Requests for comment/Alternate disclosure policy

Request for comment (RFC)
Alternate disclosure policy
Component	General
Creation date	16 June 2014
Author(s)	Risker
Document status	implemented accepted; clear consensus per mediawiki.org practices

MediaWiki paid contribution disclosure policy

The MediaWiki community does not require any disclosure of paid contributions from its contributors.

This policy also applies to contributions to all projects and software hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation that are primarily focused on the development of software, including but not limited to Git repositories, Gerrit, Bugzilla, Phabricator and the mediawiki.org wiki.

Background

The Wikimedia Foundation has amended its Terms of Use[1] effective 16 June 2014; see also the relevant blog post

According to the amendment, each Wikimedia community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy.

The MediaWiki project, the related Git repositories, the Gerrit code review system, Bugzilla, and multiple other projects, are not content-generating sites, and there is very limited likelihood of negative effects to the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects specifically because individuals receive compensation for contributing to any of these sites.

Comments

The proposed text looks great to me.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:50, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Seems sensible. wctaiwan (talk) 07:21, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Looks good to me, but someone else must approve. Multichill (talk) 17:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the text. Bawolff (talk) 18:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Legoktm (talk) 18:42, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree as well, per my wikitech-l email. Matma Rex (talk) 14:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely support. Libcub (talk) 19:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Russavia (talk) 06:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Support --PierreSelim (talk) 06:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support though would expect a conflict of interest to be expressed if one exists — billinghurst sDrewth 13:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- So then why the support?--Elvey (talk) 02:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
SupportMost of my contributions to this particular wiki are done under payment as most of my Mediawiki development is done for my place of work. I see no reason to have to mention that everytime I make an edit. Zellfaze (talk) 13:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Zellfaze I see no reason to have to mention that every time you make an edit either, but that's no reason to support this; it doesn't eliminate such a requirement; there never was one. All you need to do is put "a statement on your user page" the first time you make a paid contribution, disclosing employer/client/affiliation. A subsequent edit requires no further mention, unless who is compensating you is constantly changing with respect to employer/client/affiliation. --Elvey (talk) 02:10, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. -— Isarra ༆ 17:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, pending clarification/scope narrowing: What about bots that edit wikipedia? I'm concerned. This alternate policy exempts contributions to bots that edit wikipedia content. It mustn't; such contributions can push a POV and raise the COI concerns that the paid contribution disclosure policy addresses. --Elvey (talk) 17:48, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Elvey, this has nothing at all to do with Wikipedia; each individual Wikipedia project can develop its own individual policy. When a bot edits another WMF project, any paid editing contribution declaration must be made on the project being edited, not on MediaWiki or Bugzilla or even Wikimedia Labs. Risker (talk) 02:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Risker, I wrote "contributions to bots", not "contributions by bots." The source code of many such bots is covered by this policy. Writing source code can also be a paid editing contribution...--Elvey (talk) 02:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, thought I had already. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 15:15, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kaldari (talk) 17:54, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~ Seb35 [^_^] 19:57, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Everyone who provided no rationale: why?--Elvey (talk) 02:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]