Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-07-03/News and notes

Foundation and British chapter launch last-ditch attempt to get Wikipedia exempted from the UK's sweeping "Online Safety Bill"
On June 29, Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation published an open letter (accompanied by social media campaign) asking the UK government and parliament to exempt "public interest projects" – such as Wikipedia – from the proposed Online Safety Bill. The chapter states in an accompanying Medium post that

In a post on the Public Policy mailing list, the WMF's Global Advocacy team put the open letter in context of previous efforts (see our previous reporting) and stressed its timeliness:

The public statements of both organizations are (perhaps understandably) short on concrete examples of how the new law might require WMF to "intervene in [the community's] editing processes, and interfere with their ability to set and enforce rules for what constitutes well-sourced neutral content about a given subject". But it is not hard to imagine that it might become difficult to maintain the "Wikipedia is not censored" principle in its current form, were Wikipedia and its sister projects to continue to remain accessible in the UK in non-age-gated form. The current situation – where the Foundation largely relies on the volunteer editing community to set and enforce content rules on potentially offensive or sexual content – is informed by extensive controversies over a decade ago. See the Signpost's previous reporting: "Foundation commissions external recommendations about objectionable material " (2010), "2010 in review", "'Personal image filter' to offer the ability to hide sexual or violent media" (2011), "News and notes", July 16, 2012 ("At Wikimania the board formally acknowledged the divisiveness of the filter, rescinding its request for the development of the filter mechanism while reaffirming the general principles it had espoused concerning controversial content").

What's more, Wikimedia UK's FAQ argues that one major problem of the bill is its vagueness, giving broad powers to regulators and the executive to decide on concrete requirements and update them in the future:

Furthermore,

– T

New Elections Committee
Wikimedia Foundation board member Nataliia Tymkiv has advised the community on the Wikimedia-l mailing list that the Wikimedia Foundation Governance Committee has appointed a new Elections Committee:

The committee consists of 8 members and 5 non-voting advisory members.

– AK

Wikimedia Europe convenes for the first time
On June 9–10, Wikimedia Europe held its first general assembly in-person in Prague. It was founded in July 2022 by various European Wikimedia chapters and other affiliates, and currently has three employees. In March 2023, Brussels was chosen as its legal seat – perhaps unsurprisingly, as it is the de facto capital of the European Union, and WMEU is building on the work of the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU.

Among other things, Wikimedia Europe has taken over the publication of the monthly EU policy monitoring reports. The May 2023 report highlights a successful effort by Wikimedia France to get "not for profit online encyclopaedias and not for profit educational and scientific repositories" exempted from a planned law in France that would require online platforms to age-gate their content. In an ensuing discussion on the Public Policy mailing list, Luis Villa raised concern about a "now-ongoing stream of exceptions for 'online encyclopedias'" (an approach that was previously used in the EU Copyright Directive, which Wikipedia blackouts and mass demonstrations had failed to stop on a wider basis). WMEU's Dimi Dimitrov (long known as "Our Man in Brussels") responded that a more general exception had been "not feasible in France", and also addressed the question whether all sister projects would be covered ("Meta-Wiki is what I worry about. I have no answers on this"). What's more, he pointed out that legislative efforts around age restrictions are not confined to France (see also separate story about the UK's Online Safety Bill, above):

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Brief notes

 * Annual reports: Wikimedia Colombia,  Wikimedia Ukraine (in Ukrainian, English-language Diff post with key highlights here; for more on Ukraine see Stories of Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war and Diff post on Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine).
 * Global bans: Imperator-Kaiser, since 20 June 2023; Skiyomi, since 21 June 2023; Luca Poma / LoSpecialista, since 28 June 2023. The English Wikipedia has a biography of Luca Poma, who also featured in the Italian Wikipedia documentary screened by Rai 3 earlier this year (see previous Signpost  coverage).
 * Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement (beginning 3 July) is Tai chi. It will be followed the week after by Literal translation. Please be bold in helping improve these articles!