Universal Code of Conduct/2021 consultations/Ratification survey

Community Survey - Results

79 admins responded to the survey in different languages. Most of the participants volunteer in different wikipedias, as well as the other projects such as Wikidata, MetaWiki, Commons, among others.

Roles of Participants:

Most of the participants are administrators in their projects. In addition to being administrators, participants also have other rights and permissions, such as checkusers, oversights, stewards and arbitrators; for example, 9 participants are currently Arbitration Committee members while 12 were arbitrators in the past.

Responses to the question “how acceptable do you find the Enforcement Draft Guidelines for the UCoC?”

Acceptable - 12

Mostly Acceptable - 19

Somewhat acceptable - 19

Neutral - 14

Not acceptable at all - 9

Answering the question: “Do you feel the final Enforcement Guidelines should be put through a formal ratification process?”

Yes - 62 participants

No - 10 participants

No answer - 7 participant

What form should this process take?

18 persons didn’t provide any thoughts (left blank), while the remaining participants shared the following thoughts:

Local RfC
Discussion, followed by SecurePoll balloting
*Ratification with a minimum of 3000 active editors (e.g., meeting voting requirements for BoT positions) representing at least 100 projects supporting, and a minimum 67% support - for approval to be applied on a global on-project basis. Each individual project should have similar ratification processes, with a minimum of 200 projects supporting ratification using the voting method typically used on that project. Affiliates should have a parallel process, with a minimum of 67% of affiliates supporting ratification.
Some kind of Community Ratification where the community at large (i.e. all wikis) gets to vote on whether to accept the Code of Conduct. This should be a fair vote, but also take into account that smaller wikis may not be able to get their opinions heard. Perhaps this means votes for different sets of wikis, such as a vote for larger projects, medium sized projects and smaller projects. These could then be combined such that if all three get approval, then the community at large approves.
The ratification should look for a clear majority (roughly 55 or 60%) from each of the various key groups affected by the UCOC: editors, projects, affiliates. Presumably the Board will also need to confirm in whatever style they see fit.
There should be votes on phase 1 (the text) and phase 2 (the enforcement). If there's a chance of tweaking phase 1 to resolve some of the issues that have arisen since its unilateral emplacement, then that would really help up its chances.
An optional "feedback" box would be good - I'm not sure if it should have ready made answers or so on - people will default to one of those, but it would make categorisation easier
Online poll for all users + affiliate ratification
Global RFC well-advertised and extensively translated
It can take a form of community based committee who would act as the enforcers of the UCoC guidelines
Board Ratification
Referendum through all wikimedia projects.
Ratification must go through a two-step process: discussion of the draft in local communities. The current text has never been discussed in its entirety and should be amended based on the results of these discussions. Final approval by community vote.
Discussion and voting in the section.
Minimum - community voting with a 2/3 vote threshold; better - thorough discussion in each language section.
Voting by a certain group of people (maybe the same as the BoE?)
All projects should then vote in a project if they want the UCoC to apply to them.
Voting open to the community/users with eligibility like BE.
Consultation open to all user rights holders involved in enforcing.
It would depend a lot on the language, country or culture where it is applied. It would be better to first study how to apply it and adapt it to each project, because regardless of the culture, the opinions can vary a lot.
Voting in the village pumps,
The enforcement committee, T&S, and the Legal team should be tied together so that ratification can be done by a tri-committee derived from the three.

Concerns about the Draft and recommended processes

Forcing a large group of wikimedians to ""respect"" UCoC is too much
If you radically disagree with something, you cannot truly ""respect"" it.
Declaring only adherence should be enough, as UCoC should be a legitimate subject to criticism."
Anglophone don't realize that the language barrier is the most important barrier of them all, especially when it comes to communication disagreements and assessment of them.
Many people do not fully understand UCoC. There should be a special campaign to raise awareness about it.
Why do we need a new committee/body? Wouldn't this just be a global arbcom?
The UCoC does not confirm the accused's rights to hear all evidence against them. Any person or group against whom a case is filed or referred must be notified, must be able to see the evidence against them, and must have the opportunity to submit evidence, and must have the right to have others submit evidence on their behalf.
Inappropriate situations, the notification, evidence, and opportunity to comment may be done privately, and in exceptional situations, individuals involved can be required to keep the information private.
In no circumstances whatsoever may the fact that a complaint has been filed and the nature of the complaint be withheld from any individual accused, and the person involved must always be allowed to make a defense.
Appeals involving volunteers, may not be handled by any employee of the WMF, except when appropriate the chief legal officer.
In situations, where a person filing a case refuses to let the other affected individuals know the identity of the complainant, and this involved the physical safety of the complainant or their employment status with the WMF or other bodies to whom the UCC applies, then with the approval of the chief legal officer, the name may be withheld.
It wants a heavy shift to private cases, without guaranteeing that no negative would occur, or even attempts to do so - like ensuring that any private case will have a minimum of five qualified reviewers.
It has a set-up that removes autonomy where it isn't needed, most notably (in its current form) not exempting established communities from U4C review, except for systemic cases
Guidelines - the U4C (UCoC coordinating committee created by the new guidelines) will have the ability to overrule ArbComs in at least some cases – for example, if the U4C determines that we or enwiki are systemically failing to follow the UCoC.
Guidelines: The U4C hasn't ruled out allowing appeals to the U4C in all cases. This would be a pretty bad outcome – it'd rather undermine our authority if people get the sense they can ignore us and complain to the other parent. Preferred solution is that the U4C should only intervene on wikis with established ArbComs only in cases where 2/3 of U4C agrees that the ArbCom systemically fails to enforce the UCOC, and with a norm that that vote only happens upon the recommendation of WMF T&S.
Guidelines: The draft guidelines propose to mandate that every project allow users to submit cases privately. My current read is that the guidelines allow every kind of UCoC case, from ""this person is vandalizing"" to ""this person is harassing"", to be heard through a private reporting system – the draft text does not limit the eligible cases to ones that involve private information. My view: in order to maintain trust in the system, private adjudication should only occur in the cases that most require it, and with as many safeguards as possible; it shouldn't be an automatic entitlement in most cases.
Guidelines: The draft guidelines propose to require that every enforcement decision be appealable to some body ""that was not involved in the initial process of enforcement"". Does this include ArbCom (we'd have to allow appeals to some non-ArbCom body?) but the text doesn't seem to distinguish. My view: the guidelines should not require that decisions by ArbCom or an equivalent highest elected community body be further appealable to another adjudicator.
Guidelines: The guidelines fail to specify how they will be amended, which is a critical problem because without a robust and usable amendment process, problems with the guidelines in practice will not be resolvable. Please refer to the Amendment section in the feedback of EDGR for a proposed suggestion.
Concern about not getting the right kind of people to volunteer their time as Code Enforcement Officers for the volume of cases the UCoC contemplates.
UCoC: The very first sentence is ridiculous. Seriously, do we need a complicated and high level, intrusive, process to address simple issues on projects? It's overkill of the worst degree.
Guidelines: Concern about the potential for superseding the authority of Arbcoms on the large projects, which could lead to another Frame-type issue.
Ratification was imposed without RfC. This is not in line with the movement strategy's subsidiarity principle. For what it's worth.
Process: While the presence of open questions was a positive, we need at least a month's review of any significant textual change.
Process: If the UCOC DC wants to reserve the chance of making some further changes based on that consultation, we need 2 weeks after the final substantive changes. That timeline assumes translation to top 10 languages within 1 day. If that is not viable, then it needs to be more like 3 weeks.
One person commented that measures to regulate communications outside of Wikipedia are overly restrictive. They think there is an attempt for over-regulation. They suggest that regulations of communication outside of Wikipedia should be limited to “public” communication and that it should explicitly state that the regulation applies only to matters directly related to the activities of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, and emphasize that the regulation applies only to gross and egregious violations.
The restrictions on gaslighting are unenforceable and insufficiently regulated. They suggest that, at the very least, a lot of work is needed to reformulate and clarify the clause.
Process: Some people feel like the UCoC has been imposed on the community; excessive centralization. They state about community consent and communication prior to “imposing the UCoC on them”
Doubts about the lack of transparency in the selection and election mechanisms.
The relationship between the responsibilities of local arbitration committees and the new structure is not spelled out;
Guidelines: One person is concerned about abuse in the administration. The rules may be applied selectively or in a perverted interpretation under demagogic pretexts or even without them; There are no mechanisms to counter this, given the weak feedback on the composition of the administrative body and the toxic extremely limited composition of active participants - voters is not visible.
Process: The process is vague and unworthy of attention (to much talk, not enough details to actually enforcing)
Guidelines: It is not fair to demand only selected groups to sign anything concerning the UCoC
Guidelines: Some participants commented that the appeal process is not clear.
Text is vague, roles and responsibilities are unclear. Who should take care of training, how will voting processes be, who will appoint the different roles/committees?
Creation of new user groups will create confusion, for smaller projects there are global sysops, for bigger projects sysops are enough.
Main concern is the lack of the right to be heard.
Missing right to appeal.
Structural concern: overruling of local ArbComs by an "EDGR-based entity" is seen as illegitimate. Both confirm a ratification process as required.
Any community that tolerates harassment will not want to voluntarily enforce the code of conduct.
The problem lies with many administrators, a suggestion that anonymous reporting outside the local community and that these third parties know what the harassment or microaggression is.
Participants had concerns related to the enforcement of UCoC, and that’s related to selecting non-experienced individuals to enforce the code and handle reported cases, also a non-diverse team is another concern; such a team needs to understand the cultural differences among communities (i.e. using policies). There is a need to differentiate between violations that must be handled by the UCoC and those that must be handled by the community. The team must consist of individuals of high levels of experience from different communities.

Further thoughts or comments about the Universal Code of Conduct and its implementation

Fairness needs to be a lot better than with office actions
One participant thinks it's a leftist agenda.
You'll get one shot at implementing the UCoC, By that I mean you need to get it as good and clear and concise and thorough as possible, because if you don't, you'll get bogged down in multiple political situations if it fails on the first try.
One person commented that the proposed text has never been discussed. The finished draft must be discussed and then approved.
More attention should also be paid to the role of local communities. Depriving communities of autonomy to regulate norms will lead to a lack of trust in the Code, as it was passed down from above, and thus to conflicts and damage to trust in the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation and local communities.
The project does not offer any mechanisms to monitor implementation. I do not trust the current control mechanisms.
Clear appeal process needs to be set out. A way to appeal should always be granted, having a U4C is positive but the community should be involved too.
Imposing guidelines from “above” should be done very carefully, the risk is to alienate local communities.
Administrators are not prepared to deal with users with conflicting behaviors and often ingrain these behaviors.
Functionaries should not be the ones to enforce the code of conduct, and if it is going to be done in this way, periodic surveys should be conducted to know if there are improvements or not in cases of harassment.
It would be good to talk to the users who are most active in the different projects, as they are the ones who have the most contact with others.
Expect that the Foundation's operation system will be overhauled and supplemented so that follow-up measures for cases can be orderly followed after the community's prompt response to violations of the Code of Conduct.
A recommendation to explain all related terms, specify some directions to prevent interpreting these terms differently in a way that deviates from the objective which is protecting everyone. Also, enforcement needs an implementation guide that can be an applicable model.

General Concerns

There is no timeline for making the local guidelines compliant.
Multicultural world will always result in some people not being happy with the rules “made for all”.
Stop doing surveys on Qualtrics or any other proprietary software. Please adopt a LimeSurvey! <3
I am still afraid it is principally incompatible with World's cultural diversity, so either it will fail or it will succeed in enforcing a single culture through all projects but on its way to success destroys more valuable things, like the degree to which people identify with wikipedia.
I did not completely answer the "user rights" question because it is far, far, far too identifying, even on enwiki. For smaller projects that only have a handful of people who have ever held these rights, you might just as well walk up and ask them the questions directly. The privacy statement is meaningless when one can figure out who the voter is.
This is major overkill, in my mind, and is unlikely to solve problems. It is practically a guide on how to use the UCOC to harass your rivals. It also places an unacceptable onus on administrators and other functionaries that sounds like the WMF is trying very hard to manage communities by requiring communities to select from only WMF-approved candidates. That is in direct contradiction to the strategic goal of self-determination .

Affiliates Survey - Results

The survey, provided in different languages, was sent out to the affiliates to provide their feedback about the ratification process. 29 affiliates completed the survey, mostly in English, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish. Responses to the question about the general acceptance of the guidelines are all positive. Details are as follows:

Acceptable: 6

Mostly Acceptable: 14

Somehow Acceptable: 4

Neutral: 5

For the question about the need for a ratification process for the guidelines, almost 86% of the participants agree that ratification is required, while 13.7% think it’s not necessary.

How ratification could be done

Participants thought of different ways to run the ratification process; such as Voting (maybe in parts), Referendum, consultations, and discussions. Most of the participants thought Meta should be used for the voting in a form of approval or endorsement, also use it for discussion for voting for transparency which is a high demand, and advised that the central notice banner can be used for announcements and use village pumps for discussions. However, one affiliate thought that voting should not be public as the "harmed minorities" could be afraid to speak out

Concerns and recommendations

There is a focus on the need to include all communities so they feel engaged in the process depending on regional-specific calls.
Again some participants highlighted the need to empower the communities and affiliates to establish their own enforcement guidelines within a specific period, while the global guidelines should be there for communities and affiliates which cannot have their specific guidelines. On the other hand, others think that the proposed guidelines leave too much freedom to local communities about how to organize themselves: this may jeopardize the entire mission to enforce UCoC due to the possible uneven approach among different communities.
One recommendation is that UCoC be "turned on" into the (Terms of Use), so the functionaries can start acting on it. WMF should offer support to smaller communities that may not have the resources to implement the UCoC for themselves.
Some affiliates were still concerned about the need to shorten the draft to be easily understood by communities as it is too long. The issue of language complexity was also brought up.
The affiliates are raising issues with the possible overlap of the UCoC with the government regulations (and possible troubles with that). It was also brought up, that all stakeholders need their representative when it comes to enforcement (editors, affiliates, Wikimedia foundation). The less-heard voices should be encouraged to step up.
Affiliates worry that people simply won't know about the UCoC before the point that it is applied to them.
An affiliate has reservations towards how single-wiki UCoC violations would be handled; the affiliate believes that the situations in ZH communities can't be dealt with on local levels due to the local mechanism being dysfunctional. They would like to have proper representation of minority voices on U4C and urge UCoC implementation to be in place as soon as possible. TW's verbal response did not indicate any major concern, and is mostly in agreement with what has been included.