[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Maggie Dennis]

Hi, again.

I just realized I failed to answer one of the questions. I'm sorry; it's
rather late in my day, and I didn't mean to overlook it. In addition to
what was noted earlier, I believe it was 12 other users who were contacted
and asked to adjust their behavior to work within community policies,
especially regarding "canvassing" and good faith collaboration with other
users.

Best,
Maggie

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:21 PM Maggie Dennis  wrote:

> Hello, all.
>
> First, our apologies for the translation. We had hoped to provide this
> service to make it easier for our Chinese language communities, but clearly
> it didn't work out as we had hoped. I'm enormously grateful to say that a
> Chinese translation is now available on Meta:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_actions/September_2021_statement/zh
> <3 We are actively seeking to increase our capacity in Chinese and several
> other languages, and I hope some people will apply!
> https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/3374682?gh_src=b62d5dae1us
>
> With respect to the NDA policy change, this was indeed very obliquely
> addressed on September 1st here
> ,[1]
> at which point we felt the need to be very oblique in our response because
> we were still actively attempting to communicate with all users impacted.
> We knew, of course, that experienced Wikimedians would be able to connect
> the dots but were hoping to avoid attracting external attention by bad
> actors that might put some of these people in danger. Not being a lawyer,
> I'm still a little nervous about saying the wrong thing (my teams were more
> involved in implementing than directing that policy change), but it's
> probably obvious to everyone by now that you have correctly named the
> immediate jurisdictions of concern.
>
> I do want to say, though, that the policy was written to address a
> challenge which is likely to be ongoing: we are not just in danger of
> infiltration, but of attack through the extortion or potentially
> persecution of publicly identifiable people with access to personal
> information. The intention is not to shut down access to everyone in every
> such jurisdiction who has ever blocked Wikimedia sites, but to flag for the
> Foundation's legal department the need to review in such cases. Because of
> that, depending on the current risks of which we are aware, the list of
> impacted jurisdictions may change. I would hope that people will not
> hesitate to apply; rejection of a signed NDA in such cases is by no means a
> personal judgment and may be a step taken to protect not only our
> communities, but those users themselves and those they love.
>
> Best,
> Maggie
>
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Access_to_nonpublic_personal_data_policy#Answers_to_some_questions_around_policy_change
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 5:43 PM effe iets anders 
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Maggie, for the announcement. It's a sad day, and I'm sure
>> there were many sad actions that resulted in this.
>>
>> Two questions from my end:
>> * Could you commit to making a better translation available (through
>> community processes or otherwise) for the record? I think this decision may
>> be referred to quite a bit in the future, so it's valuable to have an
>> accurate translation available to the Chinese community.
>> * What countries are affected currently by the NDA decision
>> ?
>> It is suggested that China and Iran are, but I can't find an authoritative
>> list (but may be looking at the wrong place). This would be helpful for
>> volunteers from countries that are wondering if they should even bother to
>> apply for positions. The definition "blocked access" is a bit fluid. I'm
>> assuming here that the fact that a country is on this list, is not a secret
>> in itself.
>>
>> Best,
>> Lodewijk
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 11:06 AM William Chan  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Leo,
>>>
>>> I think that this is a Google Translation product. But yes, it is in
>>> such bad shape where even Chinese natives can barely read. But I
>>> acknowledge the fact that the urgency and secrecy of the matter made
>>> consulting external parties, to the extent, even contractors working for
>>> WMF, impossible.
>>>
>>> To Maggie,
>>>
>>> May I ask if there is a certain number for the amount of users linked
>>> with the unrecognized user group being warned? There is no request for the
>>> list of users, just the number would be fine. The Wikipedia communities in
>>> Hong Kong need to access the total damage dealt to the user group who had
>>> persistently engaged in activities harassing the safety of Hong Kong Users.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> William Chan
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 01:58, Leo Z  wrote:
>>>
 Hi Maggie,

 Thanks for the prompt 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Maggie Dennis]

Hello, all.

First, our apologies for the translation. We had hoped to provide this
service to make it easier for our Chinese language communities, but clearly
it didn't work out as we had hoped. I'm enormously grateful to say that a
Chinese translation is now available on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_actions/September_2021_statement/zh
<3 We are actively seeking to increase our capacity in Chinese and several
other languages, and I hope some people will apply!
https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/3374682?gh_src=b62d5dae1us

With respect to the NDA policy change, this was indeed very obliquely
addressed on September 1st here
,[1]
at which point we felt the need to be very oblique in our response because
we were still actively attempting to communicate with all users impacted.
We knew, of course, that experienced Wikimedians would be able to connect
the dots but were hoping to avoid attracting external attention by bad
actors that might put some of these people in danger. Not being a lawyer,
I'm still a little nervous about saying the wrong thing (my teams were more
involved in implementing than directing that policy change), but it's
probably obvious to everyone by now that you have correctly named the
immediate jurisdictions of concern.

I do want to say, though, that the policy was written to address a
challenge which is likely to be ongoing: we are not just in danger of
infiltration, but of attack through the extortion or potentially
persecution of publicly identifiable people with access to personal
information. The intention is not to shut down access to everyone in every
such jurisdiction who has ever blocked Wikimedia sites, but to flag for the
Foundation's legal department the need to review in such cases. Because of
that, depending on the current risks of which we are aware, the list of
impacted jurisdictions may change. I would hope that people will not
hesitate to apply; rejection of a signed NDA in such cases is by no means a
personal judgment and may be a step taken to protect not only our
communities, but those users themselves and those they love.

Best,
Maggie


[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Access_to_nonpublic_personal_data_policy#Answers_to_some_questions_around_policy_change

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 5:43 PM effe iets anders 
wrote:

> Thank you Maggie, for the announcement. It's a sad day, and I'm sure there
> were many sad actions that resulted in this.
>
> Two questions from my end:
> * Could you commit to making a better translation available (through
> community processes or otherwise) for the record? I think this decision may
> be referred to quite a bit in the future, so it's valuable to have an
> accurate translation available to the Chinese community.
> * What countries are affected currently by the NDA decision
> ?
> It is suggested that China and Iran are, but I can't find an authoritative
> list (but may be looking at the wrong place). This would be helpful for
> volunteers from countries that are wondering if they should even bother to
> apply for positions. The definition "blocked access" is a bit fluid. I'm
> assuming here that the fact that a country is on this list, is not a secret
> in itself.
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 11:06 AM William Chan  wrote:
>
>> Hi Leo,
>>
>> I think that this is a Google Translation product. But yes, it is in such
>> bad shape where even Chinese natives can barely read. But I acknowledge the
>> fact that the urgency and secrecy of the matter made consulting external
>> parties, to the extent, even contractors working for WMF, impossible.
>>
>> To Maggie,
>>
>> May I ask if there is a certain number for the amount of users linked
>> with the unrecognized user group being warned? There is no request for the
>> list of users, just the number would be fine. The Wikipedia communities in
>> Hong Kong need to access the total damage dealt to the user group who had
>> persistently engaged in activities harassing the safety of Hong Kong Users.
>>
>> Regards,
>> William Chan
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 01:58, Leo Z  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Maggie,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the prompt response. I do not know who those ‘native
>>> speakers’ are, perhaps that’s just a way to avoid providing language
>>> proficiency certificate. I do not know. Google translation might even do
>>> better.
>>>
>>> I am more than certain that this translation is not just faulty or
>>> unsatisfactory, but terrible if not horrifying, disastrous, or outright
>>> shocking for an acclaimed international organization. The issue for this
>>> specific translation is not with 'movement-specific' terms, but a
>>> significant lack of elementary understanding regarding the fundamental
>>> grammatical 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[effe iets anders]

Thank you Maggie, for the announcement. It's a sad day, and I'm sure there
were many sad actions that resulted in this.

Two questions from my end:
* Could you commit to making a better translation available (through
community processes or otherwise) for the record? I think this decision may
be referred to quite a bit in the future, so it's valuable to have an
accurate translation available to the Chinese community.
* What countries are affected currently by the NDA decision
?
It is suggested that China and Iran are, but I can't find an authoritative
list (but may be looking at the wrong place). This would be helpful for
volunteers from countries that are wondering if they should even bother to
apply for positions. The definition "blocked access" is a bit fluid. I'm
assuming here that the fact that a country is on this list, is not a secret
in itself.

Best,
Lodewijk

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 11:06 AM William Chan  wrote:

> Hi Leo,
>
> I think that this is a Google Translation product. But yes, it is in such
> bad shape where even Chinese natives can barely read. But I acknowledge the
> fact that the urgency and secrecy of the matter made consulting external
> parties, to the extent, even contractors working for WMF, impossible.
>
> To Maggie,
>
> May I ask if there is a certain number for the amount of users linked with
> the unrecognized user group being warned? There is no request for the list
> of users, just the number would be fine. The Wikipedia communities in Hong
> Kong need to access the total damage dealt to the user group who had
> persistently engaged in activities harassing the safety of Hong Kong Users.
>
> Regards,
> William Chan
>
>
> On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 01:58, Leo Z  wrote:
>
>> Hi Maggie,
>>
>> Thanks for the prompt response. I do not know who those ‘native speakers’
>> are, perhaps that’s just a way to avoid providing language proficiency
>> certificate. I do not know. Google translation might even do better.
>>
>> I am more than certain that this translation is not just faulty or
>> unsatisfactory, but terrible if not horrifying, disastrous, or outright
>> shocking for an acclaimed international organization. The issue for this
>> specific translation is not with 'movement-specific' terms, but a
>> significant lack of elementary understanding regarding the fundamental
>> grammatical structure of the Chinese language. I will refrain from listing
>> specific examples here (there are plenty), but those mistakes are
>> hilarious, if not outright absurd. Whoever translated this text might
>> barely pass an AP Chinese exam.
>>
>> Please consult a professor in Chinese language at Berkeley or CCSF or
>> even just a language school, or perhaps consult someone from ChinaSF, maybe
>> even a Chinese speaking professional from HSBC or wherever. There are
>> plenty, if you feel it’s necessary. I’m more than certain they will offer
>> similar opinions.
>>
>> Sincere hope for a better translation,
>> Leo
>> On Sep 14, 2021, 1:17 AM +0800, Maggie Dennis ,
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello, all.
>>
>> A few responses.
>>
>> First, Nathan and William, we will share as much information as we can,
>> but will need to be careful about what we say about the individuals
>> involved for legal and safety reasons. This is indeed related to increasing
>> resilience across Wikipedias and not at all specifically for ZhWP. I do
>> think it's important for us to offer some additional support there, given
>> the current situation, but we are looking at increasing safety everywhere.
>>
>> Leo, thank you for your feedback on the translation, which was provided
>> by native Chinese speakers. Since I myself am completely unable to read
>> Chinese, I don't know the nature of the issue, but I do know that in the
>> past we have had some issues with movement-specific terms being translated.
>> I recall once when "free in speech" was mistranslated as "free as in beer"
>> - which we always deliberately try to avoid. :)
>>
>> Best,
>> Maggie
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 12:45 PM Nathan  wrote:
>>
>>> Maggie,
>>>
>>> Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the
>>> members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I
>>> also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more
>>> information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions
>>> will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for office
>>> actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals behind these
>>> accounts and the wider community. Any information that the WMF is able to
>>> safely share will help all of us understand better what the threats are and
>>> how we may better support the movement's goals in jurisdictions where our
>>> values are not respected.
>>>
>>> Thank you again,
>>> Nathan
>>> ___
>>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: [Wikimedia Research Showcase] September 15, 2021: Socialization on Wikipedia

[Janna Layton]

Reminder that the September Research Showcase is this Wednesday.

On Thu, Sep 9, 2021 at 1:15 PM Janna Layton  wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> The September Wikimedia Research Showcase will be on September 15 at 16:30
> UTC (9:30am PT/ 12:30pm ET/ 18:30pm CEST). The theme will be
> "socialization on Wikipedia" with speakers Rosta Farzan and J. Nathan
> Matias.
>
> Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVqabVvLIZU
>
> Talk 1
>
> Speaker: Rosta Farzan (School of Computing and Information, University of
> Pittsburgh)
>
> Title: Unlocking the Wikipedia clubhouse to newcomers: results from two
> studies
>
> Abstract: It is no news to any of us that success of online production
> communities such as Wikipedia highly relies on a continuous stream of
> newcomers to replace the inevitable high turnover and to bring on board new
> sources of ideas and workforce. However, these communities have been
> struggling with attracting newcomers, especially from a diverse population
> of users, and further retention of newcomers. In this talk, I will present
> about two different approaches in engaging new editors in Wikipedia: (1)
> newcomers joining through the Wiki Ed program, an online program in which
> college students edit Wikipedia articles as class assignments; (2)
> newcomers joining through a Wikipedia Art+Feminism edit-a-thon.  I present
> how each approach incorporated techniques in engaging newcomers and how
> they succeed in attracting and retention of newcomers.
>
> More information:
>
>- Bring on Board New Enthusiasts! A Case Study of Impact of Wikipedia
>Art + Feminism Edit-A-Thon Events on Newcomers
>,
>SocInfo 2016 (pdf
>)
>- Successful Online Socialization: Lessons from the Wikipedia
>Education Program , CSCW
>2020 (pdf
>)
>
>
> Talk 2
>
> Speaker: J. Nathan Matias  (Citizens and
> Technology Lab , Cornell University
> Departments of Communication and Information Science)
>
> Title: The Effect of Receiving Appreciation on Wikipedias. A Community
> Co-Designed Field Experiment
>
> Abstract: Can saying “thank you” make online communities stronger & more
> inclusive? Or does thanking others for their voluntary efforts have little
> effect? To ask this question, the Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab)
> organized 344 volunteers to send thanks to Wikipedia contributors across
> the Arabic, German, Polish, and Persian languages. We then observed the
> behavior of 15,558 newcomers and experienced contributors to Wikipedia. On
> average, we found that organizing volunteers to thank others increases
> two-week retention of newcomers and experienced accounts. It also caused
> people to send more thanks to others. This study was a field experiment, a
> randomized trial that sent thanks to some people and not to others. These
> experiments can help answer questions about the impact of community
> practices and platform design. But they can sometimes face community
> mistrust, especially when researchers conduct them without community
> consent. In this talk, learn more about CAT Lab's approach to community-led
> research and discuss open questions about best practices.
>
> More information:
>
>-
>
>Volunteers Thanked Thousands of Wikipedia Editors to Learn the Effects
>of Receiving Thanks
>
> ,
>blogpost (in EN, DE, AR, PL, FA) 
>-
>
>The Diffusion and Influence of Gratitude Expressions in Large-Scale
>Cooperation: A Field Experiment in Four Knowledge Networks
>, paper preprint
>
>
> More information:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
>
> --
> Janna Layton (she/her)
> Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
> Wikimedia Foundation 
>


-- 
Janna Layton (she/her)
Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation 
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[William Chan]

Hi Leo,

I think that this is a Google Translation product. But yes, it is in such
bad shape where even Chinese natives can barely read. But I acknowledge the
fact that the urgency and secrecy of the matter made consulting external
parties, to the extent, even contractors working for WMF, impossible.

To Maggie,

May I ask if there is a certain number for the amount of users linked with
the unrecognized user group being warned? There is no request for the list
of users, just the number would be fine. The Wikipedia communities in Hong
Kong need to access the total damage dealt to the user group who had
persistently engaged in activities harassing the safety of Hong Kong Users.

Regards,
William Chan


On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 01:58, Leo Z  wrote:

> Hi Maggie,
>
> Thanks for the prompt response. I do not know who those ‘native speakers’
> are, perhaps that’s just a way to avoid providing language proficiency
> certificate. I do not know. Google translation might even do better.
>
> I am more than certain that this translation is not just faulty or
> unsatisfactory, but terrible if not horrifying, disastrous, or outright
> shocking for an acclaimed international organization. The issue for this
> specific translation is not with 'movement-specific' terms, but a
> significant lack of elementary understanding regarding the fundamental
> grammatical structure of the Chinese language. I will refrain from listing
> specific examples here (there are plenty), but those mistakes are
> hilarious, if not outright absurd. Whoever translated this text might
> barely pass an AP Chinese exam.
>
> Please consult a professor in Chinese language at Berkeley or CCSF or even
> just a language school, or perhaps consult someone from ChinaSF, maybe even
> a Chinese speaking professional from HSBC or wherever. There are plenty, if
> you feel it’s necessary. I’m more than certain they will offer similar
> opinions.
>
> Sincere hope for a better translation,
> Leo
> On Sep 14, 2021, 1:17 AM +0800, Maggie Dennis ,
> wrote:
>
> Hello, all.
>
> A few responses.
>
> First, Nathan and William, we will share as much information as we can,
> but will need to be careful about what we say about the individuals
> involved for legal and safety reasons. This is indeed related to increasing
> resilience across Wikipedias and not at all specifically for ZhWP. I do
> think it's important for us to offer some additional support there, given
> the current situation, but we are looking at increasing safety everywhere.
>
> Leo, thank you for your feedback on the translation, which was provided by
> native Chinese speakers. Since I myself am completely unable to read
> Chinese, I don't know the nature of the issue, but I do know that in the
> past we have had some issues with movement-specific terms being translated.
> I recall once when "free in speech" was mistranslated as "free as in beer"
> - which we always deliberately try to avoid. :)
>
> Best,
> Maggie
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 12:45 PM Nathan  wrote:
>
>> Maggie,
>>
>> Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the
>> members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I
>> also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more
>> information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions
>> will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for office
>> actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals behind these
>> accounts and the wider community. Any information that the WMF is able to
>> safely share will help all of us understand better what the threats are and
>> how we may better support the movement's goals in jurisdictions where our
>> values are not respected.
>>
>> Thank you again,
>> Nathan
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> Public archives at
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/VOHDBMA7WWDK6TMTDZNN6B6XX7AL5J4G/
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> --
> Maggie Dennis
> She/her/hers
> Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
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>
> ___
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> at: 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Leo Z]

Hi Maggie,

Thanks for the prompt response. I do not know who those ‘native speakers’ are, 
perhaps that’s just a way to avoid providing language proficiency certificate. 
I do not know. Google translation might even do better.

I am more than certain that this translation is not just faulty or 
unsatisfactory, but terrible if not horrifying, disastrous, or outright 
shocking for an acclaimed international organization. The issue for this 
specific translation is not with 'movement-specific' terms, but a significant 
lack of elementary understanding regarding the fundamental grammatical 
structure of the Chinese language. I will refrain from listing specific 
examples here (there are plenty), but those mistakes are hilarious, if not 
outright absurd. Whoever translated this text might barely pass an AP Chinese 
exam.

Please consult a professor in Chinese language at Berkeley or CCSF or even just 
a language school, or perhaps consult someone from ChinaSF, maybe even a 
Chinese speaking professional from HSBC or wherever. There are plenty, if you 
feel it’s necessary. I’m more than certain they will offer similar opinions.

Sincere hope for a better translation,
Leo
On Sep 14, 2021, 1:17 AM +0800, Maggie Dennis , wrote:
> Hello, all.
>
> A few responses.
>
> First, Nathan and William, we will share as much information as we can, but 
> will need to be careful about what we say about the individuals involved for 
> legal and safety reasons. This is indeed related to increasing resilience 
> across Wikipedias and not at all specifically for ZhWP. I do think it's 
> important for us to offer some additional support there, given the current 
> situation, but we are looking at increasing safety everywhere.
>
> Leo, thank you for your feedback on the translation, which was provided by 
> native Chinese speakers. Since I myself am completely unable to read Chinese, 
> I don't know the nature of the issue, but I do know that in the past we have 
> had some issues with movement-specific terms being translated. I recall once 
> when "free in speech" was mistranslated as "free as in beer" - which we 
> always deliberately try to avoid. :)
>
> Best,
> Maggie
>
> > On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 12:45 PM Nathan  wrote:
> > > Maggie,
> > >
> > > Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the 
> > > members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I 
> > > also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more 
> > > information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions 
> > > will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for 
> > > office actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals 
> > > behind these accounts and the wider community. Any information that the 
> > > WMF is able to safely share will help all of us understand better what 
> > > the threats are and how we may better support the movement's goals in 
> > > jurisdictions where our values are not respected.
> > >
> > > Thank you again,
> > > Nathan
> > > ___
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines 
> > > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > Public archives at 
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/VOHDBMA7WWDK6TMTDZNN6B6XX7AL5J4G/
> > > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
>
> --
> Maggie Dennis
> She/her/hers
> Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
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> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Maggie Dennis]

Hello, all.

A few responses.

First, Nathan and William, we will share as much information as we can, but
will need to be careful about what we say about the individuals involved
for legal and safety reasons. This is indeed related to increasing
resilience across Wikipedias and not at all specifically for ZhWP. I do
think it's important for us to offer some additional support there, given
the current situation, but we are looking at increasing safety everywhere.

Leo, thank you for your feedback on the translation, which was provided by
native Chinese speakers. Since I myself am completely unable to read
Chinese, I don't know the nature of the issue, but I do know that in the
past we have had some issues with movement-specific terms being translated.
I recall once when "free in speech" was mistranslated as "free as in beer"
- which we always deliberately try to avoid. :)

Best,
Maggie

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 12:45 PM Nathan  wrote:

> Maggie,
>
> Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the
> members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I
> also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more
> information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions
> will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for office
> actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals behind these
> accounts and the wider community. Any information that the WMF is able to
> safely share will help all of us understand better what the threats are and
> how we may better support the movement's goals in jurisdictions where our
> values are not respected.
>
> Thank you again,
> Nathan
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/VOHDBMA7WWDK6TMTDZNN6B6XX7AL5J4G/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org



-- 
Maggie Dennis
She/her/hers
Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Leo Z]

Hi Maggie,

I’m not sure which translation service you’ve retained. This is a grossly 
unprofessional and barely intelligible Chinese translation. In the very least, 
I’m pretty sure there are plenty undergrads at Berkeley who you can pay minimum 
wage with that would do so much better than this. Please find better 
alternatives, otherwise you are just throwing away your money for nothing 
really.

Best,
Leo
On Sep 14, 2021, 12:16 AM +0800, Maggie Dennis , wrote:
> (on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional Chinese 
> translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)
>
> Hello, everyone.
>
> I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of Community 
> Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to talk about a 
> series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect communities 
> across the globe.
>
> I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain areas. 
> These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of what may 
> be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer questions 
> to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be hosting an 
> office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in more depth. 
> We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability of support 
> staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as that 
> information is prepared.
>
> Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has made 
> to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I won’t 
> reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly summarize that 
> due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has modified its 
> approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from individuals. The 
> security risk relates to information about infiltration of Wikimedia systems, 
> including positions with access to personally identifiable information and 
> elected bodies of influence. We could not pre-announce this action, even to 
> our most trusted community partner groups (like the stewards), without fear 
> of triggering the risk to which we’d been alerted. We restricted access to 
> these tools immediately in the jurisdictions of concern, while working with 
> impacted users to determine if the risk applied to them.
>
> I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific 
> individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent. 
> Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in our 
> own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to ingratiate 
> themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and advance an 
> agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals who have become 
> vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups because they are 
> already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to address the latter 
> risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse) extortion. We 
> believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy change were also 
> themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal information they 
> could have been forced to access.
>
> Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing 
> infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the 
> two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and 
> desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into 
> activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of 
> Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out to a number of other editors with 
> explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and requests to 
> modify their behaviors.
>
> When it comes to office actions, the Wikimedia Foundation typically defaults 
> to little public communication, but this case is unprecedented in scope and 
> nature. While there remain limits to what we can reveal in order to protect 
> the safety and privacy of users in that country and in that unrecognized 
> group, I want to acknowledge that this action is a radical one and that this 
> decision was not easily made. We struggled with not wanting to discourage and 
> destroy the efforts of good faith users in China who have worked so hard to 
> fight for free and open knowledge, including some of those involved in this 
> group. We do not want them to fear that their contributions are unwelcome. We 
> also could not risk exposing them to danger by doing nothing to protect them 
> after we became aware of credible threats to their safety.
>
> While some time ago we limited the exposure of personal information to users 
> in mainland China, we know that there has been the kind of infiltration we 
> describe above in the project. And we know that some users have been 
> physically harmed as a result. With this confirmed, we have no choice but to 
> act swiftly 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Maggie and William, thanks a lot for the answers.

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:45 PM Nathan  wrote:

> Maggie,
>
> Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the
> members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I
> also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more
> information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions
> will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for office
> actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals behind these
> accounts and the wider community. Any information that the WMF is able to
> safely share will help all of us understand better what the threats are and
> how we may better support the movement's goals in jurisdictions where our
> values are not respected.
>
> Thank you again,
> Nathan
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/VOHDBMA7WWDK6TMTDZNN6B6XX7AL5J4G/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Nathan]

Maggie,

Thank you for taking these very difficult actions to protect both the
members of our community as well as the values that it seeks to uphold. I
also appreciate the degree of transparency provided and hope that more
information will be disclosed as it is appropriate. I imagine questions
will be asked about how these individual accounts were selected for office
actions and the contours of the risk both to the individuals behind these
accounts and the wider community. Any information that the WMF is able to
safely share will help all of us understand better what the threats are and
how we may better support the movement's goals in jurisdictions where our
values are not respected.

Thank you again,
Nathan
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[William Chan]

Hi Maggie,

May I ask if the action is a part of a wider effort to improve community
resilience (not only at zhwp, but across multiple projects)?

Regards,
William Chan


On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 00:39, Maggie Dennis  wrote:

> Hi, Yaroslav.
>
> No, not all admins residing on the mainland have been desysopped, only
> those whose involvement with the group in question have raised significant
> concerns about community election processes and whose behavior has been
> problematic in relation largely to canvassing or demonstrated abuse of
> their roles. We want to work with the Chinese community on improving the
> community’s health, including fair election systems that are less
> vulnerable to undue outside influence like threatening conduct towards
> those who oppose elections--perhaps something like SecurePoll.
>
> This action has no impact on admins residing in mainland China in good
> standing and also does not prevent other good users on the mainland from
> applying for such rights in proper community process.
>
> Warm regards,
> Maggie
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 12:27 PM Yaroslav Blanter 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Maggie,
>>
>> thanks for sharing. I think this is indeed very important.
>>
>> Just to understand this better - have all administrators on all projects
>> who reside in the Mainland China been desysopped?
>>
>> If this is the case, is there a policy that no user residing in the
>> Mainland China can become administrator on any of our projects?
>>
>> If this is the case, how it is going to be implemented? As a bureaucrat
>> on Wikidata who promotes new admins I obviously do not know where they
>> reside.
>>
>> Best
>> Yaroslav
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:15 PM Maggie Dennis 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> (on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional
>>> Chinese translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)
>>>
>>> Hello, everyone.
>>>
>>> I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of
>>> Community Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to
>>> talk about a series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect
>>> communities across the globe.
>>>
>>> I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain
>>> areas. These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of
>>> what may be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer
>>> questions to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be
>>> hosting an office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in
>>> more depth. We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability
>>> of support staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as
>>> that information is prepared.
>>>
>>> Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has
>>> made to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I
>>> won’t reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly
>>> summarize that due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has
>>> modified its approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from
>>> individuals. The security risk relates to information about infiltration of
>>> Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally
>>> identifiable information and elected bodies of influence. We could not
>>> pre-announce this action, even to our most trusted community partner groups
>>> (like the stewards), without fear of triggering the risk to which we’d been
>>> alerted. We restricted access to these tools immediately in the
>>> jurisdictions of concern, while working with impacted users to determine if
>>> the risk applied to them.
>>>
>>> I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific
>>> individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent.
>>> Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in
>>> our own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to
>>> ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and
>>> advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals
>>> who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups
>>> because they are already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to
>>> address the latter risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse)
>>> extortion. We believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy
>>> change were also themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal
>>> information they could have been forced to access.
>>>
>>> Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing
>>> infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the
>>> two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and
>>> desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into
>>> activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of
>>> Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Maggie Dennis]

Hi, Yaroslav.

No, not all admins residing on the mainland have been desysopped, only
those whose involvement with the group in question have raised significant
concerns about community election processes and whose behavior has been
problematic in relation largely to canvassing or demonstrated abuse of
their roles. We want to work with the Chinese community on improving the
community’s health, including fair election systems that are less
vulnerable to undue outside influence like threatening conduct towards
those who oppose elections--perhaps something like SecurePoll.

This action has no impact on admins residing in mainland China in good
standing and also does not prevent other good users on the mainland from
applying for such rights in proper community process.

Warm regards,
Maggie

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 12:27 PM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Hi Maggie,
>
> thanks for sharing. I think this is indeed very important.
>
> Just to understand this better - have all administrators on all projects
> who reside in the Mainland China been desysopped?
>
> If this is the case, is there a policy that no user residing in the
> Mainland China can become administrator on any of our projects?
>
> If this is the case, how it is going to be implemented? As a bureaucrat on
> Wikidata who promotes new admins I obviously do not know where they reside.
>
> Best
> Yaroslav
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:15 PM Maggie Dennis 
> wrote:
>
>> (on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional
>> Chinese translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)
>>
>> Hello, everyone.
>>
>> I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of Community
>> Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to talk about
>> a series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect
>> communities across the globe.
>>
>> I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain areas.
>> These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of what may
>> be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer
>> questions to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be
>> hosting an office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in
>> more depth. We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability
>> of support staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as
>> that information is prepared.
>>
>> Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has
>> made to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I
>> won’t reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly
>> summarize that due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has
>> modified its approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from
>> individuals. The security risk relates to information about infiltration of
>> Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally
>> identifiable information and elected bodies of influence. We could not
>> pre-announce this action, even to our most trusted community partner groups
>> (like the stewards), without fear of triggering the risk to which we’d been
>> alerted. We restricted access to these tools immediately in the
>> jurisdictions of concern, while working with impacted users to determine if
>> the risk applied to them.
>>
>> I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific
>> individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent.
>> Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in
>> our own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to
>> ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and
>> advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals
>> who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups
>> because they are already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to
>> address the latter risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse)
>> extortion. We believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy
>> change were also themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal
>> information they could have been forced to access.
>>
>> Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing
>> infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the
>> two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and
>> desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into
>> activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of
>> Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out to a number of other editors
>> with explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and
>> requests to modify their behaviors.
>>
>> When it comes to office actions, the Wikimedia Foundation typically
>> defaults to little public communication, but this case is unprecedented in
>> scope and nature. While there remain 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[William Chan]

Hi Yaroslav,

No, not all had been desysopped.
Regards,
William Chan


On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 00:28, Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Hi Maggie,
>
> thanks for sharing. I think this is indeed very important.
>
> Just to understand this better - have all administrators on all projects
> who reside in the Mainland China been desysopped?
>
> If this is the case, is there a policy that no user residing in the
> Mainland China can become administrator on any of our projects?
>
> If this is the case, how it is going to be implemented? As a bureaucrat on
> Wikidata who promotes new admins I obviously do not know where they reside.
>
> Best
> Yaroslav
>
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:15 PM Maggie Dennis 
> wrote:
>
>> (on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional
>> Chinese translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)
>>
>> Hello, everyone.
>>
>> I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of Community
>> Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to talk about
>> a series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect
>> communities across the globe.
>>
>> I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain areas.
>> These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of what may
>> be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer
>> questions to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be
>> hosting an office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in
>> more depth. We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability
>> of support staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as
>> that information is prepared.
>>
>> Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has
>> made to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I
>> won’t reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly
>> summarize that due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has
>> modified its approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from
>> individuals. The security risk relates to information about infiltration of
>> Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally
>> identifiable information and elected bodies of influence. We could not
>> pre-announce this action, even to our most trusted community partner groups
>> (like the stewards), without fear of triggering the risk to which we’d been
>> alerted. We restricted access to these tools immediately in the
>> jurisdictions of concern, while working with impacted users to determine if
>> the risk applied to them.
>>
>> I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific
>> individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent.
>> Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in
>> our own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to
>> ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and
>> advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals
>> who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups
>> because they are already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to
>> address the latter risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse)
>> extortion. We believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy
>> change were also themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal
>> information they could have been forced to access.
>>
>> Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing
>> infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the
>> two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and
>> desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into
>> activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of
>> Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out to a number of other editors
>> with explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and
>> requests to modify their behaviors.
>>
>> When it comes to office actions, the Wikimedia Foundation typically
>> defaults to little public communication, but this case is unprecedented in
>> scope and nature. While there remain limits to what we can reveal in order
>> to protect the safety and privacy of users in that country and in that
>> unrecognized group, I want to acknowledge that this action is a radical one
>> and that this decision was not easily made. We struggled with not wanting
>> to discourage and destroy the efforts of good faith users in China who have
>> worked so hard to fight for free and open knowledge, including some of
>> those involved in this group. We do not want them to fear that their
>> contributions are unwelcome. We also could not risk exposing them to danger
>> by doing nothing to protect them after we became aware of credible threats
>> to their safety.
>>
>> While some time ago we limited the exposure of personal 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Maggie,

thanks for sharing. I think this is indeed very important.

Just to understand this better - have all administrators on all projects
who reside in the Mainland China been desysopped?

If this is the case, is there a policy that no user residing in the
Mainland China can become administrator on any of our projects?

If this is the case, how it is going to be implemented? As a bureaucrat on
Wikidata who promotes new admins I obviously do not know where they reside.

Best
Yaroslav

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:15 PM Maggie Dennis  wrote:

> (on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional Chinese
> translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)
>
> Hello, everyone.
>
> I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of Community
> Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to talk about
> a series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect
> communities across the globe.
>
> I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain areas.
> These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of what may
> be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer
> questions to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be
> hosting an office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in
> more depth. We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability
> of support staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as
> that information is prepared.
>
> Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has
> made to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I
> won’t reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly
> summarize that due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has
> modified its approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from
> individuals. The security risk relates to information about infiltration of
> Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally
> identifiable information and elected bodies of influence. We could not
> pre-announce this action, even to our most trusted community partner groups
> (like the stewards), without fear of triggering the risk to which we’d been
> alerted. We restricted access to these tools immediately in the
> jurisdictions of concern, while working with impacted users to determine if
> the risk applied to them.
>
> I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific
> individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent.
> Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in
> our own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to
> ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and
> advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals
> who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups
> because they are already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to
> address the latter risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse)
> extortion. We believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy
> change were also themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal
> information they could have been forced to access.
>
> Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing
> infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the
> two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and
> desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into
> activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of
> Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out to a number of other editors
> with explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and
> requests to modify their behaviors.
>
> When it comes to office actions, the Wikimedia Foundation typically
> defaults to little public communication, but this case is unprecedented in
> scope and nature. While there remain limits to what we can reveal in order
> to protect the safety and privacy of users in that country and in that
> unrecognized group, I want to acknowledge that this action is a radical one
> and that this decision was not easily made. We struggled with not wanting
> to discourage and destroy the efforts of good faith users in China who have
> worked so hard to fight for free and open knowledge, including some of
> those involved in this group. We do not want them to fear that their
> contributions are unwelcome. We also could not risk exposing them to danger
> by doing nothing to protect them after we became aware of credible threats
> to their safety.
>
> While some time ago we limited the exposure of personal information to
> users in mainland China, we know that there has been the kind of
> infiltration we describe above in the project. And we know that some users
> have been physically harmed as a result. With this confirmed, we 

[Wikimedia-l] Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

[Maggie Dennis]

(on-wiki:  ; Google translated notice that there is a professional Chinese
translation of the email below - 中文翻譯見下文)

Hello, everyone.

I’m Maggie Dennis, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice President of Community
Resilience & Sustainability.[1] I’m reaching out to you today to talk about
a series of actions the Foundation has recently taken to protect
communities across the globe.

I apologize in advance for the length and the ambiguity in certain areas.
These are complicated issues, and I will try to summarize a lot of what may
be unfamiliar information to some of you succinctly. I will answer
questions to the best of my ability within safety parameters, and I will be
hosting an office hour in a few weeks where I can discuss these issues in
more depth. We’re currently getting that set up in regards to availability
of support staff and will announce it on Wikimedia-L and Meta as soon as
that information is prepared.

Many of you are already aware of recent changes that the Foundation has
made to its NDA policy. These changes have been discussed on Meta, and I
won’t reiterate all of our disclosures there,[2] but I will briefly
summarize that due to credible information of threat, the Foundation has
modified its approach to accepting “non-disclosure agreements” from
individuals. The security risk relates to information about infiltration of
Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally
identifiable information and elected bodies of influence. We could not
pre-announce this action, even to our most trusted community partner groups
(like the stewards), without fear of triggering the risk to which we’d been
alerted. We restricted access to these tools immediately in the
jurisdictions of concern, while working with impacted users to determine if
the risk applied to them.

I want to pause to emphasize that we do not mean to accuse any specific
individual whose access was restricted by that policy change of bad intent.
Infiltration can occur through multiple mechanisms. What we have seen in
our own movement includes not only people deliberately seeking to
ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and
advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals
who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups
because they are already trusted insiders. This policy primarily served to
address the latter risk, to reduce the likelihood of recruitment or (worse)
extortion. We believe that some of the individuals impacted by this policy
change were also themselves in danger, not only the people whose personal
information they could have been forced to access.

Today, the Foundation has rolled out a second phase of addressing
infiltration concerns, which has resulted in sweeping actions in one of the
two currently affected jurisdictions. We have banned seven users and
desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into
activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of
Mainland China.[3] We have also reached out to a number of other editors
with explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and
requests to modify their behaviors.

When it comes to office actions, the Wikimedia Foundation typically
defaults to little public communication, but this case is unprecedented in
scope and nature. While there remain limits to what we can reveal in order
to protect the safety and privacy of users in that country and in that
unrecognized group, I want to acknowledge that this action is a radical one
and that this decision was not easily made. We struggled with not wanting
to discourage and destroy the efforts of good faith users in China who have
worked so hard to fight for free and open knowledge, including some of
those involved in this group. We do not want them to fear that their
contributions are unwelcome. We also could not risk exposing them to danger
by doing nothing to protect them after we became aware of credible threats
to their safety.

While some time ago we limited the exposure of personal information to
users in mainland China, we know that there has been the kind of
infiltration we describe above in the project. And we know that some users
have been physically harmed as a result. With this confirmed, we have no
choice but to act swiftly and appropriately in response.

I take it as both a triumph and a challenge that in the years of my own
involvement I have seen Wikimedia go from a suspect non-mainstream website
to a highly trusted and widely relied upon source across the world. When I
first started editing the projects in about 2007, I already believed
Wikimedia had the capacity to be one of the greatest achievements of the
world--collective knowledge, at your fingertips. What an amazing gesture of
goodwill on the part of all of its many editors. It didn’t take me long
after I started editing to realize how entrenched the battles could be over
how to present information and how