Requests for comment/Distinguishing Wikimedia Foundation staff accounts for official actions and personal use: Difference between revisions

This is a subpage; for more information, see the Requests for comments page.

It is proposed that Wikimedia Foundation staff members should consistently use accounts with a personally identifiable name with "WMF" appended when acting on-wiki in their capacity as staff and reserved for that purpose. This will reduce confusion when Wikimedia Commons users are dealing with a fellow member of the community or a representative of the Foundation acting with special power. Personal accounts of staff members shall be considered members of the community and shall be treated as such, including following standard processes for granting access to user rights or advanced permissions.

A proposal from the Wikimedia Commons community is not binding for the Wikimedia Foundation, however this change is intended to improve relations between our project and the Foundation and we further believe the Foundation can institute this minor change with little to no disruption of their activities, and we further ask that they consider making this a requirement not just here but at all WMF projects.

Supporting links:

• Related English Wikipedia Arbcom case, 'MediaViewer RfC' , created after a threat (diff) to desysop a community member as a "WMF action", outside of current definitions of office actions. The staff account involved is used for both office actions and personal editing.
• Wikimedia Foundation staff powers are summarized at Office actions with a full definition at Office actions.
• A table of all staff accounts with rights granted outside of any community process is maintained at WMF Advanced Permissions, this shows a mix of account naming styles.
• Related discussion for how the recently changed Terms of Use may affect staff accounts, Talk:Terms_of_use#Impact for WMF employees and contractors.
• c:Commons:Username policy ensures that account names with a "WMF" suffix are reserved for Wikimedia Foundation staff.

--Fæ (talk) 05:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Additional links:

• Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Request:_clarify_policy_for_on-wiki_Office_actions

--Fæ (talk) 07:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

surely any such proposal should be at meta. Having every wiki have different rules for staff account naming in a world with SUL, seems like it would be too confusing for staff to reasonably follow. Bawolff (talk) 06:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree, as this can only serve to decrease participation. If the English Wikipedia Community and the Commons Community can be shown to have the same viewpoint, then meta will doubtless follow. As can be seen in the Arbcom discussion, there have been several assertions by staff and well known Wikimedians that RFCs by the community may be dismissed by the Foundation as not meaningful, unless thousands rather than hundreds take part. In terms of numbers, having this discussion on meta makes that view more extreme as the level of participation is invariably significantly lower than if we have discussions on the largest projects instead.

Given that a number of people have suggested that this be proposed at Meta. I am making a copy this this proposal here. The original discussion can be found on Commons. I for one, support this proposal full-heartedly. Zellfaze (talk) 23:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support Support We are long past the days when staff actions were done by a small number of well-known people. The WMF now has more than 200 people so it is reasonable to ask WMF staff to clearly identify themselves when they carry out actions in an official capacity. There is no need to rename any accounts, because those staff that don't have separate official accounts can just create a new one with "(WMF)" at the end. Green Giant (talk) 03:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support Support. Tuvalkin (talk) 02:37, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Support --Ricordi samoa 09:02, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Support John Vandenberg (talk) 15:56, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Support --Rs chen 7754 17:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - For the avoidance of any doubt, I am an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, I frequently am an executor of OFFICE actions, I manage the team that handles rights assignments, and I control the user account User:WMFOffice. Professionally speaking, I have no comment as to whether or not I agree with this proposal (personally speaking, of course, I have an opinion, but choose not to voice it at this time). I do, however, wish to point out one thing. The list of users with staff privileges includes two role accounts (and this proposal includes the words "personally identifiable name"): WMFOffice and WMFLegal. Those are critical accounts set up on the advice of experienced professionals in security. Though infrequently used, they exist for very specific purposes having to do with the security of staff. Using one of those, it is possible, for instance, for us to take actions against individuals who are extremely dangerous (I'm talking both physical, real-world danger and internet reputational danger) without exposing staff needlessly. Those accounts make it possible for us to erect a certain arms-length that is sometimes necessary for dealing with the extremely obsessive, for instance. I think that the fact that they are so infrequently used demonstrates that we are extremely judicious with our use. Only two people know the password to WMFOffice, for instance, and I'm not pulling it out unless it's absolutely necessary. I can and have taken controversial actions under my own name, but we have advice from security professionals that we maintain a role account, just in case. I would therefore suggest that an exemption be built into any final recommendation to the staff, such that those two - which have been proven to not be frequently used or abused - be allowed to be maintained for security purposes. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:03, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps we should change it to "included" or something more generic then, because it's clear those accounts are under WMF jurisdiction. --Rs chen 7754 20:13, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
    • That would certainly satisfy this objection. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for raising that issue Philippe. It is precisely because we have (and need) office actions operated by WMF staff that I feel it is necessary for staff to use staff-identified accounts for day-to-day business, so that the staff members do not feel the need to dream up terminology to explain the role based nature of the edit they are about to perform using their personal account. I believe that the recent dramas are a symptom of staff using personal accounts, because with the best of intentions they label an edit as a 'WMF edit', or worse 'WMF action', when what they mean (AGF, it is hard) is 'edit/action performed as part of my paid job' (maybe they should used 'paid edit' or 'paid action' per the paid contribution amendment ;-)). I whimper inside each time this happens. At best, confusion reigns supreme and 'office actions' crops up in the discussions, diluting the community understanding of office actions as a rare beast to be considered a friend, and they worry that the scope of 'office actions' is being expanded. A big thank you to your team (and you) for being extremely cautious wrt using those accounts. Should this RFC get traction (say about 15 supports), based on the concept, we'll need to put our heads together to construct a proposed wording suitable to become a meta policy. John Vandenberg (talk) 22:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
• In light of what has happened on the German Wikipedia, this is now a must-have. I would like the policy include the two accounts mentioned by Philippe, though. odder (talk) 07:09, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Support I sometimes come across WMF employees which I have not previously heard of. Having "WMF" somewhere in the user name of all official accounts would make things less clear. I Oppose Oppose the idea of using the same account for both personal and office use as such use risks being confusing and unclear, as recently seen at en:MediaWiki:Common.js and de:MediaWiki:Common.js. I have no problem with having "WMF" at the beginning of some user names as in the examples given by Philippe, as long as it is unambiguously clear that the account is controlled by the WMF. The letters "WMF" should not appear anywhere in accounts which do not belong to the WMF. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
• In my personal opinion this is a good move, it allows work and personal actions to be distinctly separated and leaves little question when staff members leave so that rights can be removed and the accounts completely locked. For those that do not know, I am also Jalexander in my staff capacity and generally oversee staff rights. I am speaking completely in my personal capacity. Jamesofur (talk) 18:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

• Requests for comments (open)
• Requests for comments (missing date parameter)