ユニバーサルな行動規範/2022年対話の時間についての要約
ユニバーサル行動規範施行ガイドライン※1の批准投票(訳注:以下「UCoC施行ガイドライン」)に備えたコミュニティへのアウトリーチ手順の一環として、 ウィキメディア財団信頼と安全チームと運動戦略と組織統治チーム共催の会話の時間を共催し、その趣旨はコミュニティ参加者と当該する利害関係者との直接対話の場の提供にあります。これらの回では方針チーム※2)ならびにUniversalユニバーサル行動規範第2フェーズ草稿委員会※3委員は案件の協議のため参加しました。(※:1=Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guideline。2=Policy team。3=Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 Drafting committee。)
2月4日
初回の会話の時間は2月4日15:00 UTC に催しました。参加者は12名前後、言語版やプロジェクト、提携団体少なくとも5件から参加があり、草稿委員2名、信頼安全方針チーム※1(訳注:以下 方針チーム)の担当者を交えて生産的な対話が行われ、話題は委員会の決めた複数のこと、コミュニティ査読※2と批准手続き※3の今後の段階についてでした。この回はさまざまな利用者が意見を述べ質問し、草稿委員と方針チームがそれらの内容に対応しました。(1=T&S policy team。2=community review。3=ratification process。)
以下はその会話の中でやりとりされた内容の概略であり、会の席上にあがったコメントや質問、それら質問に対する回答を含みます。
批准/投票の手続き
理事会は裁定委員会※1 から受けた施行ガイドラインに対するコミュニティの正式な承認取り付け※2要望に答えて信頼安全チーム※3にこの件の手順を組むように指示しました。手順は整い、単純な多数決としました(with a simple majority threshold)。運動にはこれに関する前例※4はありませんが、実社会では多くの(住民)投票※5に採用されています。(※:1=ArbComm。2=formal community approval of enforcement guidelines。3=T&S 。4=precedent for (this)。5=referendums)
投票受付は 投票者がそれぞれの立場について理由を述べることができる形にする予定で、それらの考えは改訂※1へ進む準備として(訳注:投票者の)立場をまとめるために使えるかもしれません。票決が出なかった場合は改訂へ、そしておそらくは2次投票※2へ進む見込みです。(※:1=revision process。2=second vote)
投票資格は理事選挙※の投票過程に準ずるものとします。これは利用者アカウント登録からの経過時間、一定数の編集回数の実績を指します。そこで投票者は編集者として適格であることが求められ、ウィキメディア財団の常勤職員および契約職員も資格を満たすと投票できます。ご留意点としてボランティアの開発者にも投票資格の規準がある点です。投票資格の要件は詳細をメタの投票者情報ページでご確認ください。(※=BoT。)
- 質問:なぜ UCoC 第1フェーズの方針の本文も今回と同じように批准投票をしなかったのですか?
- 回答:プロジェクトは理事会の議定書※1に発し、コミュニティの草稿の段階※2とコミュニティによる査読※3を設け、続いて理事会の批准※4を受けます。その時点でコミュニティから正式の批准※5を経るべきという公式の申し入れ※6はありませんでした。方針自体は〈不変なもの〉※7ではない点、毎年、方針の(訳注:改訂の)検討が見込まれる点にご留意ください。政策であれば〈野に放しておく〉※8べきで、そこに問題が潜んでいるなら浮き彫りにしやすいという信念があります。(※:1=mandate。2=stage for the community draft。3=community review。4=board ratification。5=a formal ratification。6=formal request 。7='set in stones'。8=(the policy should be) 'out in the wild'。)
- 裁定委員会の公開書簡※はこの投票を行う大きな要素でした。通例として方針導入の可否を投票にかけることは行わず、内容を対象とするもしくは方針の大幅な変更の是非を投票で問うことはあっても、単に方針をおくべきかどうか票決を取ることは通常はありません。(※=Open Letter from Arbcoms)
- 補足の質問Q:方針を設けていないコミュニティは既定で UCoC を取り入れ、すべての行動の方針は通常、特定の投票にかけるところ UCoC はそれがないということなのと1年経たないと変更ができない点に懸念があり、投票もしていないうちから承認してくださいと呼びかけるのに根拠がなく、それでもそれに照らして人は制裁を受ける※ので、コミュニティの投票の対象にならないというのでは公正ではないです。
- 回答:どんな方針もリアルな状況で試さないとどんな問題を含んでいるか見えてこないかもしれません。UCOC は既存の方針が対応しているものをそんなに変えないと感じます。コミュニティは、この方針の内容より厳しくも、緩くも※実施すれば良いし、でも一般論としてそこにあるものは既存の方針とそんなにかけ離れていません。(※=go above and beyond)
- 施行ガイドラインには不服申立てについても述べてあり、自らの真実を語る権利を人々に与えるとしています。ブロック処理自体が施行の行動であり、それこそコミュニティが批准したり却下したりする機会を得るのです。
- There was concern that since policy is continuously being revised annually, anyone who gets blocked during the 1st year? Are they treated as the "learning cost"? - this is somehow related to if policy is being revised clearly.
- Comments related to the 50+1% - Since this approach is not being used in the community consensus or voting process.
執行ガイドライン(U4Cを除外)
主要な変更点 - 方針チームならびに草稿委員による提示です。
最初のフェーズでは、委員会は査読の前にそれぞれの視点を取り入れるよう努力しました。査読のフェーズでは、起草委員会は隔週でフィードバックを受け、また、信頼できる情報源を確保するために、フィードバックの一番最後にすべてのフィードバックを統合した最終ニュースレターを受け取りました。 委員会は、このフィードバックを取り入れるべく、懸命に努力しました。
During the later part of the drafting work, work was delayed a bit because there were so many changes that were less expected, especially around the inclusion of the U4C committee. Therefore, we decided to focus more on the EG and not the election of the U4C committee. Thus there will be another committee created to oversee the election of the U4C after the ratification vote.
LTAからの報復らしき報告などに関するU4Cの節を含む重要な変更があります。委員会は、公開質問状、特に裁定委員会ArbComによって処理されたケースは上訴可能かどうかという質問に対するフィードバックを取り入れました。
We mostly exported the issue to the U4C building committee. No hurry for existing sysops to handling with new mechanism for enforcement.
- 役務者の責任
- 質問:役務者にUCoC宣誓※1を求める件。施行のために努める人※2も対象。(※:1=Affirmation of the UCOC。2=people that are acting to enforce。)
- 応答:フィードバックを受けており、対応する文言(respect)は「承認する」※3に改め、すでにその役目にある人には無期限の期間※4にわたりUCoC承認を義務化するものとします。善意の人たち※5を除外しない点は重要で、発想に同意しかねるためたしかに疑念を抱いているからです。(※:3=acknowledge。4=indefinite time period for。5=good faith people。)
- 質問:U4C 委員も UCoC 承認が義務ですか?
- 応答:施行ガイドライン草稿※6に見出しがあり UCoC に関与する人は全員、どのように UCoC を適用されるか述べています。そのため U4C 委員も UCoC の適用を受けますが、それは明確にする必要がありそうです。(※:6=EG Draft)
- 報告・訴求の方法
- 今回の参加者から、ガイドラインに記載されている手続きは、プライバシーやデータ保護に関して、地域や地方によって異なる法的要件に従わなければならないとの指摘がありました。公的な報告に関しては、免責事項のような形※で追加することができるかもしれません。(※=sth somethingの略)
- 「 LTAによっては、報告システムを悪用し、管理者や編集者に対し、大量の報告を提出し、大混乱を引き起こしかねません。すでにローカルで似たようなことをしています。」
- 施行ガイドラインの以下の文章 - 「案件を処理している人が悪意のある報告をフィルタリングできるようにする」「次の案件では上訴は不可能です:IPを破壊する場合、スパム専用アカウント、および類似のケース。"
- 研修の流れ
- 質問:研修についてですが、どのように行われるのでしょうか、必須でしょうか、受けなければどうなりますか?
- 応答:研修は推奨事項です。財団はコミュニティと協力して研修を作り、外部の専門家も作成に参加させる予定です。
- 補足の質問:DC※のメンバーから研修についての意見を聞きたい。(※:Drafting Committee=草稿委員会)
- 応答:(DCの委員から)財団は資金とスタッフのキャパシティという点において、研修を行うことができます。研修はUCoCについてもっと知ってもらうための追加的なものであり、必ずしも財団が関門としているものではありません。
- 補足の質問:非公式の判例法※は、公式の方針と同等に重要。過去にWMFは必ずしも最適なコンサルティングの仕事をしてきたわけではない。もし管理者が研修に参加し、こう言ったらどうなるでしょうか。「このやり方は私たちのやり方じゃない」- どのように解決するのでしょうか? もし財団が、実施に移す前にコミュニティと本当に徹底的な協議をするとしたら、何を手掛けますか。どうやったら、この研修がコミュニティにとって本当に役立つと確認できますか?(※)
- Answer: (3月1日更新 - 太字は更新部分) コミュニティに無益な研修や、皆さんが参加したくないような研修は開きません。カリキュラムや最善手法など、また私たちのような大規模なコミュニティで正しく行う方法についてフィードバックを寄せてもらう機会を設けるかもしれません。研修は、私たちがこの過程に追加するおまけであって全体を台無しにするなど非常に難しいのです。
- There are a lot of people who have expertise in how to develop training.
- Pilot training course may help.
- Suggest to set a range - "large, medium, small" projects
- It would also be nice to explore what affiliates can provide for the training, as connectors between WMF and communities.
U4C (設立) 委員会
U4Cは、ローカルコミュニティによる解決が為されない場合の代替です。ローカルコミュニティへの要請は大きすぎ、責任も重くなります。UCoC違反の本質も理解できていない段階で、指示を規定するのは難しいので、委員会が取り組むべき詳細を固めることはできません。
この発案は草稿作成のかなり遅い段階で出現しました。U4C設立方法、委員会の多様性を保証する手段に関してすでに一定の考えがあったのですが、それを他のグループに委託した方がよいと気づきました。作業していた草稿は現在も閲覧でき、設立委員会はこれを使うこともできます。
- Question: 詳細はできない件に続いて、コミュニティの声を聞いてもらう権利に関する質問がありますが、これはどこで説明されるのですか?
- Answer:この件に関しては、非常に長い間議論しました。また、上訴権についても。委員会内でも様々な意見があり、その結果が今の文章になっています。声を聞いてもらう権利については、LTAが悪用する可能性がありますし、IP利用者にとって実用的でないとの懸念がありました。というのは、それは基本的にU4C委員会が扱う内容であり、私たち起草委員会が行うべきことではないと考えたからです。私たちは、U4C委員会が実行に足りるよう、実質的な決定を下せるように、作業や決定のための材料を提供したいと思いました。これは複雑な問題なので、U4C委員会に取り組んでもらい、すでにそのような方針を持っているローカルの裁定委員会を覆さないようにしてもらいたいのです。
- Question: 「手続きの公平性」の中に、意見を聞く権利を含める意図があることを示す項目がありますが、それをカバーしようとする意図があったのでしょうか?
- Answer: DCはそれをカバーしましたが、どこまで詳細に記載するかという問題があり、非常に曖昧で、U4Cが詳細を追加することになりました。
- followup Q: パラグラフとその前のパラグラフを読むと、原則と書かれていて水増しされている感じがするが、IPベースの荒らしが主な除外理由なのか?
- Answer: DCの議論では、すべての人に一律に「声を聞いてもらう権利」を与えたくない、生命への脅威、ソックパペットなど他の理由もあり、例外リストを作成しても意味がないと判断し、「声を聞いてもらう権利」の存在を認めつつ、より適切に判断できるU4Cの範囲に含めることにしました。
- Question: UCoC has imbalanced itself because there are mentions of anonymity for the accuser and also right to be heard, the u4c has a tightly developed scope that doesn't include it which would make it difficult for them to handle it and in its current form it's not balanced and feel like kicking a can along the road
- Answer: was the notion of power within the movement. i.e how can we make sure people who are popular and have made friends within the community are held accountable for their actions, especially in cases of real life threats and harms. eg on sexual assault, when someone comes forward to accuse, there is reputaional and offline harm. We want to help the accuser and the people involved to have a just process for both parties and appeal processes etc. thus if "right to be heard" doesn't exist, you'll still have other opportunities to appeal.
- Question: その人がされたことを知らずに、どうやって上訴できるのでしょうか?
- ** Answer: その場合、施行システムが機能していない、ということになります。ローカルコミュニティや裁定委員会がベースラインとなる基準を設けることを推奨しています。DCは、被害者のプライバシーを保護しつつ、聞いてもらう権利があることを確認したいと考えています。DCには起草に際し、データや情報が十分でなかったからです。というのも、コミュニティはこの件に関して協議の場を持ちましたが、広範なものではなかったからです。
- * 草稿委員会 Drafting Committee は初期において意図的に細部重視で作業をしましたが、後半は手付かずのまま※1にしました。(※:1=left out。)
- Concern that UCoC Phase 2 massively stresses anonymity all over the place, but doesn't have any protections added. Anonymity is not being balanced within certain groups
- Find a way to address these issues without having to give away the right to be heard as an important principle of fair process.
UCoC は日ごろのウィキの状況にどう影響しますか?
会話の時間を終える間際に UCoC がローカルのコミュニティにどのように影響するか、短くまとめて概要をご紹介しました。新しく設けるグローバルな委員会 (U4C) は他の高位の意思決定集団 (例=裁定委員会 Arb/AffCom) と同格としシステミックな失敗 (systemic failure) を精査します。
- A final alternative in case of systematic failures by local bodies to enforce the UCoC
- Local bodies and functionaries will continue to perform the work they have been doing already
- Handle complaints, provide resources, and assist with interpretation of the guidelines if anything is unclear
- Develop a process to better support decision making, monitor and assess the effectiveness of UCoC enforcement
2月4日に回答のなかった質問
まもなく公開の予定です。
2月25日
第2回の会話の時間は2月25日 12:00 UTC に催しました。参加者は15名前後、言語版やプロジェクト、提携団体の人が信頼安全方針チーム職員と生産的な会話を交わし、主題は委員会決議のいくつかとコミュニティによる査読および批准の次の段階(複数)についてでした。この回はさまざまな利用者から意見と質問が提示され、草稿委員ならびに方針担当職員※が対応しました。(※:1=the drafting committee and policy team members。)
This session was conducted in a way that T&S policy team staff answered questions based on user chat, etherpad, or pre-submitted questions in addition to providing an opportunity to speak directly. The following is a summary of the content exchanged during the conversation, and the comments and questions raised during the session, and answers to those questions. Note that the conversations were not divided by topic.
Remarks from T&S Policy
Before the session started, there was a brief presentation about the project. Details on this can be found in the February 4 report.
- People talk and make assumptions about the guidelines but they should understand that these are guidelines meant to support the community, but there are also people who do not have privileges to join and access some of these calls due to language barriers etc. and are also not aware of conversations going on on meta but these enforcement guidelines are for everyone
Questions and answers
- Question: It has been more than a year since the Universal Code of Conduct was ratified by BoT (it was ratified on December 9, 2020). What happened with the yearly review that you mentioned during the last meeting? Also, will communities have a chance to participate in the review process?
- Answer: We will do the first review after the EG has been ratified. Some are already looking to UCoC as guidance, but some are not even aware that it exists yet. We don't have enough experience and feedback from the communities to do a review. Communities will definitely be given a chance to review, but we do not have that absolutely laid out in near future. In the end, we need to review how the UCoC works for the communities, so we need their input.
- Question: Related to the Continuous evaluation of the UCoC, being in touch with T&S policy team for the past few weeks. We received the EG text before Christmas and was told it will not be editable before the vote.
- Answer: That is the next part of the iteration. Not possible to update a policy truly continuously; will lead to confusion. Need a stable version at some point. The vote is the next part where changes can be suggested; we are collecting the feedback already now.
- Followup: But it's not what was stated before; it's stated for an annual review. Pretty staggering news at this point. Can't redefine that now.
- Answer: if the Guidelines passed, people would say that the time is now. Process would start to collect experiences now. If it is necessary to change anything before the trial period, that can be done; the Committee will incorporate feedback from the communities. If communities in the vote says this is not enough, that is going to be the next iteration; if not, this will go to the trial phase, and can only be monitored for implementation.
- Question: Do you consider a community that does not have an ArbCom as the "systematic failure"?
- Answer: no, definitely not. We cannot definitely have all communities to have ArbCom, and not having one cannot be said as an example of systematic failure. Communities that do not have ArbComs do have access to the larger global infrastructure.
- Question:Is "peer" body correct? Peers can't override peers, and the U4C has a systemic review capacity
- Answer: What is meant here is that those are people coming from the communities that feel that they are not placed above other community members. The word could be changed, but this is really only about wordsmithing; most importantly, there will be a community body of equal human beings that make decisions on cases brought before them.
- Question: Or a review of every single Right To Be Heard (RTBH) instance by the U4C?
- Answer: That means that you assume this will be changed at some point. The DC also discussed we need a lot of protection for the accused and accusee; they clearly said the RTBH limitation is that if it doesn't hurt the right of the accusee. Can we put that burden to the U4C volunteers? How can we minimize the violation of rights of people involved in this process? I'm not the one to decide; this will be up to the U4C, which will be working closely with Legal. I cannot promise anything; too many different factors that play into this.
- Question: Do we need weakening parts in the guide? (not only how to execute the punishment, but also how to protect yourself from it. If you are in a situation where they complained about you, then reading this text is quite emotionally overwhelming, everything here is only against you) E.g. there will be guides for those who make decisions and for those who send a request, but will there be a guide for the one who complained?
- Answer: This is one of those things that we hope the U4C could work on. Some DC members hoped this to be part of the Guidelines; but is beyond the scope of the DC for that time. We hope some kind of guide would develop and all parts would get support. Our team is also working on some things that could help that.
- Question: The Enwiki community is wondering what if a community does not want UCoC training; and what if the community does not want administrators getting overt affirmation on UCoc?
- Answer: Not everyone needs the training. Those who already hold the rights and the experience dealing with conflicts will not be expected to participate in training or to affirm. Training is for those who need it.
- Question sets related to training.
- Who are the "We" in the “Recommendations for UCoC training for community members” section? The paragraph does not seem to define the meaning of the “We.” Similarly, who is recommending the training to whom?
- Answer: Drafting committee is recommending that this kind of training is installed. They are recommending this one hand to the communities at large, but they also recommend it to the foundation that the foundation should develop this training.
- During the last Conversation Hour, we were advised that the training is just a recommendation. How can you require certain people to attend the training when it is a recommendation?
- Answer: The drafting committee recommended that training should be made mandatory. It did however not make it mandatory immediately. This was partly due to the fact that training materials are not yet available and that it will take some time to provide those materials in sufficient quality and quantity.
- Can each local community decide if we need or do not need the training?
- Answer: Yes, at the moment, it is just a recommendation. And so, Nobody can be forced to take this training at this point in time.
- Who are the "We" in the “Recommendations for UCoC training for community members” section? The paragraph does not seem to define the meaning of the “We.” Similarly, who is recommending the training to whom?
- Question: What if one community (A) is in majority opposed (say 80% against), but the total result of the community vote is in favor (more than 50%)? Will the UCoC be enforced even on community A?
- Answer: Yes. Since this is global policy and if the global community votes yes - we support them. There is no way to opt-out.
- Question: When a community does not have an ArbCom, what should they do? If there is no ArbCom exist, can they appeal directly to U4C?
- Answer: Have to check on the appeal pathways, but i know there was a lot of discussion about this and the basic thing is that they can usually have one way to appeal, but communities have to think about ways to create some sort of arbitration group etc. but in most cases it may have to go to the U4C if the local community doesn't have such structures especially for appeal. Based on wiki-comms, if there was an appeals body, people would have to be able to explain their side if they appeal. if it goes to the U4C, that'll be handled differently for different communities.
- Followup: Given that there is appeal, isn’t that somewhat related to the right to be heard
- Answer: The drafting committee thought same, so there are 2 parts of the draft that they inserted something around the right to be heard, so it is related because people get blocked without a chance for appeal as a right so in some ways it is supporting the right to be heard but in some ways i also understand that it is not enough
- Question: Providing translation resources during processing violation cases is tied to the “right-to-be-heard” and due process for non-English speaking users. I also believe that there are a lot of cases which have not been reported due to the language barrier. Will the foundation provide translation resources for training?
- Answer: this goes beyond rtbh, it is very important for folks to have this to be able to report, especially if they can report to their wiki but not beyond the local community due to language challenges. the foundation has improved in their ability to support different parts of communications with translations and they can do what they can to supply resources and it can't be done in all cases, but we will do our best especially at ensuring that people on the u4c can speak multiple languages and it's also in the EG that the foundation should give translation to the UCoC and its enforcement
- Followup #1: But people will not be able to defend themselves in their native language, because they will not be able to learn about what has been said against them in the first place.
- Answer: It is not a hope that is based on thin glasses, and unicorns and rainbows but hope that is based on the good faith of the communities and finding a good balance between protecting people and giving them a chance to speak about their cases. there is no guarantee but something to look out for, because we're assuming good faith and people on the u4c giving fair judgements but they are still human and fallible in some ways
- Followup #2: How does the WMF ensure that the translation of cases is correct, who was translating before and is their linguistic proficiency assessed professionally? Does the appeal body check the veracity of translations as well? Or do they still rely on the first translations (that might be faulty?)
- Answer: There are no clear guidelines written yet, For example, france vs switzerland vs cote divoire might use words and expressions differently, albeit the same language. We know there are challenges and we will get people with proficiency to provide translation support. In case of conflicts in these translations, the English version shall apply.
- We've had challenges in the past with official language and translation partners which were not as good and we're working hard on improving the quality of translations.
- Question: What happens when mistakes are made by the case handlers? Is any "reparation" planned for the people who were damaged especially in their psychological health? Did this happen before and what was done?
- Answer: Within the German community, some people blocked by ArbComs felt they were treated unfairly but didn't receive reparations but there was also no case to prove that the decision making body made a mistake. Also we can't hold volunteers accountable to these standards and responsibilities. If it is something illegal, that may be different, but with volunteers, I don't see that there is a way to have people who do not make mistakes. so they may happen but hopefully we can have time during the appeals process to correct their mistakes.
- Question: We are going to vote on the content of the Enforcement Guidelines (EG), not on if we are going to have EG or not, right?
- We are going to have them, but your vote determines if they can be implemented as they are of if they need to be changed
- The vote is whether to adopt the guidelines as written So it will be a vote on both the content, and whether to adopt those guidelines
Unanswered question from February 25
The questions below are answers to pre-submitted questions that were not answered in the conversation due to time constraints.
- Question: Someone asked if we are going to vote on the current EG language as is, without any modifications. I believe this question stems from the fact that so many people have expressed their concerns over the current EG language.
- The board of Trustees has decided that this version is what communities will vote on.
- Question: According to the summaries, the word “affirmation” has been changed to "acknowledge.” Still, I don't see any EG wording changes. What have you changed? Not the EG (the one we are voting on) wording, apparently.
- The wording was changed from “they will respect and adhere” to “they will acknowledge and adhere” to the Universal Code of Conduct.
- Question: The guidelines do not seem to address retaliation by the accused when and after someone files a violation report against him/her (the accused). Ideally, the retaliation issue should be, in my opinion, included in the UCoC under the unacceptable behavior while we can reinforce our firm position against it in the EG.
- This is definitely a valid point to raise for the next iteration of the policy itself and the enforcement guidelines, thank you for bringing it to our attention
March 4
The third and last conversation hour was held on February 25th at 14:00 UTC. There were around 20 participants from various languages, projects, and affiliates engaged in this session (the largest diversity of wikimedians are represented in this session).
This session was conducted in a way that T&S policy team staff answered questions based on user chat, etherpad, or pre-submitted questions in addition to providing an opportunity to speak directly. The following is a summary of the content exchanged during the conversation, and the comments and questions raised during the session, and answers to those questions.
The topics discussed during this session are include: Translation and other language issues related to EG and ratification materials, Outreach to increasing the awareness of UCoC, Right to be heard, voter eligibility, work of U4C.
Questions and answers
Enforcing the UCoC
- Question: Aren't things that violate UCoC at least violate local policy?
- Answer: on most bigger wikis, this is true. There is some work going on on bigger wikis, but for some of the medium or small wikis, our research showed that there are no local policies which is what started the process of creating the UCoC.
- Question: Regarding the current status of UCoC policy, should off-wiki communication platforms (e.g. IRC channel) need to follow UCoC policy at present? Should local communities and off-wiki communication platforms need to create their own enforcement guideline at present? If not, then what is the current status of UCoC phase 1 policy text?
- Answer: This is a very complex situation that both committees discussed in detail. On one hand, most of these platforms have their own codes of conduct and some of these are covered there. Important point is that for the first time, the UCoC gives a clear indication that if you violate it off wiki, you could still be subject to sanctions on wiki but again, it is a very complex and delicate situation.
- Question: How do you plan to cope with people who have been making assumptions about the proposed guidelines? It seems that many, not all, have not even read the proposed guidelines entirely.
- Answer: We created a summary(abstract) to distill some parts of it to give clarity, please read before making decisions. We've tried through these sessions and other outreach to get everyone aware and informed about this.
- Question: One of the assumptions I hear a lot is that the guidelines would add more burdens and things to do on the advance rights holders’ shoulders (they are just volunteers), and that they also increase more personal liability for the advance rights holders. Is that true? There has been the culture among Wikipedians that Wikipedia is not compulsory and Wikipedia is a volunteer service, but I think their main concern is that the culture might be overridden by the guidelines.
- Answer: The intention is definitely not to put more burden on people or give people legal liabilities they can't take but rather to create a balance and to also give communities autonomy for their projects. Also appeal pathways are built where there are complex cases that they can't handle, they can escalate it to the U4C or if appropriate due to the nature of the case to affiliates or the Foundation to provide support.
- Question: Enforcing UCoC might be difficult due to ambiguous, sometimes untranslatable text. People have asked about the issue, but few to no answers were given at the meta UCoC talk page. From there: "Considering that this rule was mainly developed for non-English communities, it is very strange to see in it very narrow terms that are used only in English." Some statements in UCoC need examples, badly. What does "This includes imposing schemes on content intended to marginalize or ostracize." mean? Who is marginalizing whom and exactly how? What are the "schemes"?
- Probably can't answer here today, creation of the U4C will help clarify certain terms that are not clear and people can ask the U4C for clarification
- Question: We are not creating a criminal court, right? (I meant using some words such as "sentencing" sounds like we are creating a criminal court even though we are creating community rules.)
- Answer: We are thinking about it as a way to improve governance and not anything like state level processes. That is why we have a preventive work section of the EG, we are not trying to create a criminal court, but making decisions to clear up conflicts or for conflicts to not have real health impact on people.
- Question: More on the language: "unfair embarrassment" / "unfair and unjustified reputational harm" / "gratuitous legal action". Can embarrassing someone be fair? Can reputational harm be fair and justified? Is suggesting legal actions other than gratuitous legal actions OK?
- Answer: Those are questions that are asking to interpret the UCoC text, which it's good to think about in the next iteration of the policy if we can find people to clarify this better. But interpretation of the policy text will for the time being mostly handled by local functionaries and the U4C as soon as it is installed.
Voting
- Question: Please explain how the voting works, do we have to sign in somewhere or prepare our voting in any way?
- Answer: Anyone who has already been through the board election process knows how eligibility is judged by signing in based on your activity on wiki etc. There is a sample ballot on meta to see how SecurePoll vote looks like.
- Question: Can we, voters, express our opinions/comments in our native language when we vote?
- Answer: Yes, definitely. We will find ways to translate from all languages although especially for minor languages, it may be difficult but we'll try our best to translate. Feel free to leave your comments in any way you think you can express best what you want to say – but think about using a second language you speak, if that is more commonly understood by many readers.
- 質問:WMF 職員と契約職員の有権者は*純粋に*職員であるだけで別扱いにして集計されるのですか(つまり職員は何人投票したか皆に分かるのですか。)
- 回答:セキュアポルは投票期間中に投票者名簿を公表するから、皆さんが票を入れたとたん、利用者名は投票者名簿に追加されるため利用者名(訳注:に付いた接尾辞)「(WMF)」の件数が確認できます
- Question: Sanctions are also decided and enforced by WMF and affiliate employees, aren't they?
- Answer: Yes they are, and there's nothing hindering affiliate staff being held to higher standards than the UCoC, it'll mostly be a baseline. same with foundation staff, who probably have higher policies at the moment
U4C
- 質問:U4C とは膨大な数の複雑な案件を取り扱うと予測します。それだけの案件をさばくのにどうやって U4C に十分な処理能力を与えるのですか?
- 回答:第2フェーズの草稿委員会は U4C の委員としてどんな適性を備えた人を想定すれば良いか時間をかけてきたのですが、批准を待たずに委員会を組むことは困難だと認識しました※。皆さんからご推奨やご指摘をいただける場合は、ぜひ方針チームにご連絡ください。(※:realized。)
- Question: Under the Policy and precedent section, it states “The U4C does not create new policy and may not amend or change the Universal Code of Conduct.” How about the Enforcement guidelines? Forgive me if I misheard our discussion from the last (Feb 25) meeting, but I thought that someone mentioned that the U4C could amend or change the guidelines. I take voting very seriously. Something that is decided by community-wide voting should be only amended and changed by another community-wide voting. In addition, amending and changing the guidelines are not listed in the U4C’s scope. Would you clarify this as well?
- Answer: The U4C cannot change the guidelines outside of those planned reviews, what they can do is give inputs from their experience i.e data on the cases that they have seen, which may guide what might be considered in the review.
- Question: When you say the next iteration, do you mean the building committee, which is purely U4C related, or another body?
- Answer: There are two parts here. One year after ratification, the UCoC and EG, will be under review, since policy is an ever evolving subject. After ratification ends, before the 1 year is up, the team will start recruiting people to help with the U4C building committee
- Followup: By what point do you commit to provision of the UCOC in the ten biggest languages by? Will they have at least 2 weeks to review it?
- Answer: In the initial translation for UCOC phase 2 doc, we cover some of the major languages used by the community. If you can send a list of some languages that aren't covered, please let us know, or provide a list. Let us know which ones are missing.
- Question: Can we make the building committee more transparent than phase 2? I'd specifically like to suggest that they use Chatham House rules, in the same way as the MCDC committee does, for the sake of transparency.
- Answer: We can take this as the piece of feedback when we compose the Building committee (and its structure).
Community outreach for awareness of UCoC and EG
- Question: What are the procedures of reporting harassment in a small wikis. Like people are complaining to me personally on how they can be able to report a bit of harassment in small wikis like Hausa Wikipedia?
- Answer: Guidelines speak about tools that have to be created by the Foundation that can be used by everyone to use to report cases. We're not sure how this will work but the drafting committee envisioned it to be like a button on every wiki that people can use to report.
- Followup: Can wikis that have their own mechanism prior can opt out and use existing things to enforce UCoC?
- Answer: Wikis can give their community a choice between existing mechanisms and the new reporting system. But they can not completely opt out of the new reporting system.
- Question: How do we reconcile that the majority of people most affected by this may not be able to participate or grasp changes?
- Answer: The team has done a lot of outreach to small/med communities and also working MSG to support translation for all these languages. We've poured some effort into these relative to previous times and it's not an easily solvable problem but we'll also appreciate recommendations.
- The Wikimedia movement is often reinventing wheels and often ambitious relative to other institutions, so we're not perfect but ideas and recommendations on how to make this better are always welcome.
- Question: Could we have sample cases, such as unacceptable conduct(s) which multiple communities share but are not aware of that? If we see more concrete image of what we *universally* share as problematic conduct(s), won't it lower the hesitation to vote, or even think about UCoC excusing oh we don't have full translation in our language?
- Answer: We can start getting examples together, but may not be available before the vote. Unacceptable conduct is currently spelt out in the policy, and we can explore having examples going forward as part of the work the building committee does.
Translation of UCoC and voting materials
- Question: Many documents related to the proposed guidelines have not been translated. For example, the Conversation Hour Summaries document has been partially translated into only Russian and Japanese. How can users who do not understand English make a sound judgment?
- Answer from MSG Team: MSG has facilitators doing translation work, and we are using these resources. But be aware that it is not ONLY their work so they don't spend all of their time on translations. Therefore, there is a high possibility that the translation task will not proceed if the priority is low. We are trying to find a solution for future work.
- Question: As translators, we need eight months, too, don't we? It is a shame we are not given enough time to catch up the high speed of revisions, I am not sure if my translation be good enough
- Answer from MSG Team: We are trying our best to translate the materials soon as possible:) We will be appreciative of all volunteer translators to help with translation work. and sometimes because of the timeline, there is a quick turnaround time too so we understand and try hard to make it easier for everyone.
Right to be heard (RTBH)
- Question: Relatively many people have been engaged to discuss Right to be Heard (RTBH) and it seems that they fear that the current guidelines seem to be biased a bit towards protection of targets of harassment and victim support and that they might not be protecting the accused enough. I know from my own work that platforms have some legal obligations to protect targets of harassment. Can you explain how the Foundation thinks about the balance of the rights of the accused and the rights of the targets of harassment?
- Answer:
- The drafting committee did a lot to add some parts in the policy. Still they decided to only do as much for several reasons: The RTBH was drafted for state level processes and state orgs are usually heavily staffed.State-level processes have thousands of full-time civil servants, judicial officials, and law enforcement personnel. The structures provided by these are simply not scalable in a volunteer environment..
- There is a lack of equivalence of legal interests: while state law can contrast the damage of a victim with an "equivalent" punishment on the perpetrator (imprisonment, fine etc., further social reputation damages) and therefore rehabilitation and a right to be heard are of special importance, this is not the case in the Wikiverse, nor is “equivalent” punishment possible or scalable to implement: the potentially significant damages to a victim (stress, fear, mental/psychological damages or impairments, etc.) are contrasted with the permanent blocking of a usually anonymous account as maximum possible sanction in the Wikiverse and the person behind it can return at any time with a new account. The comparison with legal procedures of a state is very misleading here and raises the question of whether it is not legitimate and correct to give greater weight to victim protection against this background.
- The drafting committee did consider RTBH and added bits of it to the draft, also there was a concern of volunteer time and prioritizing it for other issues. also we need to think about how this manifests in state level government vs wiki, and it's not scalable in our structures and volunteers just do not have the capacity for this.
- Followup: This argument could also apply to the anonymity side of this. we're not saying we should have the same level of safeguards like the court, but also these are not minor issues for wiki platforms but we want to discuss genuine ways to go about this, and we're not advocating for full state level defense/process
- Answer: Answer: For most cases people will have a chance to bring up their point, that's what the drafting com focused on and creating a fairer appeals process
Other
- Question: Regarding the current status of UCoC phase 1 policy text, can local community sentencing someone who violate UCoC policy text per UCoC policy at this moment that UCoC enforcement guideline has not been ratified yet?
- Answer: UCOC phase 1 text was approved and ratified by the BOT. What we're voting on now is the Enforcement guideline of the UCoC, so the UCoC Policy text is currently live and in effect. There already are first cases of administrators blocking users on the basis of the UCoC, sometimes in combination with local policies
- Followup: What about between those two times (between ratification of Phase 1 and ratification of EG), what should we do?
- Answer: Just go ahead and do what you think is the right thing to do, just as you have done in the past, but you can now also look at the UCoC for guidance on what is the right thing to do.
- 質問:理事会(もしくは WMF のどこかの役務者※1)には対話の時間※2のまとめは届くのですか?
- 回答:BOT(訳注:の設定)は UCoC プロジェクト進行状況においてリーダー制※3についても感知します※4。理事はこれまでの対話の時間に参加しました。(訳注:終止符を補足)これらのまとめは公開してあることから、その人たち(訳注:理事)が読めることは明白ですが、時間の配分をどうするか、さらに実際に目を通したかは明白ではありません。(※:1=functionaries。2=Conversation Hours。3=leadership。4=interested。)