Policy talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines

Scope

The UCoC has a role as an optional fallback for those projects which don't have their own standards. Attempting to impose it on large, established communities such as English Wikipedia against consensus is just another power grab which will drive away editors. Certes (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Agree, UCoC should not apply on enwik, as enwiki can handle itself. Rockstone35 (talk) 10:54, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

100%, allow large wikis a ratification vote. This should be in each wiki's usual format (on en-wiki and I suspect on most others that means a community initiated, written, and closed RFC). If they ratify it, cool, we dotted is and crossed ts. If they don't, we dodge a minefield where communities are asked to abide by/enforce standards that don't have consensus. Tazerdadog (talk) 14:30, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Note that UCoC itself is already approved as a global policy (see foundation:Universal Code of Conduct), and it technically already applies at all Wikimedia wikis. The discussion here is about the enforcement guidelines, rather than UCoC itself. Martin Urbanec (talk) 17:50, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

It's been approved by the WMF, which unilaterally asserts the right to override policies "local" to much larger communities such as enwp. It will be interesting to see how that claim works in practice. Certes (talk) 21:59, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

• The UCOC has not been ratified by the en.wiki community and therefore doesn't have consensus there. I expect they're developing a complete proposal with enforcement mechanisms fully documented before they ask us to ratify it, and I appreciate that. I do trust there won't be an attempt at an end-run around community ratification.S Marshall (talk) 23:49, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

  @S Marshall the WMF, and the BOT, have formally stated that they view phase 1 as approved and not needing community ratification. I did have some very odd discussions with several T&S and Legal staffers on the topic, with some weird statements. This included that no-one had mentioned wanting ratification until the arbcom open letter, and then when provided with the diff during phase 1 consultations, went dark on the topic. But any ratification vote is (formally) purely on the EGs. I also remain unsure why they limited the revisions committee to just working on the enforcement guidelines. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:40, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

  If they omit to hold a ratification RfC, then I'd anticipate the en.wiki community starting its own ratification RfC without them.--S Marshall (talk) 20:42, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Enforcement by type of violations

There is nothing directly specifying UCoC violations by WMF staff & contractors, BOT, Working Groups or Committees. While its highly unlikely that people in some of the roles would cause an issue, its only fair that there be some recourse mentioned in this section for those areas. Aka Affcom oversees affiliates but who oversees Affcom, what if the Language committee denies a language because of racism, or a funding committee denies a community/individual without performance of certain actions? The way committees are developing with single regional representatives as the conduit for access, the shift to hybrid event like the Summit where a select few have access has opened the door for corruption. The current layout appears to create a set of untouchables in the movement, further enhancing that potential. There more WMF systems move off wiki the deeper these untouchables are able to cement power. Gnangarra (talk) 12:27, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

@Gnangarra I agree with the general thrust to your point (in fact, both of them - one the level of power of off-wiki committees (this from someone who sits on one) and that some level of conduct route through them (other than internal or the BOT) is beneficial. This will be triply true should a global council come into being. I do however note that the UCOC does specify violations by WMF staffers and the BOT, as they need to specifically affirm it. The pathways for that would logically be wherever the nexus of the issues was.

In line with what I interpret the spirit of your comment to be, I do encourage a tweak so that staffers' conduct can be directly taken to U4C (a "court of first instance") on projects where there isn't an arbcom or equivalent. Making a solo admin block of a staffer on those marginal cases will inherently involve a higher standard than would be applied to others, which shouldn't be the case. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:49, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear thanks and yes that was what I was trying to point out, there is a gap in where to go in the first instance with this cohort of people in these guidelines its focus is solely on community members. Gnangarra (talk) 02:40, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Minor syntactical issues

• "See definition on Meta": As the link points to the definition on Meta, not Meta('s main page?) itself, the linked text should be "definition" or "definition on Meta". The current linking style is discouraged by dewiki and enwiki ([1], [2]).
  • Makes sense, thanks again for the suggestion. RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 12:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
• There is one too many newlines / paragraph breaks between "4.1 Purpose and scope" and "4.2 Selection, membership, and roles". ToBeFree (talk) 19:31, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
  • This was done, thanks for your oversight! RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 12:07, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Promoting UCoC awareness

First, of all thank you for your work in removing the most problematic parts. Second I have a suggesting for this section: Why must it always the UCoC, that is linked, if local texts like e.g. de:Wikipedia:Wikiquette exists. Of Course it has not the status of a policy, but it has nice recommendations in it, which are easy to understand. Habitator terrae (talk) 00:09, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Privacy

About the previous version I stated, that the sentence "The privacy of a case should be determined not only by those charged with resolving the case, but also with input from those who raised the initial report." could touch the praxis by the dewiki arbcom, to only have public cases. Do I understand correctly (in the dewiki), that now in cases, where somebody has a need for an arbcom and wants his privacy accepted, this first comes before the U4C, which then checks, whether there are privacy concerns. If yes itself decides the case, if not it is forwarded to the dewiki arbcom? Habitator terrae (talk) 00:17, 12 September 2022 (UTC) PS: Why don't you call the U4C "interwiki arbcom"?

I am speaking only for myself and not for the revisions committee or any other member of the committee. As the person who came up with the name U4C, I intentionally wanted something other than an arbcom. In my mind the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee should be doing more Coordinating than Arbitrating. And no if someone wants privacy they may continue to use an ArbCom, as long as local policy allows that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: So in your opinion all stays the same, also if local praxis doesn't allow privacy arbcom (only privacy admins etc.)? Habitator terrae (talk) 11:31, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Habitator terrae in my opinion all stays the same for wikis with well developed processes like enwiki and dewiki. Neither has, based on what I know, any systemic failures which is when the U4C could get involved. I think the enforcement guidelines give communities options about how to allow private reporting. Three options are an arbcom, private reporting to admins, and private reporting to the U4C (or people the U4C delegates that to). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, for clarifying. Habitator terrae (talk) 15:08, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

de-WP offers no standardized process of reporting while maintaining privacy: Oversights have an mail contact, but they are not responsible for resolving conflicts. And de-Arbcom has a rule that an AC-request has to be public (de:Wikipedia:Schiedsgericht/Regeln#Anfrageerstellung Das Schiedsgericht muss offen angerufen werden. A rule that was introduce via RfC and cannot be changed easily.) They do offer, that you can send them additonal info via mail, but the request itself has to be public.

Two years ago, someone tried: de:Wikipedia:Schiedsgericht/Anfragen/Belästigung Title is just "Arbcom/requests/Harassment( or /Molestation/nuisance)" The complete public description was Because of privacy reasons, all the info was sent to Arbcom via mail ("Aufgrund des Persönlichkeitsschutzes wurden sämtliche Informationen dem SG per E-Mail zugesendet.") This arbcom-request itself caused an immediate shitstorm (de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Schiedsgericht/Anfragen/Archiv/2020#Wikipedia:Schiedsgericht/Anfragen/Belästigung), leading to the arbcom not dealing with the request. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 20:49, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Confirming adherence

The new text is a lot better IMO, thank you for revising it. What is the plan for how the listed groups of people will "confirm their adherence to the UCoC"? Is this something yet to be decided or did I miss it somewhere? Legoktm (talk) 04:28, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Gibt es eine Synopse?

Ist ja nett, dass da was überarbeitet wurde, allerdings sollte dann auch alt und neu schön sortiert nebeneinander gestellt werden, damit die Änderungen auch deutlich werden. Was wurde denn wo an welcher Formulierung konkret geändert?
It's nice, that they are revised, but old and new should be made easy comparable side by side, so that the changes can be good evaluated. What was changed with wich concrete sentence where?
Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Sänger: major changes are available for comparison here. RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 12:02, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Where is the scope of these decisions listed?

From 3.3.3 Appeals: "Appeals are not possible against certain decisions made by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department." Could you link to where the scope of these non-appealable decisions is listed or defined please. Certain decisions is excessively vague. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:35, 13 September 2022 (UTC)