Policy talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Archive 2

Paradox

If I'm not wrong, a "code of conduct" works on a voluntary base, so nobody is really obliged to follow the rules. But then demanding a "binding set of ethical guidelines" is contradictory.--Sinuhe20 (talk) 13:13, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

#An oxymoron: binding guidelines --Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 14:34, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

A "code of conduct" explains how to do cooperation on a voluntary base. Note: a scientific review of cooperation does not exsist, so no one has a guideline. The Council of Europe was asked to wright a review for its own sakes but has not answered yet. --84.62.141.109 08:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Community Insights Report Statistic

Per User:Aron Manning's revert of my edit: The source is the same as the source of the 40% statistic, used in that same line. It's Community Insights report (2018), the SS08 chart, the line on policies. In the same way that the the "Quite a bit" and "A lot" statistics were added together to achieve 40%, it makes sense to add "None" and "A little" together to get 48%. The presentation of the 40% rather than the 48% felt misleading, hence why I added the larger statistic, and I'm reverting the revert. 98.113.245.219 22:30, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@98.113.245.219: Thanks for the explanation! —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 03:56, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Is this teaching tolerance toward cultures or just mere dos and don'ts?

I've been thinking especially after reading feedback, most of them negative. Is the Code intended to teach users how to tolerate diverse cultures, give them a lot of respect, promote cultural relativism, or just a mere set of dos and don'ts without sufficiently explaining why the Code should exist in the first place? If neither, then what else does the Code intend? George Ho (talk) 20:47, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@George Ho: This is a very good point. There's an example in the stackexchange CoC of such dos and don'ts: [1]. Imo such guidance should be an explanatory supplement to the CoC: my assumption (and real-life experience) is that the primary purpose of a CoC is to reinforce community values about civility and give behavioral guidelines, which would benefit from such explanations. —AronM🍂 edits🌾 01:48, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@George Ho: from what I've read, it seems that all the objection stem from that fact that no matter what anyone proposes, it is unenforceable. Mostly that's because such a code of conduct is prescriptive, rather than descriptive. If we found a way to articulate existing consensus (express what we already all agree to) it would be much less charged. And of course there is one thing that we all agree on (on Wikipedia at least): Anything that disrupts the creation and maintenance of the encyclopedia is forbidden. Don't harass the people who write and maintain it. Maybe that's all it ought to say. Adopt a clear definition of harassment, like the Ontario Human Rights Code does: engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome. Vexations (talk) 18:06, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Discuss Space

I thought the plan was to freeze Discuss Space by March 31 2020. Does is still make sense to list it in Universal_Code_of_Conduct#An evolving process? Vexations (talk)

Had anyone advanced a draft over there? I'm not on Spaces. EllenCT (talk) 18:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I haven't seen a draft for a Code of Conduct there. The use of Discourse itself may be relevant though, as it has some features that facilitate civil conversation. They sort of have it built-in. See https://blog.discourse.org/2013/03/the-universal-rules-of-civilized-discourse/ for more info.

What is it good for? What is insufficient presently?

I write from experience in Swahili wikipedia (and as an observer of African language wikipedias). This debate looks not really clear to me. What is it supposed to change? I see the 2015 report on harassment with some examples of insults. Could those wikipedia communities not handle it? From my experiences of 13 years as admin I do not remember anything of this type in swwiki. Of course it has to do with small or very small communities.

I can actually not see what a global code is to change. Who outside a given community is to decide if a certain expression in Swahili, Malegassy, Somali or Tigrinya is beyond the tolerable? Looks like a huge bureaucratic exercise with unclear parameters. Kipala (talk) 17:17, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: this Code should be developed independent of the Foundation

I propose that the Foundation be given no control, influence, sway, or any other ability to determine the outcome of Code of Conduct determinations, and all such determinations be placed under the control of neutral third parties, because of the Foundation and Foundation staff's inability to demonstrate freedom from conflicts of interest. EllenCT (talk) 09:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

The main page discusses mainly about wikiquette, safe space and personal conflicts. But a code of conduct must include other aspects, such as conflict of interests as EllenCT says. Cntributing to the Wikimedia project while having conflicts of interest should be considered inappropriate conduct.

However, the Foundation's past and current behavior is not the only reason to support EllenCT's proposal. We are a movement, and major issues such as creating a code of conduct should be decided by the community as a whole, not by a few Foundation people. --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Catch 22: who appoints 'neutral third party' and pays for their time and effort? isn't it the Foundation? Retired electrician (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

@Retired electrician: No, of course not. The Wikimedia community is capable of organizing these things for themselves. The WMF are paid administrators who are outsiders to the Wikimedia community and its culture. The Wikimedia community can represent itself. The normal process is

1. The Wikimedia Foundation publicly announces the budget for Code of Conduct Development, including investment of staff time
2. some reasonable portion of that budget goes to empowering the Wikimedia community to better represent itself
3. The Wikimedia community, who are stakeholders in the Code of Conduct, participates in the discussion with power at minimum equal to the WMF, and ideally with power and resources beyond the WMF

A code of conduct comes from an empowered and resourced community. To have it come from outsiders or consultants is an error. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Enforcement, not code

We already have the WMF terms of use. A universal code of conduct is not really needed.

Neither the WMF nor stewards currently have the capacity to handle escalations of debates that local communities could resolve. That sentiment may have arisen from the various times WMF attempted to intervene in English Wikipedia matters; every time the community rebuffs.

But many small wikis don't have a robust community that takes due account of the vocal opinions editors who don't have advanced privileges. Azerbaijani Wikipedia was a recent example of local dispute resolution failure. Now we have the Russian Wikipedia wanting to escalate to WMF level. More broadly, we also have interwiki disputes, such as those relating to tools deployment, Wikidata integration, and Commons integration. At the moment, it seems that whichever of English Wikipedia or German Wikipedia wants to exert themselves more will win by default, without any real guiding principle of dispute resolution.

What we really need is a WMF appeals court for disputes that the local community cannot resolve. It ought to hear disputes for which local community discussions have got to a dead end, whether the dispute concerns only one wiki or is an interwiki disagreement. Most of the time this appeals court will feel like an RfC or Arbitration case on the English Wikipedia, because small wikis have fewer layers of dispute resolution. But other times it'll function as a super-appeals court that has authority. Deryck C. 12:48, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

• Can you please be more specific about Russian Wikipedia wanting to escalate to WMF level? Adamant.pwn (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

When the new strategy would look for more inclusivity, this discussion is exclusive

Sorry but I figured out about this discussion because I follow international discussions and I am active in several communities but I can assure that some communities did not know about it. Surely the Italian community is ignoring that there is a discussion about an Universal Code of Conduct and we are speaking about one of the biggest community. I assume that this is included in the new reccomendations of the new strategy but these reccomandations also say that the movement must be more inclusive. My feeling is that this discussion is quite exclusive and it's a pity that a discussion about a Code of Conduct starts with a limited group of communities. I suggest to extend the translations and open it to more communities. --Ilario (talk) 10:37, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ilario: Barely anyone knows about this, but it doesn't really matter because it's already clear that the proposal is practically unanimously opposed. The WMF is starting discussions in a bunch of languages, and they'll get some more walls of opposes, and either the WMF will keep pushing or they won't. There's not much point in trying to pull more attention to this, at least for now. --Yair rand (talk) 18:21, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Surveys in progress March 2020

• Talk:Hindi_Wikimedians_User_Group#सार्वभौमिक_आचार_संहिता_(यूनिवर्सल_कोड_ऑफ_कंडक्ट)

User surveys are in progress. I wish that the Wikimedia community could get notice of when the WMF does surveys and how the WMF will report results. How many communities are invited into this survey?

I am anxious that the WMF has originated some odd ideas in the Code of Conduct which did not come from the Wikimedia community and would be controversial in the wiki community. Why do surveys without disclosing the fact of the survey?

There are so many points of universal agreement. I hope no one risks the likely consensus and delays the advancement of discussion by failing to include the Wikimedia community in the development of any code of conduct. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:36, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

WMF please fund Wikimedia communities to organize local discussions on this

The path to a universal code of conduct includes the WMF giving money to Wikimedia community groups who organize themselves to discuss Wikimedia community conduct without any pressure, guidance, or direction from Wikimedia Foundation staff and consultants. There are lots of Wikimedia community groups who have discussed this already. With money to support the administration of grassroots research, notetaking, and documentation, the Wikimedia community is capable of building some consensus among itself.

I am going to guess and estimate that the money that the Wikimedia Foundation has spent in staff time, consultants, researchers, and administrative support on developing a Universal Code of Conduct is about US$400,000. The WMF can report for itself what budget has gone into this and also the specific amount of money which it has granted to the community for the same purpose.

There is so much expertise in this space in the Wikimedia community from so many different perspectives. It is completely impossible for the WMF to go this alone without the community.

Please WMF include the Wikimedia community in the normal conventional routine and sane way. Please do not plan any code of conduct discussion in the repeatedly attempted rollout model of superprotect / image viewer / FRAM / rebranding / fundraising weirdness / Knowledge Engine. Please make sure that multiple Wikimedia community volunteers are at the forefront of this proposal. Any investment that the WMF made in proposing and documenting a model for growing Wikimedia community consensus would be a great investment aspect of the Code of Conduct project. Any passable code of conduct is going to include a rule that says "the only person fit to speak for a community group is a volunteer member who has the support of that group to speak", and no WMF staffer will ever fit that description any more than any corporation or empowered entity can represent consumers or the common person. The Wikimedia community does not need anyone to speak or advocate for it, but does appreciate Wikimedia Foundation support - money - to sponsor the administrative base from which common people can empower themselves and organize their own discussions.

If anyone with power wants to make this code of conduct have community support in the future then they ought to financially sponsor the necessary global community-based discussions for this sooner. The Wikimedia Foundation has enough money at this point that a frank and forward discussion about money should come right at the front of any intersection of WMF proposals and community consensus seeking. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:53, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

If they spent anywhere near $400,000 it's a dramatic waste of money considering the only passable version of a UCoC would be one which does not currently interfere with local conduct policies on any projects, which anyone knowledgeable of Wikimedia communities could write up in under two hours. In regard to paying contributors for local discussions, that seems a bit overboard. It'd be a lot easier, and cheaper, to place messages on local noticeboards with MMS and request that the various projects create organized project-space pages for local discussion and connect it to a Wikidata item for WMF staffers to later review. Vermont (talk) 01:33, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Vermont: There are some things which grassroots community volunteers do and some things which come from the administration of a nonprofit organization. It is a fantasy and an error to imagine that volunteers can do for free the things which come from staffed organizations. For any given task, we need to be able to determine when we need volunteer labor and when we need staff labor.

You say when the WMF spends money "it's a dramatic waste" and also that giving wiki community groups money "seems a bit overboard". I get it, I hear lots of wiki people say exactly this, but these wishes are incompatible with each other. The Wikimedia Movement pulls in US$100 million a year and every part gets spent every year. The finance options for addressing any challenge are (1) money directed by WMF staff (2) money directed by community stakeholders (3) money for neither and instead to be spent for some other challenge. The default solution to every challenge in the wiki movement is always either 1 or 3, and never 2 until and unless the Wiki community exerts itself greatly.

You say anyone can synthesize the text in two hours - here are the 1000 pages of text to condense:

• Universal Code of Conduct/Research - Wikipedia
• Universal Code of Conduct/Research - Other Wiki projects

I disagree that a knowledgeable Wikipedian can write a passable code of conduct. Instead, I believe that any knowledgeable Wikipedian can easily identify major problems with any text already in existence, including all the codes of conduct for other online communities. Writing a widely acceptable code of conduct might be impossible. I still am not sure.

I also find you very quick to accept that giving all data and community feedback to "WMF staffers to later review" is the solution to this or any arbitrary challenge. Sometimes that works, or sometimes we could go with community partnerships. I would love to be able to reroute the money from WMF staffers to fund research analysis and partnerships to university groups in underserved countries, for example. We could have options. I think it is unfortunate that when money goes to volunteer groups people complain, when it goes to grants people critique the process, when money goes to consultants it is a scandal, but when the WMF hires yet more people then that is silent and unobservable so that is the least negative and most acceptable option.

I advocate for an empowered wiki community in the development of community policy. I see no reason to believe we will increase community empowerment by continuing the status quo. After code of conduct we will have new issues every year. What do you think should happen perpetually when comparable challenges repeatedly arise?

I very much appreciate your responding to me and welcome your wildest proposals of what to do. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. My main issue regarding the cost would be that, when implemented, regardless of how good or bad the final product is, there is going to be community dissent. The more the UCoC removes responsibilities from local volunteer communities, the more dissent there would be, and I'd hate to see a lot of money spent on developing a program that is eventually scrapped due to push-back. There are many possibilities less likely to cause problems, such as creating a group of people, staff or not, to enforce a set code in mediating institutional problems on Wikimedia projects, filling the gap that Stewards have been working on of late, such as with azwiki, hrwiki, and a few others. In regard to the "2 hours" comment I made, I meant that many multiple-project community members could formulate a decent proposal for a UCoC in a short amount of time; I was not referring to the extensive research done of currently existing policies. The difference between my comment and your interpretation is, where I used "anyone knowledgeable of Wikimedia communities", you used "Wikipedian". I'd think most global sysops, admins on multiple projects, and stewards are capable of coming up with passable proposals, but I agree that your average editor on a single Wikipedia would not. However, we both seem to agree that most active editors, regardless of project, would be able to identify problems in proposals and voice legitimate opinions on their impact. In reading that collated list of projects and policies over again, I'm a bit intrigued that they left out the Simple English Wikipedia, but that's just my own curiosity and nothing to do with this process. For my "WMF staffers to later review" bit, that's because in the hypothetical situation of sending a mass message to communities, WMF staffers would collate the community responses into one consensus-developed UCoC. In nearly any course of action, there will be multiple points at which WMF staffers would be tasked with judging community consensus and response, and the goal with such a MMS would be to gather community responses for staffers to look through. I hope that is cleared up, and I'm not sure what you refer to by "community partnerships". With regard to community empowerment, it's seemingly become evident that the future holds a continually growing Wikimedia Foundation that, over time, siphons power and responsibilities from local communities while feeling a lessening need to permit community processes to function without WMF involvement. In my view, this is not necessarily bad, but it very well could be. In regard to my proposals, I don't have much so far, but I have some thoughts. Given the niche that I edit in and the experiences I've had, I often don't share the same views of most single-project editors, and any UCoC ideas I conceive would be centered around mediating institutional problems on projects that experience continually permitted admin abuse, copyright violations, racism/intolerance, etc. Multiple projects currently experience or have experienced problems in that regard, and T&S has helped out to some degree, as have stewards and global RfCs, but it's all a bit ambiguous. If there's to be a global code of conduct to hold every project to, I would think it should interfere with community processes as little as possible except when those processes are harmed by institutional issues. As such, the issue isn't what projects do or don't have certain policies, it's a question of what projects enforce them fairly and without extensive bias, which would need some sort of outside force (UCoC committee, like recently proposed?) to manage it. The pages of research don't seem useful to me in that regard; all that is necessary, in my view, is a set of requirements that a project would need to uphold listing basic conduct policies, involved administrator policies (when there's over a set number of administrators), and anti-discrimination policies. For example, a hypothetical UCoC would have come in handy with Til Eulenspiegel rather than a global ban discussion. Take a look at the list of recent global RfCs, and see how many of them focus on issues in a certain wiki where the local establishment is not able to handle whatever issues there are or is the alleged source of the problem. Seems to me about half. Many of these RfC's go weeks or months without coming to a conclusion, some have no discussion and are closed, but for those who do have lengthy discourse at the end there's always questions of jurisdiction, precedent, the ability to enforce a result, etc., and the closer is bound to get hate from whichever side isn't given a positive result. If there is to be a UCoC, let it fill that gap. I know I've answered your last question a bit more broadly than expected, but I hope it gives insight into the lenses through which I view this issue. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 22:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, forgot to ping, see above. Also, oy vey, sorry for the wall of text. I just kept typing... Vermont (talk) 22:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Vermont: Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it all. I am unable to reply fully for a while and will reflect, thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

WMF employees do not determine consensus. They need to consider it, when it comes to a decision WMF needs to make, and report accurately to the decision maker (for instance the board). If the relevant community has not explicitly determined and summarised the consensus, WMF employees can and should summarise at the best of their abilities. Nemo 05:03, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I second the sentiment, but there's also the issue that paying someone to do this kind of work is in effect a bribe to local communities, sometimes very small, to promote the WMF's desired outcome. (But the price usually WMF pays to compliant people is not only financial; it can also come in the form of access to future benefits.) In the worst case, you end up having an army of editors on WMF's payroll capturing millions of users who just don't have the energies to fight for what would work best for their projects.

The WMF grants have sometimes explored ways to avoid this conflict of interest, for instance by focusing on the reimbursement of costs incurred for community work rather than wages. The typical way is to throw some thousands of dollars to an in-person event on a subject WMF likes, but that's not an option now. I agree that alternatives can be found, if there is the will. For instance at some point I was thinking of running in-person reading groups after sending a copy of a book on online abuse that has been recently published in Italian. Such an initiative could happen online too, would have some costs for physical goods and may benefit from a professional facilitator from outside the community without an issue of consensus determination.

I don't necessarily agree that a volunteer cannot write proper policy for our very diverse communities. In fact, if it's possible at all, only volunteers can; while the WMF employees are certain to be unable to do it, not because of how they are but because of how WMF works. It's true however that it takes a lot of work, and some incentives, for the projects to discuss extensively on something that they usually don't feel like discussing, and WMF needs to think how to avoid overloading the community with extra work. Nemo 05:03, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft proposals

Hello, I added a section for proposals at Universal Code of Conduct#Proposals. I put a draft proposal from me there.

Although I think that my proposal would be good in many ways, a difficult issue is how to support diversity of expressions and opinions, even when those expressions or opinions may offend others, while also supporting civility. At this point, I think that civility policies are best left to local communities.

I welcome others' opinions, including alternate proposals. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 03:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• I have not marked my proposal for translation because I do not want to request the valuable time of volunteer translators if there are early indications that my proposal will not be approved. However, if others feel that the proposal is good, please feel free to mark it for translation.
• I tried to avoid breaking any of the existing translation markers. I would appreciate any corrections to errors that I made. Thanks, ↠Pine (✉) 03:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

1. This seems like a reasonable first approximation. I have not seen anything that would be an obvious problem, but I am fairly sure that there will have to be some changes, as there are likely to be things that are not sufficiently clear to some people.
2. Why 7 members? Will this be enough? there will be cases where one or more members will want to or have to recuse. How many members would be considered a quorum?
3. How will they handle language problems, and lack of familiarity with the customs and policies of the various projects? In what language will cases be investigated? How will transparency of process be ensured? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Instead, PLEASE help us deal with rogue wikis

This initiative clearly has good intentions, but it is also clear it isn't going well. The biggest problem we have are routine squabbles over content. There is little chance of the Foundation doing anything constructive about those squabbles, and even less chance that Foundation efforts would be welcome. When it comes to things like threats, I believe we already know to escalate such issues to be handled by the Foundation. Again, not much chance for the Foundation to do anything new and constructive.

One area that really is a problem is dealing with small wikis that go off the rails. AzWiki and HrWiki come to mind. In some countries we have leaders of government, and academics, and major newspapers all publicly condemning Wikipedia for Holocaust denial and radical propaganda, because that's what's in Wikipedia in that language. That's what Wikipedia contains because the wingnut admins write it that way. Those admins threaten, abuse, run-off, or ban anyone who tries to fix it. Small wikis are get launched with very little vetting of the initial admins. A wiki can turn into a hell-hole if its dominated by abusive admins. Holocaust deniers, rabid-nationalists, historical revisionists, racicists, homophobes, theocrats, whatever. Our process sucks for dealing with that sort of thing. We need a better defined process, but more importantly, that is where we need Foundation help. Right now basically the only option we have is to revoke the bad-admins and dump the wiki into the lap of stewards to manage. Stewards don't want to take the responsibility, the language barrier is a huge problem, and that language is left to fester.

If the Foundation wants "equity" for under-served languages, if the Foundation wants to help users who are being harassed and abused, if the Foundation wants to protect the reputation of Wikipedia as a trusted source for neutral and reliable information, then THIS is where you need to put your efforts. Cleaning up small dysfunctional wikis.

Leave it to the global community to evaluate when it is necessary and appropriate to intervene in a wiki. Once the broader community has made that decision, please oh PLEASE step in and help clean up the mess. Launch an initiative /consultation to write global policies for evaluating and re-booting a wiki. Help set up communication channels for community review of a wiki. If a wiki does need to be rebooted, help us find experienced and responsible editors who can speak the language. If necessary pay them to admin for a year. Maybe hire translators to translate a set of model-policies or other educational-materials into the language. In particular, one of the few things that I find actually effective is when editors are firmly informed: "Wikipedia does not contain Truth. Arguing Truth doesn't work here. Arguing Truth is disruptive. Wikipedia is an accurate summary of what Reliable Sources say." Anyone who is unwilling or unable to put that ahead of their personal beliefs can't be an admin. Alsee (talk) 09:25, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Ping NNair (WMF) to (hopefully) take this issue to the team for consideration. Alsee (talk) 09:31, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd assume that any Universal Code of Conduct would include ways to deal with systematic issues on projects, like those on azwiki, hrwiki, and others; in fact, it's probably one of the only parts of a prospective Universal Code of Conduct that I'd support, and depending on the implementation, strongly so. At the moment, the global RfC system is severely inefficient and there's been very little recourse for people wronged by systematic problems with local administrators. Vermont (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• We talked about this at the Wiki LGBT meeting last week as documented at Wikimedia_LGBT_User_Group_May_14_2020. I encourage anyone who cares about the rogue wiki issue to start documentation, perhaps at Rogue wiki here on meta. Any brief start would be more documentation than what we have. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:16, 23 May 2020 (UTC)