User talk:Jalexander-WMF/Archive 2

detail on banning
Hi. Just wondering if WMF will provide any detail as to why User:Demiurge1000 was banned globally from editing any/all sites? Cheers,  Azx2  19:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sadly, as I said above, we do not comment further on WMF initiated bans. All I can tell you is that it was done as part of our ongoing obligation to protect the site and its users and if you want to ask more I can point you towards legal@ (but not necessarily make a promise about what will be said there). I understand the desire for more information (and, personally, always strive to give as much as possible) but, sadly, sometimes we just can't give more and this is one of those times. Jalexander--WMF 20:53, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Well I certainly applaud the WMF taking direct action to enforce its TOU. I'd love to see more of that, and a a stronger TOU as well. But I think you can understand why people are curious. I've never seen anything like this before. Coretheapple (talk) 21:22, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I completely understand, I know if I was on the other side I would be asking (and likely attempting to poke those I knew behind the scenes for an answer) though I imagine, in the end, I would be just as (not) successful which is good (even if frustrating). Jalexander--WMF 21:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, well I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but I wish the Foundation would rethink its lawyerly reticence on this banning. We're dealing with an anonymous user so no privacy or defamation issue is going to arise here. Frankly I didn't know the Foundation could just or would just step in and ban somebody for the TOU. Knowing this would be awfully relevant to discussions over the recent change in TOU re paid editing. Coretheapple (talk) 19:32, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I doubt this had anything to do with paid editing. Most of the accounts blocked/banned for paid editing are very, very public.  Montanabw (talk)  04:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I’m sorry you feel that way :-/ I promise you this is not just lawyerly reticence. I personally think that there are a few very good reasons we need to keep ban reasons private and very little that would end up being good in the long run if we made it public (however much that may be difficult to see from the outside). I would also point out that the TOU covers a lot of ground, of which undisclosed paid editing is only a tiny, tiny portion. I discourage you from making any assumptions about what bans are for or that the WMF will step in for any specific violation of the TOU. While, as you know, this specific conversation isn’t going to get a different answer if you want to chat (on IRC and the like) about transparency vs privacy etc in situations like this I’d be more then happy too as it can always be useful to talk it out with more. Jalexander--WMF 05:22, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I wasn't clear. My assumption was that this banning had to do with something other than paid editing. I raised that issue because it's part of the TOU that has gotten the most attention recently. I was just suggesting that the provision of the TOU that was at issue be specified when accounts are banned by the WMF. No details, just which part of the TOU. Honestly, I don't see what's so gosh darn unreasonable about this suggestion. I am no wikibuddy of Demiurge1000, barely known him or her. In fact, I just remembered that he once launched a nasty attack on me on Jimbo's talk page, leading Jimbo himself to intervene. I just find the whole process (such as it is) somewhat hard to understand and contrary to Wiki traditions of transparency. Coretheapple (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have only one concern about the bans. Whatever the users were banned for, were they banned on the evidences that are beyond a reasonable doubt or the WMF assumed a bad faith, just in case, and because it's better to be wrong than sorry in some situations? I hope you could and would respond my question without providing any details. 5.45.99.97 (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Let me assure you that the investigation was exhaustive. We expended many many staff hours on digging into this, and built a series of increasingly detailed briefing documents for legal, and for Lila.  I do not take the process of excluding someone from a community lightly, and legal would never have required it or signed off on it had it been anything less than a thorough investigation.  Nobody here is of the "ban 'em all, let $deity_name sort them out" personality.  If anything we tend to err toward not excluding people from this community. The number of times that the WMF has moved to ban someone from our community like this can probably be counted on one hand.  In short, we did our research. It was regrettable, but I'm confident in our decision. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh I don't doubt that, and in fact I wasn't even aware that the WMF banned editors at all. But... well I won't repeat myself, you see my note above. I seem to be banging my head against the wall so I'm discontinuing my participation in this discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 22:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * To be clear I don't think Philippe was addressing your question at all (Just the IPs) or believing that you didn't think we had taken our time on this. I also won't pretend you're not beating a dead horse at some level on this topic (I can guarantee you right now that we will not say the reason), but, as I said earlier, I'm happy to talk to you more in-depth about the transparency V privacy questions. At the risk of repeating myself and without any specific comments about these bans I do want to try and help you understand the thinking at a overarching level. I encourage you to look at the Terms of Use at the range of things that are disallowed and could, in theory, be the cause of a foundation action or ban. Those things can range from delineated issues, to non delineated issues (we never know what will come up) they can range from criminal to non criminal or from anonymous to well known users (irl or on wiki) or even people who may be anonymous to most but not to all. While there are quite a lot of specific reasons someone could be banned there is a relatively small and finite amount of overarching categories. I would completely agree that some (maybe even many) of those ban reasons would be totally safe and legitimate to expose if thought of on their own however we can't think of them on their own. If we start saying we banned User:A/B/C for Reason 1 or Reason 2 or Reason 3 but suddenly have User:Z that we ban for no stated reason at all suddenly people know that it isn't Reasons1-X and that means it's almost certainly one of "these very few ones" and that level of conjecture could cause a lot of issues for the users involved, for the foundation and for 3rd parties. In the end the only real option we have is to keep everything under seal to protect the process as a whole and everyone involved (including the community itself) as much as that can hurt.
 * I know we disagree on this, and I'm sorry I can't convince you, but as I said before I'm happy to chat about the broader issues more depth if you want. This specific answer though, won't be changing. Jalexander--WMF 23:39, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, just one last thing, as I see from the above I may be misinterpreted. Transparency issue aside, I just wanted to emphasize that I'm very happy that you guys are working at the board level to enforce your TOU. In fact, I hope you guys do more in general both to strengthen your TOU and to directly enforce it. That's all. Carry on. Coretheapple (talk) 14:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Jalexander, let's talk about the broader issues please. Does the WMF gives users who are about to be banned, banned by the WMF that is, an opportunity to present witnesses and/or evidences in their own defense, and if "no", why no? I hope this issue is broad enough for you to respond.213.55.81.174 (talk) 01:33, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Related questions
Starting a new sub-section as although a very similar subject it is a new thread. Hope that's OK.

Talking about the Dcoetzee ban, can you say whether the reason banning is the same reason that the user got blocked by ArbCom? Assuming it is (as seems likely) the two month gap between arbcom block and your ban seems a long time even for a "thorough investigation". If the reason is the same, or what lead to the block contributed to the ban, is the WMF happy with how the English arbcom dealt with the matter? I suppose what I'm trying to get at is all of the delay due to your investigation or was some of the delay caused by ArbCom not forwarding information to you in a timely manner (or indeed at all). I hope you can see why this is important from an ArbCom accountability point of view.

I also wonder whether you have any opinion on this exchange. ArbCom were not willing to go beyond "ArbCom block" where as the WMF have at least gone as far as a breach of your Terms of Use and can't say more for legal reasons. To me, again for ArbCom accountability reasons, it seems important for them to say that much if it is what led to the block as it reassures the community that ArbCom have acted in a way the community would support. (I'm not suggesting here that ArbCom would go deliberately against the community, rather that they may be out of touch with it). Do you think ArbCom could have been a little more forthcoming, as the WMF have been, with the reason for their block. I wouldn't see this so much as a criticism of ArbCom (after all they were probably on new ground here) but rather advice for the future. Dpmuk (talk) 02:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon
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Tags created by LCA tools
Hi. I've noticed that LCA tools 1.0 and 1.5 had created each one a tag with one edit, see the bottom of Special:Tags. I'm contacting you as the publisher of those OAuth apps. Do you still need those tags defined ? If not, it would be appreciated if you could un-define those so that they can be deleted (or delete them yourself if possible). Regards, Cenarium (talk) 23:45, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * 1.5 is an active tool that could still edit here on occasion (it is a tool that we use for some copyright takedowns etc) and so I'd prefer it stay around to allow tags created by the tool to be recognizable as such. 1.0 is an old version (OAuth sadly does not yet have a way to ask for more rights without creating a whole new consumer) and so I don't have a huge issue with it being deleted with that few edits here. I disabled it (and so it's shown as no longer active) however I can't honestly find anyway to delete it.. the interface doesn't let you delete tags used by extensions and I'm not sure if OAuth has anyway to do it itself. (If the way exists I likely have the "ability" to do it but I can't find the way...). Jalexander--WMF 00:44, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into that. So it looks like the OAuth extension always tags the edits made through it and there's no way to prevent that or subsequently make the tag no longer defined ? That's a problem in the OAuth extension then, I'll file a bug for this. Cenarium (talk) 14:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

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Logging of research permissions
Hi, I notice you've recently added User:Cervisiarius to the researcher group without adding a log entry to meta:Research:Special API permissions/Log; I also notice there are several other current holders of that permission not listed there either. Is that log still used? If so, could you update it please? If not, could you let us local enWPers know so that we can remove its mention at WP:UAL? Thanks! L235 (t / c / ping in reply ) 23:24, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping, I'll look into it and figure out the best move (I'm actually currently deciding if we should move User:Cervisiarius's rights to the global right anyway because he can't do everything he needs at the moment). I'll figure out if we still want to use that log however and get back to you/update it :). Jalexander--WMF 23:27, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

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ANI thread
Just a quick note to say thanks for your response on ANI. Drmies (talk) 20:16, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * And for coming into work on a Saturday. John Carter (talk) 22:29, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) For better or worse we never really stop working ;) always on call at the very least. Jalexander--WMF 22:30, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Worse. In the long run ya'll need to take care of yourself during off time to be most productive during on time (applies to all organizations, not just WMF). NE Ent 11:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah :-/ Agree, it's something we need to work hard on and in some ways I've been trying to do that but I still feel responsible and so the small team (and large amount of work) makes it tough. Jalexander--WMF 14:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Wales talk page
Re, what are CA and LCA? NE Ent 11:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a fair question, I forget that they aren't known by everyone. CA is Community Advocacy the team that Trust & Safety falls under (currently run by Maggie Dennis (Mdennis (WMF) or Moonriddengirl depending on how people know her) and up until very recently run by Philippe Beaudette (Philippe or Philippe (WMF) :) his usernames were always easy). LCA was "Legal and Community Advocacy" which was the department that Geoff Brigham (the General Counsel) ran before Community Advocacy left to join the new Community Engagement department (and LCA just became Legal). hmmm any questions? ;) Jalexander--WMF 14:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It can be confusing -- there's a political subdivision in the US some readers are familiar with that is commonly referred to as CA. I've expanded the initialisms in your post (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=680845760) -- obviously you're more than welcome to revert if you object. NE Ent 15:19, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

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This Friday: Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Cambridge, MA
You are invited to join the Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Cambridge, MA on October 16! (drop-in any time, 6-9pm)--Pharos (talk) 18:28, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

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Thoughts of how WMF to step in here?
Over in ArbCom land, Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard, there is a venture into new territory. These two particular actions were taken based exclusively on accusations of off-site harassment. Is there a way to move these actions into an office action rather than ArbCom? It seems problematic to me for a quasi-official committee to publicly accuse an editor of harassment (which can mean anything from "annoying" to "criminal behavior"). Usually, an ArbCom case puts findings in the context of "on-wiki" behaviour so terms like "harassment" are bounded by the findings. These pronouncements lack those diffs/details in the interest of protecting the victim or for privacy reasons. I am concerned that this is creating jeopardy as it may need legal review before such broad accusations are made without bounding it in the context of a Wikipedia dispute. Imagine an editors future employer running across "Banned from Wikipedia for off-site harassment" with no context. It seems that if such behaviour is that serious, it should be a WMF action possibly coming from your department so that harassment, safety and WMF are all properly represented and you can consult whatever WMF resources are needed to block harassing editors without creating BLP and legal jeopardy. Maybe a solution is ArbCom forwarding their review and findings for possible Office Action. These aren't common (actually relatively new). Thoughts? --DHeyward (talk) 06:48, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping, quickly noting that I've seen this and plan to give a mull full answer in the next couple days (possibly this weekend but most likely Monday or Tuesday). I want to make sure it's a more complete answer and unfortunately the combo of the holiday, next week's WMF All-Staff and my role in coordinating the WMF Election Committee (which has been reactivated to advise the board given recent board changes) means I'm juggling a couple things right now so it will take a bit longer then I'd like. Thanks again! Jalexander--WMF 07:26, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

SecurePoll at Persian Wikipedia
Hello James, haven't you forgotten about something? :-) 4nn1l2 (talk) 08:46, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Birthday wishes
James

A number of people have responded to the birthday announcement by writing to OTRS, rather than the Twitter option. I have responded to each using the “thanks for the compliment” response, but no one will see these other than myself. On the possibility that someone else may wish to see them, even if only to do a count of responses, I'm linking them here (only viewable by OTRS agents). If someone wishes to copy the responses to some repository, please note that the first specifically requested that that not take place.)


 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8927808
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929893
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929308
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8930009
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8927663
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8928041
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8927263
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8927662
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929698 (this one is also in the post below)

-- S Philbrick (Talk)  16:57, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

On a slightly less positive note
Not everyone was happy with the decision to make the response to the Birthday banner a link to twitter. I have composed a response, will send it to those who complained, but will provide a link to those complaints here (unless you would like it handled differently).


 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929671


 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8927991


 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8931877


 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929402


 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929432
 * https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=8929698 (this one is also int he post above)

-- S Philbrick (Talk)  17:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've passed these (and the ones above) to comms. It might be better to send them to me via email that way we don't have to pile them here for those who aren't able to access them. Jalexander--WMF 18:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I have more, but I'll send via email. -- S Philbrick (Talk)  18:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Saturday February 6 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon
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Removal of the Anne Frank diary
He James, thanks for the message regarding the unfortunate removal of the Anne Frank diary. It makes something clear: that US copyright still applies, even in a situation when the uploader was not American, and when the target audience clearly was not the US. That's something that we should make sure our local policies reflect (I was actually asking for this at the Kroeg-page where you made the notice).

Anyway, I have translated the blogpost in Dutch for you to upload. It is available at here. Yeah, it's relatively rare that the situation comes up (usually its the opposite) but important to remember. Thanks for the translation! I'll try to get that up this evening and will let you know when it's done. Jalexander--WMF 00:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

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ANI Thread
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 06:15, 15 August 2016 (UTC) Hello James! Sorry for the ANI template, however there is an issue which we are discussing at ANI that I think might be something you or the foundation should maybe look into or may be interested. You were probably the safest bet on who to contact since this looks like it might fall into "trust and safety". See WP:ANI for the relevant information. Thanks for your time in this matter!--Cameron11598 (Talk) 06:15, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

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Sun October 16: CommonsLab / Open House NY Photo Contest + Hackathon
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