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== RFC: Distinguishing Wikimedia Foundation staff accounts for official actions and personal use ==
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{{Quote|1=It is proposed that Wikimedia Foundation staff members should consistently use accounts with a personally identifiable name with "WMF" appended when acting on-wiki in their capacity as staff and reserved for that purpose. This will reduce confusion when Wikimedia Commons users are dealing with a fellow member of the community or a representative of the Foundation acting with special power. Personal accounts of staff members shall be considered members of the community and shall be treated as such, including following standard processes for granting access to user rights or advanced permissions.
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A proposal from the Wikimedia Commons community is not binding for the Wikimedia Foundation, however this change is intended to improve relations between our project and the Foundation and we further believe the Foundation can institute this minor change with little to no disruption of their activities, and we further ask that they consider making this a requirement not just here but at all WMF projects.
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Supporting links:
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* {{w|Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Motion|Related English Wikipedia Arbcom case, 'MediaViewer RfC'}}, created after a threat ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Peteforsyth&diff=prev&oldid=616427707 diff]) to desysop a community member as a "WMF action", outside of current definitions of office actions. The staff account involved is used for both office actions and personal editing.
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* Wikimedia Foundation staff powers are summarized at [[c:Commons:Office actions|Office actions]] with a full definition at [[Office actions]].
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* A table of all staff accounts with rights granted outside of any community process is maintained at [[WMF Advanced Permissions]], this shows a mix of account naming styles.
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* Related discussion for how the recently changed Terms of Use may affect staff accounts, [[Talk:Terms_of_use#Impact for WMF employees and contractors]].
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* [[c:Commons:Username policy]] ensures that account names with a "WMF" suffix are reserved for Wikimedia Foundation staff.
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--[[User:Fæ|Fæ]] ([[User talk:Fæ|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 05:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
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<small>
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:Additional links:
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:* [[Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Request:_clarify_policy_for_on-wiki_Office_actions]]
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:--[[User:Fæ|Fæ]] ([[User talk:Fæ|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 07:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)</small>
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::surely any such proposal should be at meta. Having every wiki have different rules for staff account naming in a world with SUL, seems like it would be too confusing for staff to reasonably follow. [[User:Bawolff|Bawolff]] ([[User talk:Bawolff|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]) 06:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
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:::I disagree, as this can only serve to decrease participation. If the English Wikipedia Community and the Commons Community can be shown to have the same viewpoint, then meta will doubtless follow. As can be seen in the Arbcom discussion, there have been several assertions by staff and well known Wikimedians that RFCs by the community may be dismissed by the Foundation as not meaningful, unless thousands rather than hundreds take part. In terms of numbers, having this discussion on meta makes that view more extreme as the level of participation is invariably ''significantly'' lower than if we have discussions on the largest projects instead.}}
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Given that a number of people have suggested that this be proposed at Meta. I am making a copy this this proposal here. The original discussion can be found on [[Commons:Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Distinguishing_Wikimedia_Foundation_staff_accounts_for_official_actions_and_personal_use|Commons]]. I for one, support this proposal full-heartedly. [[User:Zellfaze|Zellfaze]] ([[User talk:Zellfaze|talk]]) 23:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
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*{{s}} We are long past the days when staff actions were done by a small number of well-known people. The WMF now has more than [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors?showall=1 200 people] so it is reasonable to ask WMF staff to clearly identify themselves when they carry out actions in an official capacity. There is no need to rename any accounts, because those staff that don't have separate official accounts can just create a new one with "(WMF)" at the end. '''<span style="text-shadow:#C0C0C0 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em"><font color="#0F0">[[User:Green Giant|Green Giant]]</font> ([[User talk:Green Giant|<font color="#0FF">talk</font>]])</span>''' 03:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
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*{{s}}. [[User:Tuvalkin|Tuvalkin]] ([[User talk:Tuvalkin|talk]]) 02:37, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{s}} --<span style="font-variant:small-caps">[[User:Ricordisamoa|<span style="color:#004B70">Ricordi</span>]][[User talk:Ricordisamoa|<span style="color:#00703E">samoa</span>]]</span> 09:02, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{s}} [[User:John Vandenberg|John Vandenberg]] ([[User talk:John Vandenberg|talk]]) 15:56, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{s}} --'''[[User:Rschen7754|Rs]][[User talk:Rschen7754|chen]][[Special:Contributions/Rschen7754|7754]]''' 17:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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* '''Comment''' - For the avoidance of any doubt, I am an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, I frequently am an executor of OFFICE actions, I manage the team that handles rights assignments, and I control the user account User:WMFOffice. Professionally speaking, I have no comment as to whether or not I agree with this proposal (personally speaking, of course, I have an opinion, but choose not to voice it at this time). I do, however, wish to point out one thing. The list of users with staff privileges includes two role accounts (and this proposal includes the words "personally identifiable name"): WMFOffice and WMFLegal. Those are critical accounts set up on the advice of experienced professionals in security. Though infrequently used, they exist for very specific purposes having to do with the security of staff. Using one of those, it is possible, for instance, for us to take actions against individuals who are extremely dangerous (I'm talking both physical, real-world danger and internet reputational danger) without exposing staff needlessly. Those accounts make it possible for us to erect a certain arms-length that is sometimes necessary for dealing with the extremely obsessive, for instance. I think that the fact that they are so infrequently used demonstrates that we are extremely judicious with our use. Only two people know the password to WMFOffice, for instance, and I'm not pulling it out unless it's absolutely necessary. I can and have taken controversial actions under my own name, but we have advice from security professionals that we maintain a role account, just in case. I would therefore suggest that an exemption be built into any final recommendation to the staff, such that those two - which have been proven to not be frequently used or abused - be allowed to be maintained for security purposes. [[User:Philippe (WMF)|Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation]] ([[User talk:Philippe (WMF)|talk]]) 19:03, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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**Perhaps we should change it to "included" or something more generic then, because it's clear those accounts are under WMF jurisdiction. --'''[[User:Rschen7754|Rs]][[User talk:Rschen7754|chen]][[Special:Contributions/Rschen7754|7754]]''' 20:13, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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***That would certainly satisfy this objection. [[User:Philippe (WMF)|Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation]] ([[User talk:Philippe (WMF)|talk]]) 20:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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**Thanks for raising that issue [[User:Philippe (WMF)|Philippe]]. It is precisely because we have (and need) [[office actions]] operated by WMF staff that I feel it is necessary for staff to use staff-identified accounts for day-to-day business, so that the staff members do not feel the need to dream up terminology to explain the role based nature of the edit they are about to perform using their personal account. I believe that the recent dramas are a symptom of staff using personal accounts, because with the best of intentions they label an edit as a 'WMF edit', or worse 'WMF action', when what they mean (AGF, it is hard) is 'edit/action performed as part of my paid job' (maybe they should used 'paid edit' or 'paid action' per the paid contribution amendment ;-)). I whimper inside each time this happens. At best, confusion reigns supreme and 'office actions' crops up in the discussions, diluting the community understanding of [[office actions]] as a rare beast to be considered a friend, and they worry that the scope of 'office actions' is being expanded. A big thank you to your team (and you) for being extremely cautious wrt using those accounts. Should this RFC get traction (say about 15 supports), based on the concept, we'll need to put our heads together to construct a proposed wording suitable to become a meta policy. [[User:John Vandenberg|John Vandenberg]] ([[User talk:John Vandenberg|talk]]) 22:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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*** I would support this change to the RFC as well. [[User:Zellfaze|Zellfaze]] ([[User talk:Zellfaze|talk]]) 19:14, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
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* In light of what has happened on the German Wikipedia, this is now a ''must-have''. I would like the policy include the two accounts mentioned by [[User:Philippe (WMF)|Philippe]], though. [[user:odder|odder]] ([[user talk:odder|talk]]) 07:09, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
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* {{support}} I sometimes come across WMF employees which I have not previously heard of. Having "WMF" somewhere in the user name of all official accounts would make things less clear. I {{oppose}} the idea of using the same account for both personal and office use as such use risks being confusing and unclear, as recently seen at [[:en:MediaWiki:Common.js]] and [[:de:MediaWiki:Common.js]]. I have no problem with having "WMF" at the beginning of some user names as in the examples given by Philippe, as long as it is unambiguously clear that the account is controlled by the WMF. The letters "WMF" should not appear anywhere in accounts which do not belong to the WMF. --[[User:Stefan2|Stefan2]] ([[User talk:Stefan2|talk]]) 15:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
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** There's nothing in the proposal suggesting a single (WMF / personal account) and most WMFers on en-wp (except Wales, of course) have dual accounts. [[User:NE Ent|NE Ent]] ([[User talk:NE Ent|talk]]) 13:35, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{support}} In my personal opinion this is a good move, it allows work and personal actions to be distinctly separated and leaves little question when staff members leave so that rights can be removed and the accounts completely locked. <small> For those that do not know, I am also [[User:Jalexander|Jalexander]] in my staff capacity and generally oversee staff rights. I am speaking completely in my personal capacity.</small> [[User:Jamesofur|Jamesofur]] ([[User talk:Jamesofur|talk]]) 18:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{support}} per above. --[[User:Steinsplitter|Steinsplitter]] ([[User talk:Steinsplitter|talk]]) 20:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{support}} and {{oppose}} per Stefan2. [[User:Revent|Revent]] ([[User talk:Revent|talk]]) 01:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
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* {{support}} [[User:NE Ent|NE Ent]] ([[User talk:NE Ent|talk]]) 13:35, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{support}}, that's actually some basic work missing here. If these accounts are used for WMF staff work they should be clearly identifyable. It's up to the specific user to decide whether his personal account should be renamed (assuming he/she have ever edited in Wikis) or a new account created, any special right granted to the old account for staff work needs to be transferred to the WMF account then. Anyhow the use of the WMF designation (or similar ones like WMDE, WMUK) should be prohibited in usernames for normal users. --[[User:Denniss|Denniss]] ([[User talk:Denniss|talk]]) 13:54, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{support}} [[User:Shadak|Shadak]] ([[User talk:Shadak|talk]]) 14:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{support}} This is a necessity. Post-event "claiming" of edits and actions is unacceptable.--[[User:Gilderien|Gilderien]] ([[User talk:Gilderien|talk]]) 19:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{Support}} – Seems to be a reasonable request and may prevent some needless drama. [[User:CT Cooper|CT Cooper]]<small><span style="font-weight:bold;"> ·</span> [[User talk:CT Cooper|talk]]</small> 20:31, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{Support}} – Astounding that this has not already been required long ago. [[User:Carrite|Carrite]] ([[User talk:Carrite|talk]]) 21:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
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*{{Support}} for clarity of identification, so long as staff can still use an alternate (non-staff identifying) account for "regular editing" if they wish, and so long as existing non-staff accounts that happen to contain the string, WMF, are grandfathered in. No regular editor should have to change an existing username. [[User:BD2412|<font style="background:lightgreen">''BD2412''</font>]] [[User talk:BD2412|'''T''']] 03:48, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
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== Unnecessary ==
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I assume this is a true request for comments and not simply a vote. :-)
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I don't think this is necessary as I don't see evidence of a problem needing to be addressed. There's mention of confusion, but I don't see what's allegedly confusing. While I vehemently disagree with many of Erik's actions lately, it was never ambiguous whether he was acting in an official capacity.
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A small part of me thinks this this proposed policy change would deepen the "us v. them" divide. I wonder if others share this concern. A small part of me also thinks that this proposed policy change would act as a brand (in the cattle or criminal sense) on otherwise productive accounts. And in some ways I think this inconveniences and almost punishes the people we want to be staff members the most (people from the community, who are actively editing in the community). Unlike other sites such as [[w:GitHub|GitHub]], which make it easy to link multiple accounts or switch between accounts, MediaWiki does nobody any favors.
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Sue, Brion, Tim, and many others have used unadorned accounts without issue for years. If staff members want to use accounts with "(WMF)" in the name, that's certainly fine, but I don't currently see a reason to make it a hard requirement.
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Regarding advanced user rights, those privileges should be closely monitored and audited, but that's true no matter the account names being used. By all means keep a close eye on advanced rights and limit their use as much as humanly possible. But I disagree with the suggestion above that we need to lock accounts when users depart; we just need to be mindful when staff depart (and it wouldn't hurt to be mindful all the other times as well!). --[[User:MZMcBride|MZMcBride]] ([[User talk:MZMcBride|talk]]) 02:43, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
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:The ambiguity arises when their actions with unadorned usernames are confused with [[Office actions]]. Erik sure did make it make it pretty obvious with super-protect he was acting as [[MeatBall:GodKing]], with dev minions backing him up, but that didnt stop confusion with Office actions, and that wasnt understood during the initial revert war on [[:de:MediaWiki:Common.js]]. Re community members who are also staff, they can and should be using their ordinary account for most participation, with only the rights that come with it, and subject to usual community practises, both good and bad. It is the WMF who are asserting (more strongly that before) that their staff have rights (both actual rights and the right to not be subject to community practises) above those of the community. While I am concerned about what happens when we go in that direction, I am more concerned that actions taken using 'staff' rights[https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AGlobalUsers&username=&group=Staff&limit=150] should be performed by accounts which unambiguously indicate they are WMF accounts. If you ask 'who is Eloquence' to the typical regular contributor to a smaller wiki, they have no idea. There are accounts like [[User:Yurik]] which hold staff rights, but there is no mention of who they are on their meta user page (until I added the category now). There are also have several accounts like [[User:Jalexander]] which is James' 'WMF' account - distinct from his personal account - and could easily be renamed? [[User:John Vandenberg|John Vandenberg]] ([[User talk:John Vandenberg|talk]]) 04:11, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
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:: The Board has spoken and has endorsed this horrible power-grab. Pages such as [[office actions]] probably need to be updated, but I don't see the relationship between out-of-date documentation and the usernames being used. Documentation pages such as [[office actions]] or [[w:Wikipedia:Office actions]] would need to be psychic or artificially intelligence to be able to already be updated with information reflecting the events of the past few weeks.<p>[[m:User:Eloquence]] seems clear enough to me (as does [[w:de:User:Eloquence]], for that matter).<p>[[m:User:Yurik]] points to [[w:User:Yurik]] which makes it clear that he's currently working for the Wikimedia Foundation. For some reason he's missing from [[WMF Advanced Permissions]], but that's easy enough to get fixed with a bit of poking. We should certainly ensure that every user in the staff group is properly accounted for, but I remain unconvinced that we need to try to force a username convention. --[[User:MZMcBride|MZMcBride]] ([[User talk:MZMcBride|talk]]) 04:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
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:::{{ping|MZMcBride}} Certainly this is a true RFC! Thank you for leaving some thoughts!
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:::This RFC isn't about the super-protect rights or the recent actions of WMF employees. Its about trying to keep people from being confused and its about making the distinction between acting in an official WMF employee capacity and an unpaid volunteer capacity easier to see. Unless Erik (not to pick on Erik, but he has been the talk of the town lately) makes a note that he is acting in an official capacity or as a volunteer, its unknown how we are meant to interpret his actions. You meantion that in his case it is obvious that he is acting in an official capacity, but I think for anyone who is not familiar with who he is and what position he holds, the act is far from obvious.
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:::By forcing the distinction between WMF account and volunteer account, we fix that problem. This also allows for measures, such as those taken against deWP's community advocate to happen. In the case of deWP's community advocate, after helping Erik his/her sysop privileges on their personal account were removed as they had lost the trust of the community. Whether you agree with that change or not, the option isn't even available without the seperation of accounts (and it could work the other way too, maybe someone should only have a privilege when they are working in an unofficial capacity).
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:::"A small part of me thinks this this proposed policy change would deepen the 'us v. them' divide." This is a sad and unwanted byproduct of this proposal, but I think its a sacrifice that is worth it. If it counts for anything, staff of the WMF who want to be (mostly) free of the "us v. them" divide would now have to use their personal account for personal editing, which would help remove the stigma of being a foundation employee when they are just trying to have some fun. (That last sentence was poorly worded sorry.)
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:::I'd love to debate the pros and cons of this further with you. So far my support remains untarnished though. [[User:Zellfaze|Zellfaze]] ([[User talk:Zellfaze|talk]]) 19:12, 15 August 2014 (UTC)