I agree there does a appear to be a need for the WMF and Board to consider a contingency plan, does it need to be public? I'm not as convinced.
Privacy is just one of many questions that would have to be addressed, with that being said it's important. There are other equally important needs from copyright to freedom of speech to financial to social and political stability. When it comes to privacy how many of us are using, Google, Microsoft, Apple products, or even other services that have a global presence. While many of us are concerned about the potential for political actions every country is grappling with the corporate, tax, and privacy issues related to these companies as well. Politically Trump style leadership is a concern, not just in the USA but right across what were politically stable countries. It'd be remiss of the WMF if they already didn't have alternative servers(I know they do) and backups outside San Francisco, and Florida given the susceptibility of both locations to natural disasters and climate change issues. All of these make it beyond the capability of the community to effectively evaluate in a public forum like this. The best the community this can do in this space is to give support to the WMF and the Board to explore, evaluate, and follow the dynamics of political realities of where a move could go because any change will need to be immediately effective, If was to become necessary to take such actions to protect the movement and knowledge we have collected a long drawn out debate will be out of the questions, and decisions made today, this month, this year could in all likelihood be just as invalid. On Wed, 30 Sep 2020 at 18:01, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > We have had discussions on this with many Wikimedians over the years, but > frankly, the issue never seemed pressing enough to pursue more seriously. > Some points made that I remember where: > > > - Perhaps it is enough to just have back-up servers in another > jurisdictions that could kick-in and whose capacity could quickly be > upgraded in case of need. > - Nordic jurisdictions like Iceland and Norway frequently came up with > the arguments: stable political systems, solid digital rights track > records, a climate that helps save energy on cooling servers & > availability > of hydropower (i.e. environmental benefits). > > I think such a move would require serious studies and long, community-wide > debates. I can not assess how urgent it is. But then again, waiting until > it is a real issue is probably not a great idea. > > Cheers, > Dimi > > На ср, 30.09.2020 г. в 11:35 Dan Garry (Deskana) <[email protected]> > написа: > > > On Wed, 30 Sep 2020 at 09:49, Erik Moeller <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > I hope that some preliminary contingency plans exist or are being > > > developed, and I'm sure that the movement-wide debate will widen if > > > the US continues its downward slide into authoritarianism. > > > > > > > I agree with Erik. Even under the Obama administration, there were > threats > > to the existence of the movement, such as SOPA [1] which lead to a > blackout > > [2]. One can extrapolate from current events that these threats could > well > > get larger and more frequent, rather than smaller and less frequent, > should > > someone in the US Government decide to focus their attention on attacking > > Wikipedia and free knowledge. It would be prudent to create a contingency > > plan which includes an exploration of other options for a location of > > operation for the Wikimedia Foundation and/or its servers, with their > > advantages and disadvantages. I personally wouldn't necessarily advocate > > for making the plan public; that would be ideal, but I'd be comforted > > merely to know it exists. > > > > On Tue, 29 Sep 2020 at 23:36, Joseph Seddon <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > I believe options are going to be explored for sustainability but right > > now > > > legally speaking the US is the best jurisdiction for hosting us now and > > the > > > foreseeable future. > > > > > > > I agree with this too. For now, the United States remains the best place > > for the organisation to operate out of, and a move should not be actively > > considered. > > > > Dan > > > > [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act > > [2]: > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA#Wikimedia_community > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > -- GN. *Power of Diverse Collaboration* *Sharing knowledge brings people together* Wikimania Bangkok 2021 August hosted by ESEAP Wikimania: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gnangarra Noongarpedia: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/nys/Main_Page My print shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Gnangarra/shop?asc=u _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
