Re: [Wikimedia-l] Category: French Jews on en.wp / GPDR

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi David,

>It occurs to me: Has anyone gone through the cat and made sure every
>instance is cited to best BLP standards?

no, likely not (nobody has gone through the cat). In my experience,
categories and lists related to ethnicity, religious views, and sexual
orientation are often created and/or filled by POV pushers who usually do
not care much about sourcing. On top of this, the inclusion criteria,
especially for categories, are often not defined. For example, if we are
talking about French jews - are we talking about observing religious jews,
or anybody of Jewish origin, including those who are not religious or
converted to other religions? The list is very clear that it is about the
origin, the category does not say anything.

Cheers
Yaroslav





On Mon, May 28, 2018 at 1:41 AM, David Gerard  wrote:

> I'm not 100% comfortable with the approach of doing it because we legally
> can - we do a lot of stuff because it's the right thing, not just because
> we're legally obliged to. The concern is a real one and worth giving
> serious consideration.
>
> (As I noted in my email about the GDPR, we do a lot of stuff because it's
> the right thing to do, not just because we're forced to - hence our
> ridiculously low DMCA rate.)
>
> It occurs to me: Has anyone gone through the cat and made sure every
> instance is cited to best BLP standards?
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> On 28 May 2018 at 00:33, Todd Allen  wrote:
>
> > "Privacy" is often censorship by another name. Seems so here too.
> >
> > Of course, if the information is not sourced, or is not well sourced, it
> > can and should be removed as a potential BLP issue. But if it is sourced,
> > we're not making anything available to the public that wasn't already
> > publicly known--after all, our source already published the information!
> >
> > It has nothing to do with "humble" or not. We don't, and shouldn't, worry
> > about the laws of countries with no jurisdiction. Be that France or
> Vatican
> > City, doesn't matter. We of course have to follow US law, because the US
> > actually does have jurisdiction.
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 8:41 AM, sashi  wrote:
> >
> > > Hello again,
> > >
> > > Thanks for your input on this question!  I'll add a few clarifications
> > > here to respond to points raised in the discussion so far.  (As I'm
> > > subscribed in digest mode, I'll have to cut & paste.)
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Nathan commented:  "I'm not seeing an argument here for why Wikimedia
> > > should adhere to this law, if it is correctly stated by the OP. If
> France
> > > passed a law banning Internet-published photos of living people, how
> > would
> > > we approach that law? If Germany barred publishing the place of birth,
> > date
> > > of birth or religious preference of public figures? If the United
> States
> > > banned publishing the name of individuals accused of mass murder?"
> > > ---
> > >
> > > Since I quoted it the law of 6 January 1978 in French, I'm pretty sure
> I
> > > got it right. ^^ On the other hand, I didn't translate or interpret the
> > law
> > > in the context of current jurisprudence, so yes, maybe some more should
> > be
> > > said...
> > >
> > > It is  legal in France to write an article about a notable person and
> > > mention their religious affiliation if they volunteer that information.
> > > What is *not* legal is to extract that information about them and add
> it
> > to
> > > a database which lists Catholics -- as was done during the Vichy regime
> > > with punchcards.  How exactly were Jewish people rounded up and sent
> off
> > to
> > > concentration camps? (How did prefects go about locating Freemasons
> > during
> > > the war?). While there was certainly some collaboration with the
> National
> > > Statistics Service (SNS) established during the Occupation, the most
> > recent
> > > research suggests that this collaboration was not as significant as was
> > > once commonly assumed.  The 1978 law was written before this research.
> > >
> > > The fact that -- today on en.wp -- these religious categories are being
> > > overwhelmingly applied to Jews (and to a lesser degree to Freemasons)
> is
> > > certainly striking.  (cf.  the 862 members of Category:French Jews &
> the
> > 21
> > > members of the Category:French Christians).
> > >
> > > Regarding the hypothetical situations you evoke (the first of which, of
> > > course, being particularly relevant since people in France do have a
> > right
> > > to refuse the publication of their image (*unless* they are for some
> > reason
> > > newsworthy))...  I imagine that they will have to be dealt with on a
> case
> > > by case basis until national laws have been superseded by the
> > > new-wikiwiki-order of supranational arbitration.
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Todd commented: "We should no more follow French censorship laws than
> we
> > > should follow Turkish ones. All editors are responsible for 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Category: French Jews on en.wp / GPDR

[David Gerard]

I'm not 100% comfortable with the approach of doing it because we legally
can - we do a lot of stuff because it's the right thing, not just because
we're legally obliged to. The concern is a real one and worth giving
serious consideration.

(As I noted in my email about the GDPR, we do a lot of stuff because it's
the right thing to do, not just because we're forced to - hence our
ridiculously low DMCA rate.)

It occurs to me: Has anyone gone through the cat and made sure every
instance is cited to best BLP standards?


- d.



On 28 May 2018 at 00:33, Todd Allen  wrote:

> "Privacy" is often censorship by another name. Seems so here too.
>
> Of course, if the information is not sourced, or is not well sourced, it
> can and should be removed as a potential BLP issue. But if it is sourced,
> we're not making anything available to the public that wasn't already
> publicly known--after all, our source already published the information!
>
> It has nothing to do with "humble" or not. We don't, and shouldn't, worry
> about the laws of countries with no jurisdiction. Be that France or Vatican
> City, doesn't matter. We of course have to follow US law, because the US
> actually does have jurisdiction.
>
> Todd
>
> On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 8:41 AM, sashi  wrote:
>
> > Hello again,
> >
> > Thanks for your input on this question!  I'll add a few clarifications
> > here to respond to points raised in the discussion so far.  (As I'm
> > subscribed in digest mode, I'll have to cut & paste.)
> >
> > ---
> > Nathan commented:  "I'm not seeing an argument here for why Wikimedia
> > should adhere to this law, if it is correctly stated by the OP. If France
> > passed a law banning Internet-published photos of living people, how
> would
> > we approach that law? If Germany barred publishing the place of birth,
> date
> > of birth or religious preference of public figures? If the United States
> > banned publishing the name of individuals accused of mass murder?"
> > ---
> >
> > Since I quoted it the law of 6 January 1978 in French, I'm pretty sure I
> > got it right. ^^ On the other hand, I didn't translate or interpret the
> law
> > in the context of current jurisprudence, so yes, maybe some more should
> be
> > said...
> >
> > It is  legal in France to write an article about a notable person and
> > mention their religious affiliation if they volunteer that information.
> > What is *not* legal is to extract that information about them and add it
> to
> > a database which lists Catholics -- as was done during the Vichy regime
> > with punchcards.  How exactly were Jewish people rounded up and sent off
> to
> > concentration camps? (How did prefects go about locating Freemasons
> during
> > the war?). While there was certainly some collaboration with the National
> > Statistics Service (SNS) established during the Occupation, the most
> recent
> > research suggests that this collaboration was not as significant as was
> > once commonly assumed.  The 1978 law was written before this research.
> >
> > The fact that -- today on en.wp -- these religious categories are being
> > overwhelmingly applied to Jews (and to a lesser degree to Freemasons) is
> > certainly striking.  (cf.  the 862 members of Category:French Jews & the
> 21
> > members of the Category:French Christians).
> >
> > Regarding the hypothetical situations you evoke (the first of which, of
> > course, being particularly relevant since people in France do have a
> right
> > to refuse the publication of their image (*unless* they are for some
> reason
> > newsworthy))...  I imagine that they will have to be dealt with on a case
> > by case basis until national laws have been superseded by the
> > new-wikiwiki-order of supranational arbitration.
> >
> > ---
> > Todd commented: "We should no more follow French censorship laws than we
> > should follow Turkish ones. All editors are responsible for compliance
> with
> > the laws in their jurisdiction."
> > ---
> >
> > First, the issue is privacy, not censorship.  Nobody has prosecuted or
> > will prosecute a newspaper for mentioning, for example, that Vincent
> > Bolloré is Catholic (since he is open about that fact and does not object
> > to having it reported).  However, when the CRIF (a Jewish foundation)
> > petitioned the CNIL for the right to compile a list of folks whose
> surnames
> > were the same as the 150 most common donors to the foundation for the
> > purposes of a survey they were told this would be a clear violation of
> the
> > law. (https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCnil.do?oldAction=rech
> > ExpCnil=CNILTEXT17651919)
> >
> > What exists on en.wp is an ad-hoc categorization that does not guarantee
> > the quality of sourcing.  Anyone can add the category "French Jews" to
> 100s
> > of living people's biographies with hotcat in a matter of minutes (with
> or
> > without a source).  Only the vigilance of the community is a safeguard
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Category: French Jews on en.wp / GPDR

[Todd Allen]

"Privacy" is often censorship by another name. Seems so here too.

Of course, if the information is not sourced, or is not well sourced, it
can and should be removed as a potential BLP issue. But if it is sourced,
we're not making anything available to the public that wasn't already
publicly known--after all, our source already published the information!

It has nothing to do with "humble" or not. We don't, and shouldn't, worry
about the laws of countries with no jurisdiction. Be that France or Vatican
City, doesn't matter. We of course have to follow US law, because the US
actually does have jurisdiction.

Todd

On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 8:41 AM, sashi  wrote:

> Hello again,
>
> Thanks for your input on this question!  I'll add a few clarifications
> here to respond to points raised in the discussion so far.  (As I'm
> subscribed in digest mode, I'll have to cut & paste.)
>
> ---
> Nathan commented:  "I'm not seeing an argument here for why Wikimedia
> should adhere to this law, if it is correctly stated by the OP. If France
> passed a law banning Internet-published photos of living people, how would
> we approach that law? If Germany barred publishing the place of birth, date
> of birth or religious preference of public figures? If the United States
> banned publishing the name of individuals accused of mass murder?"
> ---
>
> Since I quoted it the law of 6 January 1978 in French, I'm pretty sure I
> got it right. ^^ On the other hand, I didn't translate or interpret the law
> in the context of current jurisprudence, so yes, maybe some more should be
> said...
>
> It is  legal in France to write an article about a notable person and
> mention their religious affiliation if they volunteer that information.
> What is *not* legal is to extract that information about them and add it to
> a database which lists Catholics -- as was done during the Vichy regime
> with punchcards.  How exactly were Jewish people rounded up and sent off to
> concentration camps? (How did prefects go about locating Freemasons during
> the war?). While there was certainly some collaboration with the National
> Statistics Service (SNS) established during the Occupation, the most recent
> research suggests that this collaboration was not as significant as was
> once commonly assumed.  The 1978 law was written before this research.
>
> The fact that -- today on en.wp -- these religious categories are being
> overwhelmingly applied to Jews (and to a lesser degree to Freemasons) is
> certainly striking.  (cf.  the 862 members of Category:French Jews & the 21
> members of the Category:French Christians).
>
> Regarding the hypothetical situations you evoke (the first of which, of
> course, being particularly relevant since people in France do have a right
> to refuse the publication of their image (*unless* they are for some reason
> newsworthy))...  I imagine that they will have to be dealt with on a case
> by case basis until national laws have been superseded by the
> new-wikiwiki-order of supranational arbitration.
>
> ---
> Todd commented: "We should no more follow French censorship laws than we
> should follow Turkish ones. All editors are responsible for compliance with
> the laws in their jurisdiction."
> ---
>
> First, the issue is privacy, not censorship.  Nobody has prosecuted or
> will prosecute a newspaper for mentioning, for example, that Vincent
> Bolloré is Catholic (since he is open about that fact and does not object
> to having it reported).  However, when the CRIF (a Jewish foundation)
> petitioned the CNIL for the right to compile a list of folks whose surnames
> were the same as the 150 most common donors to the foundation for the
> purposes of a survey they were told this would be a clear violation of the
> law. (https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCnil.do?oldAction=rech
> ExpCnil=CNILTEXT17651919)
>
> What exists on en.wp is an ad-hoc categorization that does not guarantee
> the quality of sourcing.  Anyone can add the category "French Jews" to 100s
> of living people's biographies with hotcat in a matter of minutes (with or
> without a source).  Only the vigilance of the community is a safeguard
> against this sort of action.  The state of the database at the moment is,
> again, telling: there are not 40 times more Jews in France than Christians
> nor are Freemasons likely to be 7 times more numerous than Christians. Yet
> this is precisely the *deformed* picture that emerges from this ad-hoc
> categorization system.  As James and Yarsolav both observed, this is likely
> due to a problem of "bad editing" on en.wp.  (I didn't mention it in my OP,
> but just as there are no such categories on French Wikipedia, Wikidata also
> does not seem to have categories based on the religion of living French
> people. Based on my limited research into the question, the ontology at
> Wikidata does indeed seem more respectful of personal privacy.)
>
> Second, concerning legally 

[Wikimedia-l] GDPR and Wikimedia content?

[David Gerard]

I'm a big fan of the GDPR and why it had to be created. (I'm doing a lot of
the bureaucratic work on the tech side at the day job and am getting very
used to thinking of ways something could constitute Personally Identifying
Information.)

But I'm wondering how we'll approach it for the Wikimedia sites. Not just
the log data - but the content.

We already have problems with Right To Be Forgotten, and well-cited content
being removed from the search engines.

What do we have in place to deal with this when - not if - we get GDPR
requests to remove information about a person from the site?

I don't mean just the letter of the law, in the EU or the US - I mean also,
how we can handle this *right*. Because there are multiple competing
legitimate interests here, and the editing communities tend to take a lot
more care than they're strictly required to by law, because we are here to
get things right. (This is why our DMCA numbers are ridiculously low for a
top 10 site, for example.)

Is anyone keeping track of what the communities are doing, as well as WMF
itself?


- d.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Category: French Jews on en.wp / GPDR

[Benjamin Lees]

On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 10:41 AM, sashi  wrote:
> The fact that -- today on en.wp -- these religious categories are being
> overwhelmingly applied to Jews (and to a lesser degree to Freemasons) is
> certainly striking.  (cf.  the 862 members of Category:French Jews & the 21
> members of the Category:French Christians).

No, French Christians are just tagged with subcategories of
Category:French Christians. The "requiring diffusion" category that
you complain of is in fact a way to tell editors that pages in the
category should really be in subcategories instead.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wmfall] Announcing the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Engagement team

[Tony Sebro]

This sounds very exciting.  Congrats all around, and three cheers for
supporting our external FOSS developer community!  :)

On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 7:35 PM, Victoria Coleman 
wrote:

>
> Hello everyone,
>
> to better serve the technical communities that build free and open source
> software for the movement as well as the communities who use Wikimedia's
> APIs to interact with our projects, the Wikimedia Foundation is making some
> structural changes. The Technical Engagement team is a new team in the
> Technology department of the Wikimedia Foundation reporting to the
> Foundation's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Victoria Coleman. This new
> team has two sub-teams: the Wikimedia Cloud Services team and the Technical
> Advocacy team. Bryan Davis will manage the Technical Engagement teams. He
> will also lead the hiring process for a new Developer Advocacy Manager
> position, which will take over some of the management duties.
>
> The Wikimedia Cloud Services team will continue to focus on maintaining
> the Wikimedia Cloud VPS infrastructure as a service
> 
> platform, the Toolforge platform as a service
>  project, and
> additional supporting technologies used in the Cloud Services environment
> such as the Wiki Replica databases and the hosting infrastructure for
> dumps.wikimedia.org. The existing team of Andrew Bogott, Arturo Borrero
> Gonzalez, Brooke Storm, and Chase Pettet will be joined by James Hare in
> the role of Product Manager. The team is also hiring for a fifth Operations
> Engineer and for a part-time technical support contractor.
>
> The Technical Advocacy team will focus on creating improved documentation
> for Wikimedia APIs and services as well as providing support for technical
> contributors and API consumers. The new team is being formed by moving the
> Foundation's Developer Relations team to the Technology department, with
> the exception of Rachel Farrand who will remain in Community Engagement in
> close collaboration with other event organizers. Andre Klapper and Srishti
> Sethi are both taking the role of Developer Advocate in the new team. A
> developer advocate is someone whose primary responsibility is to make it
> easy for developers to use a platform. Typically they do this by producing
> example software, tutorials, and other documentation explaining how to use
> the platform's products and services. Sarah R. Rodlund will also be joining
> the team as a Technical Writer. Technical writing has many subspecialties.
> Sarah will be focusing on improving our existing documentation by helping
> create a style guide and editing existing documentation to fit with that
> guide. She will also be supporting volunteers who are interested in
> practicing their technical writing skills on Wikimedia documentation. The
> team will be hiring for a Developer Advocacy Manager role in July. This new
> person will help round out the skills of the team and will take the lead in
> developing their programs.
>
> The Technical Engagement team will work with other teams inside the
> Wikimedia Foundation as well as groups at affiliate organizations and the
> larger Wikimedia volunteer community to provide technical outreach services
> and support. We hope to continue to grow the number of people involved in
> our programs until we can confidently say that we are providing the best
> help possible to the hundreds of volunteer developers, designers, technical
> writers, and end users of the Wikimedia movement's APIs and services. We
> will continue to be involved in existing programs to attract and support
> new technical contributors like the Wikimedia Hackathons, Outreachy, and
> Google Summer of Code. We also hope to find new ways to connect with new
> and existing technical contributors as we support the Wikimedia movement's
> 2030 strategic direction and the shared goals of knowledge as a service and
> knowledge equity.
>
> Very excited to be getting started down the path of strengthening our
> developer advocacy program!
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Victoria Coleman
>
> Chief Technology Officer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
> San Francisco, CA 94104
>
> +1-650-703-8112
>
> vcole...@wikimedia.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___
> Wmfall mailing list
> wmf...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfall
>
>


-- 
Tony Sebro
Deputy General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA  94104
tse...@wikimedia.org
(415)839-6885 ext. 6784


*NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical
reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Category: French Jews on en.wp / GPDR

[sashi]

Hello again,

Thanks for your input on this question!  I'll add a few clarifications 
here to respond to points raised in the discussion so far.  (As I'm 
subscribed in digest mode, I'll have to cut & paste.)


---
Nathan commented:  "I'm not seeing an argument here for why Wikimedia 
should adhere to this law, if it is correctly stated by the OP. If 
France passed a law banning Internet-published photos of living people, 
how would we approach that law? If Germany barred publishing the place 
of birth, date of birth or religious preference of public figures? If 
the United States banned publishing the name of individuals accused of 
mass murder?"

---

Since I quoted it the law of 6 January 1978 in French, I'm pretty sure I 
got it right. ^^ On the other hand, I didn't translate or interpret the 
law in the context of current jurisprudence, so yes, maybe some more 
should be said...


It is  legal in France to write an article about a notable person and 
mention their religious affiliation if they volunteer that information.  
What is *not* legal is to extract that information about them and add it 
to a database which lists Catholics -- as was done during the Vichy 
regime with punchcards.  How exactly were Jewish people rounded up and 
sent off to concentration camps? (How did prefects go about locating 
Freemasons during the war?). While there was certainly some 
collaboration with the National Statistics Service (SNS) established 
during the Occupation, the most recent research suggests that this 
collaboration was not as significant as was once commonly assumed.  The 
1978 law was written before this research.


The fact that -- today on en.wp -- these religious categories are being 
overwhelmingly applied to Jews (and to a lesser degree to Freemasons) is 
certainly striking.  (cf.  the 862 members of Category:French Jews & the 
21 members of the Category:French Christians).


Regarding the hypothetical situations you evoke (the first of which, of 
course, being particularly relevant since people in France do have a 
right to refuse the publication of their image (*unless* they are for 
some reason newsworthy))...  I imagine that they will have to be dealt 
with on a case by case basis until national laws have been superseded by 
the new-wikiwiki-order of supranational arbitration.


---
Todd commented: "We should no more follow French censorship laws than we 
should follow Turkish ones. All editors are responsible for compliance 
with the laws in their jurisdiction."

---

First, the issue is privacy, not censorship.  Nobody has prosecuted or 
will prosecute a newspaper for mentioning, for example, that Vincent 
Bolloré is Catholic (since he is open about that fact and does not 
object to having it reported).  However, when the CRIF (a Jewish 
foundation) petitioned the CNIL for the right to compile a list of folks 
whose surnames were the same as the 150 most common donors to the 
foundation for the purposes of a survey they were told this would be a 
clear violation of the law. 
(https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCnil.do?oldAction=rechExpCnil=CNILTEXT17651919)


What exists on en.wp is an ad-hoc categorization that does not guarantee 
the quality of sourcing.  Anyone can add the category "French Jews" to 
100s of living people's biographies with hotcat in a matter of minutes 
(with or without a source).  Only the vigilance of the community is a 
safeguard against this sort of action.  The state of the database at the 
moment is, again, telling: there are not 40 times more Jews in France 
than Christians nor are Freemasons likely to be 7 times more numerous 
than Christians. Yet this is precisely the *deformed* picture that 
emerges from this ad-hoc categorization system.  As James and Yarsolav 
both observed, this is likely due to a problem of "bad editing" on 
en.wp.  (I didn't mention it in my OP, but just as there are no such 
categories on French Wikipedia, Wikidata also does not seem to have 
categories based on the religion of living French people. Based on my 
limited research into the question, the ontology at Wikidata does indeed 
seem more respectful of personal privacy.)


Second, concerning legally responsibility: of course!  The WMF only 
supplies the platform. The anonymous individuals who make use of it are 
legally responsible for their contributions.  As a result, living people 
not wanting to have their religion included in a system of automatic 
list-generation would need to file a complaint against X (porter plainte 
contre X) in order to try to get the WMF to react to the violation of 
their privacy if they cannot convince the anonymous volunteer they 
contact in order to enforce their privacy rights (by deleting the 
ethnic/religious category from their Wikipedia entry).


Still, it could be persuasively argued that a foundation has a *duty of 
care* to its volunteers and should not facilitate their contributors 
(whose age they don't verify) falling 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Category: French Jews on en.wp / GPDR

[L3X1 en]

Todd is correct, en.wiki and the WMF operate out of the US and are not subject 
to other nation’s laws regarding content for the most part. Also, all entries 
should be blue-linked, else they must be in compliance with LISTN and V. For 
the rest, a inline citation is not required. 
Lexi
> On May 25, 2018, at 3:21 PM, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:
> 
> Whereas I absolutely agree with Todd, let me note that in the list many
> entries are unsourced or poorly sourced and can not be there according to
> the policies.
> 
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
> 
> On Fri, May 25, 2018 at 8:55 PM, Todd Allen  wrote:
> 
>> We should no more follow French censorship laws than we should follow
>> Turkish ones. All editors are responsible for compliance with the laws in
>> their jurisdiction.
>> 
>> Todd
>> 
>> On Fri, May 25, 2018, 12:53 PM sashi  wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I am writing to ask if there are any plans to render the English
>>> Wikipedia compliant with French privacy laws.  Currently, if a French
>>> high school student goes to a French library, reserves a computer, and
>>> types "List of French Jews" into Google, Duckduckgo, or Dogpile, an
>>> adhoc en.wikipedia list of over 850 people (approximately half of them
>>> living) appears in the #2 position (Category: French Jews). In the first
>>> position is the English Wikipedia page "List of French Jews" containing
>>> the following text, originally added in 2010, showing that the
>>> en.wikipedia community is aware that they are breaking French law:
>>> 
>>> "The French nationality law itself, strongly secular, forbids any
>>> statistics or lists based on ethnic or religious membership."
>>> 
>>> A French person tagging biographies of living people in en.wp with the
>>> category "French Jews" is a violation of French privacy law which would
>>> expose the Wikipedian to a penalty of €300,000 and/or 5 years
>> imprisonment:
>>> 
>>> "Le fait, hors les cas prévus par la loi, de mettre ou de conserver en
>>> mémoire informatisée, sans le consentement exprès de l’intéressé, des
>>> données à caractère personnel qui, directement ou indirectement, font
>>> apparaître les origines raciales ou ethniques, les opinions politiques,
>>> philosophiques ou religieuses, ou les appartenances syndicales des
>>> personnes, ou qui sont relatives à la santé ou à l’orientation ou à
>>> l'identité sexuelle de celles-ci, est puni de cinq ans d’emprisonnement
>>> et de 300 000 € d’amende." (source:
>>> https://www.cnil.fr/fr/les-sanctions-penales )
>>> 
>>> There is, to the best of my knowledge, no such category on fr.wp, as
>>> people in France are well aware of the law.
>>> 
>>> See also "List of West European Jews" / Category: French People of
>>> Jewish descent / Category: French People of Arab descent / Category:
>>> French Freemasons (167), Category: French Atheists (93 including a
>>> recent president), etc.
>>> 
>>> I noticed in researching the question that the Category "French rapists"
>>> (2 BLP) is associated with the hidden category "No indexed", whereas the
>>> category "French Jews" (100s of BLP) is associated with the hidden
>>> category: "categories requiring diffusion".  As a temporary measure (to
>>> avoid actively feeding this info into search engines), perhaps
>>> categories related to racial/ethnic origins, religious & philosophical
>>> opinions could be tagged "No indexed" rather than "requiring diffusion"?
>>> 
>>> The WMF hosts their servers in the US, the Netherlands and will soon
>>> also be hosting off-shore in Singapore, which probably leads WMF legal
>>> to believe that this grants them immunity from French privacy laws.
>>> Nevertheless, I thought I would mention that this is a potentially
>>> significant problem going forward.  Discussion leading to action
>>> correcting this potential avenue of abuse might help the WMF to avoid
>>> litigation, given that the current policies on English Wikipedia
>>> actively facilitate violation of French laws.
>>> 
>>> (data from petscan.wmflabs.org): French Christians (21 members), French
>>> Hindus (17 members), French Buddhists (9 members), French Muslims (0
>>> members), French Jews (862 members).
>>> 
>>> Thank you for your time considering how best to address this problem.
>>> 
>>> sashi
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are we losing out against bad editing?

[James Salsman]

> I am open to more input, and more exchange of views.

My view is that the Foundation was suddenly (but not without warning)
made legally responsible for its own content after Trump made hosting
providers responsible for facilitating online prostitution
advertising, at pretty much the same time the GDPR went in to effect.
The Foundation has frequently tried a number of paid editing trials,
and I think that's a good thing because donors are likely to stabilize
at paying enough to pay all the past, present, and future wikipedias a
very comfortable hourly rate, plus interest, still have a large and
swiftly endowment to figure out how to invest responsibly, and will be
able to outfit offline applications such as space hotels with a new
LCARS skin I am trying to get Mike Okuda to commission.

> After this conversation it might be interesting to ask the people involved and
> see how would they feel by being more supported and appreciated by the
> community, then request to the community the necessary action to make it
> happen.

I think the Foundation employees know I support them. I recently asked
their boss to make sure they are able to afford the median SF home
capable of bird ranching. For the record, I think most crucial tech
employees in Norcal are not paid what they are actually worth, because
then they would have greater labor mobility. This has come about after
attempts at colluding in no-poaching agreements and needs to be
corrected. The Foundation needs to take the lead on lowering their
income inequality by raising employee salaries. (As the topic has
included appropriate use of donor funds.)

Best regards,
Jim

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