Legal Fees Assistance Program

[HRIP7]

Announcement by WMF General Counsel Geoff Brigham:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wi ... 00467.html

Many Wikimedians take on key support roles that help ensure that the
community’s projects run smoothly and effectively. The Wikimedia Foundation
-- under the lead of the Finance Department and the Legal and Community
Advocacy Department -- is proposing the Legal Fees Assistance Program. This
program is intended to help find qualified lawyers or pay for the legal
defense fees of eligible users in specified support
roles<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_a ... ligibility>.
The assistance would be available in the unlikely event those users were
ever named in a legal complaint as a defendant because of their support
roles on any Wikimedia project. The program would apply to all projects and
languages.

We have started a request for
comment<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request ... Program>to
see what the community thinks of this proposed initiative, and we
would
like those who are interested to look at the proposed program
itself<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_a ... rogram>and
let us know your thoughts. If you have further questions, we have
prepared an FAQ<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_a ... rogram/FAQ>,
and we will be available to discuss via the talk pages.

Many thanks,

Geoff <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Gbrigham>

Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation

Garfield <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Gbyrd>
Garfield Byrd
Chief of Finance and Administration
Wikimedia Foundation

I have to say, my first reaction is one of positive surprise. It's nice to see the community advocacy program actually doing some advocating on behalf of the community, rather than external political causes, and to see the WMF accepting some sort of moral responsibility for people like OTRS agents, arbitrators etc. who run personal legal risks on behalf of its cause. I do remain cautiously optimistic that Geoff is an improvement on Mike Godwin.

Also note policies on defense of contributors.

[SB_Johnny]

It's actually a blue moon today, so perhaps the WMF getting something right for a change is simply an astronomical function.

[EricBarbour]

I do remain cautiously optimistic that Geoff is an improvement on Mike Godwin.

Excellent point. During Godwin's reign, Wikipedia became the focus of a number of lawsuits, virtually all of them coming between
2007 and Mike's exit in 2010. Just because Section 230 protected them in the Bauer case doesn't mean it will work forever,
but that was evidently the Godwin attitude. Once again I wonder if he was fired "for cause".

In May 2008, Mike was scheduled to participate in a round-table discussion at Santa Clara University, "The World that Wikipedia Made: The Ethics and Values of Public Knowledge", with Wikipedia critic Carl Hewitt. Apparently Mike did not show up, and Hewitt was simply interviewed by the moderator.

[Michaeldsuarez]

Sounds good, just as long as the WMF funds Wikipedians who are accused of a crime or are sued and not Wikipedians who are accusing others of crimes or are doing the suing. Imagine Wikipedians suing their opponents and critics and attempting to create a chilling effect with money from the WMF. It's good that the proposed policy only applies to defendants.

[HRIP7]

It's actually a blue moon today, so perhaps the WMF getting something right for a change is simply an astronomical function.

This has some background:

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/05/wi ... et-brands/

While the suit filed by Internet Brands does not directly name the Wikimedia Foundation as a defendant, we believe that we are the real target. We feel our only recourse is to file this suit in order to get everything on the table and deal head on with Internet Brand’s actions over the past few months in trying to impede the creation of this new travel project.

[HRIP7]

For further info see the Wikitravel thread.