Policy talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Archive 3

Language Fluency and skills

While I agree that our multi lingual wikis such as Meta and Wikimedia Commons need to be open for people regardless of language fluency. It is an issue on other projects. I'm always careful when I edit on a Wiki where I don't speak the language, and I don't expect to be treated the same as on a wiki where I do speak the relevant language. I'm sure we have deleted people's contributions and probably also blocked people on the English language Wikipedia because either their skills or the language fluency wasn't sufficient for them to be a net positive to the project. On at least one language version of Wikipedia we have a real problem with lack of sufficiently skilled native speakers to maintain quality. The Foundation in hindsight would also have a problem complying with this language fluency policy. Most years it hosts wikimania with one or two host languages and a clear policy that only proficient speakers of a host language will qualify for scholarship grants. I agree we need to think about linguistic equity, and probably host more meetings where the required language is not the usual English. But we also need to retain the ability to require certain minimum skill levels in issues such as language when we are running projects to write encyclopaedias and other crowd sourced works. This part of the code needs to differentiate between things like gender and ethnicity where we don't allow discrimination. Things like age where we sometimes have to put a legal minimum. And things like skill level and language fluency where we do need to discriminate.

We also need to think very carefully how we handle language fluency issues that are really linguistic disputes. Several Wikipedia versions have chosen to standardise on particular versions of a language - I think Portuguese at one stage had a situation where some Wikipedians based in Portugal were unhappy with having Brazilian Portuguese as the standard for the Portuguese Wikipedia. English doesn't have this problem as we standardise spelling at the article level not the project level. But I wonder if standardising a language version of Wikipedia on one particular dialect would be considered to be secrminitaing discriminating against people who speak other dialects of that language? WereSpielChequers (talk) 15:41, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

We don't want to do anything that smacks of secrminitaing. EEng (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I’ve learned enough lovely and interesting words from contributors that I've no shame in admitting I tried to look this up, EEng (seemed like a cromulent word to me =).

The Universal Code of Conduct is meant to remain subject to appropriate context. If a contributor lacking in fluency or competency persists in making unsuitable changes to a project, administrative intervention may be necessary to prevent those unsuitable changes in this context.

In Phase 2 participants may identify ways the UCoC seems to conflict with local policies in general, or in the specific context of a particular community.

Ideally, enforcement outside issues of a legal nature would generally be handled by local communities according to their existing community culture, policy, and practice. Where this is not possible, or where local policy and the draft universal policy diverge, please mention this in the consultations.

The drafting committee writing the enforcement section will take these concerns into account, and will be able to recommend improvements to the currently ratified document.

Thank you for the feedback WereSpielChequers! It will be useful for the drafting committee. Feel free to let me know if you have any other ideas. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno. Given the ongoing greying of the pedia, I think we can anticipate in future decades having a lot of admins who need to have the tools gently prized away from them, much as a very diplomatic pair of policemen persuaded my mother to stop driving after her last car was written off by a malicious lamppost. I'm not sure whether that counts as age discrimination or discrimination against those who suffer from the diseases of ageing. But we will need to do this, and we can't assume that every admin will just hand in the tools when they start getting dementia. Perhaps what is needed is a mechanism whereby the community can agree to some exceptions that apply to the UCOC. WereSpielChequers (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Structure

The balance between positive behaviours to strive for and negative behaviours that will not be tolerated is a good way to structure these things from what I've seen. The CoC that a user group I'm involved with followsa similar organisation v:WikiJournal_User_Group/Code_of_conduct/Draft. In case it's useful, there's also a section at the bottom of that page with some other useful inspirations. Some possible things to consider including:

• Have examples in collapsed sections for each item (currently included for 'Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves')
  • Indeed, different communities could contain different examples to illustrate the concepts in a locally relevant way.
• Have a final section of 'possible responses that may be taken' so that people understand that there are a spectrum of response measures

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:33, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Unusual idea

Lets throw away safety and inclusion together with divercity and transgenderism from Wiki and concentrate on writing Enciclopedia, not left ideas--1Goldberg2 (talk) 16:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Hate speech clause

In Section 3.3, third bullet, I would suggest to replace "Hate speech in any form, or discriminatory" with "Any deliberate use of".

Reason: A term like "Hate speech" already carries deeply ingrained definitions which may differ from the one intended here. The rest of the bullet point ("language aimed at...") gives an excellent definition of the prohibited behavior, so it is best to shift the focus to that definition.

Eldar (talk) 01:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. Eissink (talk) 07:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC).

Thank you both for your comments about s3.3 of current Policy text: I have included the suggested change for consideration. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Section 3.1 -- Harassment

From Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Draft_review#3.1_–_Harassment

> (Note: The terms “race” and “ethnicity” are included here as prohibited ways

> to distinguish people. The Wikimedia movement does not endorse these terms

> as meaningful distinctions among people and believes that they should not be

> used outside of prohibiting them as the basis for personal attacks).

This is good wording indeed ... but a detail is missing. I would enhance the note to:

(Note: The terms “race” and “ethnicity” and “sex” are included here as prohibited ways

to distinguish people. The Wikimedia movement does not endorse these terms

as meaningful distinctions among people and believes that they should not be

used outside of prohibiting them as the basis for personal attacks).

Taylor 49 (talk) 14:54, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

We could simply say that we don't care how someone identifies instead of contradicting ourselves. Vexations (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Vexations WE is very vague and it is more complicated than just stating we do not care... Zblace (talk) 11:34, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I could have said "all of us" instead. Instead of "do not care", "are indifferent to" or "find it without interest or concern". Or just "what you are is none of our business". Yes, it is a bit more complicated than that, because it isn't necessarily our consensus. Some of us insist that the projects ought to be "colourblind", others find that that not-racism perpetuates the status quo that inflicts injustices upon racialized minorities, and we should be actively anti-racist. I try to be that in my personal life, but I'm afraid not everyone is quite on board with that yet.

What I meant in my response though, was that in stead of saying that it is forbidden to call someone a "something", because "something" is a bad concept, even though we have to use it to describe what it is that we can't say, we say it's wrong to differentiate on any kind of identity. Vexations (talk) 12:51, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Changes to the main page

Yair rand: I appreciate your attention to the main page text and understand the motivation behind those copy edits. As the originally submitted text was sent for translation to support the Phase 2 community consultations efforts, would you be willing to restore the previous version of the English text copy to avoid confusion between projects?

The change in Special:Diff/21050573 adds a statement of expectation that is contingent on the results of upcoming consultations, and should be amended or restored to the original for clarity.

The change in Special:Diff/21051464 appears to link to a discussion about holding Wikimedia Foundation accountable to a new concept that has not yet been enacted. The phrase you added ("have rejected any WMF-imposed code of conduct") does not seem to accurately describe the outcome of that link.

This consultation involves all language communities, and a stable, translated description of the project is needed. Due to the way the translation work is structured, it would be best if revisions were proposed on talk before major changes are made.

I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts on the project. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Xeno (WMF) Wouldn't it be best to let this page stabilize, and then send it off for retranslation? If the page has been improved, then the translations should be improved to match it, not the page reverted.

I'll also say that I believe that the unanimous consensus at the link added by Special:Diff/21051464 does include 'It will not attempt to impose their notions of civility upon the communities with very diverse cultural backgrounds in the form of a central "code of conduct".', and it's hard to understand why that wouldn't be considered a rejection by the community that's at worthy of mention, at least until consensus changes. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 17:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Ideally yes; however, the local language consultations are underway - so there is a need to have stable text and a uniform document across languages. Yair rand hasn’t had an opportunity to respond, so I’d like to resolve the two issues identified above while incorporating some of their changes.

There have been many community discussions held on Meta and at local projects about the Universal Code of Conduct, so including a link to one particular Meta strategy talk page section does not seem to be a representative way of showing the views present in the many communities in the movement.

Perhaps a better option would be to link to a page cataloging past discussions about the Universal Code of Conduct (including the one currently linked), so readers can make their own determination about community acceptance or rejection of the project’s objectives. TomDotGov: Please let me know what you think. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Given that the idea that pages can change is at the very heart of the **wiki** movement, it seems that a consultation procedure that assumes stable text is misguided. I'd suggest updating the procedures to match reality, rather than expecting people to stop editing pages. That's especially true now that the one of the recommendations of the strategy process is that we manage internal knowledge - adding relevant information to pages is something that needs to be encouraged.

I think it makes sense to link to as much on-wiki discussion as possible. TomDotGov (talk) (hold the election) 00:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Xeno (WMF): The one linked is the only large multi-project discussion I'm aware of on whether to accept a WMF-pushed code of conduct, and it's a good representation of responses globally. Locally, there have also been, IIRC, discussions on the Russian and English Wikipedias with similar results, and another shorter discussion here on Meta. The WMF tried to push various consultations along the lines of "Once we do this, how should it be done?", and I don't think one could reasonably consider those to be discussions of the basic issue of whether to let the WMF do it at all. (There are also the wildly-misrepresentative WMF reports on "consultations", which I assume none of us want to get into.) In any case, the link target can be changed without causing translation difficulties, correct? So if is to be altered (perhaps to a new page outlining discussions and results), the link target is not time-sensitive from the perspective of translations.

Re Special:Diff/21050573, I don't understand what you're referring to. Could you be more specific? Thanks. --Yair rand (talk) 00:31, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

To help explain, I've amended it in an edit meant to incorporate the spirit of your changes while allowing the English text to more closely reflect the version that was previously used for translation with the originally-submitted text.

SPoore (WMF) is coordinating the translation efforts and can explain further about that process and the need to collaborate on changes on the talk page before implementing them to ensure consistent translations and support the goal of a useful consultation.

Thanks again for your suggestions to improve the main page and providing sources of community comments about the UCoC, now being collected at Universal Code of Conduct/Discussions. Links like this will be useful in gathering a wide and diverse range of views to deliver useful feedback regarding the community's thoughts about the potential for a UCoC to be implemented. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Appreciation

This expresses all my thoughts and wishes (as a Wikimedia editor) regarding what should be in place as UCoC. I truly appreciate everyone’s efforts and commitments in drafting this recommendations to adopt. I suggest! A UCoC section be added in the sidebar of every Wikimedia projects in order to give direct access for everyone. Thank you for taking time out of your personal time to help the world be a better place for all of us. Em-mustapha ^{User | talk} 15:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Em-mustapha: Thank you for your comments! I will forward your idea to include a sidebar link at all Wikimedia projects providing access to the policy. Feel free to let me know if you have any more ideas! Xeno (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno (WMF)! I will, whenever I have one. Em-mustapha ^{User | talk} 20:10, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Ethics in International Arbitration: Can International Institutions Resolve a Universal Code of Conduct for all Participants in the Proceeding?

Interesting: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2021/02/rose-rameau-ethics-international-arbitration/ –xeno 16:59, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I also found "Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport" https://sirc.ca/safe-sport/uccms/ –xeno 17:10, 14 February 2021 (UTC)