Policy talk:Universal Code of Conduct

Archives of this page

---

2019
2020
2021

Universal Code of Conduct News – Issue 1

Universal Code of Conduct News
Issue 1, June 2021Read the full newsletter

---

Welcome to the first issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code, and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.

Please note, this is the first issue of UCoC Newsletter which is delivered to all subscribers and projects as an announcement of the initiative. If you want the future issues delivered to your talk page, village pumps, or any specific pages you find appropriate, you need to subscribe here.

You can help us by translating the newsletter issues in your languages to spread the news and create awareness of the new conduct to keep our beloved community safe for all of us. Please add your name here if you want to be informed of the draft issue to translate beforehand. Your participation is valued and appreciated.

• Affiliate consultations – Wikimedia affiliates of all sizes and types were invited to participate in the UCoC affiliate consultation throughout March and April 2021. (continue reading)
• 2021 key consultations – The Wikimedia Foundation held enforcement key questions consultations in April and May 2021 to request input about UCoC enforcement from the broader Wikimedia community. (continue reading)
• Roundtable discussions – The UCoC facilitation team hosted two 90-minute-long public roundtable discussions in May 2021 to discuss UCoC key enforcement questions. More conversations are scheduled. (continue reading)
• Phase 2 drafting committee – The drafting committee for the phase 2 of the UCoC started their work on 12 May 2021. Read more about their work. (continue reading)
• Diff blogs – The UCoC facilitators wrote several blog posts based on interesting findings and insights from each community during local project consultation that took place in the 1st quarter of 2021. (continue reading)

Is deletionism exempt?

Re: "The repeated arbitrary or unmotivated removal of any content without appropriate discussion or providing explanation" I think this reads that if your motive is deletionism you don't need to provide an explanation. I hope that wasn't what was intended. I'm not 100% sure that this was meant to be taken literally. But the word unmotivated could cause some issues here. WereSpielChequers (talk) 12:49, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Unmotivated removal of content without appropriate discussion or providing explanation is permitted per en:Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks ("Derogatory comments about other editors may be removed by any editor") and en:Wikipedia:Vandalism ("Upon discovering vandalism, revert such edits...") Vexations (talk) 15:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

and per en:WP:BLPRS "contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion".(emphasis mine) Vexations (talk) 16:43, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Nominating something for deletion through a project's appropriate process is neither arbitrary nor unmotivated and does not, in my eyes, seem like any kind of UCoC violation. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I wonder why we need to put this in UCoC. And how many people will interpret "[when] without appropriate discussion or providing explanation" as "[when] I don't like the explanation". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:34, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that this is trying to get at vandalism where people just randomly blank stuff (paragraphs, sections, headers, footers, and such), seemingly on a whim and for nothing but amusement value, but as written it's a terrible description of that, to the extent that it doesn't describe it at all. Uncle G (talk) 14:46, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Will this unlock new ways for international enforcement?

I have a concrete example: the very small wikipedia community of Luxembourg. The main admin himself is violating several conduct rules nearly daily. So far noone besides other local admins (that unfortunately close their eyes) could do something against this behaviour. I have done my enquiries. Will this Universal Code of Conduct eventually open the door for international enforcement, so these aristocracies can be put to an end? R2lx (talk) 16:20, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

How to handle typos

To go along with the substantive content issues, the lack of community ratification, and unclear wording, is there a preferred mechanism for fixing the various typos?

Normally I'd just be BOLD - anywhere else on Wikipedia, but since that has been Board "ratified", does that still hold up? Nosebagbear (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@RamzyM (WMF) and Xeno (WMF): - could either of you shed some light? Otherwise I'll just assume that BRD applies until community ratification occurs Nosebagbear (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Nosebagbear: Is it typos on the board-ratified text? Are the typos already mentioned on this page or in archives? Xeno (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xeno (WMF): assuming that the text on UCOC page is the "ratified" document, then yes. I don't know if they've been discussed on this page. There's a few different categories, such as the bullet points being all over the place with what they use to end (nothing, semicolons, full stops, etc) Nosebagbear (talk) 22:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people"

'While 'race' as a meaningful distinction has fortunately (in academia at least) at last been recognised as the self-serving pseudoscientific hogwash it always was, and clearly shouldn't be endorsed, I can't help thinking that whoever decided to include 'ethnicity' in the same statement not only doesn't understand what ethnicity is, but hasn't read the rest of the document, since it uses the terms 'ethnic and cultural background' and 'ethnic groups' in contexts where not recognising the terms as meaningful would be utterly nonsensical. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

While the intention behind this declaration might be honorable, it can have some unforseen side-effects. If you google "diabetes south asian uk" you will see that "The risk of developing diabetes is between two to six times higher in SA [the South Asian community] when compared with white Europeans in the UK". Google goes on to list many studies in which this has been demonstrated. As a result Diabetes UK takes pains to ensure that the South Asian community is properly targeted in any publicity campaigns. How does the Wikimedia movement plan to handle this fact? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Martinvl (talk)

That is a perfectly valid point, though not the one I was trying to address, which is a much broader concern. Even as a social construct (which is what it is in most contexts), ethnicity is a real part of people's sense of self-identity, and of people's lives. Lumping it in with 'race' and suggesting it isn't 'meaningful' borders on being offensive. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:49, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Place to discuss violations and processes

I have a question: will there be a place on meta to discuss potential UCoC violations, and how these should be addressed across various language wikis? I think this would be very useful for getting answers to questions, exchanging views, getting advice, establishing actual practice based on use cases, etc. In fact, I have what I believe to be a UCoC violation right now, which I believe would be useful to discuss as an example Thhhommmasss (talk) 19:38, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Japanese consultation report in 2020

I left questions at Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Initial 2020 Consultations/Japanese and would like to get answers from someone familiar with how the report was made. whym (talk) 10:46, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

these rules

nobody cares about these rules, in fact bully admins never followed any rules. reporting unacceptable behaviours of admins only bring to more harassments and abuses. despite many proofs a bunch of them keep denying everything. Harzakc (talk) 17:29, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Freedom of speech: Vandalism or criticism

Which are Our Values (we accept no less than civility), WMDE–Werte (Wikimedia Deutschland versteht respektvolle Zusammenarbeit als den offenen, partnerschaftlichen und solidarischen Umgang aller Beteiligten miteinander)?

It is inadmissible that - in democratic states - Wikipedia represents a space/an organization beyond the law (Rechtsfreier Raum) where the Fundamental Rights as Freedom of expression (Article 11), Equality before the law (Article 20), Due process of law/Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial (Article 47), No penalty without law (Article 49) and Right not to be tried or punished twice (Article 50) are not respected.

Freedom of expression and criticism of the officials is an essential element of democracy. No control of power means authoritarianism and dictatorship (see Russia, North Korea or China).

I also miss (as User:Harzakc and Thhhommmasss) a committee of independent and impartial members with no special functions in the Wikipedia Communities, nor in the National Chapters nor in Wikimedia Foundation, with competence to decide in respect of the Wikipedia principles and rules and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This committee should be able to overrule all decisions in case of violation of the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.

The allegations of Wikipedia:Vandalism or Wikipedia:No personal attacks are very often misused by administrators as a pretext to eliminate critical authors by ban or block. Also Wikipedia:Page blanking and Wikipedia:Content removal are often applied without reasonable arguments disregarding any rules and misused as censorship. For every decision - also for the decisions of the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee - users should have the possibility to appeal to an independent and impartial committee.--GF (talk) 13:37, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

UCoCの草稿を読んで、文化格差を感じる部分

from Japan

A.

参加するグローバルなコミュニティで偏向と偏見を認めないこと。

「この偏向と偏見を認めないこと」という項目には危惧を感じます。『偏見と偏向』は、いったい誰から見た偏見と偏向なのでしょうか。

わかりやすい例として日本の太地町のイルカ漁と、それに反対する欧米の人たちをあげます。 私はなぜ、欧米人があれほど、小さな漁村で昔からイルカ漁をやっている太地町の町民を非難するのか、わかりませんでした。英語圏の人と、機械翻訳をつかって議論したこともあります。まったく話が噛み合いませんでした。

日本人の文学研究者が書いた本を読んで、ようやく腑に落ちました。以下の本です。

「快楽としての動物保護　『シートン動物記』から『ザ・コーヴ』へ (講談社選書メチエ) 」信岡朝子 https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08KQ645MZ/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_K2S4C7M8PCQBNJS35N27 @amazonJP

上記の本による、 野生動物を殺すことに関しての欧米人の価値観。1.から3.にいくにつれて『悪』または『野蛮』とされるそうですが、本当でしょうか？　

1.紳士のスポーツとしての狩猟（今は違うのかもしれません） 2.人間の生活を守るための駆逐 3.食べるための狩猟（＝野蛮）

これは私には非常な驚きでした。 日本人の私とにとっては、まったく逆だったからです。（1.から3.にいくにつれて『酷い』）

1.食べるための狩猟（＝必要。また殺した動物に対して敬意を持つ。殺さざるを得なかったから、無駄なく食べる） 2.人間の生活を守るための駆逐 3.スポーツとしての狩猟（悪い意味での遊戯。ペットの犬や猫を切り刻んで遊ぶ人のイメージに近い。もちろん、私は犬食文化や猫食文化を持つ人たちを否定しません）

B.

投稿者自身がどう名乗り、どのように自己を紹介するか尊重します。 人々は一定の性的指向もしくは性別を示す独得の名称や代名詞を使うことがあります。

これは理解できます。ただ、性自認によって変化する代名詞は、英語話者（印欧語話者）以外には、ますます英語の理解が難しくなります。 そこをご配慮ください。

C.

記：ここで言う用語「人種」と「民族」人を特徴づける方法として禁じるため加えてあります。ウィキメディア運動は人の特徴付けを禁じます。ウィキメディア運動はこれら用語を人々の峻別に有効なものとして承認せず、個人攻撃の基盤として用いることを禁じるほかの使用はしてはならないと信じます。）

民族紛争などの状況を考えて、おっしゃっているのでしょうか？ 『ある人物の文化的背景』を知るために、民族が重要になる場合も多いと考えます。

D.まとめ 「欧米的、キリスト教的価値観」は、良いものをたくさん含んでいるでしょうし、私たちの価値観にも共通する部分が数多くあります。 ただ、日本人の多くは 「自分の価値観を押し付けるのは良くない」という価値観を持っています。伝道師はうさんくさい人と見られます。 この草稿はあまりにも自分たちの「正しさ」を確信しているように思えます。Kizhiya (talk) 23:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Psychological manipulation

The UCoC's definition of "psychological manipulation" is "Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want."

What if someone genuinely and honestly subscribes to fringe beliefs, or is genuinely unaware they lack competence in the area they've chosen to work in (think Scots Wikipedia)? Surely they will encounter plenty of volunteers who will try to "cause them to doubt their own perceptions, sense, or understanding with the objective to win an argument" ... and "force" them to stop poor material into articles. Is that a bad thing?

As written, this UCoC passage about psychological manipulation can be read to criminalise ordinary debate ... but debate is how the Wikipedia sausage is made. As worded now, this UCoC passage is likely to multiply accusations of "gate-keeping" lobbed against volunteers. There are enough such accusations already, often unjustified; there's no need to provide extra encouragement.

Moreover, the word "maliciously" makes the entire passage completely subjective. Think of Russian Wikipedia in the present circumstances ... you will have people (dis)believing Russian state media and people (dis)believing Western media, each accusing the other of "maliciously" trying to "doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding". A passage like this, which every partisan can interpret in the way that suits them best, is not fit for purpose. --Andreas JN466 13:47, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

@Andreas: Thanks for adding this!

As you may know, I was involved with Scots Wikipedia at the time of the controversy broke out (was even quoted in the linked article). The passage in question seems to focus on issues involving a term more commonly known as gaslighting. I won't go into too much detail as to why I think gaslighting is bad, but I can elaborate if you want.

Wikipedia is an open project, and many things we do on this site are openly logged for the public record. It's pretty transparent and simple to figure out who said what in a conversation. However, that has not stopped people from straight out lying about the contents of diffs or what a source said in order to win an argument. People doing that kind of thing is not something we want to see in this movement.

Using the Scots Wikipedia thing, if someone told AG that they were wrong on specific grammar rules regarding Scots, that wouldn't be malicious in the slightest. I know for the Scots Wikipedia example, AG was not the type of person to block individuals for pointing out they were wrong.

However, as you said, maliciousness is subjective. It requires a certain amount of intent on the part of the bad actor. Well, the ideal of this section is more likely than not meant to avoid restricting good faith debate and discussion (you can't be both in good faith and acting maliciously). There isn't anything to suggest otherwise unless you feel the wiki process is somehow inherently malicious (which I would find doubtful given my above point regarding its transparency).

Could we possibly see this section of the UCoC abused to censor users in projects like Russian/Ukrainian Wikipedia? Yeah, they could very well claim someone on the opposite side was trying to gaslight them about their experiences happening right now during the invasion. Still, they never needed the UCoC to do that. What the UCoC does is set as a baseline that gaslighting is not okay. It doesn't grant anyone any additional rights that they already didn't have.

It's for that reason, I don't think the section is at all harmful. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:32, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Can anyone provide an example of a case where someone was accused of and sanctioned for gaslighting? I have been tracking forms of undesirable behaviour approximately since the conversations about the conversation about the UCoC started and have never seen it. Is this a real problem? Vexations (talk) 19:50, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

The section is a solution in search of a problem. Moreover, it creates a new problem simply by existing – because, going back to the imagined Russian scenario, people will then argue about who is malicious and who is gaslighting whom (I always associate this clause with Framgate ...), rather than talking about content quality and how to neutrally summarise sources. There are perfectly good mechanisms now for sanctioning editors that lie or misrepresent sources, without a "law" that criminalises and further personalises the process whereby people try to change each other's minds. --Andreas JN466 20:17, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

It's important that we recognize that, in order to address gaslighting, we would need to establish that the behaviour was motivated by malice. That is an significant hurdle, because you'd need to prove intent. I propose that we avoid or remove any and all direct or implied references to intent, and instead focus on the effect that behaviour has. Simply put, it doesn't matter what you -meant- to do, it matters what harm your actions caused. That approach has the benefit of being value-neutral, which makes it easier for offenders to improve their behaviour and reintegrate into the community. Consider for example the difference between being a racist and saying something that was perceived as racist. Vexations (talk) 20:58, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Am I misreading this?

To me, the doxing section implies that I cannot even share information about another editor with ARBCOM without said editor's consent. I really hope that's not what's meant here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:36, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Why do you think that you need to share with Arbocom strictly personal data of a user. Arbcom is qualified to make decisions about users behaviours or point of views, not age, religion, email, personal name...--Pierpao (talk) 20:49, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by strictly personal data. DOB, religion, address, or ethnicity, I can't ever see a reason to share. Name, IDs on other platforms, websites not linked from Wikipedia, evidence of employment, and so many other less personal but still private information is often used when examining disruptive behavior. Twitter, for instance, is frequently used to spur disruptive editing. Dealing with it requires sharing some information. On en.wiki, that's often sent to ARBCOM or some other group with advanced permissions via email. Is that being prohibited here? It isn't clear to me. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:08, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

It's indeed what the letter of the UCoC says. It also forbids people from discussing another person's edits on Twitter, Facebook's Wikipedia Weekly group, Wikipediocracy, your local pub, with your husband or wife ... anywhere really. I suspect that may not have been the intention – perhaps they meant to forbid people from tweeting "User:WikipediaStar is really called Joe Bloggs, and he edits the article on Topic X" – but what they ended up doing was forbidding any off-project discussion of anyone's Wikipedia edits altogether. (That includes you, User:MJL, talking to the Guardian about another contributor's Wikimedia activity ... I hope you obtained his consent first!) --Andreas JN466 11:49, 8 March 2022 (UTC)