[Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees

Thu Dec 3 11:49:28 UTC 2009

Although I can understand that there are genuine reasons why the "anti
organisational account" rule is in place, can I mention that having an
organisational account is one of the main things that GLAM institutions have
asked from us. If a museum wants to upload their own photographs to Commons
(something which I think we all would love to support) they have requested
that they be able to upload those images under their own organisational
username. This in itself doesn't necessarily mean we should change our
policies, but it's just an example of a good outcome that changing our flat
ban on organisational accounts would achieve.

-Liam [[witty lama]]

wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>
> wrote:
> > This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames
> > who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their
> > talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is
> > blocked indefinitely.
>
> I support policy that no organizational/group accounts should be used.
> It is not just about NPOV, but about liability, as well as WMF's
> position toward other organizations (imagine an account "Coca Cola";
> is it really Coca Cola account? should we ask every such entity to
> prove that it is so? and so on).
>
> However, you described the exactly wrong method for doing so. While it
> is not so easy to give some definite suggestions to English or Chinese
> Wikipedia because of the amount of possible companies, on the projects
> with smaller number of speakers (like Dutch is), I suggest much softer
> approach: Don't block them immediately. Talk with them. Explain to
> them that it is a problem for Wikipedia. Ask them to create their own
> accounts. And after that, with their approval, block the original
> account indefinitely.
>
> > * Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
> > blocking on sight?
>
> No. As explained above.
>
> > * Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on
> sight?
> > ** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
>
> No. No. As explained above.
>
> > * Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies
> > considering the SUL?
> > ** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who
> > registered on another wiki?
>
> This is a general rule, not just nl.wp rule. Probably, it should be
> WMF rule and thus in this particular case it is not a valid question.
>
> At the other side, there are two approaches: autonomist and globalist.
> No one of two approaches allow to one wiki to enforce anything on
> another wiki. In the autonomist scenario, if the user comes from one
> wiki to another with an unacceptable username, it is up to the
> community at the destination wiki would they block such user or not.
> (Personally, I don't think that there is a space for any kind of
> policy autonomy on Wikimedia projects [if general policies are good
> enough]. However, that position is not a dominant one.)
>
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