User:TeleComNasSprVen/Shared accounts

This is a draft RFC page, it is not yet live. Comments should be made at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) to discuss how to better structure this RFC.

This Requests for comment page was created in response to the recent controversy surrounding the use of the shared account Swiss National Library (talk · contribs). Past discussions can be found in the archives of the administrators' noticeboard and on the talkpage for Wikipedia's documentation of the GLAM project.

Timeline of events:

The account named Swiss National Library (talk · contribs) was created 30 January 2014 in order to help with one of the Wikimedia Foundation's GLAM outreach projects, the details of which can be found at Wikipedia:GLAM. It was blocked 4 February 2014 by administrator JohnCD (talk · contribs) under the Wikipedia:NOSHARE policy, which prohibits shared role accounts; JohnCD had some reserves as to whether or not the block was considered appropriate, so he posted a block review notice asking other administrators to perform a quick review of his actions. He also raised the issue 3 February 2014 on Wikipedia's GLAM talkpage in order to consult with GLAM participants. The matter was then brought to the administrators' noticeboard for attention as a request for unblocking.

Legal/attribution

According to commons:User:Swiss National Library, the main operators of this account are:

• Emmanuel Engelhart, Wikipedian in Residence, shortly: ^EE
• Micha L. Rieser, Wikipedia in Residence, shortly: ^MLR (on this wiki, Micha L. Rieser (talk · contribs))

Some issues were brought up concerning the attribution requirements under Wikipedia's CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses, particularly for shared accounts of organizations and corporate personhoods, a term used by Rieser to describe the account. Contributions made by the account dedicated to Wikipedia could be considered as works for hire. Historically speaking, while the English Wikipedia has policies blocking shared accounts from operating, neither other Wikimedia wikis nor the Wikimedia Foundation have taken steps to ban organizational accounts from operating altogether from the Wikimedia sphere. Thus, the account has been contributing peacefully and constructively to the German Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons without risk of blocking.

Rieser also described the need for contributions to be attributed to the organization itself, rather than the individuals operating it, who may or may not choose to license their own contributions differently. Swiss National Library has also sent an OTRS ticket to the German Wikipedia, tying the account directly to the organization it is editing under, so the organization and the account are definitively one and the same.

Uncertainty was raised regarding attribution to whoever is operating a shared account at any given time, to which IP addresses were cited as examples of "shared accounts" operated by multiple people, but which are nevertheless necessary for the CC-BY-SA and GFDL.

Wikipedia:Five pillars and the blocking policy

Wikipedia's mission is providing "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit". Should we consider corporate personhoods part of that "anyone can edit"?