003937? I'm not looking for you to handle it, I'm looking for the right person to talk to. I won't be surprised if this has already been tried, so I don't want to waste my time if so, however, I think a case could be made that Wikipedia should look into becoming a member of stm. I assume there is someone in the Wikimedia Foundation who would be the logical person to either look into this, or know that it has been tried; I'm hoping you can point me to that person.

The relevant link, if you want to see the subject of the suggestion, is Permissions Guidelines--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:06, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, speaking as Moonriddengirl first, I'd have to say that this seems potentially problematic under our license. :) We can't accept content that is licensed for use on Wikipedia; this is regarded as the same as not licensed at all. We would not be able without a serious change in our standards to accept content that can only be reused with permission by members of an organization.
I'm also a little unsure that the WMF could sign up any of its projects as a "publisher" given their role as an OSP. If they become a publisher - or argue that they are - they could be held accountable for contents on the projects, rather that being sheltered by laws like DMCA.
That aside, I'm not 100% sure to whom you'd talk, but I would think that this might be one for the Board. Since you're looking for a name, and the Board at large can be hard to talk to, I'd suggest you trot it by User:Mindspillage. Kat Walsh. Wicked smart lady with a law degree as well as being an editor, OTRS agent, admin and Board member. Kind of the whole package there. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I fully agree that licensing for use on Wikipedia only is a non-starter.
However, it is my impression, based upon an admittedly quick reading of the permissions page that each member negotiates the rules for the usage of their material. For example, Elsevier allows other members to use limited material excluding anatomical charts, while some other publisher may restrict some other class of material. Of course, the focus is on their own material, not others, but my point is that they seem open to custom rules, it doesn't sound like one has to conform to a one-size-fits-all.
My dream, perhaps unrealistic, but I think worth perusing, is to persuade stm (and their members), that an appropriately restricted license agreement would benefit all. By appropriately restricted, I do not mean that we would start having material licensed only to Wikipedia, that is a non-starter. By limiting, I mean we would need to put limits on the amount of material that could be used. They would obviously not be interested if membership meant that a Wikipedia editor could copy a textbook, which would make it fair game for a reseller.
However, if we had some material throttle—no more than n illustrations from an article, no more than m words from a book, they might agree that limited distribution of some material, accompanied by references with PMID and DOI links, would be a net benefit to them. The ideal situation is that the material provides an enhancement to the article, but the serious reader wants more, and will be interested in tracking down and paying for the entire article or book.
I don't see this as an easy exercise. I don't view it as simply working out some wording and becoming a member, I see it as a potential partnership, in the same way we have work with the British Museum. Such an agreement would have to be vetted by the board of WikiMedia, as well as the Board of stm, and that would mean getting the boards of many publishers into the discussion. I think there is a potential for such an arrangement with scientific publishers, and it looks like stm might be the best vehicle for creating such a partnership.
I've corresponded with Kat briefly on another issue - I will reach out to her. Thanks for the suggestion.
Good luck with it. :) If we can get compatibly licensed content out of it, that would be great. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:46, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

don't know where to ask this

Hi,

I read somewhere that a WMF fellowship or "liaison" person has been appointed for Consumer Reports, namely user talk:Bluerasberry but I can't find out where I saw this, or any confirmation of this. Do you know? I'm trying to figure out who all the WMF people on wikipedia are. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 13:21, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Mathew. :) Consumer Reports was issued a grant to assist in hiring a consultant, but this isn't exactly a WMF fellowship, as this person is employed by Consumer Reports, not by WMF. The Grant Advisory Committee just agreed to allocate some funds to it. (You can read more about it at [3].) That said, you are quite right that Lane Rasberry was announced for the appointment. I'm not sure if this is where you saw it, but it was announced here.
In terms of identifying WMF people on Wikipedia, you might want to look at meta:Wikimedia Foundation contractors and meta:Wikimedia Fellowships/Fellows. I find those helpful myself. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


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Discussion...

about the WMF not communicating with the community about a new position to help with communications with the community

Hi Maggie, Could you please look in at the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators#Did we know that the Wikimedia Foundation was looking for a full time liaison between the community and Harvard academics on international security issues?. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 09:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Nick. This is the first I've heard about this position. I'll look into it. Honestly, I suspect that there's no slight intended; some at the Foundation assume that interested people keep up with what's going on with the Foundation wiki. Non-editors don't really understand the divide between projects and may not even know, for instance, that we can watchlist pages here but not there...or, for that matter, even what a watchlist is. :) This is just speculation, though, until I find out more about it. I'll get back with you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Maggie (and sorry about breaking your TOC). My concern that there isn't that this was a slight (after all, we're far from being the only relevant project to this, and the role has a broad scope), just a lack of communication about it - especially about it being advertised. The position looks like an excellent one all round. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 11:59, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I've started the ball rolling, including raising questions about how we might be able to encourage robust advertising of jobs. This is good for everybody, since it makes sure that people actually know to apply. :) I'll let you know what comes of it. (And, re: TOC :D) Thanks for letting me know about it. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

So, Nick, I’ve looked into it, and it seems that the advertising issue may be primarily due to a lack of a really well-targeted approach for doing this. WMF Recruitment Manager, Steph, is very interested in making sure that we get word to people who may want the jobs – and especially because many of the jobs launched by the WMF are targeted for community members – but was rightly cautioned that some of the methods we have for communicating with editors in general would be regarded as spamming. The Foundation Wiki, the Foundation Blog and Jobvite are the major avenues they have used to avoid that, I believe, but positions are broadcast in other ways. For example, this one was announced in Signpost.

I’ll get back to that in a minute. :) But first, both Steph and Siko, the Head of Community Fellowships Program, were delighted to hear that there might be interest in your group, which Siko noted makes perfect sense. She felt terrible that she hadn't thought to come to you guys directly. I hope that some of you are in position to apply.

From what I understand, this is not an ordinary fellowship, which is why it wasn’t processed through http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships, but is actually spearheaded by a specific grant and proposal from the Stanton Foundation. This limits a bit how much the WMF actually influences the work being done, although obviously they wouldn’t have agreed if they did not think that the proposal met the mission. That doesn’t mean that input isn’t welcome, but input may have to be run past the participating institutions under these unusual circumstances.

So, again, please, encourage project members to apply! And speak up if you have ideas or input.

Getting back to the more general question of advertising positions, especially in identifying the people who might be particularly interested, this is really something that is still being ironed out. I’m hoping to be able to get together next week with Steph and with Tilman, who as you probably know is the contractor for Movement Communications, to see if we can brainstorm some different approaches for getting the word to those who would want it without "spamming" it to the many who would not.

If you guys have any ideas there, I would love to hear them. As you mention yourself, there might be multiple groups interested in a given position, and it would be great to figure out ways to identify them and get word to them...because, of course, that’s the best way to make sure we get the best people in the roles. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 10:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for following up on this Maggie. For this kind of position (especially given the requirement that candidates be experienced editors in good standing) it would have made sense to dropped a note to the relevant Wikiprojects when it was being advertised - given that there don't seem to be many of these positions going it wouldn't constitute spamming. In circumstances where there's scope to negotiate the roles for the position, it might make sense to also contact the project during that process to seek input. Given the 'good standing' requirement, the WMF and/or the Stanton Foundation may want to ask the coordinators of the Military History Wikiproject to comment on the candidates, though there are obvious privacy issues with this which would need to be addressed first (and is probably not be necessary anyway given that it can be easily checked by looking at user rights, block logs, any FA successes, etc). Anyway, an editor who I think would be a perfect fit for the job has expressed interest in applying for it, so the chances of a good outcome from this initiative seem good. Thanks again, Nick-D (talk) 11:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree, Nick. It's more a question of figuring out how best to determine for a given position what those relevant Wikiprojects are so that they can be notified. :) That's what we're planning to talk about next week. I'm delighted to hear that you may have a good candidate for the role! And I'll bring up the question of feedback from community members on the post, although, as you note, there are some issues that might make that difficult. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting discussion on Administrators' noticeboard

Hi Maggie! It's at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#False articles created for the good of education. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, lovely. :/ Thanks, Voceditenore, for letting me know. I've put a little note at AN and will pass this along immediately. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

WMF Meeting followup

Hiya, will you be at Wikimania? I was thinking about the discussions that were being referred to here... Perhaps (if not already) we could get an update, or expand the discussions at Wikimania? --Elonka 20:39, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Elonka. :) I will indeed be at Wikimania. I'm happy to say that those meetings finally did happen, with NewYorkBrad and Coren in attendance, but while I attended several remotely, I was not able to attend the bulk of them. Philippe, who will also be at Wikimania, may have more insight on them than I do at this point. Of course, NYB and Coren should also be able to discuss that standing. :)
Since those conversations, there've been several major changes at the Foundation, including the community-collaborative construction of the new Terms of Use, which go into effect later this month, and the creation of a Legal and Community Advocacy team, which is still building out. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Will there be any sessions at Wikimania to discuss these changes, and/or the LCA team? It might be very useful to have an announcement or Q&A session there. --Elonka 13:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, we had hoped to, but unfortunately I understand our proposal was turned down. :/ (I wasn't the one who wrote the proposal, but I know what was discussed within the team.) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Turned down by whom? I shall go appeal. This is an important topic. --Elonka 17:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I've never myself proposed a presentation at Wikimania, so I'm not sure. But I'll find out. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Here's a list of rejected submissions, please let me know which one it was?[4] I'm guessing this one but am not sure.[5] --Elonka 17:19, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's it. He says it was the committee that turned it down. Evidently, Geoff also offered to give a presentation and was turned down as well. I don't know which one it was. It was a general presentation on legal issues and not on the LCA. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
(Hmm. Must have been a mix-up in communication; Geoff's was accepted, apparently: [6]. But he received a letter telling him he was not. :/ Best let him know! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC))
The schedule looks pretty full at this point, but the day following Wikimania is an unconference, where participants can propose topics; if there's no way to fit this into the Wikimania conferenc proper, perhaps Maggie and the rest of her team might be willing to propose something for the unconference? I'm pretty sure there would be lots of attendees interested in participating. Risker (talk) 17:20, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure who is staying for the unconference, but I'll float the idea. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I am definitely interested in attending. Also, is there any kind of report written up about last year's meetings? --Elonka 17:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
If so, I have never seen it. :) I believe that the Foundation's understanding was that the meeting was convened at ArbCom's request and that User:Newyorkbrad and/or User:Coren would be reporting on it to ArbCom. I don't know if any report would have been in writing or prepped for publication. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:41, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I feel like I'm getting a bit of the runaround here. To help clarify, here's the timeline as I see it:

  • July 2011:
    • Arbitrator Shell Kinney resigns, in part because of concerns about how many things that ArbCom is handling, which really should be handled by the WMF.
    • Multiple threads here at your (Maggie's) page contain comments from multiple community members about this issue.
    • Threads continue, with you saying that an email was sent to the WMF on July 12th
  • August 2011: We hear that the WMF has invited ArbCom to see about working something out.
  • September 2011: I ask for an update
  • October 2011: You tell us that a meeting has been scheduled for November 4th
  • May 2012:
    • I ask for an update, and whether Wikimania might be a good place to get things discussed.
    • You say that there have been several major changes at the Foundation
    • I ask for a report
    • You say that the meeting was convened at ArbCom's request, so the ball's in their court.

Sorry, we appear to have gone full circle here. A year ago, the WMF invited ArbCom. But now, we're hearing that the meeting was ArbCom's idea? Isn't this just another example of WMF putting things on ArbCom's plate, when that was the cause of the whole crisis in the first place? WMF insisting that ArbCom handle things, and the community saying that WMF needed to step up and stop foisting things off on ArbCom?

I don't want this issue to fall through the cracks. I've been being very patient for nearly a year now, but just because I'm being fairly quiet about it, doesn't mean I've forgotten about it. I want to know who at the WMF is working on this project, what's being done, and what the timetable is. So, who knows the answers to these questions? --Elonka 18:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the confusion rises in the breadth of this topic. What "project" do you mean? The changes in the Wikimedia Foundation arose in part due to community concerns raised last summer (although plenty of other factors influenced as well), but these are distinct from the meeting with ArbCom. Do you want a report on the meeting with ArbCom, or do you want a report on the changes in the Wikimedia Foundation? With the former, you'd need to talk to ArbCom. If the latter, that's a different matter, but is not a report of the meetings that were held last year. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I would like a report on the issues that were raised last summer, about how the WMF needed to be handling more of the legal and privacy issues that were coming up, rather than expecting ArbCom to handle them. Who at the WMF Is working on this project, and what is being done? --Elonka 18:39, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. While I know a bit about what the WMF is doing about legal and privacy matters in general, Philippe Beaudette as the Foundation's liaison to ArbCom would have a much better idea than I how that work dovetails with ArbCom. I'll touch base with him on this, but it may be a day or two before I can get you a response. He just got back in the office from Argentina and may be swamped for a day or two catching up. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
(followup) Any word? --Elonka 14:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Not yet, I'm afraid. He spoke to me about it yesterday, so I know it's still in his mind, but as it's just past 7:30 in San Francisco I think he's still reasonably within his "day or two." :) Hopefully, he'll be able to answer today. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I managed to snag Philippe between meetings. He's still mindful. :) He says he has back-to-backs until 4:00 p.m. SF time, but will try to get back on this today; if not, it may be tomorrow. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Four

Hi! Welcome to the fourth issue of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter for the Teahouse!

  • Teahouse pilot wraps up after 13 weeks After being piloted on English Wikipedia starting in February, the Teahouse wrapped up its pilot period on May 27, 2012. We expect this is just the beginning for the Teahouse and hope the project will continue to grow in the months to come!

Thank you and congratulations to all of the community members who participated - and continue to participate!

  • What you've all been waiting for: Teahouse Pilot Report is released! We look forward to your feedback on the methodology and outcomes of this pilot project.
  • ....and if a pilot report wasn't enough, the Teahouse Pilot Metrics Report is out too! Dive into the numbers and survey results to learn about the impact the Teahouse has made on English Wikipedia.
  • Teahouse shows positive impact on new editor retention and engagement
  • 409 new editors participated during the entire pilot period, with about 40 new editors participating in the Teahouse per week.
  • Two weeks after participating, 33% of Teahouse guests are still active on Wikipedia, as opposed to 11% of a similar control group.
  • New editors who participated in the Teahouse edit 10x the number of articles, make 7x more global edits, and 2x as much of their content survives on Wikipedia compared to the control group.
  • Women participate in the Teahouse 28% of Teahouse participants were women, up from 9% of editors on Wikipedia in general, good news for this project which aimed to have impact on the gender gap too - but still lots to be done here!
  • New opportunities await for the Teahouse in phase two as the Teahouse team and Wikipedia community examine ways to improve, scale, and sustain the project. Opportunities for future work include:
  • Automating or semi-automating systems such as invites, metrics and archiving
  • Experimenting with more ways for new editors to discover the Teahouse
  • Building out the social and peer-to-peer aspects further, including exploring ways to make answering questions easier, creating more ways for new editors to help each other and for all participants to acknowledge each other's efforts
  • Growing volunteer capacity, continuing to transfer Teahouse administration tasks to volunteers whenever possible, and looking for new ways to make maintenance and participation easier for everyone.
  • Want to know how you can lend a hand at the Teahouse? Become a host! Learn more about what makes the Teahouse different than other help spaces on Wikipedia and see how you can help new editors by visiting here.
  • Say hello to the new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, as being welcomed by experienced editors is really encouraging to new Wikipedians.

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. Sarah (talk) 16:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

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Heads up

Hi Maggie (I've never contacted you wearing your official hat; it feels weird not calling you Moon...). Anyway, I just thought you should be aware of the issue I've raised at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 108#"Speedy deletion wiki". Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:05, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

You can call me Moon if you want to. :D And hi! Can you by any chance link me to the copyvio you found? Any examples of that kind of thing or attack pages would be helpful. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Sure. I only looked at a few and found this immediately which is a copyvio of this. I'm sure I could dig up more with little effort but really, I'm not sure of the point. Everyone who looks for copyright violations knows that a certain percentage of articles deleted as A7s are also unvetted copyright violations, so any site that is taking content whole hog without their own cadre of patrollers is inevitably going to include them. I am a bit fuzzy on what parameters the site is using for scraping; it appears at this point to be A7s, hoaxes, and AfDs but I'm not sure. I'm out the door in a sec now so I can't respond anywhere for a number of hours.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Okay, so it's more an issue of them archiving content that hasn't necessarily had the most urgent deletion reason properly tagged? Passed along, and, by the way, Philippe asks me to tell you he still uses your toolbox. There's been some conversation about this list on Wikimedia-L. If you're interested in reading more about it, check out the archive. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh, it's much worse than that. We now have a static archive which is unvetted and not going to be actively checked for copyvios, so the copyvios will persist waiting to be discovered, with no process for winnowing them out. Maybe worse than that, we have a Siegenthaler-like incident waiting to happen, with tons of BLP A7s archived with unsourced content. How would we ever know in a static archive what's wrong and what's right since there's never going to be a process for verification. An article may say something seemingly innocuous that is defamatory in context, or it may say something blatant like X was a Nazi war criminal when they are the head of the Holocaust Museum, or X is a career criminal when they are a federal judge; that will be scraped and preserved with no one to cry foul before it blows up in Wikia's and possibly our faces as the source of the content. Anyway, tell Philippe I am very glad he gets use out of it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)I don't see how it's a problem at all (from our perspective). Wikipedia (and, by extension, the WMF) did it's legal duty by identifying and removing the copyright/libel/whatever as soon as it possibly could (arguably, much faster than we really have to). The fact that the internet works faster than that and retains copies of stuff we've removed isn't really our fault, I think. I mean, if it were, then we'd actually have to go to a situation where every single edit, every single upload was reviewed by some sort of "content police". As far as I know, even video hosting sites don't have to do that--I thought the only responsibility is to take stuff down when someone calls you on it. Now, IANAL, but the analogy I think of is this--if I'm a business owner, and someone stands up and starts shouting hate speech, and I remove him from the premises relatively quickly, then I don't see how I could be responsible if someone uploads a video of it to YouTube (unless someone could show that my business somehow encourages such behavior). Of course, Wikia could be in for trouble, since the are hosting a service who's stated intent is to capture stuff that is known to be problematic in one way or another, and that a non-trivial amount of that is content that is potentially illegal. But, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, there is no legal connection between Wikia and Wikipedia/the Foundation. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
A few things to note. Ultimate legal liability and the ability to sue are separate matters. What I mean by this is that I can sue you for your choice of shoes if I want. I can write a summons and complaint in about an hour, march over to the court, pay the filing fee and purchase an index number. You will then be served with that complaint asking for $10,000,000 in damages for blinding me with your awful shoes. I can serve discovery demands on you and seek to take your deposition.

I am of course being intentionally absurd with the example. In practice, lawyers try not to file frivolous lawsuits and doing so in the extreme can have quite undesirable professional consequences and it also is a waste of time and money (and reputation) (such a suit would also very likely be dismissed on a pre-answer motion, possibly asking for sanctions). So shoes, not so common. But suing everyone under the sun that had any tangential involvement in some matter, even if only perceived? That happens far too often and the party sued cannot just ignore it or they will be facing a default judgment. So if it's true that Wikipedia ultimately has no liability as a matter of law, that does not mean we shouldn't take the possibility of lawsuit-by-association here lightly.

Second, I am not certain there could not be liability (I am not an intellectual property attorney). Oh, I think you're very likely correct, but the law has twists and turns that can be beguiling, and Judges can be incredibly dumb and misapply the law wildly. It's cold comfort you were correct after spending $10,000 on an appeal that takes a year. The issue is not, I imagine, whether Wikia and Wikipedia are the same, but that the source of content came from Wikipedia.

Another issue is perception and reputation. Do you think it would matter if we had another Siegenthaler-like incident that got major publicity if we say "but it wasn't us and we're not Wikia." Like so many things, the damage would be done by the publicity, even if unfounded. I also think there is an ethical issue involved. We should take what steps we can to put a stop to this even if we have the ability do nothing without risk. Anyway, I left a note on Jimbo's talk page in part because even if Wikipedia has no liability, Wikia very well might.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 08:10, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

But I don't understand--what could we do about it? What if I and a dozen other people started doing the same scraping, and just hosted it somewhere other than Wikia, where there's certainly no connection? How could Wikipedia prevent that from happening (other than the impossible "every single edit must be reviewed by a paid employee first" approach)? Qwyrxian (talk) 08:21, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
What could we do if it was a completely unrelated site and person? Probably not much but then the association distance would be far greater. That is not what's before us – Wikia is on our plate at the moment, founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, and the person controlling the Wikia site is not some random person but a Wikipedian who's been here since 2002. Our WMF board members can do something on their end to take this down, and we, as a community, on our end can decide to attempt to influence the Wikipedian who is doing this to stop.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 08:47, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
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