Time to revive the Legal Working Group?
Nathan Schneider
Public
Seen by 172
We used to have a Legal Working Group, but it has not been active since 2018. Now that we have a larger community, with some amazing lawyers in it, should we revive it?
Here are some pending things it might work on:
Clarify ownership status of Social.coop IP and content
Clarify fiscal sponsorship relationship with Platform6
Identify and mitigate potential legal risks
Publicize our legal knowledge and documents for use by other co-ops
What else?
The group used to be called "Legal/Governance Working Group," but I propose it should be more narrowly focused on legal interfaces, since governance is something that the Community Working Group and Finance Working Group also work on—and governance is a shared task!
Billy Smith Wed 16 Nov 2022 7:44AM
This can be dealt with relatively simply, as it's an existing-problem-for-forum-admins-everywhere. :D
Add in the appropriate clauses to the T&C's, and create a take-down policy that can be used practically and sensibly.
Be upfront and explicit about what is acceptable to host.
Be upfront and explicit about what is not.
Enforce those conditions equitably and absolutely.
Make the logs of what is happening transparent to everyone taking part, so that "Justice is not only done, but also seen to be done."
Put explicit limits on how new members can first interact with the servers/wiki/forums.
The reason for the last one, is to stop bots registering, and spamming. ( Yes, i do know about the current protections that we use, but i have also seen how inventive spammers can be... :D )
Poll Created Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
Revive the Legal Working Group Closed Thu 24 Nov 2022 10:01PM
There are no objections. We will proceed. I will invite those who expressed interest to begin their work.
We used to have a Legal Working Group, but it has not been active since 2018. Now that we have a larger community, and potentially larger legal exposure, and a bunch of amazing volunteers, should we revive it?
If passed, this proposal would do the following:
Reactivate the Legal Working Group (under that name, not the old name of "Legal/Governance," since we all participate in governance)
Prompt an approval vote for self-nominated members
Invite the members to begin meeting and beginning the work of legal oversight for Social.coop
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 92.5% | 49 |
|
| Abstain | 7.5% | 4 |
|
|
| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 196 |
|
53 of 249 people have participated (21%)
Deleted account
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
I think it could be useful to have input on law-related matters from people with expertise in that area, though I'd suggest avoiding anything that comes close to a solicitor-client relationship. Both because of issues with jurisdictional competence, and because it would require clearing conflicts (or could create conflicts down the road with other clients).
Joseph Andriano
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
I agree with @TorontoWill. As a lawyer who has served on the boards of many non-profits, the rule is always to educate and help identity issues, but not to actually give advice as how to resolve those issues. I could imagine one of the lawyers actually entering into a lawyer-client relationship to undertake the work, but that would need to be spelled out with an actual engagement letter. For my part, I’m just here as a volunteer to issue spot.
Justin du Coeur
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
If there is work to be done, and qualified people who are interested in tackling it, then IMO it totally makes sense. I would just advise that we be open to putting it back into abeyance if they get through the inbox and don't have more to do. (It is easy for committees to continue indefinitely just because nobody is prepared to say "okay, we're done", and that's usually not a win in my experience.)
Billy Smith
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
It's always less expensive to learn from other people's mistakes, and, mistakes in the legal side of things are usually longer-term problems, so are more expensive to fix. Places where we can share our experiences and get better advice would be great. :D
Neil - @[email protected]
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
As both the Fediverse and socialcoop grows, seems like a sensible idea to have people on hand to educate and identify possible legal issues.
Eduardo Mercovich
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
This area if far from my experience and I'm still new in this coop to cast any vote, so I trust the rest who express their opinions here. :)
Thanks a lot for the attention to this point, independently of what happens next. :)
Christina Bowen
Thu 17 Nov 2022 10:54PM
makes sense to me. also thank you all for the attention to detail throughout this coop
Neil - @[email protected] · Mon 14 Nov 2022 9:57PM
IANAL so I don't know if it's needed or not... but if a legal working group forms might be good to get clarity on what happens if illegal content somehow federates and gets stored on our server. And probably handy to get legal input on GDPR/data related issues.