Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines/Voting/Report/Comments

This page contains voter comments submitted during Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines/Voting. Please do not edit it.

Voters comments

Too vague. For example, "The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people." What does that mean - do we now remove all race and ethnicity article categories? And now it's going to be enforceable? And all administrators have to sign a loyalty oath to it?
The proposed guidelines are intolerable in that they attempt to impose a political line on the project. In some cases, they even encourage ranting and finger-pointing. Finally, they will exacerbate tensions over the introduction of new pronouns or grammatical usages in several projects.
"Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves" - too many editors to keep track of, I will actively respect and not harass anyone, but to expect me to go into each user page and track down this information is over the top. Why include this specific point? "Respect other contributors" would've been enough?
It's wokism applied to Wikipedia and Wikipedia shoud be free of ideology. Precisely the network makes equal all of us and when I'm talking with another wikipedian it doesn't matter things like his ethnic group or sexual orientation or gender identity. If someone wants to use a strange pronoun with themselves, he can do what he wanted, but nobody has to to obligate me to use strange language solutions beyond the standard language.
"In the event of differences in meaning between the original English version and a translation, the original English version shall take precedence and serve as the basis for decisions." In order to ensure that the UCoC is enforced, it must be translated in a legally secure manner for the respective target languages and be binding in that language. Otherwise, it can be assumed that people who are not familiar with the English language are at a disadvantage, since they would not be able to recognize differences in meaning and would not have violated the UCoC after it was translated into their target language. | "In the event of any differences in meaning between the original English version and a translation, the original English version should take precedence and be the one decisions are based on. "is problematic, see reasonging above in german language
UCoC as written is offensive, discriminatory, unenforceable and lacks sufficient stakeholder engagement.
It is a text that imposes politically or ideologically motivated censorship on Wikimedia projects, e.g. it allows the dissociation of sex from biology and prohibits the correction of articles manipulated by leftist idelogy.
The text of the Harassment section (3.1) creates issues regarding the submission of non-public information to the Arbitration Committees.
It is shameful that people with civil, appreciative manners are coerced into committing to comply with foreign-determined rules on manners and a corresponding three-step training. I will NOT subscribe to such an obligation and therefore refuse (at least) all services that require such an insulting obligation.
I disagree that *Certain individuals* will have to declare their regard for and adherence to the UCoC. This should be either required from everybody who is bound by these regulations, or nobody should be required to make such a declaration. I found the proposed form discriminative.
I do not see how this regulation will improve the problems of sexism, racism and rape culture that is prevalent in some articles (articles on women, racialized people ... denigrated, and pedocriminals, ... not reported).
I am particularly sensitive to things related to "race" and ethnicity.
Political affiliation shouldn't be in the insult category, unless we want to get bad faith actors weaponize this by claiming "I was insulted when someone said I was a far right editor".
"The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people." I cannot endorse this policy with this statement in it. People DO experience discrimination based on race and ethnicity and it is painful. This notion ignores the problem and minimizes the experience of People of Color in the world.
This UCoC contains compelled speech policies, as it forces everyone to use certain potentially fictional pronouns for potentially fictional gender identities. I don't want to be forced to use fictional speech. Things like this should never be enforced. As long as this is part of the UCoC I can only oppose anything that has something to do with it.
NO ! It is not a sign of respect to ignore the natural law and the laws of our mother tongues, even if some people want it. So the point "Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves" is not always morally possible.
In the UCoC, this line should be removed or modified so we do not ignore the racial privileges that exist in the world: "The Wikimedia movement does not endorse 'race' and 'ethnicity' as meaningful distinctions among people."
(Note: The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people. Their inclusion here is to mark that they are prohibited in use against others as the basis for personal attacks.) Race and Ethnicity ARE meaningful distinctions and form the base of an equitable approach which is prompted by the Foundation.
I like the idea of a universal rule against using the project for vilifying a particular ethnic group. (Strongly needs enforcement on certain wikis, especially in consideration of the shenanigans on Croatian Wikipedia). I also think we should have a rule that all state media publications are put on the same level of permissibility for citation/degree considered a reliable source. One man's public boradcaster is another man's propaganda aparatus, and the consensus of which is what GREATLY varies depending on the language of a community; English Wikipedia contends that Sputnik and RT is unreliable and while VOA, RFE and RFA are reliable sources, while in contrast Russian wikipedia considers VOA, RFE, and RFA to be generally unreliable while considering RT and RIA Novosti to be trustworthy. It would be better to have a universal treat with extreme caution/only use for uncontroversial claims (such as obituaries, quotes from interviews, etc). Another thing that would perhaps be worthy of consideration would be affirmative action in adminship and other posts for national minorities relevant to particular wikis (ex, First Nations editors in enwiki, Sami in Scandanavian language wikis, etc) because there is a huge slant towards dominant ethnic group perspectives in all wikis; enwiki has a strongly global north and white American worldview, Russian Wikipedia has a strong Russian nationalist leaning, etc.
Whereas it is stated, that local guidedelines should always be preferred, the fact that some Universal Code could be enforced without proper checks and balances and without proper rights to be heard and appeal is reason enough to oppose this. And no it is not the language I am opposed to, it is the intend. All this is still closer to the Age of the Inquisition than to the Age of Enlightment
We already deal with gross violations of this well enough, so this will only be for edge cases. Edge cases should be decided as transparently as possible. One persons hounding is anothers fixing disruptive or poor edits. Yes we could probably deal with this better, but these enforcement guidelines are not the way and would only make things worse. I can easily see this used by POV editors as ways to further their views. The amount of times recently I have seen cries of gaslighting and bullying when it is just other editors disagreeing is a lot more than anything the UCOC addresses.
see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Remarks_from_Wikimedia_Deutschland
First, as there is no vote about the UCOC itself I have to vote here NO. No other possibility. The UCOC contains a lot of unnecesarry bla bla, is written in a way too advanced English considering everyone in the world should be able to understand it. "empowering / committed to ensuring that it remains so, including by embracing / ostracize / vilifying ...) Some stuff is not universal but very special: Psychological manipulation / Using one's position and reputation to intimidate others / Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves. Back to the guidelines: -There is a 1.2.1 but no 1.2.2 -> formal mistake -There are several "recommendation", whole chapters of it, so it is uncertain what we get. I want the details in the guidelines, not in a third document. You could first establish, trainings and reporting system. Once the technology and courses are available, you could include them in the guidelines, but not include stuff that does not exist. -There are rumors, there would be an annualy review of the UCOC or the guidelines, but it is unclear. And there is no official process defined how to change it in the future. Again with a commitee? Looks to me, it would stay as it is for ever. -Is it UCOC or UCoC? At least the document should be consistent. Looks like everyone in the commitee only looked at some pieces of the guideline. It's difficult to see a big concept. -Seems to be focused in establishing new commitees (U4C), not so much in seeing how the already existing recources can be used. (What's the exact role of an local admin or steward?) -Gives the possibility of a "secret police": Anonymous reporter hints at some ucoc-violations and the decision can be made in secret without any chance for the guy who supposedly violated to defend. -Inside contradiction: "....following the principle of subsidiarity that online and offline communities across the world should make decisions for themselves whenever possible. This should be done in a proper, timely fashion, consistently across the entire Wikimedia Movement." So diversity across the projects or all the same? -"Recommendations for UCoC training for community members" there are 3 levels of training, but what implication do they have? Am I only allowed to become admin if I have at least level 2? Seems like unnecessary bureaucracy. -"Cases should be resolved in a consistent time frame" So always beeing slow is good? Or if a "body" is overworked, then beeing slow is still their fault? -Fuzzy rules about privacy, esp.: "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." The rule should be "As public as possible, only as private as needed." -"Systematic failure to follow the UCoC" Whoever wrote this, was thinking about a whole project which is failing, not a single person. Need clarification. -"Candidates must: [...] Meet any other eligibility requirements determined by the election process." So, what are these other requirements? Also "Not be sanctioned in any Wikimedia project", so if I dislike a candidate, then I could just block them in my local project to get rid of him as a candidate? Better let the community decide who they want. -Too many unclear details about U4C: How many members? How long do they stay a member? Reelection every year is stated in the guidelines but electing who? Only new guys? Do they get special rights? (global admin, to see deleted edits in every project?)
i) There are numerous requirements of anonymity capacity, but no countervailing evidentiary safeguards for the accused. It moves the marker a very long way. ii) It also, despite it being the single most requested amendment to the 1st iteration of phase 2, has functionally zero right to be heard inclusion. Such a right definitely shouldn't be absolute, but given the community demand, its exclusion (other than one line that may refer to it, but only in specific regard to the U4C) is unacceptable iii) It is unclear - even in English, making the translations likely even harder to be confident on reasoning iv) The training is mandatory (the definition that grandfathers admins doesn't apply here), and doesn't give a community veto on its content v) We were guaranteed that phase 2 would be iterative, but they decided, right at the endgame, that we would not be permitted any chance to amend significant parts of the policy text prior to the vote. That is, we'd never seen it until December, and despite major discussion, if we don't vote no, we can't fix flaws with it.
The Universal Code of Conduct needs to be ratified first by the communities and not just the Board of the WMF alone. Looking at the talkpages of both documents I see the urgent need for a thorough reworking of these two texts to improve understandability and translatability. This will likely include the narrowing and clarifying of definitions. I will pick one specific point as a conditio sine qua non: the right to be heard needs to be included. I am fine with wide exceptions, but it needs to bind the Legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation, its subsidiaries and successors.
In my experience, the so-called "Community Consensus" can (and is some cases has) degenerate into mob justice, something that is an abhorence in a civilised society. The way to ensure that this does not happen is to ensure that the alleged actions are clearly defined (usually by means of diff statements) and also that there is a "right to be heard". Neither of these are present in the UCoC. Furthermore, if the alleged actions are not clearly defined, whoever hears a subsequent request for re-admission has no yardstick against which to measure such a request.
There is no right to be heard as an accused person. This fundamentally contradicts the principles of the constitutional rule of law and is in no way sustainable for a project with exemplary character, such as the Wikimedia projects. The work of Trust & Safety and Legal in recent years has impressively shown that without this principle, an extreme amount of abuse of power is possible.
The guidelines are not perfect and should be further refined. I particuarly encourage (1) a limited right for the accused to see the evidence again them and to be heard, (2) more clarity about the power of the U4C, particularly in relation to local ArbComs, and (3) more clarity about the required training. Along the same lines, I largely endorse the comments given by Wikimedia Deutschland on 23 February. However, overall, I believe enforcement of the UCoC is an urgent need, and these guidelines are a good starting place. I am confident that building the U4C and beginning enforcement under these guidelines is the best step towards improving the guidelines.
I am not a sophisticated user and I’m not interested in controversial topics. I’m sure you have problems in these areas. But I think the solutions in Section 3.3 are unclear and will lead to accusations of arbitrary rules and policing. There are terms and phrases that I question. What is "unmotivated removal" of content. If something is removed, the person doing it is "motivated" by something. What does "unfaithful . . . rendering of sources" mean? What does "imposing schemes on content" mean? All content follows some "scheme" or order. And what is "the correct way of composing editorial content" and how can it be "ignored"? Is there an incorrect "way of composing editorial content"? I doubt it. If you accuse a contributor of violating these guidelines, the contributor will not know what was done wrong.
1. Methods of enforcement are unclear. 2. The right to respond and right to be heard for the accused is necessary, doesn't appear to be present, let alone guaranteed.
Anonymous reporting is unacceptable in an open project. The name of the reporter and the substance of the complaint shall not be hidden. Otherwise, organized groups using off-wiki coordination can easily abuse the process to harass editors.
I reject the entire process by which both the UCoC itself was created as well as that for this enforcement guideline. The WMF wants to create and supposedly legitimize for itself the broadest possible rights of enforcement over local communities. Here, under the glittering guise of supposed "diversity" and "inclusion," the rights of workers in Wikipedia are systematically eroded. Fittingly, minimum standards of civilization such as hearing rights are being waived. The process is damaging Wikipedia. The project lives through the voluntary, self-determined cooperation of knowledge producers, and dies when the latter fades away. Wikipedia is a testament to what people can create when they can largely determine their own means of production. The WMF's constant, premeditated attacks on the sovereignty of project communities undermine the conditions under which this project functions at all (much as in the case of paid editing, external pressure from corporations driven by market competition to usurp Wikipedia).
Intransparent enforcement against users is the wrong way.
No right to be heard implemented. Turning away from principle of voluntary by forcing volunteers to participate in trainings. Unclearness how the U4C will deal with problems in languages other than english or with people that cannot express themselves appropriatetly in English
I support the idea of the UCoC in general but there are particular elements of both the UCoC and the guidelines, which are not acceptable in their current form. There are two clauses of the UCoC itself which are problematic. Firstly, the clause on "Disclosure of personal data (Doxing)" would make it impossible to address conflict-of-interest cases on Wikis. Conflict-of-interest discussion necessarily requires discussing contributors' off-wiki information such as place of employment. Secondly the "Psychological manipulation" clause would make it impossible to discuss content disputes. The whole point of a factual debate is to try to get your counterpart to doubt their own understanding. The clause includes the word "Maliciously" but that is not helpful without some definition of what is to be considered malicious. In the guidelines, under the section on "Privacy and anonymity", it is not clear who chooses the degree of privacy applied to a report. For fairness the same privacy options must be available to the reporter and the accused until a case has been decided. It must not be allowable for a malicious reporter to file complaints under the protection of anonymity while publicly shaming the accused. This could be addressed in two ways: either the same level of anonymity must automatically apply to all parties; or anonymity is the default for each party until that party agrees to lift anonymity. When a case is decided, of course, the decision-maker can determine the appropriate level of anonymity for each party. The second point under "Fairness in process" is also unacceptable. It provides for decision making bodies to choose when to "invite perspectives from the accused". Unless a complaint is immediately dismissed as unfounded, the accused *must* in every case be given the details of the complaint against them and given the opportunity to respond. It cannot ever be possible for a person to be sanctioned without having had the opportunity to understand the complaint and respond to the complaint. It violates the fundamental principle of justice known as "audi alteram partem" - "hear both sides". When it comes to the formation of the U4C building committee, there is one provision in particular that is completely unacceptable: "Members [of the committee] will be selected by the Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability of the Wikimedia Foundation." This effectively gives a single person - and a person appointed by the WMF rather than chosen by the community - the power to completely determine the trajectory of U4C enforcement. A committee with such power must be chosen through an open process by the community, not appointed by the WMF. My concern about this is reinforced by the statement in the guidelines that the U4C building committee should "represent the diversity of our movement in respect to languages spoken, geography, gender, age, project size of their home wiki, and their roles within the Wikimedia movement". This in itself is admirable, but it very deliberately omits diversity of opinion, and in particular diversity of opinion about the UCoC. Finally, the summary says "The outline prepared by the Building Committee will be voted on by the community", while the body of the document provides that "The work of the U4C Building Committee will be ratified either by the Global Council or by a community process similar to the ratification of this document." The Committee and/or the WMF should not be able to pick and choose methods of ratification post facto, and should keep the promise made in the summary.
1. I am not willing to sign any signed declaration of compliance, and as a holder of advanced rights I would have to: this does not mean I do not support the UCoC values, but I am not willing to release private informations and/or send identification documents for this purpose, not even privately to the Foundation Office. The guidelines must state clearly that such declaration is subscribed on-wiki, with the chosen nickname, without the need of submitting any real document. 2. I do not support the introduction of mandatory training courses for generic holders of advanced rights: we are volunteers, and any obligation to spend time in bureaucratic certifications and paperwork would result in many sysops resigning their rights. I am sure the local communities are sufficiently wise to elect only users who are known for being compliant with the UCoC and clever enough to refer to more expert sysops in case they have to handle procedures that they do not master. 3. Anonymous reports cannot be accepted for just any case: that would create a police state feeling, where everybody could file a complaint stabbing you in the back; moreover this would maim the defence right of the target of the complaint, who would not be able to know what happened and so provide explanations. It must be clearly stated that anonymous reports are allowed only in very specific and rare cases, when the person filing the report can demonstrate a potential significant harmful impact on their real life.
Like many others, I find the idea of "mandatory training" quite ridiculous - I can't really put it better than has already been done here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Training It is yet another case of the WMF putting more responsibility on volunteers to enforce WMF policy without -any- support whatsoever for them. Additionally, the Right to Be Heard as written is ripe for abuse by trolls to stymie enforcement of simple sanctions and needs reworking. Note that I am -not- against the UCoC in principle, I think it is ultimately sorely needed and a good thing. However, the enforcement guidelines as written need scrapping wholesale and reworking.
1. The vague and undefined parameters, e.g. "non-exhaustive list", "such as, but not limited to", make these guidelines difficult to support in their current form. 2. The privacy protections are also not clearly defined, i.e. "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"; "Allow reports to be made either publicly (where all details of the case are viewable by the general public), or with varying degrees of privacy (for example, where the name of the reporter is hidden to the public; where the username of any individuals involved in the reported behaviour are hidden to the public; and other potential examples)". 3. The appeals section does not read like an appeal in the sense of challenging the accuracy of the factfinding or other procedural issues - is it limited only to an appeal of the sanction? It would likely help to explain the purpose and scope of appeals in greater detail. 4. In the U4C Building Committee section: "Following ratification of the UCoC enforcement guidelines, the Wikimedia Foundation will facilitate a process to draft, in the form of a constitution, the remainder of the U4C process, handle any other logistics necessary to establish the U4C, and help facilitate the initial election procedures." This constitution seems needed before enforcement guidelines can be approved, and the enforcement guidelines will likely be a lot more clear after the process is more clearly developed. How does affirmation of the UCoC impact enforcement? How does failure to affirm the UCoC impact those required to affirm the UCoC? What procedural protections exist during the enforcement process? How are these protections invoked? How does the mediation process described in the glossary fit within this process? What types of cases are unsuitable for mediation? 5. "The work of the U4C Building Committee will be ratified either by the Global Council or by a community process similar to the ratification of this document." This is another vague aspect that informs my vote against the current proposed guidelines. It should be clear as to whether the community has an opportunity to ratify the remainder of the U4C process. 6. As a general matter, I have empathy for the idea of people in positions of trust being required to affirm a set of core principles, because something similar can be required for attorneys before they can practice law. But these are terms of service that apply to everyone, as noted in these guidelines, so singling out certain Wikipedia users (e.g. advanced rights holders) for affirmations without any articulated basis seems unnecessary, because enforcement standards already vary based on status, as noted in Article 3 ("Eventual sanctions are applied according to the roles and responsibilities of the person who has violated the UCoC (paid staff, elected or selected user, volunteer, etc.)"). If there is a concern about the applicability of the UCoC to people who are not volunteer editors on Wikipedia, then tailoring the affirmation requirements to help ensure jurisdiction over their conduct seems to have a reasonable purpose. But as written, it seems redundant to require certain volunteers to affirm what they already are subject to based on their voluntary participation on Wikipedia.
First and foremost, the UCoC is not ready to be enforced: enforcing it in its current state may be harmful and the concerns about the UCoC are not being addressed, or at least not at a nearly sufficient pace. Second, local administrators must not be required to affirm the UCoC, for they must be allowed to articulate legitimate criticism of it, and requiring them to go through mandatory training is insane. Third, it seems the EG do not specify that the accused have a right to be heard, nor specify what to do after a case (with victims, offenders, or wrongly suspected people).
1. Enforcement of UCoC seems a bit too harsh. Wikimedia projects are volunteer projects and enforcing people to take exam on something seems inappropriate. 2. Legal team and T&S decisions should be disputable and open to community. It can be non-public in process, but if result is a someone's block with no explanation -- this can be very useful for a destructive actions against community.
The right to be heard is not sufficiently guaranteed and the translation of the Universal Code of Conduct should be done in all languages for which there is a language version of a Wikimedia project. Before that, the guidelines should not be implemented.
There is no right to be heard, no right of appeal and no transparent procedure. There will have to be exceptions to this, but these rights must be the norm.
Everyone must have a right to be able to answer accusations. That is not the case here.
TL;DR. The world is not universal, so a UCoC is of no use to us. No secret courts! Never again!
as per: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Remarks_from_Wikimedia_Deutschland the right to be heard should be implemented whenever possible (and that should also be mentioned in the enforcement guidelines); the lack of such fundamental right is devastating furthermore, there is no right to be forgotten implemented for rehabilitation; another fundamental right in civilized jurisdictions which shouldn't be left out at all
Considering the situation of the current controversial content on Wikipedia in the language I am using most, it is very frustrating that there is no boundary for a "proper argument". Therefore, I am in against to current UCoC and suggest a modification on the definition of acceptable argument. Regrettably, there is also no discussion in my language. Thus, I have no choice but to cast vote against the guideline.
It appears like critical details are missing: * It's said a "record of the case" should be created, somehow split in public and non-public parts. After how many years will this be deleted? It must be deleted at some point, and this point must be specified and later enforced. * It's said "cases should be judged in an informed and contextually aware way" without specifying this in more detail. Will there be a step where the other party gets a chance to explain their point of view? Unfortunately the existing committee for the "code of conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces" doesn't care. I experienced this myself, and it's horrifying (actually caused a 2 week long serious depression period where I was entirely unable to work). Nobody should be judged and punished without having a chance to speak, not even people that actually violated a CoC. Please feel free to contact me: [redacted]
Principles that I consider fundamental for a fair procedure for conflict resolution are not anchored. For example, the general right of the accused to be informed about the reason for a block and to be heard (on an equal footing with the accusing user!). For a procedure that is potentially used in every wiki project, I find this fatal: Even in communities with well-functioning conflict resolution mechanisms, the implementation guidelines can be enforced by the global committees if they 'have the impression' that the UCOC is not sufficiently enforced in a community (an extremely vague criterion). With these implementation guidelines, in extreme cases, anyone can be banned from any project in the future without being able to properly defend him-/herself, based solely on non-public accusations. The potential for abuse is enormous.
I'm unhappy about the incomplete "right to defend against accusations". In my view "fairness in process" requires as a general rule that (i) the accused is informed what he is accused of and (ii) his side is also heard by the UCoC enforcing agents before reaching a decision. There might be acceptable exceptions (e.g., if such information might endanger the accuser or victim, if the accused has obviously acted in bad faith, or if the sanctions taken are very light) but I think the basic AFG-assumption implies a obligation to seek dialogue with the accused which should be reflected in the enforcement guidelines. I think this is an issue of fundamental fairness. It was raised (by many) in the discussion of the enforcement guidelines, but in my opinion not taken into account sufficiently in the current draft of the guidelines. Since this is the first round of voting and since (in my >15 year experience) WP has functioned very well without a UCoC, I find a no vote acceptable to reach a better solution.
Far too non-transparent, e.g. no right to be heard.
a proper right to be heard is missing.
It is absolutely necessary to include a right to know what you are accused of. Even more important is a right to be heard for the "accused". In spite of repeated comments in this direction, these basic requirements of a fair process were not included in the enforcement guidelines. Hence, the Guidelines are unfit to guarantee a fair process.
A right to be heard needs to be implemented.
We are adopting quasi judicial processes without enabling people to effectively counter false accusation. Its a glaring hole and its known about. Actively ignoring this is a dangerous precedent to be setting and I cannot simply rely on good faith.
1) The UCOC must guarantee the right for accused to hear all evidence against them, except in cases of actual threats or socking 2) The anonymity requirements would probably require many conduct decisions to made be made by sole admins or small panels, without transparency. Only a fully vetted arbcom can be trusted in these cases 3) As well as the evidentiary aspects, there are RTBH considerations - the exact phrasing is up for grabs, but it needs inclusion EVERYWHERE - *not* just in the U4C 4) The phrasing is too unclear 5) The WMF needs to hand aside their authority to select the entirety of phase 3 (U4CBC) members. Have them nominate three pools (most from community, a few from affiliates, a few from WMF), and then have the community elect from within each. By any rational standard, T&S are INVOLVED in the process, and so should not have decision-making authority on the panel(s).
I do not like limiting one’s right to appeal. There shouldn’t be any exclusions.
See WMDE concerns including the right to be heard.
Lack of transparency and impossibility to appeal
Both the UCOC and the enforcement guidelines are poorly written, confusing, and (imho) unenforceable as written. It is entirely unclear who would be affected and in what ways. I cannot in good conscious support these documents as written.
Perhaps the Japanese grammar and ideographs, make these guidelines appear both better and worse. I am not good at English and cannot understand it immediately the English original. I am afraid that the translated content of the guidelines will limit the scope of autonomy of each local community. As a result, it seems that the administrators of the Japanese Wikipedia were able to reach a certain level of agreement through discussions, but I still think it is wrong to say "let's ratify the guidelines" without reflecting that in the guidelines. The draft is excellent, and I understand to some extent what you are trying to achieve. However, it is difficult to agree with the current text (especially the Japanese translation), and I would like you to clarify "what will change" when it is actually ratified. Therefore, I am opposed to the proposal as I believe that it should not be ratified as it stands.
Clearly rushed. Not enough protection for local decisions. Mandatory training for admins is bad.
As currently proposed, the text of the UCoC document is too unclear (and, in places, too problematic) to support activating enforcement mechanisms until it can be improved. Requirements for mandatory trainings, without those trainings even yet existing or their putative content being included in the proposal? Hazily worded loopholes for (some but possibly not all) existing admins that even users on the committee can't explain or interpret in response to questions? Seriously problematic rules like the prohibition on making another user "doubt their own understanding"? Try a little harder with the document before you start trying to enforce it.
My home wiki already has a functioning dispute resolution system. This well-meaning parallel system will undermine that by giving trolls and serial complainers a new avenue to avoid sanctions or target enemies.. Also pretty disappointed at the minimal interest shown for the consultation process: pages and pages of comments and questions and barely anyone from the drafting committee bothered to reply.
Incomplete guideline. The vote is being forced without any important claims from the local are not reflected to the text.
The actual text and the whole project UCC has not convinced me.
A Code of Conduct imposed by fiat and without real community input has no credibility and should not be attempted to be enforced even had it not had serious flaws, and even had not the guidelines for enforcement had serious flaws. And requiring what here amounts to an oath of loyalty to the WMF in order to serve as an administrator on the projects pretty much undresses the newspeak: some teams and individuals at the WMF have met with pushback from the community, and since admins have been both most vocal and have had the technical ability to undo certain changes, it has now become an imperative to "defang" them. This is dumb. Opinionated and independent admins are an asset, and serve as an important check on WMF tunnel vision and monoculture. And, for pete's sake, if there is one group of admins that really should be made to sign the pledge of allegiance it's the dinosaur admins on enwp (the ones who got the bit i the 2004–2010 timeframe and now only show up to make an edit every other year just to fulfil the activity requirement), but that's the group the guidelines exempt from the "affirmation"? Whoever got that exemption in there is pushing an agenda, and its inclusion makes the entirety of the guidelines suspect. In fact, reading the guidelines I could pinpoint the very sentence that was inserted so that the next time T&S goes after Fram they will succeed. While I'm sure that's a laudable goal, letting the UCoC be shaped by such special interests means the whole process is now tainted. The cultural insensitivity and narrow-minded American neo-liberal perspective on display here is downright spectacular. The movement is global and includes contributors from all places and cultures. To unilaterally impose this world view on the wider movement is the San Fransisco version of colonialism ("You poor primitive projects just do not know how to govern yourselves, so we have to impose these rules for your own good."). Your values and culture are not inherently and self-evidently superior to every other set of values and cultures! Please stop this incredibly arrogant and elitist performative white-knighting and instead approach the communities and projects with some humility, respect for our differences, and open-mindedness. There is a common code of conduct that all can agree on, but finding it requires open and constructive dialog, not stone tablets handed down from Mount WMF. And the current crop just ain't it.
I can well understand that some extra measures may be necessary for smaller Wikis (without the numbers to ensure the code of conduct is met). However, as a long-term editor on the English Wikipedia, I do not think there is any need on our project for a change to the way the code of conduct is policed. En-wiki has advanced dispute and conduct resolution processes, in the form of the administrator's noticeboard and the arbitration committee, which is staffed by trusted and experienced members of our own community, who by-and-large understand the needs of the diverse international community on the project. I don't think it would be beneficial to us to hand over some of those processes to WMF personnel in California, who are likely to form a narrower demographic and be less well versed in the complexities of governance on a large project such as en-wiki. I'm not assuming bad faith here, it's simply a matter of who has the most experience.
Each community has its own culture and mindset, and enforcing the same rules for everyone will be unjust and will result in an oppression of minority cultures and groups.
Strongly oppose because of the following clauses: (1) "It applies to all Wikimedia projects, technical spaces, in-person and virtual events, as well as the following instances: private, public and semi-public interactions…" It is a major overreach to impose the code of conduct on private in-person interactions of regular contributors, as well as of functionaries when they're not acting in their capacity as functionaries. (2) "Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves". This is incompatible with the purpose of an encyclopedia. People may have all kinds of ideas of who they are, but an encyclopedist must describe them as who they are objectively, in reality. (3) "People who identify with a certain sexual orientation or gender identity using distinct names or pronouns". It is one thing when an actual transgender person asks to be referred to with a proper pronoun, but it is a completely different thing when a mentally disturbed individual or a dishonest attention-seeker says that today he is a man, tomorrow she is a woman, the day after tomorrow he is a man again – and we are all expected to dutifully refer to him/her as a man/woman depending only on his/her words. That is not encyclopedic. Secondly, there are countries where the prevailing scientific opinion is that gender dysmorphia is a mental disease, and since Wikipedia is an international project, it would be wrong to force current Western views on transgenderism onto those countries' wikis and ban their contributors if they refuse to comply. (4) "People having a particular physical or mental disability may use particular terms to describe themselves". Again, this is not encyclopedic. Next thing you know we'll have thousands of physical and mental disabilities, most of them imagined, with the "disabled" people insisting that we refer to them by the terms they invented, lest we be banned from Wikipedia. There are such things as compulsive lying and attention-seeking. These proposals do not account for those things at all. (5) "Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want." This is a completely crazy proposal. The very nature of any debate on any topic is to find strong arguments to convince your opponent, necessarily making them doubt their previous understanding in the process. Basically, if somebody thinks that 2+2=5, it will be forbidden to cause them to"doubt their understanding with the objective of winning the argument and making them see that it really is 4. The fact that such an idea even made it to the voting proposal is very concerning to me. (6) "Deliberately introducing biased, false, inaccurate or inappropriate content…" And who is going to decide what constitutes "biased", "false" and "inaccurate"? That's a very tricky issue. What is biased to one person may be fair to another. That's why we have Talk pages, to debate these things. (7) "Systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" What if the present coverage of a certain topic on Wikipedia is already biased and someone decides to improve it, making it more balanced? He/she will now be accused of "systematic manipulation of content to favour specific interpretation". Some contributors prefer to focus on certain topics; it is only natural that their contribution would be "systematic", i.e., they would edit many articles covering these particular topics.
I have two reasons for opposing this. One is the impact the UCoC Enforcement has on self-governance. We on enwiki can be naive about the problems and issues the smaller wikis can face -- either within the relevant project or affecting the project as a whole (i.e. the Kubura situation), but as it stands, the U4C would invalidate a key component of self-governance: local processes having the final decision in local situations. Of course, T&S and the WMF act in exceptional circumstances, where local volunteer processes are ill-equipped or unable to handle certain situations, but fundamentally the U4C and current enforcement guidelines should mean that the volunteer community & local functionaries and/or arbitrators retain ultimate discretion *in all situations in which the Foundation does not require their own involvement*. As it stands, the current UCoC enforcement guidelines do not do this, instead delegating power previously yielded by local processes to a global committee. As demonstrated in the WMF Office-Fram series of events, third-party intervention in large-wiki local communities with insufficient care and nuance (which is likely to occur more frequently, should the U4C be created) can have resoundingly negative impacts and harm relations between the wiki and the global community (or WMF) -- something no-one wants. Secondly, the training is also concerning. I think a large part of Wikimedia's success is down to its simple administration, and that any user is welcome to start and stop their activity, free of obligations to do anything. Training would change that, requiring sysops and functionaries to donate more time than they are willing to volunteer, purely to be able to continue in their roles. I don't believe that training is necessarily a bad thing, but *requiring it* is intrusive and an unnecessary burden on any volunteer.
Adherence to the UCoC should be established on the community level and not by formal requirements of sysops and bureaucrats.
I appreciate the value of this initiative for smaller projects. But I see two issues in how it would apply to larger projects. First, I think the requirement that users with advanced permissions actually sign a confirmation, rather than just being aware, is too much like a loyalty oath and contrary to Wikimedia tradition. Second, I think there can be disconnects between how the U4C and local communities see issues. Wikimedia has thrived by using the shared experience of communities to determine content policies, and it should similarly rely on community experience to determine conduct.
Increasing the burden on those who perform "administrative tasks" will not help Wikipedia grow. In addition, the term "universal" is strange. The rules should be formulated according to the characteristics of each language version and should not be unified.
Unnecessary and Harmful.
A universal code of conduct cannot be universal. Every community (linguistic, national, cultural, etc.) has its own norms which may seem unacceptable to other communities. In its current, extremely vague form, the Universal Code of Conduct can be used to persecute individual participants whose behaviour, opinions and statements may seem incompatible with community norms. In essence, the Universal Code of Conduct is now an instrument of suppression that can be turned in any direction, against any community, any participant. The Universal Code of Conduct is not clearly worded, which is a sign of bad law.
Yet another mechanism for regulation. Whether it works or not (but it is certainly intended in the name of all the best), if it turns even one potential participant away from the Project, then it is HARMFUL. There are 2 million (!!!) not just potential editors in Russia, but editors who have already come and gone. It is necessary to think how to attract people, not how to "line them up". And, "Good intentions pave the way to a very hot place".
English Wikipedia used to have, back in the day, a process for requesting comments on users, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_conduct, a noticeboard for personal attacks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Personal_attacks, and a project called Esperanza, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Esperanza. These were all started with the best intentions, but have all been disbanded, basically because it turned out they lent themselves to being weaponized by malcontents seeking retribution against those who had prevented them from pushing their views into articles. It's amazing to me that WMF seems naive about the possibility — nay, likelihood — that these guidelines can, and will, be used in the same way to drive good editors away - good editors who stand in the way of determined, say, nationalists, caste promoters, or advertisers. Except that it will be much worse than our discontinued noticeboaards ever were, with the power of the WMF behind it. I see no acknowledgement in the guidelines of such dangers or of the need for check and balances against them, and therefore I cannot support the guidelines or their enforcement. An example was provided by [redacted] here, [redacted]where he mentioned a current thread at[] "where an editor is threatening to report another editor they're in a content dispute with to T&S for 'bullying'. I do not trust T&S to be ble to evaluate such a claim fairly, because it will surely, in my opinion, be eas[y] to pull the wool over the eyes of T&S, with their lack of familiarity with the community and the culture here, and, most particularly with our own". I think so too. The [redacted] fiasco is another example.
In no particular order: 1. The UCoC itself was never ratified by the community, contrary to the spirit of the movement. The enforcement guidelines are thus fruit of the poisonous tree, even putting aside all of the other issues with them. 2. The U4C is improperly given authority over all wikis, even those with long-established dispute resolution processes. Except in extraordinary situations (legal issues, off-wiki harassment, emergencies, etc.), community-elected ArbComs should have the final word in these sorts of cases (cf. FRAMBAN). I appreciate that these sorts of U4C interventions would hopefully be extremely rare, but there's no reason why they would be necessary at all. 3. In many places, the guidelines are vaguely written and open to a variety of interpretations. While I understand the need for flexibility, it is imperative that voters understand what precisely they are voting on. 4. Trolls, long-term abuse cases, and other bad-faith users would likely exploit the enforcement process to harangue administrators. At a time when many projects are facing a shortage of sysops, further opportunities for time-wasting should be discouraged. 5. The guidelines are solutions in search of a problem. Large wikis already have established procedures to resolve these sorts of disputes, stewards are already capable of dealing with problems on smaller wikis, and the Foundation already reserves the right to take office actions (e.g. global bans) in cases of serious abuse. When the old process is working perfectly well, adding additional bureaucracy is unnecessary and counterproductive. 6. The mandatory training is seriously problematic. While this section's vagueness (see point 3 above) makes it difficult to address properly, there are several possible issues. Most obviously, there is no practical way to force thousands of administrators to complete it: many administrators go for months without editing, so any enforcement attempt would result in mass desysops. Second, administrators would likely object on principle to forced training on a volunteer site, so any enforcement attempt would result in mass resignations à la the Fram case. Our projects have too few administrators as it is, so such an occurrence could have devastating consequences. Finally, the guidelines use the word "attend", which connotes some sort of physical participation: many administrators would refuse even to provide their real-world name, much less anything more than that. 7. The same concerns mentioned in point 6 (inactivity; compulsion; personal information) apply with equal force to the mandatory "affirmation" that the guidelines require. It, too, would likely lead to mass resignations that would be terribly deleterious to the various projects. I appreciate that the WMF feels the need to be seen as doing something (see the English Wikipedia's article on the politician's syllogism), but this something will serve only to harm the projects, the movement, and the state of free knowledge. The community has shown that it is not afraid to resist the Foundation's will on these sorts of things, and I hope the Foundation, realizing this, addresses the community's serious concerns rather than steamrolling the very volunteers that have made this implausible effort – to build the world's greatest source of free knowledge – so successful. If it does not, the Foundation will only be shooting itself in the foot.
If local dispute resolution/arbitration procedures are struggling to resolve an issue the last thing we need is a foreign body sticking their nose in as a fourth party to the conflict and inevitably creating more dialogue and more drama.
only community can rule and judge themselves
Wikimedia communities are supposed to be self-governing. The UCoC, on the other hand, was the creation of the WMF, which, after some sham consultations, started the process of forcing it onto the communities. The communities didn't ask for it and largely don't want it, because they already have rules and are functioning with those rules. So, I don't support the enforcement of the UCoC because I don't support the UCoC. Also, the whole way this is going with the one-sided creation of a law and forcing it on people, establishing enforcement committees, and even requiring affirmations, is disturbingly similar to how communist regimes operate, right down to having to swear loyalty to the great leader if you want to participate in society (and I've lived under such a regime, so I know).
The proposals are poorly written and may (intentionally/unintentionally) have the opposite effect on communities. This needs to go back to being drafted, properly proof read and peer reviewed fully before being sent for ratification again.
You want to solve a problem, which does not exist. Current policies and procedures are enough good for fighting vandalism, harassment and cross-wiki issues. You want to create a new body, but there is no need for the body. It is good to have UCoC, but current systems work well for applying its principles and rules. Write articles and do maintenance work in local wikis instead, no to bureaucracy!
The pages on Meta are rather incomprehensible und way too long, I do not understand anything. This needs to come from the community, not from WMF.
awful corporate North American thing. Far too much identity politics in it, and that doesn't trump NPOV etc
Given some of the problematic definitions employed in the UCoC (e.g., those for "psychological manipulation" and "doxxing") as well as the broad authority of the U4C (which seems to be limited only by its own understanding of where its involvement is needed), I am a little concerned about giving a currently unformed body broad power to override local processes, especially on communities that already have robust arbitration and enforcement mechanisms like English and German Wikipedia. I am also concerned that the U4C will be unable to help in the areas where it is most needed, namely on projects for small languages whose users are often not proficient in English and other common languages, where cabals are known to sometimes form. In sum, my concern is that the U4C is designed in such a way that its broad powers will only actually be applied in situations where it is neither helpful nor wanted.
While I think the goals of the UCoC are admirable, they and the enforcement guidelines don't seem to have been written with the actual experience of Wikipedia editing in mind. There is some concern that the UCoC makes much ordinary anti-vandalism, quality control, and administrative work on en.wiki and other sites subject to sanctions. The main outcome of much of what I do upsets people and often outrages them. I remove their edits or reject their articles. I also check their other work to see if it meets standards. (Is this Hounding?) I know a main outcome of this is that they will be upset, and this equals Harassment by article 3.1 of the UCoC, which states "or any behaviour where this would reasonably be considered the most likely main outcome" - 'this' refers to "intimidate, outrage or upset a person", no longer qualified by the words "primarily intended to".
The guidelines are far too weak on two of the most egregious areas of poor wikiconduct: "civil" POV pushing and unacceptable IP behaviour that often has the same purpose. Accurate descriptions of poor editing behaviour should be protected, as long as they are not personalised. I can see these guidelines being used as a stick to beat admins that try to stop "civil" POV pushing (which is one of the most insidious aspects of en WP), and editors that revert unacceptable IP behaviour and disruption on sight. Make people register an account so they can be held to account.
I have experienced Wikipedia (dewiki) as a community that lives by self-organization. Having a top-down implementation of a Code of Conduct is the opposite of self-organization.
The guidelines unduly impose themselves upon communities that best function with robust self-governance. They do not come from the community, do not represent the community, and take enforcement powers away from well-functioning communities to individuals who lack the expertise to make decisions that are narrowly tailored towards preventing disruption. The guidelines are far too broad and will encourage over-intervention in communities that, by and large, do not want a particular code of conduct imposed on them by the burgeoning WMF bureaucracy.
The communities should regulate themselves under the existing rules. Less is more. There are some errors in the translations as well. Bad basis for enforcements.
I am totally against the universal code. I see it as an un-transparent way of imposing rules without reaching consensus of the community. I specifically do not trust the T&S team and despise attempts to control wikipedians from above and regret that the code doesn't seem to restrain those.
NO, as it is too vague, and weakens the power of individual wikis to police themselves.
Let the projects govern and enforce themselves.
Having an universal code of conduct in my opinion is not a good compromise between vastly different wikis, along with a potential massive backlash from communities. A casual discussion between the editors and the developers would clear up a lot of concerns for me, but until then, I sadly have to oppose this proposal.
Purposeless self-employment with a stranglehold on communities
No, I don't. We have more confidence in the internal rules of the Russian section and the Arbitration Committee, which we ourselves chose. Application of the Universal Code of Conduct is not transparent. Such a voice is not related to the war that Russia started: we do not support our government. But all the more confidence in our Arbitration Committee and administrators who have known who is who for many years.
The magic word here is "autonomy"; most projects are perfectly capable to deal with unwanted behaviour on their own; the central role of the WMF is making sure the servers keep working; changing the world top-down has never worked before.
English Wikipedia regulates itself well and does not need a Universal Code of Conduct imposed on it. I object to the WMF unilaterally extending its power in this way. At most, we need a recommended code of conduct which each project may choose to adopt or reject individually.
A failed attempt at one-size-fits-all that fits none of the communities it is supposed to protect. Protection of the WMF has been prioritized over protection of the community.
I have no confidence in the wikimedia foundation and all the associated processes. This foundation has a serious neutrality problem and should not exist.
Solution for a non-existing problem, with reasonable concerns about WMF power grab unaddressed
The entire Guideline is antithetical to a community of unpaid volunteers, and the assumption of "universal" conduct is highly disrespectful to individual volunteers and their diverse cultural backgrounds. The individual wikis can (and do) effectively govern themselves, thank you very much, and the WMF staff would do well to accept the reality that volunteers like me DO NOT WORK FOR YOU.
I don't see the point of further bureaucratizing the Wikimedia movement. Our mission is to share knowledge, not to educate people or to invent regulations other than those that already exist in the various jurisdictions active within nation-states. Harassment does not only exist on Wikimedia and is punishable by law in many countries, and project terms of use have existed for a long time. Since we are talking about this code of conduct, I really don't see where we are going with this. Moreover, to make a code for all projects and language versions is to completely deny the diversity of communities and the particularities of each culture that languages convey. I don't understand. Diversity is much richer than universality, isn't it? Should we all fit into the same mold? No, I don't agree with this project at all. It is contrary to the mission of the movement, which aims at sharing all human knowledge, whereas it is about unifying the way of organizing. But the organization of projects is also a form of knowledge. I do not wish to see this code go beyond a simple recommendation or optional basis that could inspire each project to produce its own organization.
Too centralised. All centralised power and support should be decentralised and given to each individual community on a language basis. For example, Adminships should be given by their communities and not by a central body / foreign group of editors who think they know better.
There are too many problems with the exact wording of the text of the code - too little time was spent listening to those bringing up actual issues. This feels very much like it's being forced down our throats.
- Not clear what the meaning of "unable to handle a case" is in Scope criterion #2 "Where local structures are unable to handle a case", nor who is making the final decision on whether this criterion is met. I'd like to see language specifying that this is to be decided by either a consensus of editors on the relevant project, or by consensus at a public discussion on Metawiki open to all editors in good standing. - Dissatisfied with language regarding "Systematic violations of the UCoC" -- again, not clear who makes these assessments. I would be more comfortable supporting if this specified the importance of complying with the spirit of the UCoC rather than the letter (per NOTBURO), and if it clearly established that the evaluating body that decides whether systemic violations are taking placed is to be held via a public discussion on Metawiki open to all editors in good standing.
"In the event of any differences in meaning between the original English version and a translation, the original English version should take precedence and be the one decisions are based on." : It is denial of cultural diversity. In general antoher top to bottom iniative with limited local support.
The enforcement of this is incredibly subjective and prone to bias. It gives people power they really don't need.
As an En.wp arbcom member: Major issues: # "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." This makes our job harder because we have a process in place already that guarantees private evidence will be shown for negative findings. Maybe this would impact daily email operations as well; for example, a user made two reports about COI/PAID and it is not obvious to me that we could have just sent those along to the paid-en queue. Sounds like a small thing, but I'm pretty sure it's not. # "Systematic failure to follow the UCoC. Some examples include: ... 2) Consistent local decisions that conflict with the UCoC; 3) Refusal to enforce the UCoC; 4) Lack of ... will to address issues." This is a significant limiting or set of examples of issues that would be expected here. # "No appeals against a decision made by a Project’s community except if there is a suspicion of abuse of power or a systematic issue;" A suspicion of abuse of power is an insufficient cause on well-developed wikis. # "jurisdiction for final decision making Where local structures are unable to handle a case;" -> Our declining cases is an inability? There needs to be significant policy in place to guarantee that higher-level dispute resolution bodies have access to and guaranteed feedback into any item that comes across the UCOC enforcement body's case. I think broadly these issues with the UCOCE would mostly come down to an active choice on our part not to exercise our authority for an issue, and possibly multiple times. Fram might be a particular example of a case where what is present in the guidelines (at least for the U4C) doesn't guarantee that our opinion on a case will be considered much less consulted were someone to report systematic issues with dispute resolution. That's a huge problem with the current guidelines. Less major issues: # The proposed reporting mechanism (building it in MediaWiki is just facepalmworthy) provides another path that could exclude a report coming to us or be Another Place To Check or not be programmed the way it should be etc etc. # "Cases should be resolved in a consistent time frame", even with the 'if prolonged' caveat: We aren't the best at this (volunteer world). Putting people on timelines is also not fair. # Grandfathering in current rights holders for signatures to the UCOC makes no sense, categorically. # Requiring a link to the UCOC in certain places (registration particularly, in person events) is pretty asinine and we already know that changing the registration page makes people sensitive. # Why should it be required only for edit confirmation pages for logged out users? # Requiring attendance to training when we are a global, multi-linguistic, movement seems... aspirational, at best. Downright idiotic at worst. # Requiring a mention of the UCOC in the context of a violation warning is obnoxious for well-developed wikis. # "Eventual sanctions are applied according to the roles and responsibilities of the person who has violated the UCoC (paid staff, elected or selected user, volunteer, etc.), the nature of the breach and its seriousness": Why should it vary depending on roles and responsibilities? The seriousness? Is that not covered by the nature of the breach? Either explain the purpose or shorten considerably. (It should probably be the former.) # Violations involving threats of any sort of physical violence: needs a 'legitimate' in front probably. # Violations involving litigation or legal threats, we simply block and tell them to do other things rather than forwarding to Legal ourselves. Why should Legal need to be involved? # Offwiki requirements. Good luck. # The processing tool will likely fail to be sufficiently transparent. # Why the fuck is it specified as a MediaWiki tool? Be broader, not narrower, in your requirements. # I expect it will be spammed by unregistered submissions. # "and may suggest suitable changes to UCoC to the Wikimedia Foundation and the community for consideration" -> any person should be able to do this. I see no reason to have this mentioned whatsoever as a responsibility of this body. # And then it's said twice for no obvious reason
We don't need this complicated mess. I fear anyone who or any body which claims authority over individual Wiki volunteers.
Too much bureaucracy for a project to which we give our voluntary and free contribution.
The problems with this document are embodied by the frequency of the phrase "not limited to". If an idiosyncratic selection of examples is the best we can do to formalize the enforcement criteria, how have we made any improvement to existing policies like WP:NPA?
I consider a basic consensus (guiding principles) to be self-evident. However, I reject the effort that has been and is being made for the ratification of self-evident principles. I distrust the process of creation and decision-making, which in my eyes does not fit the spirit of the basic principles. It was a horror to struggle with it: text deserts and quantities in excess, over which one could not keep an overview as someone who also has a life besides Wikimedia; furthermore, the impression that there can be no question of an open result.
Current regulations, rules and common sense are enough. It is an unnecessary bureaucratisation of creativity.
In my opinion, there is no need to be a "final alternative" that supersedes the local bodies. The local bodies of each wiki are well equipped to deal with emerging cases, and introducing a new body, the U4C that has the power to have a "final decision" and "final interpretation" is degrading the independence of each wiki. While I agreed that UCOC is useful, the implementation that introduces a new powerful body that supersedes all local bodies is unacceptable. UCOC should be enforced by local bodies such as ArbCom, but not by others,
Unless enforcement is left to local bodies, local governance will be undermined deeply. Local governance works because the buck stops there. If folks can appeal to a higher power, they always will.
Undermines local control of EnWP processes and concensus May prevent editors from sending non-public off-wiki information about other editors to ARBCOM (EnWP) Mandatory training, places an undue burden on volunteers.
Amending my previous vote (which was a yes). While I think most of this is substantially OK, I think we will likely run into problems along the way (as with anything) and so I want to see a good way to amend this. I agree such a method shouldn't be simple, but the present amendment process is unacceptable. 1. I don't agree with only allowing the Committee to propose amendments. If Ombuds Commission, Elections Committee, etc, are good examples, I do not trust Committees to adequetely respond to community concerns. 2. I do not agree with annual reviews, especially WMF-facilitated. Not because I distrust the WMF or the facilitators, but because I imagine that route will be shut off after a year or two (budget cuts/reprioritisation/etc). This is a perpetual agreement, so we need a perpetual functioning route to amendment. 3. Community ability to directly amend is a must. Propose allowing amendments via community RfC held on metawiki, as closed by a panel of stewards, after which it will be sent to the Board of Trustees to be rubber-stamped. I think this has adequete controls.
Needs an opt-out for projects with already existing dispute resolution mechanisms, similar to the paid editing guidelines. Much of the proposed language in the "code of conduct" is unclear and could be interpreted in multiple ways. "Mandatory affirmation" and any mandatory unpaid training need to be removed.
Local functionaries are not defined (How long the periode? who appoints? who appeals?). Selection, membership, and roles – Who appoints? Who appeals? How about retraining and the certificates, if there is a new Enforcement guidelines update?
I see no need. Just let the projects do their thing.
This will simply just be another "global ban hammer" with no realistic appeals process (the Enwiki ArbCom's Appeals Committee rarely if ever accepted any ban appeals), the only thing this will do is further reduce local autonomy, in fact this system will invalidate local policies and lessen the power of local admins and policies in favour of a global Anglocentric system. Furthermore, local blocks cannot be appealed through this system while users blocked through here aren't allowed to contribute anywhere locally, the only thing this will do is make it easier for users to be excluded, as backlogs are long and a lot of content is missing (think of the "Women in Red" campaign) reducing the number of users through an additional ban hammer seems counter-productive. At this point I'm getting the impression that Wikimedia websites are simply "collecting ban hammers", note that all admins at all levels have a privilegium de non appellando, this essentially translates to exclusion being possible at every level but appeals only to the ban issuing authority. I have been noticing a trend of blocks and bans being easier to be issued while increasing more difficult to appeal, until only a few years community bans were a rarity at the English-language Wikipedia but after a change in policy all sockpuppeteers are considered "community banned" without trial (as before it required a vote or literally no admin unblocking them), but the unban conditions remained the same, this means that all sockpuppeteers now have to go either through "community vote" or ArbCom, note that reversions of "community bans" are extremely rare. Meanwhile steward bans were appealable at Global Requests but are now only appealable by e-mail, Steeds NEVER reply to e-mails from globally locked users, global unlocks are extremely rare. WMF Global Bans are even worse, not only do WMF globally banned often receive no reason and their e-mails to the WMF and OTRS / VRTS are completely ignored (as I had asked several WMF banned users and a friend asked Krassotkin), but these bans are final and completely unappealable. This new system will simply add an additional Ban Hammer to the already existing long laundry list of ban hammers, what this means is that if a user wants to contribute to the English-language Wikipedia they could be banned my a large multitude of people for various reasons made on other Wikimedia websites. That is to say while a block by a random English-language Wikipedia admin it is unlikely to be reversed by the ArbCom, if the user would evade the block the entire Administrators' Noticeboard would have to vote on them returning or the ArbCom. But if a user gets blocked from the Armenian-language Wikipedia and Armenian-language Wiktionary and then gets either Globally Locked or Globally Banned this user is also banned from contributing to the English-language Wikipedia and even if they would write good articles that benefit the readers the global nature of their exclusion will also let their articles be deleted which is a loss for the readers. Likewise a WMF Global Ban for any user would exclude them from contributing, local English-language Wikipedia admins or even their ArbCom cannot override the decisions made by Stewards or the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the UCoC will simply be another venue for overriding local policies and local processes. Also the people who will decide on the UCoC will be from "the culture of banning" any previously blocked / banned user automatically gets thrown into a lower caste which means that the only people that ever decide on blocks and bans are people who have never been on "the other side of a block" or even understand the emotions or is capable of feeling empathy for those that have been blocked, in fact with people who deal a lot with vandals and harassers they might see all blocked and banned people in the same category regardless of the circumstances that created the situation. People who get voted into adminship aren't "community leaders" they are chosen to deal with deletions and blocks, the pool of users they are chosen from are users that primarily work with deletions and blocks, a user who is the best content creator but never fights vandalism or advocates for deleting things isn't ever going to be an admin, while a user who does those things but is incapable of actually making quality content can still become an admin. Rather than having non-admin and other non-advanced rights content creators to serve with these boards they will exclusively be populated by people whose hobby it is to exclude people, this is already true for every currently existing ban hammer, simply creating an additional ban hammer with the exact same people that deal the others without having an additional road to appeal will simply make us lose a lot more productive contributors. Also, all it takes is only one bad day to get blocked for life and even after death, this essentially undoes years of goodwill. Also, indefinite blocks / bans essentially assume that people can NEVER change, if a 15 (fifteen) year old girl gets banned over immature behaviour and she will return 20 (twenty) years later as a 35 (thirty-five) year old woman her block is still valid and if someone finds out that she's evading her blocks a couple of decades later all content she adds MUST be deleted according to the policies of many Wikimedia websites. Rather than having simply another unforgiving and unappealable ban hammer maybe the WMF should try to focus on editor retention and interpersonal disputes through dialogue rather than simply hitting people left and right and then wondering why Wikimedia communities have been shrinking for years or why it's difficult to attract people to these websites.
National wikis should have more autonomy and should be independent from high level arbitrary body.
Off-wiki violations are too broad and stretch too long. Violations of offline communication should be handled by the local police, not the arbitration committee.
Requiring adherence for user rights among large communities who have already established processes for handling advanced user rights rubs against the ideal of community-control. The requirement to attend training courses, for those undertaking entirely voluntary and uncompensated work, feels unethical.
The introduction of the UCOC and universally "enforcing" it on such rather quick turnaround seems to contradict earlier statements to the effect that larger projects would be left alone if they had functional policies and behavioral processes in place. Also, the section on "affirmations" is not encouraging.
It would be an excellent approach to try working on the health of each community.
I reject the introduction of a mandatory UCoC for the major, established and functional Wikipedia language versions (including the English, German and French) for fundamental reasons. Such a code already exists in these projects and cannot be imposed from the outside. I see here the very serious danger of a split and weakening of the global community through forks.
For the major Wikipedia language versions, such a UCOC is superfluous. It should only apply to non-developed versions.
The very idea of a CdCU is a problem. Let the projects manage their requirements.
This code seems to replace en:WP:5P4, which is quite sufficient.
Each community must be sovereign in defining its founding principles.
Every website by its own
I don't think it's necessary to have such elaborate rules of conduct (I think everyone understands how things should be done), and I fear it will be another ToU piece that no one will ever read and no one will care about (until)
I don't see the need for additional regulations. Our community, I believe, handles conflict situations quite well, and I don't see what the desire for more regulation is coming from.
Recent global bans in the Russian section have shown the harm of Meta's interference in the local section.
The UCoC interferes with private sphere. It has no jurisdiction to private actitvieis unrelated to Wiki projects. Issues related to harassment should be addressed by local law.
Respect expertise (in this area), and respect the rules.
Absolutely not - Imho AN/ANI/Arbcom do the job just fine so we don't need all of this Universal Code nonsense.
I think that USC isn't so necessary in this moment, because I have never seen problems that cannot be solved in local editions.
I fully support autonomy of particular projects
Unneccessary, intrusive, overly legalistic, and sometimes incomprehensible.
Overreaching, in that it wants to enforce foundation policies on non-foundation platforms.
Voted "No". At this stage almost every large website experiences complaints that its Terms of Service is applied either unclearly, due to incompetence or unequally due to bias. I believe this is often caused by vague and highly interpretive rules like "Practice empathy" or "Systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" are so dependent on individual judgement that I suspect they will lead to enforcement based on arbitrary perceptions rather than anything approaching an objective standard. I do not believe these types of codification have led to better community relations in the case of any large website and I suspect the same will apply here.
wikipedia already has well-elaborated guidelines and its implementation system, starting from the United States, is made to maintain a dictatorship, and the beautiful principles, such as the free ecyclopedia, are not implemented, now a beautiful code of conduct to show to the people from outside a certain concern with respect and democracy, which will be thrown in the trash and the dictatorship maintained, this is a place where even distrust is prohibited, so I vote no!
The UCoC is in its entirety against the express wishes of numerous communities, you know, those that actually create content, and therefore any related process, documents or guidelines are null and void. As long as the WMF and those tasked by the foundation to create codes and guidelines ignore the communities and their respective wishes I have to ignore any such codes and guidelines.
I vehemently disagree with allowing the U4C to interfere with decisions made by a Project's community (and ArbCom) "if there is a suspicion of abuse of power". That is a grossly low standard. Every dispute can be framed as one about an abuse of power. I would be okay with a standard being "if the U4C finds, by a two-thirds vote, that the Project's community has severe systemic issues in enforcing the UCoC".
Vehemently oppose any more useless gestures that only serve to enable more corruption within WMF and career "volunteers" while hindering if anything the only thing of value that WMF facilitates (barely), the English Wikipedia (and I guess a handful of others).
I don't believe that certain aspects of the proposed ratification, such as the U4C, is nessecary for the Wikimedia Foundation. The proposed ratification would assign their responsibilities in final decision-making if local enforcement bodies fail to enforce te UCoC, however I think that the effort spent on another body could instead be used to appoint competent local enforcement bodies and train them on enforcing the UCoC, so that they don't fail to enforce the code in the first place (invalidating the need for a seperate body). I speak from a limited perspective in this as I spend most of my time on the English Wikimedia projects and as such I can't speak for the other projects, but I think that administrators do a well enough job of enforcing the UCoC. I think that instead of creating a seperate body, the responsibilities that would be given to the U4C should instead be given to the Arbitration Committees of the various projects.
Only the decentralization of power will ensure the durability of the project, this is a step against it
After WP:FRAM, I firmly believe the English WIkipedia should govern itself when it comes to dealing with harassment.
I support the creation of a centralized reporting server and the increased visibility of the UCoC. However, I don't think it was well-articulated why the current rules are inadequate for enforcing the UCoC. As someone who has fortunately not faced any other user who gravely disregarded the UCoC, I wonder if more visibility could be brought to this issue while it is ongoing, rather than just at the ratification. Thanks.
A solution looking for a problem that will have serious (un)intended consequences. It is sad that Wikipedia, the last redoubt of the real internet, is going down this path.
There are behaviours prohibited by the letter of the UCoC which, as several editors have pointed out, should be considered part of acceptable editing practice. Specifically, the UCoC prohibits "sharing other contributors' private information, such as [...] place of employment [...] without their explicit consent". However, when dealing with malicious paid editors who intentionally conceal their paid status, it should be acceptable to privately provide evidence these users have been employed as paid editors, even if they do not wish that information to be disclosed. Another example: the UCoC prohibits "following a person [...] and repeatedly critiquing their work mainly with the intent to [...] discourage them". As written, this would seem to disallow antivandalism patrollers from repeatedly warning vandals and systemically reverting their contributions ("critiquing their work"). Now, probably the drafters did not intend the statement to be interpreted in this way. But there are also more borderline cases: perhaps there is an enthusiastic new user who is rapidly adding large quantities of unsourced fan material to dozens of articles. Would this regulation prevent a more experienced editor from "critiquing their work with the intent to discourage" this new user's flawed contributions? Possibly, in practice, the UCoC will not be interpreted in these problematic ways, but in any case, these issues should have been clarified in the drafting process, and the fact they haven't does not give me confidence that the document has been properly thought through. I cannot support rendering these flawed guidelines enforceable. Apart from the actual UCoC itself, WMF-instituted bodies have a mixed track record of disciplinary intervention beyond absolutely uncontroversial contexts (child safety and genuine legal issues), notably in 2019 when the unexplained one-year ban of an English Wikipedia administrator sparked major protests and ended up having to be overturned by the local ArbCom. Similar issues will undoubtedly arise with the U4C Committee.
The UCOC was never ratified, so enforcement of it is premature.
While I support the spirit of the UCOC and its guidelines and ideas, I am against applying it without amendments for specific contexts and communities, that can be affected due to that (Especially smallest communities that are under the "dictatorships of the majority and their choices". I suggested to allow local communities to adapt the UCOC to their context, but it was not accepted in an office hour..
The enWP is fully capable of managing its own affairs, and has a fairer process than the WMF.
The enforcement guidelines are far too broad and will include much that is considered ok.
It would have to be drastically changed and completely rewritten for me to even think about voting yes. Even then, I don't see why we need one in the first place.
Insufficiently clear.
dewiki has his own rules and dont need this conduct
not needed as we have WIKILOVE and WIKIQUETTE and the admins. All instruments are on the table.
Too broad. Will be misused to ban dissenting editors.
This issue can't be handled globally.
I personally think policies and guidelines on wikis are sufficient. For example, WP:No personal attacks and WP:No legal threats suggest against most of the inappropriate behavior.
The present guidelines don't provide a usable tool for communities or projects without guidelines and on the other hand override, delete or conflict with enforcement and conflict resolution structures of communities and projects which already have these tools.
IMO incomplete in the current state with a million loopholes.
The (proposed) text of the enforcement guidelines (meta:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines) is quite legalese-ish, and the summary doesn't do a good job at clarifying what its deal is. I support the general idea of an UCoC, and of course it would then need enforcement, but I'm a little uneasy with this vote here – hestitating whether I should abstain, because I'm not entirely sure what's going on.
I think the existing rules are well established and sufficient for the normal existence of the project.
Seems like more bureaucracy and more centralization when neither is needed.
Either way, I doubt this will change anything outside adding more pages to our gigantic bureaucracy.
This document is a quintessential example of design-by-committee. It's miles too long, and incredibly broad in some arbitrary areas but extremely specific in others. It also contains concerning elements, such as the exemption for legacy admins. Overall, this is not something that looks ready for adoption to me.
I have searched high and low for what precisely we are voting on--I've found general descriptions, but no clear description. Therefore, I have to vote NO because i must oppose any change that its not explained. PLEASE next time make it easy to find what we are voting on.
Unnecessary noisy bureaucracy which tries to replace local law enforcement.
I'm not convinced this is needed.
In their present form, guidelines will to impose a central authority pont of view to local communities without taking into accunt any local peculiarity and especially. IMHO it should be preliminarly assessed the effectiveness of current initiatives that local communities already adopt to adhere to UCoC principles (irrespective of the formal design of these initiatives to comply with UCoC: many of them already existed...). As a long-standing local administrator I probably won't accept neither to waste time in listening a facilitator (probably having less experience than me) explaining UCoC in an online class perhaps in a language that I do to fully understand, nor to transmit my identity card to WMF or its delegate every time I will be confirmed.
Such rules are probably necessary, but I'd be much more comfortable voting "yes" if they were not written in off-putting American Corporatese.
There is already too many regulations.
Concern about the loss of self-governance of the local wikis
This is unnecessary duplicative administrative policy, likely a waste of volunteer time and donated resources, and a cancerous growth on the collegial editorial culture of Wikimedia. Structures like ArbCom already satisfactorily handle issues. Any UCoC/U4C proposal should very clearly establish the LIMITS (with examples) of its creations & their domains, alongside stringent minimum penalties for U4C members in the case of overreach by U4C or any UCoC enforcer, to lower the risk of bureaucratic overreach.
impossible to enforce as written, and any attempt to do so would be wildly destructive to the project
While the guidelines themselves are not particularly bad, the idea of ratifying them implies the UCoC itself being acceptable which is far from truth. While the idea of some basic principles of conduct is good, the result is a text that is a) totally america-centric b) has lots of obvious holes like "what if me and my wife are wikipedians -- are we forbidden to have quarrels?"
First of all. After considering the improved guidelines and translations, the responses to your comments and questions, and the results of the Q&A session at the online meeting, we understand that we cannot be blamed for inaction. In particular, in Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines, the official response from the Foundation to [redacted]'s question 4th states, "original: "no individual volunteer, including any individual administrator, is obliged to do anything in the The language aims to clarify that if admins are choosing to work on admin issues in their free time, they need to uphold at least the (If I were greedy, I would like to see the word "iff" instead of "if," but I will leave that question aside for the time being.) However, we still believe that this enforcement guideline remains a problem when the current wording is applied in its current form. In other words, the burden on the people who are doing the chores of Wikipedia, especially those who have some kind of authority (e.g., administrator authority) (because they understand the necessity, though they are not very motivated to do so), will increase significantly, and in return, the purpose of Wikipedia, "the quality and the quality of the content", will not be achieved. This means that the original problem of the high degree of certainty of the prediction has not changed. As noted above, I do not believe that there is an obligation to administrators or individuals with authority in the guidelines, but it is still a matter of "Recommendations for local enforcement structures" and "Recommendations for the reporting and The new mechanisms and tools, such as those presented in the chapter "processing tools," are required to be implemented and put into operation. As far as we can read, it is recommended that existing enforcement agencies be held accountable for their response to UCoC violations. (we encourage existing enforcement structures to take up the responsibility of receiving and dealing with UCoC violations) In the absence of an appropriate enforcement structure, etc., it is "system It is considered a "system failure" ("system" here means "system" or "mechanism"), which is clearly a "violation of the UCoC" (violation). (See Enforcement by types of violations.) In order to operate properly, enforcement agencies must be able to: a. resolve allegations of violations within a consistent time frame, while protecting the privacy and anonymity of the complainant; b. resolve allegations of violations within a certain amount of time (see section on "Enforcement by types of violations"); and c. resolve allegations of violations within a certain amount of time (see section on "Enforcement by types of violations"). (Interim reports are required if there is a reason), and C. Make records of all cases and outcomes available to the public in a searchable format. （In the second case, a global U4C committee will be established to deal with the issue on the local level, and in the third case, tools to make the process easier will be provided separately. Nothing has been decided on the details of what it will look like for either of them. Let's assume that, in accordance with number 3, the existing operating structure (e.g., administrators' jobs) is changed so that an enforcement body that follows the enforcement guidelines is established within Wikipedia or follows the guidelines. Is the effort to keep such an enforcement body operating properly really worth it? Wouldn't that effort be better directed and focused on purely improving the quantity and quality of the encyclopedia, including the writing of articles, and wouldn't that get us closer to the goal of the Japanese version of Wikipedia faster and more reliably? The existing policies and mechanisms alone are currently operating somewhat well, but what exactly is wrong with Wikipedia as it is now, and why do we need a new enforcement body? Are there any actual examples of problems that have occurred in the past? Is the establishment of an executive body (including changes to the existing management structure) and its operation a priority measure compared to the various problems facing Wikipedia today? Our available time and manpower are limited, and it takes a great sacrifice to increase the number of chores in particular. What exactly does such a powerful and labor-intensive executive body, obtained through the use of its precious resources, bring us? New authors? Protection of existing outstanding authors? What is the rationale for this? I was the first to inquire about such a need at Talk:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines/en, but have not received a clear answer so far. Then again, what makes this a fatal problem for the Japanese version of Wikipedia is that it is possible to read from what has been said so far, "Make sure to operate such complaint filing measures (which are just too hard), or else the local community should be aware that they are in violation. Even if the actual spirit was not so, it is "possible to read and understand" that if someone comes along and claims as such (negligently or maliciously), or in the extreme case of "some useless person who just wants to argue like LTA:SUZU springs up," the flow of having such an enforcement body established locally and its The logic of stopping the invasion becomes untenable. In the Japanese version of Wikipedia, where such behavior is frowned upon to the extent that the word "vigilante" even exists, the current enforcement guidelines are worded in such a way that they may encourage such people to grow and support them. In addition, enforcement agencies are allowed to discuss and make decisions in private for the protection of privacy and anonymity. For the same reason that the Adjudication Committee did not fit in with Wikipedia, it would be nearly impossible to introduce/change to an executive body that allows such closed-door discussion and decision-making (but then, as mentioned above, the community would be branded a "violator"). I have pointed out many times the suggestions for remedying this, and the suggested modifications, by a number of people, including myself, in this well, in meta's notes, and in the three online meetings we had, but the response I got in conclusion was "there is no time before the vote, so we will not modify the wording, but will manage it operationally". However, for example, the sentence "When working as an administrator, you must follow the policies of UCoC and each wiki" in the response to [redacted] at the beginning of this article is a very important point, and it is essential to clearly state it in the text of the guidelines. Nevertheless, they are now refusing to make such an additional amendment simply because there is not enough time for a vote. Also, the "amendment to not call it a violation" of the lack of a local enforcement body has not passed for the same reason. Worse, the response was that once introduced, they would continue to use it, even with such fatal flaws, and the opportunity for revision would be put in after one year, at the annual time. As I mentioned at the beginning, the attitude of starting a discussion with a vote, withholding corrections to points that have been pointed out as fatal, and then pushing it through by majority vote is wrong (at least, it is not the way Wikipedia Japanese version works, and I am sure it is the same on other wikis as well). (See also.) If they know there is a problem, they should postpone the vote until they have had a chance to discuss it further and fix it. This in itself is also pointed out, but for the same reason, they will not stop the vote, which begins next week on 3/7. The Foundation's stance is "voice your opposition in the vote," but they do not seem to acknowledge that the decision to proceed with the introduction and vote on the ballot is a mistake with the fatal problems described above in the first place. In conclusion from the above, I express my unequivocal opposition to the current implementation guideline document and the vote to approve it (to clarify so as not to be misunderstood, this is not an expression of opposition to UCoC = Universal Code of Conduct itself).
The enforcement guidelines place excessive emphasis on civility, and fail to seriously address the great potential for harm caused by the misuse of Wikipedia to spread disinformation. In effect, the Code and enforcement guidelines facilitate abuse by those who are superficially polite. Of course this is a natural result of the Code and enforcement guidelines being written by manager types with insufficient input from front-line volunteers.
The fact that the Wikimedia Foundation just unilaterally decided on the procedure (and pass threshold) for this vote is a perfect example of how detached it has become from the core values of Wikipedia. Increased bloat and overreach from the WMF is a far bigger threat to the project than harassment. Oppose in the strongest possible terms.
Opposing due to concerns about effect on sysops on multiple talk pages and unclear language in both enforcement guidelines and the CoC itself. Also concerned by possible 'encouragement to vote' by/for Wikimedia employees that never edit wikis.
(1) I am not convinced there has been sufficient community engagement (2) The guidelines are are excessively focused upon force & punishment rather than "what does it take for this user to adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct?"
Deep distrust of attempts to impose restrictive rules on the community
Against any implication of the WMF on the editorial content.
The UCoC was rejected by the community of actual contributors as fatally flawed. Its imposition is overreach by the WMF and if it is enforced, it will be detrimental to the work we actually do, and also cause conflict between those invoking it and those who seek to maintain the projects. Requiring all advanced rights holders to swear fealty to the WMF and undergo privacy-violating training in "rightthink" is the height of arrogance and stupidity, since the projects are all the WMF has to boast about.
I originally supported the enforcement. However, I'm worried about the chances of amending the UCoC being slim to none. Furthermore, the guidelines and the UCOC would not lead to newer users. On the surface, it would lead to diversity. However, this would lead to more losses especially of resources
I miss an argumentation support by opinions of the community in the voting. A compact collection of pros and cons, as with opinion polls, or public voting comments would be helpful.
We have to inform small projects in various languages the significance of the code which lacks the guidelines which we have learned for decades as well as we enforce them.
Failure to sufficiently engage a wiki by not translating the UCoC and relevant messaging means members will not respond. This is a failure on the part of the organisers, it does not mean no shits are given by the wiki's members, as seems to be implied by said organisers.
1) At this time, the vote shall ratify the Universal Code of Conduct, not the Enforcement Guidelines for UCoC. After that vote, the second vote shall ratify the amendment system for UCoC. It is a violation of due process to ratify the Enforcement Guidelines without the amendment system for UCoC. 2) This vote to ratify the Enforcement Guidelines is premature. Who can judge EG without the rules for the UCoC Coordinating Committee and a centralized reporting and processing tool for UCoC violations? 3) Another vote shall be conducted among the designated community functionaries. 4) In sub-section 'Code enforcement definition', the wording 'individuals charged with enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct' shall be restated as 'individuals in charge of enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct'. No individual volunteer, including the designated community functionaries, is obliged to do something in the volunteer community. 5) In sub-sub-section 'Guidance for processing', the sentence 'The sanction should be proportional to the level of the breach.' shall be added. I'm afraid good faith warnings can easily become excess sanctions.
Reasons for opposing: Procedural: there was no iterative improvement on the guidelines before the vote. This smells of attempting to shove something through by a bare majority rather than trying to reach a more legitimate consensus. Bad drafting: words like "functionaries" are used without regard to existing meanings. For example, "functionaries" means checkusers and oversighters on English-speaking projects. Creepiness: forcing advanced rights holders (which presumably includes volunteer administrators) is creepy and groupthinky. Admins etc. are already expected to abide by all policies and guidelines in force, this doesn't change anything. Burdensome: admins etc. should not be forced to attend Wikimedia Foundation training. What does "attend" mean? If it takes the form of e.g. a Zoom call, this could risk people outing themselves (breaching pseudonymity). It's also unduly burdensome, especially for small wikis. It also goes against all existing precedent: no existing roles have any mandatory training. This is just a tool for the WMF to remove duly elected local officials. Anti-volunteerism: "Refusal to enforce the UCoC" is punishable. This contradicts the principle that all users are volunteers and can't be compelled to do on-wiki work. Bad actors can be punished, but there are legitimate reasons for admins etc. to not get involved in a conflict--for example they may feel threatened or risk outing. The whole thing seems extremely bureaucratic. Unappealability: bans of under 2 weeks are not appealable. This fails to recognise the extreme reputational damage that an unfair block or ban can do to a contributor if not overturned. The proposal does not sufficiently protect the right of accused individuals to reply, with adequate information to address any complaint.
"Certain individuals will have to declare their regard for and adherence to the UCoC" - "regard for"? Are we formalizing our policy around true believers now? This is creepy. Just ask people to click "I agree". "The Building committee will consist of volunteer movement members brought in through an open application process" - see, this is where I can't agree. No more volunteers for this kind of thing. Use some of those vast WMF coffers and HIRE TRAINED PROFESSIONALS.
My experience in the handling of harrassment in large organisations is that it is very important that those making the complaint can have their identities protected and that those being complained about can have their identities protected (as not all complaints can be substantiated) and that the complaint be investigated as privately as possible. The norms of en.WP that everything should be public and that everyone can watch on and have their say run contrary to these well-known principles and are frequently given as reasons why people do not complain on en.WP as they have seen it turn into a witch hunt against the complainant. The requirement of privacy should extend to others who become aware of the complaint for any reason. Many of us saw the discussion about a WMF "office action" against a wiki admin play out on en.WP, which included attempts to identify the user making the complaint(s) and those who might be supporting the complainant. Similarly at a Wikimania event, a complaint about an attendee's behaviour which was handled privately by the conference organisation was in parallel being widely discussed on a wikimedia mailing list, naming the individual being complained about accompanied with commentary along the lines of what a great guy he was and how the complainant must have misunderstood/lied/etc and people saying they knew who the complainant was (and while they did not post the complainant's identity, clearly a private email may have enabled that information to be obtained). No attempt was made by WMF to shut down that email discussion. Both of these examples illustrate that the UCoC must include that others privy to details of a complaint do not disclose them outside of the processes of the UCoC complaint handling and that others in the movement should not spread such information (no matter how or why they obtain it), engage in expressing opinions/speculations or conducting their own investigations. The privacy of the UCoC process must be respected and a parallel trial or witch hunt must not be allowed to occur. If the UCoC does not include sanctions for those who to violate privacy of the UCoC complaints process, people will remain afraid to complain.
# Formally inadmissible, for such a change a 2/3 majority is needed. # Administrators have the trust of 2/3 of the community. That should be enough. # No one needs to know the guidelines by heart. Administrators are volunteers too. # Not everything starts from the "Universal Code of Conduct", but this is also just a fallback, simply reflecting the most common guidelines. It should be treated as such, not as a panacea.
Your thing is undrinkable. I spent 15 minutes trying to understand what it was all about. To dare to submit something like this without simplifying the understanding of it, it's nonsense and is more like a simulacrum of democracy.
I am against the subordination of projects and contributors to the orientations of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation claims that its orientations are universal when they are sometimes only the result of a militant choice. It is necessary to let the projects that work work and not to impose a particular way of working against the will and the choices of the communities of each project. The UCoC and its application guidelines show a will of the Wikimedia Foundation to impose solutions in a top-down way, whereas the different Wikimedia projects have always been participative, horizontal projects, without directives from above. The discussions around this UCoC and its implementation guidelines have been particularly poor and have not shown a willingness on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation to consult widely with contributors and to take their opinions into account. The present vote with a simple majority adoption forgets the principle of consensus which is the basis of Wikipedia's functioning.
Either everyone should need to sign the UCOC or no one, like the terms of use. Since it is a "Universal" Code of Conduct it should not be important what rights you have on a specific project.
* The voting procedure seems off to me. For example, 99% of enwiki voters could oppose the guidelines but be outvoted by "Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors " who support the measure? Just how many WMF employees and trustees are eligible to vote? I think the UCoC should be supported by a majority of voters from each community, rather than merely a majority of all eligible voters in aggregate. * "The U4C’s membership should be reflective of the global and diverse makeup of our global community." I would like to see this clarified. Does this have an actionable effect on the selection process? If not, it should be removed. * Mandatory training for advanced rights holders is overbearing and infantilizing. If the code is documented, admins can figure it out themselves. This is how admins get the required local policy knowledge - not by taking some mandatory seminar.
1. The UCoC proper has not been subject to community ratification, though this is not a condemnation or endorsement of its text. 2. The UCoC's enforcement guidelines must not require that "advanced rights holders" or "members of any project’s high level decision making body" make pledges to follow the UCoC, this is far too intrusive. Rather, the UCoC should be implicitly accepted in the way that one accepts the Terms of Service or the Privacy Policy, simply being informed that it exists.
I cannot support at this time - too many details of these guidelines and the UCC are vague enough that it is impossible to determine what the precise effects will be.
Thank you for all your hard work! I'm actually pleasantly surprised by this, particularly how much effort there is to ensure that existing local practices can continue to be used. However I'm voting no on the current version due to a few concerns: Flaws in the UCoC which open it to abuse, notably the "Psychological manipulation" term as discussed at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#Psychological_manipulation. I realise that this vote is supposedly on the Enforcement guidelines, but there was no opportunity for community ratification of the UCoC itself, and I can't support enforcement of a flawed code. Required affirmations and training for advanced rights holders. There is no indication of how extensive such training would be. It's hard enough to get new administrators, without adding new barriers to that. And especially some admins (myself included) only concentrate on technical and janitorial work, and are not interested in having a mandatory role in resolving disputes. I'm also unimpressed by the evasiveness around this and its consequences on the talk page. WMDE raised a good point on the talk page about Rehabilitation being lacking from the current document, it would be nice to see something about this, although it's probably not a blocker for me (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#3._Rehabilitation_and_resocialization) Right to be heard. There's an existing term "When more information is needed to support a decision by the U4C and by staying within the expectation of the privacy policy and while minimizing undue harm to the accuser or the accusee while continuing due process, high level decision making bodies and communities will invite perspectives from the accused." I fail to see why this should only be "When more information is needed to support a decision by the U4C" and not just a broad recommendation for all enforcement structures and processes, whether the U4C is involved or not. "Violations involving litigation or legal threats" are required(?) to be sent to WMF Legal. This isn't current practice at least on en.wikipedia, where legal threats to editors are generally just pointed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats and violators blocked.
UCoC is quite good for WM movement in behavioral field. However, I'm quite concerned with deterioration in understanding of what an encyclopedia should be like and what advanced rights should be like in my community. People do behaves like they are civilized and respectful to others, but the whole community tends to think less. People with good reasoning skills are increasingly difficult to persuade those who tend to accept simple but biased thoughts.
I have no idea how enforcement is being changed, as this poll does not simply clarify anything. Are the enforcement guidelines a completely new thing? Has the WM Foundation gone this far along without ever enforcing their universal code of conduct? Regardless, enforcement of Code of Conduct seems like a good thing to bolster on the face of things. Wiki talk pages have too much harassment and nationalist screeds.
More focus should be given for on-wiki subtle harassement, give more examples in On-wiki UCoC violations, especially the "behaviour that would not rise to the level of harassment in a single case" but "can become harassment through repetition"
All your bluster and babble contributes at most to the amusement.
Heil Wikimedia!
First, I am against the UCoC as it is now, second, I am against the Enforcments, and third, 50% approval of those voting is way too low for such a far reaching change, you need 2/3 for that.
The whole procedure is unacceptable as it is.
completely superfluous nonsense.
Käse. Cheese. Frommage
Too unstructured and hardly understandable. By the way, gender language and Denglish also contribute to poor comprehensibility. I see no reason why we need such a "Universal Code of Conduct" in the WP.
"Large-scale debate"? More like "in the back room".
Where there is pride, there will be ignorance; but where there is humility, there will be wisdom. (Solomon) When arrogance comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom. (Solomon)
there was no discussion or visibility that this was being coordinated in the project that I collaborate with.
The fact that the functionaries are appointed entirely and solely by the local communities may very likely reproduce the biases already present in the said communities (e.g. in FR Commu where many, a priori, are against the UCOC and may well vote for someone whose words and actions go against the said ucoc, as is already the case among the administrators). The problem of abuse of power remains.
I can agree with the direction of the Universal Code of Conduct, but I think it is problematic to enforce it in its current state. I think it is unclear how much responsibility people who participate (not work) in Wikipedia, etc. need to assume.
Doubtful about voting on the proposal rather than amending it while receiving numerous suggestions that many of the concerns remain.
While there are many ambiguities in the current enforcement guidelines, which are likely to be interpreted differently, there is a lack of an organization in the environment of the Japanese version of each wiki to judge such decisions.
Because of communities-ignoring voting schedule, non-English speakers are forced to vote before they have a better understanding of the guidelines, without all of the relevant documents being translated, and it does not seem very respectful.
The entire PZP should be abolished and political correctness removed from pl.wiki.
Without communicating with the communities - it is impossible to write guidelines for them. The utmost awful organisation of the enactment of such an important document makes it impossible for me to vote in favour. Ignoring questions, ignoring communities. Everything has been done as badly as possible.
Many proposals are unclear
Bring back Krasotkin!
The document should be further elaborated in terms of the need to involve the organisation or user group in the country where the investigation is taking place. No single decision by a single administrator or T&S alone is acceptable. It is necessary to coordinate positions with other Wikimedia organisations in locations. It is also necessary to give anonymised data about the charges to Wikimedia organisations in the country where the conflict occurred.
lightning
If the ticket is “oppose”, then how will things turn out?
I am not aware about CoC being useful in the online settings (it makes more sense on conferences). Therefore I do not support enforcing CoC. Also, this vote fails to even explain what is really being voted on.
No. The Foundation displayed a gross lack of respect for the community, and a gross lack of understanding of the community, in trying to push through a Code without bothering to seek community approval of the Code. The enforcement guidelines are irrelevant, and revising the guidelines won't change my vote. The process to create the the Code was botched, the Code itself was botched. If you want to try again you need to start from scratch, letting the community develop something new and seeking consensus for it.
N/A
I do not trust the integrity or competence of en.wp processes
I don’t understand this really, so I cannot support.
The UCoC characterizes behavior as unacceptable based in part on intent using phrases such as "intended primarily", "in an effort to", "mainly with the intent to", "deliberately", "maliciously", "aimed at". Such language sanctions motives which cannot be known perfectly and may often be unknowable. Also sprinkled throughout the document is the ambiguous use of the word "to" which can be read either as "with the intent of" or "with the effect of"; the former describes imperfectly discernable motivation; the latter, objectively knowable conduct. If I do good things with a bad motive, the project does not suffer. If I do bad things, the purity of my motivation does not exonerate by behavior. A universal code of conduct should sanction conduct, not intent; actions, not thoughts. It should not expect enforcers to infer motivation or depend on self-disclosure of such. Most of these flaws could easily have been rectified by focusing on objectively observable behavior instead of subjective and often unobservable intent. With these flaws in the Code of Conduct, I cannot support its enforcement.
Far too little information has been provided to community members in far too short a time. The vast majority of members knew nothing about this until banners started appearing asking us to vote. Debate - where it has occurred and where people have been able to find it - has been disjointed with far too few participants.
Maybe official accompanying "executive" summaries could be developed for those of us who enjoy editing books (Wikisource), articles (Wikipedia) and definitions (Wiktionary) more than wading through dense regulatory prose.
I'd rather have the UCoC FIRST tested/implemented on a limited number of wikis, perhaps several selected large and/or problematic projects. If it gets enforced on all wikiprojects at once, then we'll most likely have only various misuses, abuses, misinterpretations, one-sided interpretations of it, general confusion, etc. That's why I think that it's far better and wiser to first gain feedback, experiences, suggestions, opinions, etc. from a small set of WMF sites than everywhere immediately and simultaneously.
These guidelines are, for starters, unproofread, and largely written in incomprehensible buzzword-ese, and as an attorney [redacted] I can't discern what "support[ing] the enforcement" of this proposal would commit me to--or, frankly, why this vote is happening. If the guidelines are only "proposed", why are they the subject of a community vote? If a young attorney under my supervision brought this proposal to me for publication, I would likely become intemperate, and would certainly go to my managing partner and advise them of my concerns regarding that young attorney's lack of attention to detail. Contracts require precision of language. VOTING on contracts requires EVEN GREATER precision of language, except one would hope the precision had been there in the first instance. This is poor attorney work--except I suspect it ISN'T attorney work, but it should have been. Taking y'all at your word that identifying information won't be posted, I am [redacted]. I am[redacted], where I have 53,000+ edits. I am completely on board with the principles embodied in the "Universal Code of Conduct," but I am deeply concerned that the process by which this has been propounded to the community is not well-thought-out. Wikipedia is arguably the single most influential source of facts on the planet right now, and it's absolutely mandatory that governance issues like these be thought through in a more lawyerly manner that incorporates the advice of contractual, litigation, and IP counsel. And a proofreader. --JDL.
Wikipedia's community standards are based on discussion and consensus. You haven't invited me to participate in a discussion, you haven't invited me to help develop a code of conduct. You're just inviting me to vote on whether to enforce a code of conduct that has been developed apparently without community input, which you would now like to impose. Hard no on that. That is not how Wikipedia works. Start with discussion and consensus, and work from there.
No. The word count is so large it can’t be understood.
No Comment
I understand that a Code of Conduct is necessary, But I don't believe the result of the process is useful neither for the users nor for the Wikipedians.
Poor clarity in enforcement provisions. The WMF has a history of remarkably poor transparency in its enforcement decisions affecting high-profile Wikipedians, and has not earned the moral authority to dictate a universal code of anything.
I disagree with the terms of the ucoc and think it should not be enforced to begin with
insufficient community participation in development, excessive WMF development
Current text of UCoC has serious deficiencies which were described here: Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#Psychological_manipulation Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Voting_for_the_enforcement_guideline_now_reduces_the_chances_of_the_UCoC_ever_getting_fixed
Strong Oppose. This is part of a great attack by the WMF of freedom and democracy withing the Wiki projects.
I have several issues with the way this vote is conducted. Before anything else, I do not agree with the simple majority requirement for ratification; I would prefer a supermajority (two-thirds) requirement instead. For this reason alone I would vote against. Besides this, however, I have some other concerns: According to the provided voting information, in the event that a simple majority votes against the enforcement guidelines, they will simply be modified and resubmitted for another vote. Currently it says that "the revisions will be published for review, and a second vote will be held." Presumably, in the hypothetical event of that referendum failing also, the process would be repeated until a "Yes" vote was achieved. There is apparently no provision for rejecting enforcement of the UCoC altogether, for example. On its face, it is deeply problematic to carry out votes in this manner. Debate and alteration ought to take place publicly long prior to a vote; if the vote fails, not only should the enforcement guidelines continue to be debated, but there should by no means be a guarantee of another vote. A rejection of this enforcement policy should be a reasonably strong indicator of sentiment that should not be steamrolled down by a continual succession of follow-up votes on the matter. There is also the larger problem that, apparently, no provision whatsoever is made for community members to modify the UCoC itself. This vote is only on the guidelines for enforcement of the Code, and in the event of its rejection it seems that no adjustment of the UCoC would take place; according to the voting information, "this group [the Revisions Committee] will look at improvements to the Guidelines based on concerns raised in the voting process", but it says nothing about looking at improvements to the UCoC itself. As far as I am aware, the UCoC is not currently subject to modification, ratification, or rejection by the general community. Technically, it already applies to every Wikimedia project (it simply is not enforced by any central body as is proposed by this referendum). According to its page at the Wikimedia Foundation site, it was "approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees." Who else was involved in its ratification? How can it be fair for an eleven-member body to apply this code unilaterally to all Wikimedia projects? Finally, what provisions are in place for community modification of this policy? I want to make clear that I personally do not actually have much of an issue with either the Enforcement Guidelines or the Universal Code of Conduct (though I have a few rather minor concerns). They seem agreeable and reasonable, though I admit that I have not scrunitized either in the minutest detail (as I am sure some have). I do take issue, however, with the way in which their creation, ratification, and enforcement is going. There are many argumentative tacks I could take here, but I will only voice one: The Foundation prides itself on transparency (and in my view, rightly so). However, the procedure by which this very important policy is being enacted seems to be rather foggy, if not decidedly opaque in certain places. It's all very well to have "Drafting Committees" or a "Revisions Committee", and perfectly agreeable to have the Board of Trustees ratify this important change, but why isn't the general community more involved in this? Why can't the general community do more than simply "review" the proposals generated by the Revisions Committee? Why can't the general community decide the propriety of holding another vote on the matter, instead of sticking to the decision of a previous referendum? Most importantly of all, why can't the general community take any action with regard to modifying, rejecting, or ratifying the UCoC? Finally, I must make clear that I do not consider myself especially knowledgeable on this subject to any degree. I may be completely wrong about these matters which I criticize, and I really hope that others will take time to correct my mistakes.
In Hungarian Wikipedia the admins anyway don't care a hang!
The views of ordinary editors on the CoC were systematically ignored throughout what was misleadingly described as consultation. The WMF states that "The UCoC was previously ratified by the Board of Trustees, though it has not been approved by the community". Now asking the community for ratification of its enforcement is insulting.
The UCOC is a nice idea, but I oppose its top-down imposition on all communities by the WMF.
Efforts should go towards fixing (read as: not ignoring, not procrastinating, not engaging in delaying maneuvers about) the problems with the UCoC identified by the community. This seems like a clear example of putting the cart before the horses.
This is a poorly-written document that reflects a lack of understanding of the dynamics that underlie effective encyclopedic work.
Unclear guidelines
The terms "should", "must", "could", etc are not used in compliance with RFC 2119 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2119).
Still in draft form without ability to amend until 2023.
Say NO to Code of Conduct! CoC is censorship.
Very complicated to read and understand.
The UCoC itself needs revisions which should be addressed before voting on its enforcement. Much seems up to interpretation. I am particularly concerned how one can file a report without breaching Expected behaviour (i.e.: assuming bad faith).
As I exist within the limited timeframe of the human being existence, there is a non-nul probability that my having a working understanding of what is being voted could overextend the mentioned timeframe or -otherwise- take such as amount of time that the existence of the rules and/or the rules' guidelines and/or the concept of enforcement, could be rendendered useless or not useful enogh as to represent an improvement on the present situation. Or may be not. It just takes too much time.
This should make the banner go away, right? its annoying
As much as I would like to support this initiative, it was not well publicized and I am too ignorant to lend anything other than blind support . Where I might AGF and lend such blind support, the little I've seen " enforcement committees" prevents that and has me leaning towards oppose.
UCoC is evil in itself. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Zezen#2022_JAN:_Private_Message_from_WMF_revealed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Iridescent#Universal_Code_of_Conduct https://pl.wikipedia.org/Wikipedysta:Zezen/brudnopis/Wikipedia_jako_przytulanki (an essay with the reasons why so, now removed by the admins) for starters.
The UCoC is too vague and broad, and so I cannot support ratification of the enforcement guidelines before the UCoC itself is improved.
Too many issues previously raised have not been addressed.
I automatically oppose anything called a universal code of conduct.
Some important issues are formulated in an ambitious way; my attempts to get them clarified were ignored. As formulated, the document can be read in a way which I find unacceptable.
Greetings and politeness... If possible, the quality of writing articles should be considered for membership in decision-making positions and not the duration of membership. This is one of Wikipedia's biggest flaws. With respect.
bullshit
why is there not a link to this Universal Code of Conduct in the question asking whether I support its enforcement?! Is it this? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct
The title "Universal Code of Conduct" is a pretentious absurdity. I heard nothing about this until today, the last day of voting, even though I am an almost daily user and a careful (and caring) once every year or so contributor. I see no need for anything beyond the present, essentially anarchic but very highly skilled, cluster of enforcement mechanism -- and the pompously titled proposal is inferior to them in every respect.
# The voter information guide for this vote states that votes in support of the guidelines do not require a reasoned explanation, whereas votes against do. This makes voting against the new guidelines harder than voting for, and serves to "stack the deck" in favor of approval. The use of an unfair voting process to achieve consensus already suffices to vote in favor of the status quo. # The UCoC FAQ includes extensive argument that the UCoC will not supersede existing rules and norms for maintaining civility (see Q12-16), but rather serve as a "backstop" for projects with no existing etiquette. The enforcement guidelines instead require extensive training of existing arbitrators in a standardized description of inappropriate behavior and a common manual for how to respond. The resulting effect will be to formalize, legalize, and homogenize responses to uncivil behavior. The formalization will make it harder for uncivil behavior to be rectified in a timely manner. The homogenization will make it harder for individual Wikiprojects (such as specific-language Wikipedias) to develop project norms that match their cultural expectations. And the legalization is likely to do both.
The community has not yet ratified the text of the universal code of conduct. It is therefore not appropriate for us to ratify the enforcement guidelines.
Did you read it AND understand it ??? I DON'T. Please try to express youself in a way that normal people can understand it; without consulting their lawyer.
the whole USoC is hypocricy
Why are we voting to enforce something that has not been ratified by the community?
Apart from concerns with the enforcement guidelines, I have multiple concerns about the UCoC, which itself has never been submitted to a community vote as it should have. These concerns are amplified by the fact that the WMF has been completely unresponsive when even the most glaring problems with the current text have been pointed out. See UCoC talk page history.
I think this universal code needs more work, before we can even begin to talk about enforcing it. Please see my comments here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/2021_consultation#thoughts_from_jc37 Thank you.
I'm not willing to affirm anything, nor enforce rules not set by the community, and will resign my admin bit if forced to.
It is not clear what I am supposed to vote on and what has changed
I do not trust the foundation. You have to work harder to include the real community, not just the employees and selected contractors or leading figures.
While generally approving of the code of conduct, I am against the pressure put on some non-conformist editors because of gender issues. I think that everybody has the right to stick to traditional language norms when speaking about the others if that is not done to deliberately harm that person. Especially, I am against enforcement of certain naming or description conventions if the named person is not being addressed. In addition, I think that the evaluation of possible harassing behaviour should not be done solely based on the claims or feelings of the claimant.
If at first you don't succeed...? For the next revision/vote, maybe clarify what the revised changes consist of...? Just a thought.
I'm totally against this idea and the spirit it implies.
I would vote Yes, however, there does seem to be an immediate need to revise some of the current board ratified UCoC policy language itself however, and the voter information explains you will only, maybe, summarize the feedback from those who give NO votes. —— It feels awful to be given a comment box knowing only those who vote "No", might be given a voice if, and only if, No votes win in the end - this is a weird set-up going on here for some reason and AGF I wonder if it is an error since the instruction above this box contradicts the voter information in three ways, (1) stating that these comments will be summarized, (2) stating the open question will ask what needs to be changed, and (3) stating the response was strictly Yes or No. —— So with that said... What needs to be changed in the main policy to ensure shared understanding and implementation of the enforcement guidelines: To me, it appears from discussions ongoing that some clarifications already need to be made around the policy itself with regard to (1) race and ethnicity, which are indeed social constructs which vary by culture, but also very much hold weight and are important indicators for measuring movement diversity and inclusion, (2) making clear as to what constitutes malicious intent, and (3) to consider potential offline abuse of seniority and connections in bottlenecking development opportunities. —— If it really matters - Please change my vote to a yes and consider these issues whatever the vote outcome.
While I support the ideals behind the UCoC in theory, the UCoC as written is flawed and will have many unintended consequences, and the additional burden the enforcement guidelines place on advanced rights holders is unacceptable.
Some of the bullet points mentioned in the awareness section seems excessive.
I don't understand. Text is not in my language. English is difficult for me. I'm catalan.
Bullshit
The original document seems fine, but the Chinese translation is terrible and requires a thorough discussion on translation. It may be conducted on meta, on Chinese Wikipedia village pump, and more.
No, and scrap the UCoC entirely and start over with something that in approved by the community before the Wikimedia Foundation is allowed to participate. References to e.g. "Psychological Manipulation" betray that this document was not written by a group of mature, neutral adults capable of tolerating open discourse and discussion. This sort of approach will inevitably lead to accusations of "gaslighting" by groups that are not used to tolerating any form of dissent, and will lead to even more poisoned and polluted discourse that already drives new and veteran editors away from the project.
I consider myself a very experienced Wikipedian. After a timed 15 minutes of searching I was unable to find any clear, or even unclear, definition of the Universal Code of Conduct. I am not inclined to support the enforcement of something about which I know nothing and which at best little has been done to publicise and which apparently has been deliberately obfuscated.
Eliminate the entire (bad, destructive) idea
I believe the UCoC will stifle legitimate debate and make it harder to deal with contributors pushing fringe theories and conspiracy theories, so it's better not to have these enforcement guidelines.
Having had my content deleted with vituperative and sarcastic explanations that it is "crappy" and "rubbish", I am all in favor of any means that would make Wikimedia a more pleasant and safe space.
Truthfulness must be the fundamental criterion of assessment. Deliberate falsehood cannot be tolerated. Excusable are: mistake (but not repeatedly enforced by force), typo, ignorance. Outside the main space: expressions of righteous indignation at (real) injustice are excusable.
Since it's not much more than the T&Cs of Twitter, for example, or something Chan-jo Jun also calls for, I think such a Universal Code of Conduct would be good for all Wikimedia projects.
Yes, definitely. I was amazed that something like this didn't exist yet.
I am torn here. On the surface, I can't see anything to object to. Obviously, everybody is against doxing, off-wiki abuse, etc. What's not clear, however, is if there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect the community should a T&S action be taken inappropriately. I don't see WMF or T&S as nefarious entities out to get people, but the fram incident was a frightening look at what's possible, and has led to a lot of distrust on the part of the community. Any new code of conduct needs to have sufficient safeguards to earn back that trust.
This will just become yet another weapon used by users to force their way through on other users. Wikipedia does not work with rules set by discussions in obscure places by a handful of users who proceed to impose them elsewhere.
Just another power grab of the WMF and other groups who want to rule the projects without contributing.
Power-grab by WMF (after the Fram-disaster). Trust must be earned, and the WMF has NOT earned it.
Insufficient attention to implications.
The proposal of the current UCOC guidelines can be clearly read as assuming the presence of the English version Wikipedia's arbitrary committee. It can be said that it does not seem to be aware of the community that the community is maintained only in an open argument that does not exist in no such organization. Although this is pointed out, "Solve by operation" or "Solve it by future votes" is shown, and it is improved even if this policy is improved in the future In the meantime, the impact of the arbitrary committee on the community that does not exist is considered to be huge. From the above, I oppose the enforcement of the guidelines at the current situation.
from japan. I oppose ratification. The increased burden on administrators is being discussed. I am only a user, so I can't say anything about that. The UCoC enforcement guidelines is aggressive. But I rather question the UCoC and the wording around it. For example, the trial guidelines include the words 'ethically'. What is ethical? Regarding the establishment of a committee for the draft U4C, I understand that it would be desirable for the committee to meet some of the following conditions Experience in drafting policies - Experience in applying existing rules and policies in Wikimedia projects - Experience in online collaboration - Empathy - Experience in working together in an international team - Participatory decision-making It is highly likely that the person's values and decision-making abilities embrace English and Western values and standards. (Japanese and English are tremendously different languages. It takes a lot of effort for a Japanese person to learn English. Although not related, Dyslexia is only 5% compared to 15% in English. Also, the wording of the UCoC draft itself seems to me to have too much Indo-European and Christian value in it. First of all, to think that one's own standards is universal is itself Christian, as is to propagate them throughout the world. The open letter of the adjudication committee exudes a sense of 'giving from above'. (I have witnessed many times the German Embassy in Japan and the embassies of several Scandinavian countries, for example, tweeting, "Discrimination is not good," as to barbarians.) And the most questionable is why all of a sudden there is a UCoC? I suspect that it was requested to be enacted by companies that donate to the foundation. For example, my Mac has had Wikipedia from the beginning, along with a dictionary. I believe that there is a silent prerequisite for the writing of Wikipedia articles. The current situation seems to be that Apple or Google, through the Wikimedia Foundation, uses the efforts of researchers, pieced together by the dedicated efforts of volunteers, as thier customer service. At the same time, as a non-Christian, I am very concerned about the imposition of Christian ethics. That said, I also believe that UCoC is directly targeting a small community in a highly discriminatory society, a group in which an article by an ethnic minority or woman would immediately lead to harassment and stalking. Currently, scenes of Ukrainian battlefields are flying around Japan as well. But basically, on Japanese Wikipedia, it is hard to imagine a situation where editing could lead to death or a heinous crime. Please tell us frankly, in a non-pushy way, that you want to create UCoC because of such a situation. It may come as a surprise to you, but Japanese people like frankness. My proposal is as follows. # Remove all the goals and ethical words at the beginning of the UCoC and make it only a prohibition of violence and stalking. Also, U4C would be meaningless without legal help and even asylum procedures if it is not done well in the country. # Prepare a guideline or UCoC in (try, for example) 'Japanese' and make it the original. (IndoEuropean speakers could check if you really have diverse values!) # The abbreviation UCoC is so aesthetically inferior. That's all for now.
The UCoC, as drafted and as it is possible to draft, is detrimental to actual administration of the projects and written with a Western perspective in mind, which is liable to result in irreconcilable cultural clashes between the wikis responsible for enforcement and the communities they're being asked to enforce this on.
I think maximum flexibility and support should be given to regional entities.
It is unacceptable to demand that getting advanced privileges will force users to be UCoC enforcers.
Simply editing the Wikimedia projects means that you are committing to respect and adhere to the PHP, why should some users be required to make additional statements? I believe that soliciting additional statements from selected users is abusive.
With the best of intentions, but this will have negative impact on frank and open discussions, with enforcement requests being weaponized by highly partisan groups to silence opponents. Something better than what's currently in place is needed but this goes too far.
Vague, an imposition on volunteers, a privacy risk to the volunteer enforcers, badly describing what it wants to address to the extent of not describing it at all, overextension through bad wording, not fully thought through.
I think we are close, but a couple of issues should not be glossed over. (1) "Affirmation of the UCoC among certain groups" - Asking this of all advanced rights holders is huge, and creates a lot of bureaucracy and forms for unclear benefit. Why not simply make this part of the site terms of use? I am not so much personally bothered by the argument that this is a "loyalty oath", but agree that it doesn't look good. (2) "Suspicion of abuse of power or a systematic issue" is such a broad loophole as to render the whole appeals guidelines meaningless. The U4C should prepare to wade through a great number of frivolous appeals if this is not tightened. Many, many appellants already make vague claims of "abuse of power" at the most mundane of administrative actions. Finally, a more trivial matter: I do agree that UC4 would be a more appropriate abbreviation than U4C, which sounds like it refers to a UUUUC.
A real gas factory. Even if the initial intention is commendable, this hyper-bureaucracy ends up suffocating the real aims of the movement and its projects (building an encyclopedia, dictionaries, tools for the dissemination of knowledge, etc.).
My name is [redacted]. I am mainly active on the Japanese Wikipedia and Wikidata. I have read the draft enforcement guidelines, and since I believe that the contents are still incomplete, I am against officially enforcing them as they are. I have the following points of doubt and dissatisfaction: (1) I have a doubt about the appeal procedure. The Japanese Wikipedia does not currently have a collective decision body such as an adjudication committee. In this case, I interpreted that the person who was judged to have violated the UCoC can file an appeal to the U4C, but I did not understand whether a third party other than the person himself is allowed to file an appeal. I believe that an appeal should be allowed by a third party other than the person who violated the law. (2) There is no description of the mechanism for mutual monitoring among U4C members or the process for removing a U4C member mid-term (not only when the member himself violates the UCoC, but also when the community determines that it is an abuse of authority). Is it not permissible for someone to submit a proposal for dismissal of a U4C member in the middle of his/her term of office? (3) It seems that the reporting and processing tools will be developed after the implementation of these guidelines, but how can we be sure that the development will be successful? It is also unclear whether the development of the tool was discussed with the technical developers in advance. The fact that the UCoC violation resolution staff is not obligated to use the tool probably underlies the idea that there should be multiple options for reporting. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the intent is to hold the engineers who develop and maintain the tool accountable if a failure occurs. I don't think tools should be mentioned in the enforcement guidelines until we have a tool that works reasonably well, even if it is not perfect. Rather, for the time being, I believe that reporting only by existing means and identifying any complaints or requests will contribute to the development of the tool. ---- I fully agree with the UCoC's approach. However, there is a concern that if the crackdown on UCoC violations goes too far, it could lead to a delegitimization of the community, and we should not have a situation where actions taken to achieve the UCoC end up being contrary to the goals of the UCoC. Finally, I believe that this vote is a good opportunity for users of the Wikimedia projects to reflect on their own words and actions. It is my hope that we can create a mechanism to deal with UCoC violations and create a safe place for everyone to act.
This is a confusing, bureaucratic nightmare that will only serve to create a culture of FUD.
1 -Too much power in the hands of U4C 2 - Too open to "anonymous flagging" that may be abused or used with malicious intents - not a guarantee for the users but another weapon for some kind of well known LTAs - there's no guarantee for most active patrollers or admins not to be exposed to "unlimited anonymous flagging". It resembles too much a kind of "encouraging delators" 3 - Too much burocracy - why should we send a signed declaration when the community already recognised the conformance to behavioural guidelines by granting (by vote and periodical renewal) e.g. the sysop flag? The acceptance of a conduct code should be automatic as soon as any user register herself, not subscribed by a formal document and even worse together with identity proofs such as ID cards and similar
Simply burocray helping vandals and POV pushers
The Enforcement Guidelines note that appeals should be possible and practically available to individuals who were sanctioned for UCoC violations. It should be made clear that, if the appeal is granted, the controversial behaviour should also stop by the individual that was sanctioned. (it's obvious, but better to specify that it's not a free pass)
I oppose this top-down takeover of the project by unelected elitists.
Decisions made by the Legal Department or the Trust&Safety team must also should be subject to mandatory appeal. Moreover, BOTH the Legal Department and the Trust&Safety team should, in this respect, be accountable not to the Wikimedia Foundation, but to the community, represented by an elected body. A different position is unacceptable, as it leads to lack of control and actual irresponsibility (as well as to insubordination), making the process unclear and inaccessible for evaluation. The community must have clear feedback on such cases, and this feedback must be of a controlling kind of.
The proposal means that existing functionaries will be charged with responsibilities for which they were not appointed, and fails to protect those that a charged with 'enforcement'.
I oppose training being made mandatory for admininstrators; I am willing to participate in such training myself, but if anyone who doesn't undergo training will lose access to the sysop bit, then we're going to face a high attrition among admins. I also oppose the definition of doxing as currently written. I appreciate the intent, but email discussions among functionaries, or emails to arbitration committees with evidence, often need to discuss off-wiki material and conduct. The UCoC as written prohibits this, and in effect neuters our efforts to contain harassment. Finally, I believe the current text does not adequately define when the WMF is able to step in, and under what circumstances individual communities will be allowed autonomy with respect to enforcement. If the WMF expects to handle day-to-day cases of code violations, it hasn't the faintest idea what it has signed up for; en.wiki's core of 500 active admins isn't enough to contain all the disruption that occurs there; the WMF lacks both the context and the time to deal with it.
This seems extremely unnecessary to me. Things have been working pretty well under the current guidelines, and this seems to involve cruel punishment. Training to understand the Code? What the hell happened to "anyone can edit", not some WikiBureaucrats tell people how to. And "Enforcement Officers"? What about Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, or possibly not operating like an authoritarian government? I did not see "innocent until proven guilty" mentioned, which opens up the possibility for users to exercise personal feuds by attempting to have each other banned. Nor is there any way to hold the "Enforcement Officers" and other such groups charged with upholding this law. I strongly do not support this.
The Universal Code of Conduct invites cases of abuse of power and bad-faith reporting by administrators and other people that are higher up the chain of command. This can become problematic with Wikipedia and sister projects' communities small and large.
Too much vagueness and needless hierarchy creep. Perhaps there should be a list of cases where the UCoC enforcement would be useful or perhaps there should be an experimental approach to checking the proposed modified system of enforcement.
The general thoughts in the Universal Code of Conduct seems good, but I am afraid some users may pervert the Universal Code of Conduct into something that protects the agressor.
Agree with everything except "Respect the way contributors name and describe themselves". This seems too vague and arbitrary to me.
I am an administrator at [redacted], and I would welcome it if administrator rights are strengthened to prevent LTAs and so on. However, it is a double-edged sword. If the philosophy and obligations are imposed without strengthening the authority, it will not be effective and will not work in reality. In fact, it will only discourage people from taking on the responsibility of management, which will lead to a decline.
The current situation places an increased burden on administrators and deletionists.
The current Universal Code of Conduct and the Japanese Wikipedia system are incompatible with each other. There are two reasons for this. First, the Japanese Wikipedia has an outstandingly higher percentage of anonymous users than other languages. Second, the number of administrators on the Japanese Wikipedia is small relative to the number of users. Before applying a universal code of conduct, we should establish rules for requiring accounts and rules for the ratio of administrators to users in order to solve these problems.
ja:Wikipedia:井戸端/subj/ユニバーサル行動規範によってウィキペディア日本語版は衰退させられるのではないか This is a decision based on that discussion.
It is essential that the "Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee" include individuals who are fluent in English and one (or more) other languages, who have a good understanding of racial and ethnic issues in their countries, and who have a fair perspective. If a "lack of local capacity to enforce the UCoC" is found, how will it be resolved? It is unclear what a "centralized tool to handle UCoC violations" would look like and how much it would increase the burden on "existing enforcement mechanisms" and administrators.
ja:Wikipedia:井戸端/subj/ユニバーサル行動規範によってウィキペディア日本語版は衰退させられるのではないか I agree with [redacted]'s opinion in the following paragraph.
This is because it would increase the workload of administrators and others, and would worsen the situation of the Japanese version, which is short of administrators. Although the act of anti- harassment is also included in the UCoC, it is almost the same as the guidelines and appears to only increase the workload of the administrators. Even if most people agree, it is meaningless if there is no external support or improvement in a particular language version, such as the Japanese version.
We fear that this will create a further gap between light users and heavy users, and that the population of Wikipedians will decline further.
While I support the concept of a universal code of conduct itself, I oppose its enforcement guidelines. Imposing on higher authorities (e.g., administrators) the task of dealing with violations of the universal code of conduct will increase the burden on them. Furthermore, penalizing them for failing to fulfill their obligations will demoralize them. This would ultimately lead to the decline of the community. In addition, I feel that the document itself is not well thought out, as it is "unclear whether the administrator is obligated to take action or not" and "the original text prioritize the translation." As a member of the Japanese-language community, which prohibits majority rule, I cannot approve such hasty ratification.
These guidelines will place undue responsibility and burden on administrators in projects like jawp, which does not have Arbcom, and will place an even greater burden on (even fewer) active administrators to accept and process reports of UCoC violations because there is no Arbcom. The following is a brief summary of the results of the study. Rather than creating a new process, we would like to see the guidelines clearly state that publicly available cases can still be accepted and processed through the existing RFCs and block requests, and private cases can be accepted and processed through the oversite.
I agree with the code of conduct itself, but I think there are still operational issues to be addressed, as there is no adjudication committee or banning policy in jawp, where I am mainly active (the Japanese branch of WMF is also currently not established).
At least for the current Japanese-language version, I think this is with little benefit, it does increase the burden. There is currently an argument in the Japanese-language community that it would be a burden on the administrators. I agree. What is needed now is to increase the number of administrators, which has been decreasing, and to create a situation where it is difficult for vandalism to occur.
In some wikis, this guideline may be effective, but in Japanese Wikipedia, it has fear that this guideline makes sysop more hard to against troubles and the number of sysops will be decreasing; see w:ja:Wikipedia:井戸端/subj/ユニバーサル行動規範によってウィキペディア日本語版は衰退させられるのではないか？ etc. At reast, I guess this guideline should be applied only wikis that are agreed by each wikis, not globally.
The idea seems nice, but the practice will very quickly prove contrary to our first goal, to write an encyclopedia based on independent sources.
Although the UCoC as a whole is well-intentioned and in line with the spirit of the Wikimedia Movement, its "Enforcement Guidelines" are absurd. It is yet another tool of abuse of the law. The rules of the UCoC are too vague to apply them accurately in a legal sense. What is a "harassment" to one person may to another be ordinary constructive criticism. As a result, a participant who criticises another may be persecuted on the principles of breach of the UCoC. Thus, the "UCoC Enforcement Guidelines" itself become an instrument of " harassment".
It's a method of punishing the uninvolved and enforcing policies that please anyone but the people who selflessly and voluntarily write Wikipedia articles.
Seems too easy to use these to punish wrongthink.
The code has many good points, but isn't ready yet. We still need to discriminate by age, the code should allow us to set rules re editors who are not yet adult. Language fluency is another area, I agree we should not discriminate on multi lingual wikis, but the Scots language Wikipedia needs to be able to require contributors to have some fluency in Scots. There is also the issue of harassment. Tough though this would be for some in the WMF to accept, trying to change policy by attacking those who enforce that policy needs to be recognised as a form of harassment.
The enforcement guidelines may be insufficient to answer some of the concerns found in some wikis.
The necessity has not been demonstrated
Last time I checked, UCoC had a lot of concerning moments that do not allow me to support anything related to it and its enforcement. Specifically: - I find the way "private communications" are governed by UCoC (as I understand, they're fully covered by UCoC as long as it is communication between Wikimedians) problematic. Wikimedians often communicate on other platforms or privately off-wiki, where civility standards might be different from Wikimedia projects. It's ok to govern threats of physical harm posted in private messages with UCoC, but other than that we should really be more careful about it. - UCoC protects users from doxxing. It can be problematic for those fighting off-wiki attempts to influence Wikipedia (such as undisclosed paid editing or https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия:Отчёт_о_расследовании_внешнего_вмешательства_в_выборы_в_Википедии). There should be exceptions for the cases when investigating some details about person's off-wiki background and sharing them with other Wikimedians is allowed even without person's consent if there is a reasonable assumption that it might help fight external attempts to influence wiki. Another noteworthy outcome is that this privacy protection seemingly disallows e.g. merging https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Leonrid and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Igor_Lenskiy.
I hope that there will be regional committees that will be handling cases for communities that are far beyond the reach of trust and safety and AffCom. It's been almost a year and a half now from the time I have shared about the dealings of a certain UG, and as of now, we are still being threatened on our position. We don't want to see our co-volunteers as enablers of oppressors so what we simply ask is to have more eyes and people on the grassroots, on the actual community.
I do not believe that conduct among humans should be enforced by boilerplate contracts. Particularly those written by people with axes to grind. So, I oppose all Codes of Conduct as being a regression in human freedom, from "you are free to act as you wish" to "you may only act in these ways sanctioned by the fine print of this document that somebody else wrote years ago". Apparently morals, laws, regulations, precedents, court decisions, principles, mores, folkways, and traditions were not enough for some people; they needed to create Yet Another form by which one set of people can impose control on other people. They are now are asking for a vote about whether the community agrees they can impose it. I say "No." The Code of Conduct itself is a laundry list of problems. No such list can ever reflect the diversity of human interactions. So instead, certain problems will be given more attention, while others will languish. I do not agree that the CoC laundry list is the right set of problems that this community should be spending its attention on. Many Codes of Conduct are "weaponized" against people by making accusations against the innocent. This set of enforcement guidelines is heavily oriented toward protecting accusers, and very little oriented toward protecting the accused. This is natural because Codes of Conduct are only written by accusers, so of course they tilt them to favor their own interests. For example, the enforcement guidelines provide no way for an accused person to sanction an unjust enforcer or an unjust accuser. Under this Code and guidelines, at best, the accused person succeeds in defending themselves, and must "only" pay the price of wasting their time and attention to avoid a more serious outcome. By contrast, the unjust accuser or enforcer gets off scot-free, with no accountability for their own actions. The result makes society MORE fragile rather than LESS fragile, by redistributing power away from individuals in general, and concentrating it on people who consider themselves victims, particularly sensitive, or politically correct; or on people who are skilled in wikilawyering around Codes of Conduct. I myself was at one point accused of being insensitive to transgender people in a particular context, because I expressed disagreement with one tactic that they use for trying to improve their status in society. Apparently, under a Code of Conduct, it is not permissible to disagree with anyone -- at least not with anyone from a Protected Class about a Protected Topic. As soon as a society sets up sacred cows like this, it stops being able to question its own premises and evolve its behaviors naturally. Anyone who disagrees with the majority point of view is sanctioned and eventually exiled. Even disagreeing with specially protected minority points of view (like regarding transgender respect) gets you sanctioned. Punishing people and excluding them does not make society more "inclusive". This incident was considered the "last straw" in an effort to unjustly push me out of that organization, which I had nurtured and supported for literally decades. Wikipedia should not go down this hateful, divisive path.
Unenforceable as presently written, and to attempt to enforce it as written would be extremely damaging
It is impossible to enforce subjective measures like civility.
I don't see sufficient safeguards in place to prevent weaponization of the UCoC to bully or intimidate contributors. We already have problems with editors threatening Trust & Safety reports as a bludgeon to win content disputes, and without clearly written safeguards (and people with the good judgment to enforce them), this will be counterproductive.
U4C needs to acknowledge that several Arbcoms, including the English Wikipedia one, have consistently enabled and escalated harassment of community members, specially from marginalised groups. Going through Arbcoms should not be a necessary or mandatory step, or nothing will ever change. Do not be afraid to challenge those existing power structures that defend the status quo, do not abandon their communities.
"Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want." So if someone thinks that the the [redacted] shooting was faked and the victims were child actors, we are not allowed to cause them to doubt their perceptions or understanding? We aren't allowed to force them to behave the way we want when what we want is for them to stop vandaising Wikipedia? As for "Maliciously", does the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee have the ability to read minds over the Internet?
The proposal is amateurish and seriously jeopardizes the safety and well-being of our communities. It is irresponsible to hold a vote on this.
UCoC seems to be a mix of redundancies and ideologically-driven items which will antagonize many editors and give bad faith editors more tools which they can abuse.
I do think that more autonomy should be given to the community
This UCoC would be a weapon for trolls and the discontented to drive good editors away from the project.
Any enforcement person ought to be elected. Only like this it can be made clear that the Code of Conduct won't be misused.
Frankly, I wish the UCoC would go further and be more supportive of instances where existing on-wiki processes are ineffective or inappropriate. I believe there are no functioning on-wiki processes for minoritised editors to escalate problems, as those on-wiki processes are almost uniformly dismissive of discussions about homophobia and transphobia or of complaints about hostile users (and even literal, self-proclaimed neo-Nazis). In my opinion, Trust & Safety need to get more involved in enforcing the UCoC. If that involves reversing some of the policy results of the Fram case — or even losing a number of long-time editors who are hostile to UCoC Enforcement and dismissive of the problems experienced by minoritised and underrepresented users — then that isn't something the Foundation should be afraid of.
Putin is trying to take over the Ukraine. You're doing the same to local Wikis. Buzz off.
The Universal Code of Conduct looks like plain and simple common sense. However, many policies and guidelines started out as what people thought was common sense, and turned out to be distorted and browbeaten into something else over time. So I don't trust that people will universally enforce the guidelines properly and in a sensible manner.
No trust in the process, which seems very top-down, and especially doomed to fail with the involvement of the not at all trustworthy T&S. Why the police duties and jurisdiction should be set before the rules is also beyond me. And the translation as "implementation guidelines" for an "enforcement guideline", so at least times "enforcement guideline", rather enforcement guideline" is worst euphemism.
I see this as yet another level being stuck on top of Wikipedia and the English Wikipedia is already not working properly with its bureaocracy. I fel it is a Kumbayah to make some group feel better about themselves rather than do anyhing useful. The foundation should confine itself to necessary things rather than things which are covered by normal self governing and policing.
This is yet another attempt by the WMF to override the various communities in order to be able to push foundation ideologies over encyclopedic values. As mentioned in many places, the writing here is so meaningless and vague that it is more likely that the UCoC enforcement guidelines will serve as a weapon to enable WMF Thought Police to silence opposition than as a tool to be used to reduce/mitigate harmful behaviors.
The foundation only seems to have top-down, authoritarian solutions for the problems of our collaborative communities. We need tools to help our projects grow organically, not more corporate, bureaucratic controls.
It is important that the code of conduct be enforced with professional support. With the WMF raking in over $100 million a year, it is its duty to ensure a safe working environment for the unpaid volunteers, and not to pass that enforcement off to unpaid volunteers. Training of moderators can no longer be optional. They are entitled to compensation for time invested.
Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines/Summary#WHO_is_responsible_for_enforcing_the_UCoC? fails to proscribe individuals appointed by or chosen due to the advocacy of paid donors to the WMF or any foundations in contract with the WMF. Given past community discussions, it seems that money is likely to influence who has authority. For me to vote "yes" there would need to be a way to verify that money is not influencing the selection of enforcing individuals.
Wikimedia Foundation should be almost dismantled until a mere server management institution
Wikimedia Foundation is not the world's cop.
if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
There is no trust in Trust & Safety. They acted several times against the community.
The WMF can not be trusted, the process is way too similar to the utterly failed FRAMBAN debacle, and the UCOC itself is an unwanted action by the Board of Trustees (who also played a bad role in the Framban). I don't support the UCOC and so obviously don't support any enforcement of it.
The proposed guidelines do not limit the power of Trust and Safety and other WMF offices. WMF T&S have shown that they cannot be trusted with what will be unlimited power.
Wikipedia has been banning too many people indefinitely. No one should be banned for more than 1 year. The Universal Code of Conduct doesn't recognize that even vandals can change over time. It doesn't provide a path for rehabilitation of users who want to make a positive contribution after past errors. The Universal Code of Conduct can be exploited to pursue a nefarious agenda against users who aren't familiar with the imperfections of Wikipedia.
Opposed primarily because the UCoC itself needs work, had no community ratification process (a major violation of Wikimedia norms) and community feedback was largely ignored. Secondarily because the enforcement guideline needs a "right to be heard" clause (or a stronger one, if https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Fairness_in_process was meant to address that). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Right_to_be_Heard Also, the document will benefit from an extra round of copywriting. See e.g. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#U4C_or_UC4? and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Systematic_issue
This needs much more consultation. From the perspective of the English Wikipedia, the ability to present evidence in private is vital for the Arbitration Committee and I think for dealing with UPE, and it appears that this may be forbidden - it certainly isn't stated that it's acceptable. Training for Administrators etc isn't details so we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. The possibility that parts of this might be weaponised are concerning and I've never seen a threat to go to T&S made against someone until this week. Final note, this might cause an exodus of Administrators and unwillingness among good editors to become Admins.
I wish the enforcement mechanisms would better consider diversity; in addition to considering doing periodic reviews for the participants' feedback and opinions and making sure the process is interactive.
The development of the guidelines fundamentally contradicted the principles of wiki projects. These guidelines (just like the UCoC itself) should not have been worked out in a commission, but openly, with the possibility that all interested parties can work on them without any hurdles. The fact that this aristocratic system was adhered to despite repeated criticism is completely unacceptable in a grassroots democratic project.
I see in these guidelines a bureaucratic set intended to ensure the implementation of this "UCoC", in spite of the legitimate criticisms it raises (notably as to the fact that its aim is to standardize the application on all projects of an approach to social relations specific to the American liberal left).
While there are some problems with the Universal Code of Conduct ("UCoC") as it stands, the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines ("Enforcement Guidelines" or "Guidelines") are far worse, and, beyond merely exacerbating problems with the UCoC, introduce many new problems. The UCoC Coordinating Committee ("U4C") stands prominently among the problems with the Guidelines. The U4C is poorly defined in the Guidelines, and allows to much to the manipulation of the U4C Building Committee ("U4CBC"). Many of the U4C's activities are nebulously defined in the Guidelines, which leaves too much room for Foundation-level manipulation of local wikis. I may mention, by way of example, two problems of many: that the U4C "may not ... create regulations that contradict" the Guidelines "or circumvent" them; and the U4C's role as the final arbiter in cases of "systematic failures by local bodies". Absent other indications, it seems that the U4C will decide whether its regulations "contradict" or "circumvent" the Guidelines, and whether there have been "systematic failures". Such a degree of power, in the hands of those with no connection to potentially effected communities, is very dangerous. While the U4C stands out amongst the Guidelines, it is far from the only problem. The Guidelines are written in a very "holier-than-thou" way, which, despite claims to the contrary, appears to push Foundation values on local communities. Where local policies exist, there should be no place for the Guidelines, and yet, they are there anyway. A prime example of this inherent problem is the statement that "Code enforcement is a responsibility of designated functionaries", with "designated functionaries" specifically including local administrators ("local sysops"). This problem pervades the document, and is a direct result of the community-antagonistic method in which the document was formulated. Based on my understanding and remembrance of certain materials, the method of changing the Guidelines if they are not supported by the community will be equally closed-doors; I hereby state my opposition to the same. Another outcropping of this problem, which is so problematic I feel the need to draw separate attention to it, is the requirement for UCoC affirmation and training. Such a self-aggrandizing policy makes laughably obvious the insularity and self-serving nature of the drafters of the UCoC and the Enforcement Guidelines, and, I presume, the U4CBC as well, if that body is allowed to exist. For these and other reasons, I respectfully do not support the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines as proposed.
«will be required to attend training» with certification? Big no, thanks. Also how this could be universally implemented in small communities? I see this in not anything "universal", just universally applying the USA standards. No thanks. Different communities, which reflect different societies, have different standards about ethics, code of conduct and ways of resolving community issues.
It failed to address mechanism of harassment of new editors/ contributors; populism in community forums that led to departure of minority voices. It include lack of expert understanding of local laws such as intellectual property and led to populism & influence peddling amongst community members.
This is the greatest load of bureaucracy I've ever seen and takes time, energy, and resources away from content building.
On one of the projects, multiple users spurted transphobic insults during a conversation whose topic turned from "How do we adress non-binary people in our language" to "Do non-binary people exist, or are they just mentally ill", and no action was ever taken against them. I wish for this UCoC to be enforced properly across all communities.
Sentences like the following ones go too far and bother me for several reasons (see below): Respect the way contributors name and describe themselves. Some may use specific terms to describe themselves. Out of respect, use these terms when communicating with or about them, whenever linguistically and technically possible. For example: ethnic groups may use a specific name to introduce themselves, rather than the name historically used by others to describe them; people who identify by a certain sexual orientation or gender using specific names or pronouns; 1) What does linguistically possible mean? Is creating new words linguistically possible? A lot of things can be linguistically possible by changing the language. 2) I don't think this kind of thing can be imposed. This could lead to abuses even if we have to remain respectful and courteous, but imposing the use of this word or that one because such and such a group finds it more suitable goes against the encyclopedic character of Wikipedia which has to remain neutral and not take sides. If a word is used extensively by the sources why shouldn't it be used? 3) Even if I don't mind for example using iel for non-binary people and I do it out of respect for them, this word is not recognized by everyone as part of the French language. I don't think it's up to Wikimedia to impose its use. Its use should be optional and I don't think it should be imposed. This situation can be different from one language to another because from one language to another the use of these neutral words (like they in English) are much more widespread than the French iel. And so as the rules are written, there is no difference between the languages. In summary, while I think we should advise respecting the way contributors name and describe themselves, I don't think we can impose the use of these terms when communicating with or about them, but we should just advise using them.
I am concerned about the language issue. The choice of the pre-eminence of English is in contradiction with the principle of neutrality in case of conflict between parties of different languages, because it gives a clear advantage to English speakers, especially native speakers. Certainly it would be the same whatever the natural language chosen. Hence the idea of initiating a reflection to choose a constructed language, Esperanto or other, in essence neutral as to questions of nationality. It takes a few weeks to learn to converse in such a language, and a few months to a year to master it in any field (which is limited to learning the dedicated vocabulary), whereas it takes several years to master conversation in a natural language, and even longer to use it easily in a somewhat specific field. If such a process could be initiated, it would be a matter of a few years for such a transition, probably of the order of an Olympiad to allow exchanges, then another one to translate and work on the fundamental texts; by 2035, the question of national languages would thus be settled.
The instructions are discriminating against person who do not support propaganda of homosexualism
For communities with sufficient members but insufficient mutual trust, I hope there will be support (from the Foundation or a global committee - did not specify) to guide the establishment of an arbitration committee to operate under this enforcement guidelines.
There is no specific protection for religious groups and appears to favour a left-wing world-view rather than a centrist one.
I am afraid the enforcement of the UCoC is hardly possible without enforcing universal culture and universal language, which is against healthy cultural diversity as we have now. Significantly more analysis and labour would be needed to mitigate this danger.
The UCoC uses ambiguous terms that even native English speakers disagree about in high-profile, partisan, and decisive debates. The UCoC brings the American Culture Wars formally into Wikipedia and will cement the role of American and European partisan strife into already burdened Wikipedia interpersonal processes. The UCoC and its enforcement are one and the same.
I have a doubt about the judgment the UC4 will have to made on issue on projects and communities whose history, cultural environment and language it does not understand or not well. For example in language subtleties, a translated word could be offensive in american english, not the original one in its community or cultural context. Therefore, I'm afraid of "Anglo-Saxon judgment" predominates in UC4.
I support most of the UCoC. However, there are a couple items I consider to be part of a liberal agenda by the WMF and many admins. First, the requirement that everybody call everybody else by their preferred terms. I'm not just talking about gender pronouns, but obviously those will be the most controversial. We need to strike a better balance between not offending anybody, and limiting free speech. For example, if one person errantly says "Indian" and the person in question corrects them to "Native American", that should be respected. But with the gender issues especially, there is no end to the liberal madness. First, it's a transsexual preference to be called by the other gender's pronouns. Fine, whatever. Then there's pre-existing gender neutral pronouns "they/them/their". That's a bit of a gray area. Then, there are completely made-up pronouns (that I can't even keep track of). The current proposed UCoC would require everyone else (say, at a meetup) to use that person's "preferred" terms with no limitations. That's ridiculous. Only liberal blowhards (again, most of the WMF which is why I stopped donating every year) support the idea that everybody has to comply with everything asked of them or else they are not in compliance. We need limits on the crazy. I'd be fine with the current phraseology if only "within reason" was appended, or if it was reworded entirely to say "please make an effort". As is now, if you don't use made-up pronouns that you aren't even familiar with, you would subject to sanctions. So much for the free speech and "Wikipedia isn't censored" policies. Secondly, please knock off this "Wikipedia Movement" crap. I've been editing here for nearly 20 years. It's a volunteer effort to create something free. "Movement" is a red-herring word used by the most liberal efforts to subvert everybody else into thinking that their politics are the way of the future, or some such. Please stop calling it a "movement"! And to put my bias into perspective, I vote for mostly Democrats. But even I can't stomach the extreme-left crap coming out of the WMF these days. We're suppose to be neutral and not have POV.
The proposed guidelines are in part far too arbitrary, strict, imprecise, onerous, complex and complicated. What stopd out to me most was this passage: "Ethnic groups may use a specific name to describe themselves, rather than the name historically used by others". This renders all language and knowledge fruitless. Wikimedia aim is not to seek some sort of theoretical utopia where everyone gets what they want. That's impossible. People, across and withon groups, have opposing viewpoints. You cannot respect one person's opinion any more tjan any other's. It all has to be founded in what is to the best of our ability the truth, regardless of who believes or wants what, and why, and what the majority stance is. X isn't Y just because you want it to be. Of course things can change, and things can have many names etc. But you can't just put any label you want on stuff. Wikimedia is reliant on big, complex, natural, constantly evolving languages. Languages over which is has little control. It has to adhere to its rules — it has no ability to dictate what something is called. Wiktionary and Wikipedia catalogues words and the world. They don't decide how they are used or how it operates. Wikimedia is beholden to how language is used in a broader context, no matter whether in any given case this leads to confusion or even anger.
I am against UCoC, the idea of one universal code of conduct for lot of nations, culture etc. is completly wrong.
We need a code that really values the diversity of contexts
As a member of ja language community, on jawiki/jawikivoyage, I am not accepting EG as: * you seek to collect votes from informed voters, however, you have not published those pages a voter must read before casting a vote; * the above pages are offered in English, and you call for everybody with voting right to come, but how could one be an informed voters without comprehending one in mother tongue? * No statistics is given to show how informed each language communities are of: plain diagram will be fine to show the percentage of translation/number of translators, however the content might be machine translated or biased by the posters of that language version. Are you sure that community voters are informed equally among languages, of what this Guideline is focused on how Universal Code of Conduct be on everybody's mind in near future? As a translator myself, I cannot agree. To share the knowledge of higher risks our Wikimedia Movement has faced: Why are some communities not encouraged to translate such case ? No, we are not expecting a drastic CoC challenge as the linked one, but, voters should imagine with case study that UCoC is meant to prevent/detect/process those cases. Or the very open letter by Arb Comm to our Foundation, which had altered the course of building Enforcement Guidelines, as I see it with so far what I have read pages? Am I lacking any knowledge to judge fairly? The frustration rests here: the 包括性 is not certain, that voters/discussion participants don't share the same width/depth of knowledge. My translator side, I have been working on around the clock to put those basic pages into en-ja translation. Our facilitator has done a wonderful job when I think of her contractorship, and before 7 March 2022, I share with them a hope that ja language speakers/editors might find less blindfolded against details of the EG. I have to add WMF Glossary building was going on on jawiki since January 2022 to catch up with UCoC discussion, and before and prepped for 理事会選挙. Please don't let me hand-check an animal with thick feet, an animated watering hose sticking between huge flapping fans on each side of its head. Enforcement guidelines for UCoC needs to be clear, concrete, and backed with shared knowledge. Have we not, and will we not be working so hard together to bring to the human beings, the shared knowledge in its best form? In this plea, we refers to volunteer editors, functionaries, and paid WMF staff/contractors are included. We serve the readers, who can't vote for us. Cheers,
Giving precedence to English version in the event of any differences in meaning between the original English version and a translaltion is against the international nature of the Wikimedia movement and cultural imperialism that punishes the speakers of other languages. Any fully translated and fully reviewed language version should be equally evaluated, and in the case of mismatch of meanings, other principles should be taken in account (good faith, the meaning that better benefits the parts involved) instead of choosing the laziest option because in the US don't want to learn other languages. The whole "UCC" process is being politically inclined and not taking in account neutrality and other points of view other than the "wokeism" kind of approach.
I think that the guidelines should be drafted and voted on by the community- not by a committee. I think that the process should be restarted and based on a community-wide discussion.
Opposed to the requirement to "confirm (by signed statement or other format to be decided)" adherence to the universal code of conduct. Opposed to the requirement to take training courses on the universal code of conduct. These courses should be made available for those who want to learn more, not imposed, even considering that we are all volunteers. Also, users with advanced rights have already been trusted by the community for their conduct and behavior as well.
I am not against the UCoC as an idea, but I am very much against any form of coercion. I really don't like in particular the section "Promoting UCoC awarenes". So every Wikimedian meeting, whether it's a nature retreat or a cafe party, we'll have to carry a poster with the UCoC? No, thanks, I'm good. I already live in a totalitarian country, I don't like and don't need another enforcement tool.
It seems to me that the English-language Wikipedia (the only one I know anything about) is competent to police itself and the enforcement guidelines will add another layer of bureaucracy that is unneeded and will likely complicate, rather than facilitate, action on bad actors.
There is still a lot in this guideline that is hard to comprehend in practice. Certain things like mandatory training don't really make sense when we are volunteers.
"Advanced rights holders" do not need to be required to sign an affirmation to the global WMF; it's a needless level of bureaucracy for such a simple and straightforward understanding of morality which this code of conduct represents. This indicates a level of distrust on the WMF's part for the local wikis to enforce policy coherently. Why is there such distrust? How many other creeds will the WMF force users to sign years down the road?
It's not clear how "advanced right holders" must sign. If that involves personal identification that's out of the question.
"Individuals required to acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct will be required to attend training". Surely *everyone* is required to adhere to the UCoC? Does this mean training is required to edit? Or does this mean only advanced rights holders (etc) have to adhere to the UCoC, making it less than "universal"? I think I understand what this is intending, but for something as fundamental as this the meaning needs to be exceptionally clear. Requiring all admins to go through mandatory training sounds like an excellent way to lose a lot of volunteers. It's probably workable for arbcoms/stewards, it's likely to be tough for CU/OS, and it'll be practically impossible for admins.
I am not happy with vagueness in the proposed UCOC enforcement guidelines about who is actually responsible for enforcement. I am also dissatisfied with the expectation of "mandatory training" (speaking as an advanced rights holder) given that a) the WMF is requiring that _I_ perform a time-consuming activity as a volunteer in order to enforce _their_ rules and b) the WMF has a bad history of not being in touch with actual community problems and norms. The comments by [redacted] and [redacted] at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Training sum up my concerns well. I am not opposed to providing training, merely to mandating it. Further, my concerns stem from a deeper problem between WMF and the community - the WMF does a poor job supporting the unpaid volunteers enforcing its policies and terms of use (things like copyright enforcement, dealing with major abuse) and this enforcement policy is just going to put a greater burden on those volunteers without providing any further support. No, a mandatory training is not support. Finally, this creates a global committee that can overrule local communities whenever "abuse of power or a systematic issue" (an extremely vague condition) is alleged. All this does is turn existing community bodies (such as Arbitration Committees) into appelate courts. I fully expect that this condition will be abused more than it will be used in good faith - every ArbCom-banned editor will allege that the committee abused its power in some way. But who am I kidding - the label above this input box says "comments will be summarized," and frankly I do not trust the WMF to provide neutral summaries of opposing comments. Perhaps this will be a repeat of the rebranding incident (where the WMF decided that anyone who did not explicitly oppose on a mailing list actually supported)? Or will community opposition be ignored entirely and the Board pass this anyway because this is Too Important An Issue? The WMF has burned enough community trust over the past couple years that I simply do not trust them to account for the will of the community. Just scrap the whole UCoC as it stands and start over as a community-run initiative instead of a WMF-run initiative. (or does saying this invalidate my vote, because I'm clearly voting against the whole UCoC, not just the enforcement guidelines?)
I am concerned about the visibility and training requirements, and the fact that administrators who already hold high levels of expertise in their particular wikis' standards will be subjected to additional requirements, which are an additional burden on a dwindling number of volunteers for an already demanding role.
I have an issue with "required to attend training". Obviously, it is in my own interest to familiarize myself with UCoC and I will certainly do so. But I'm a volunteer and not an employee, so I don't like to be forced to attend classes, apply for certifications etc. To to be ordered "back to school" feels like a coercive measure and a lack of appreciation for people who have proven to be trustworthy and rule-abiding for many years.
While I believe that the proposed Enforcement guidelines are mostly going in the right direction, I strongly disagree with the article 1.3.3 mandating that community members with advanced permissions are required to attend a training regarding the interpretation of the UCoC and its implementation. I believe this is an unreasonable requirement on volunteers who decide to dedicate their free time to maintain Wikimedia projects. Many smaller projects are already struggling with finding functionaries to keep them running smoothly and the new guidelines will only create additional barrier for people who might otherwise be willing to fill these positions and put an additional burden on the currently serving ones. Additionally, many members of the community (including advanced permission holders) greatly value their pseudonymity, often for important reasons such as living in an oppressive regime. It seems that the requirement to affirm the UCoC in the form of a "signed declaration" and to attend a training may potentially compromise this pseudonymity. I consider the above mentioned issues serious enough to vote to reject the current proposal and to return it for further revision.
Is the WMF *trying* to get rid of experienced volunteers? The idea that administrators and holders of advanced permissions should have to sign a loyalty oath - call it an 'affirmation', or whatever you like - is appalling. The Foundation expects volunteers to line up like good little obedient party members and snap to attention, simply because they have rollback, or can delete spam? The code of conduct might have started out with good intentions, but it's become a severe case of bureaucratic overreach. This is shameful. The Foundation has been informed about serious problems in several of the encyclopedias - the Japanese one, fairly recently - and done... what? Created this digital equivalent of red tape which benefits no one save the people who were paid far too much to come up with it, and may drive away some of the best editors and administrators we have.
This is a Wiki, not a bureaucracy.
I support the spirit in which the current text of UCoC is written, but the opaque behavior of certain bureaucratic bodies associated with WMF proves to me that creating any new regimes and organizations to oversee the communities will not have a positive effect on the movement.
Codes of conduct may facilitate unethical corporate behavior. Codes of conduct that limit employees' ability to speak out against the corporation can keep them quiet for fear of job loss or legal retribution even if the company is engaging in an unethical practice.
To long and too bureaucratic.This proposal is too detailed and specific to survive. Better to start with a general structure and add mechanisms as needed. I can not believe that a movement to free knowledge can survive such a rigid straitjacket.
There are no explanations how the training will be done. There are no explanations how the affirmation shall be accomplished. Many admins do not want to disclose their real live identities, and they should not be forced to disclosure.
Wikimedia is not bound to protect free speech, but I believe the UCoC goes too far away from it. For instance, mandating that people use terms which "may be unfamiliar" to them is the sort of thing that I don't think we should force people to do. I also find it contradictory that editorially we follow the common name policy on en-wiki, but referring to groups using their common name on Wikipedia may simply be banned under some circumstances. And I don't understand the language of 2.2; does "strive towards" mean it is mandated, in which case why wouldn't we say that, or does it mean suggested, in which case why is a suggestion included a binding set of rules.
It's too much like business decisions. It goes against the wikipedia spirit.
I do not disagree with what you are trying to do with this policy. However, when I read the enforcement guidelines, I see "local administrators" among the "higher authorities who may be held strictly accountable. Since all administrators of the Japanese version of the site are voluntary volunteers, we believe that the "balance of authority and responsibility" is severely skewed if we hold them accountable for their heavy responsibilities. If it is to be applied to the Japanese version, it would be better if the community discusses it a little more and reflects it in the policy.
The enforcement guidelines can be read to require various "responses," which is quite demanding for language versions where the administrators are volunteers and the number of administrators is small. It would also create the bother during offline events, often without admins.
The process is too fast. I don't like the imposition of additional requirements on volunteers and making life difficult for administrators and the additional control mechanism from the Foundation
repost from UCoC talk page: I agree with the discussion on "psychological manipulation." I agree that it would be better to evaluate users based on their actual behavior instead of making assumptions about their intentions.
Audiatur et altera pars is imho absolutely necessary in every case. Revisability also. Even if the previous decision stands during the revision.
More emphasis should be given towards the state of neutrality within our contents, especially regarding social issues. Any Wikipedia content should not be leaning towards any side of the political, economic or social spectra, and any opinions from any side of the spectra written should be declared as such.
I consider this an usurpation of the rights of the volunteer communities by a group who is responsible to no one but themselves.
The current definition of doxing in the UCoC is highly problematic, as it includes: "or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects." * It seems to prohibit talking to the press. The press is mostly interested in personal stories, and often requires help to identify the various editors in discussions. As it stands, I would have broken this rule repeatedly, even though I have made sure to never accidentily share personal information, and talk about volunteers with the utmost respect. Even our CEO has broken this rule as it stands, when she talked about me to the press. * It seems to prohibit talking about harrasment with people outside the project. When a subject of a BLP I edited sent a harrassing email to my employer, I did give them background on what I suspected to be undeclared UPE. I would not have been able to give my side of the story if I had followed the UCoC.
The UCC pays insufficient respect to the fundamental and universal right to freedom of expression and, in its current form, intolerably infringes on that right.
I'm voting support, but I am concerned about how the requirement that people with advanced permissions have to affirm their support of it. I think it's crucial that this be done in a way that preserves their right to remain pseudonymous, especially given the recent arrest of a Wikipedia editor in Belarus
Not the way it is currently laid out. I like the idea of WMF finally getting involved. I agree with most of the proposal, especially the "Fairness in process" section. However, the "Processing appeals" leaves much to be desired. It appears that the "Appeals pathways" section name heading was very poorly chosen since that section offers more roadblocks to appeals than it does pathways. The same is true of the following "Deciding appeals by U4C and community bodies" section as well.
I'm sorry, while I understand the importance of, and generally support, a universal CoC, I cannot agree to any legal arrangement, such as an "affirmation", where the mechanism is still unknown. The "through signed declaration or other format to be decided" needs to be settled before this is viable. Should the WMF move forward with this, I understand, and will cease contributing immediately.
*UCoC contains three type of unacceptable behavior, and I see a major difference between 1+2 and 3, and I see these needing different type of enforcement. Content vandalism (3) could be fully referred to to be handled by existing enforcement bodies within the projects. But the first two needs something more, and here something like a "UCOC interpretation specialist" per project would be appropriate. I find that this proposal does not address this as would be needed *U4c. This is a strange all new organization. What is needed is a body overseeing the existing project in general with focus on if they are working as should be expected, and where the UCoC enforcement is only part of its responsibility. And I would like to see this reporting to the Global council, be a subcommittee to.
I think that if the UCoC won't be strictly enforced and taught, we might as well not have a UCoC.
Overformalization, Danger of Cancel Culture, deplatforming
It's already done that way, there's no need for more rules and bureaucracy and uselessly wasted donations.
Too much overregulation
Rejection of the "preventive work" section: no preemptive declarations of commitment, no mandatory training for community members.
I reject the obligatory agreement of volunteers to any guidelines. And I also think that the training courses are not suitable and, moreover, are formulated too vaguely. Do we need even more bureaucracy through any guidelines and commissions? Not in my opinion.
Administrators are not representatives or employees of the Wikipedia operating organization Wikimedia Foundation.
bureaucratic
Lends itself to being manipulated in an authoritarian sense
Who is this "community functionary?" In the text, "[Acknowledge → Support?" is clearly in draft form with comments such as the following left in place, and there is no room for agreement. You say that "violations involving lawsuits or legal threats" will be "promptly transferred to the Wikimedia Foundation legal team or other experts who can properly assess the threat" rather than locally, but legal threats such as "we'll sue you" are relatively frequent, and from now on, we will not deal with them locally at all but will refer them to the Wikimedia Does this mean that the Foundation's legal team will respond? It would be great if that is indeed the case, but judging by the slow movement on the previous submission button issue, I highly doubt that they will be able to handle it in reality.
Formalization and bureaucratization in wikipedia is not acceptable
Abstain. In general I endorse the UCOC terms of expected behaviour, but in general I also disapprove of the proliferation of committees and sub-committees for the further policing and enforcing of things. You do not protect freedom by giving special powers to self-appointing bodies of "functionaries".
Any expectation of training is unreasonable. There is no expectation of training for *anyone* in *any* permission level *anywhere* on Wikimedia projects. The UCoC is nowhere near as important as many other global policies that the same groups of people are expected to obey and enforce.
I am opposed to the idea of administrators being required to agree to a loyalty pledge of sorts, among other things.
too much bureaucracy is a bad thing, and this is just way too much
I looked at the draft guide, and I will tell you that, judging by it, we are waiting for a super-totalitarian dictatorship of bureaucratic structures. From what caught my eye: 1) all users with "advanced rights" (starting with autopatrolled?) will be required to write and sign a statement of compliance with the UKoK; 2) at the same time, these participants must undergo a three-level (sic!) "certified training" according to the manuals developed by the Fund's functionaries; 3) violations are declared, including "lack of local capacity to enforce the UCoC", "lack of resources or community or lack of will to address issues" (this is in a voluntary project!); 4) to punish violators of the previous paragraph (and other provisions), a certain U4C structure is organized, which will determine its powers and competencies independently; 5) for the organization of this structure, a Committee for the organization of the Committee is organized, whose members are appointed by the vice-president of the Foundation, and among the selection criteria are diversity of gender, age and "diversity & inclusion experience"; 6) decisions cannot be appealed "against certain decisions made by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team based on conflicting legal obligations"; 7) structures of the Fund will accept for consideration including anonymous letters. Thus, some kind of all-powerful bureaucratic structures will be created, the composition of which is determined by "correct" political views, and not by an understanding of the processes taking place in Wikipedia. These structures will not report to anyone. Decisions will be made on the basis of anonymous letters that can be sent by all sorts of trolls. It also introduces some strange training for everyone. People come here to relax and volunteer, and there are enough trainings in everyday life. And these trainings strongly demotivate with their futility. In general, the acceptance of all this will lead to an outflow of users who write content, and to the expanse of literal trolls, who have nothing to do but argue. This text needs to be completely revised, and the process of revision should be carried out in cooperation with the language sections.
The UCC appears to be a significant investment in rules that can, by definition, only be applied to rule followers. It doesn't address the harassment I and others experience on a regular basis, because that harassment comes from individuals who are incapable of following rules and cannot be stopped by anything short of incarceration. Trust and Safety has provided neither trust nor safety against this harassment. I cannot support guidelines that offer no real protection but require extensive effort, training, and additional responsibility from rule followers who support the wiki.
The document ostensibly says that all project administrators (and similar roles) have to undergo mandatory training, which I gather will be quite extensive. I am strongly opposed to this and I don't think it's a reasonable expectation.
BUT I disagree with "The users listed above should accomplish the affirmation at the occasion of acquiring the right or role, as well as every re-election, renewal or prolongation, the existing ones do so within a short time after the ratification of these guidelines": it seems bureaucratic/legalistic to me. What is important is that these functionaries, staff, etc., do respect the UCoC and apply it in their functions.
The document entails a number of mandatory, potentially repressive measures (training, actions by T&S and U4C) that are not phrased in sufficient detail to ensure that these measures will be used fairly and to the benefit of the community.
Who determines systematic failures by local bodies to enforce the UCoC should be clarified beforehand. For example, the global community might do that in a request for comment on meta asking the U4C to make a decision. See also https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Training, the training part is very weird.
requiring admins to (as described in en-wiki's discussion, which is hyperbolic but accurate) sign a loyalty oath is fundamentally wrong. there may be other problems with this too, but i stopped researching once i saw that
I oppose this for some of the reasons described in https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines&oldid=23001878 : a requirement of training for all "functionaries" including administrators &c, enforced by the threat of removal of such abilities, appears overly onerous, incompatible in its centralization with the more democratic organizations of many wikis, & likely to dissuade people from applying or acting as such "functionaries". Moreover, as [redacted] argues, the UCoC as it exists is overbroad in some ways & should be improved first.
I just wanted to know what I will have to swear to preserve, protect, defend and uphold as an administrator. No problems.
"Individuals required to acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct will be required to attend training to ensure a common understanding of implementation." "Requiring" volunteers to "attend" training clearly needs far more definition than the vague text that currently exists. What form would this take? How would it be delivered?
No, for these reasons: The UCoC is quite wordy and vague, so it's not clear what a Yes vote would approve. The Enforcement Guidelines include points like "Certain individuals will have to declare their regard for and adherence to the UCoC", which sounds like a loyalty oath. Overall, this sounds like the current fad in social media for using "diversity and inclusion" as an excuse for bullying and groupthink.
mandatory training is not okay
The whole Universal Code of Conduct is too complex, will create much bureaucracy and take effort away from what we do here. The categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant should suffice.
This is an example of how organizations add a lot of bureaucracy with building up a lot of new policies and committees instead of focusing on what makes sense.
Especially the requirement to attend training is a no-go for a volunteer project.
See [redacted]'s comments at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines#Training -- I especially want to highlight that - A blanket authority to conduct mandatory training sessions is unacceptable to me -- we are volunteers, not employees, and the current wording is highly ambiguous with regards to how this training will be conducted - I too have "yet to see a good case for making signing of a document mandatory"
counterproductive bureaucracy
There are many concerns about this, for me especially those regarding training volunteers, that show we have clearly not reached consensus on this. Additionally, why is the UCoC not being approved before the Enforcement Guidelines?
We haven't needed them until now and I feel that another layer of unnecessary bureaucracy will only result in longer periods of waiting for those who were allegedly wronged and fewer community venues for addressing the problems below a designated committee which will inevitably being overburdened with the task resulting in an even broader miscarriage of behavior enforcement.
I object to the mandatory signing of a commitment to enforce the UCoC, and to mandatory training, for admins etc.
The bar currently set for cases to be heard by the U4C is very high and is likely to keep the status quo of exclusion and unhealthy communities for years to come. U4C should be given more leeway about what cases it hears.
Disagree with the restrictive ban of appeals and absence of amnesty. I understand that easy appeals will be a wikilawyering nightmare, but there must be a redress against erroneous decisions..
In general, the document is too complex, with responsibility too fragmented. It invites lawyering. In particular, it is not clear who "advanced rights holders" are and how much time commitment the required training will entail. We are, after all, volunteers.
Please: * replace "enforcement" with a neutral word such as "compliance" throughout * rewrite the whole thing in plain everyday English so that it can be easily understood by ordinary people – the purpose of a guideline is to guide, not to obfuscate the intrinsic signification of the concepts you aspire to communicate with unproductive circumlocutory verbosity; get rid of stuff like " ... create procedures to facilitate these affirmations" – if you mean that you don't yet know how people will be asked to agree, why not just say so? * lose the acronyms (UCoC (is that you, cock?), U4C etc); call the code "the code", the committee "the committee", and so on
I don't think uninvolved third parties should be able to report suspected violations. Also, this whole process will only worsen Wikipedia's existing problems with excessive bureaucracy.
I find the affirmation requirement both unnecessary and obnoxious.
I am afraid of too much control and nonsense.
The UCOC is imperfect, but serviceable. The enforcement guidelines are not complete and not worthy of becoming policy at this stage. Among other problems, they have not been amended to meet the concerns of the community, portions (training, affirmation) are incompatible with how the community is organized as-written, they are full of grammatical mistakes and unclear and difficult to translate language, and do not provide an adequate framework for the operation of the proposed U4C.
the requirements to "affirm" and to take mandatory training are a giant overreach and entirely wrongheaded
Oppose placing significant requirements (such as mandatory training) to all sysops, per :w:en:WP:NOBIGDEAL. Administrators should not be forced to work on areas they are not interested in working on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_volunteer_service - administrators and others with advanced rights should not be required to handle enforcing such a code of conduct, which made lead to (even more) harassment, doxing, etc.
The concept of mandatory "training" and being mandatory "enfocement" agents for everyone above simple editors (i.e., holders of "advanced permissions"...even including "sysops") is a non-starter. Such individuals affirming they are aware of the code (and therefore will obey it) is great. That's it. It's too much an ask for mere holders of technical bits to be forced to do anything at all, let alone attend a training. We need all the help we can get on the larger wikis, some are good at just one technical or content niche and don't participate in any other way. That's fine, we're a big, welcoming community of volunteers, right?
As a local administrator, I'm very concerned about the mandatory affirmation and mandatory training, especially without more clarity on what either of those things are going to look like. I value my anonymity, so having to affirm anything using a real-name signature or anything of that nature would concern me, and depending on the extent of the training I'd worry that it conflicts with the voluntary nature of Wikipedia editing - "Wikipedia is not compulsory" is a long-held principle on the English Wikipedia.
Training and (re-)affirmation sound more like indoctrination. Wikipedia (en-wp) has a fairly liberal attitude to dissent which ucoc does not encourage. Requiring users to affirm to ucoc is more like stamping out dissent and discussion from anything that doesn't toe the party line.
no for the required training.
This will infuse dynamism into Wikipedia.
Come in
The points of the enforcement guidelines seem to be more or less in line with practices already experienced and used on most wikis, so I don't see a problem with incorporating them as they are.
A very important initiative!
Should actually be self-evident.
Congratulations for the effort to create this universal code of conduct. Bravo, it will give us all many opportunities for collaboration.
If we want to have inclusive projects and have more women join us, we have to ensure spaces free of any type of violence.
My only suggestion is that all members of wikipedia with a higher level than the normal user (administrators), also be subject to scrutiny and full compliance to code of conduct. Sometimes, this group of users is judge and part of some abuses just for having a high hierarchy in the community.
I agree because this is very important for Wikimedia.
It is paradox that in order to help the newcomers we add more documentation for them to . And as far as I could see, this one contains only good sense.
Thank you for this initiative.
No comment: this universal code of conduct suits me!
It was a long and consensual exercise in the sense of being as inclusive as possible of the wikimedia movement to which I belong.
It is essential to tighten the rules so that wikis are neutral
Okay, I agree with the universal code of conduct.
The application of the universal code of conduct on the basis of the proposed guidelines should also contribute to the taste of the contributors to further advance the contributions of the contributors.
This will help so well
Hopefully, the Code can be well-enforced.
With a standardized code of conduct and its enforcement to all Wikimedia users, users have the same standard of reference which would encourage folks to control themselves.
So that Wikipedia would be better in the future.
I support the enactment of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines as long as it protect the contributors and remain within the corridor of "freeing the knowledge" concept.
I agree with the enforcement of the UCoC so that users can remain civil in accordance to this rule.
I'm really happy that the movement has as a reference a code of conduct that is put into practice universally, in all projects and in all language versions. The parts I like the most? Practicing good faith and empathy, opposing the abuse of power, privilege or influence. They are the essence of Wikimedian philosophy, because Wikimedia projects and human relationships around wiki volunteering should bring joy and satisfaction. Let's keep the Wikimedia universe as a happy oasis!
A truly necessary code in these difficult and confusing times.
If it is necessary to "protect" them from various things, I vote yes.
I have been participating in Wikipedia since around 2007. In addition to writing articles, I am currently giving lectures and facilitating editing events for local communities, governments, various schools, and public organizations in order to broaden the understanding of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation's goals outside the organization. Wikipedia is a place that can be edited by a variety of people, but sometimes there are people who make edits that are unwelcome as an encyclopedia in the same way as anonymous social networking sites, people who continue to enjoy doing so, or people who make very biased edits that are not based on reliable information sources. In the past, when I had administrator privileges, I was often busy dealing with so-called vandalism, including criminal threats, and I was often forced to respond to slander by reincarnations of blocked users. Some users have been vandalizing the encyclopedia for more than 10 years, and in some cases, anonymous editors have responded to these people in an ad hoc manner, which has led to more problems. I believe that UCoC will provide a better service to users. Even if some problems arise from confusion, I think it would be good to stop and make improvements. That is how Wikipedia itself has progressed and grown.
I strongly support. There should be support by Foundation for victims caused by violations of UCoC.
Good plan
I agree with the enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct, as it aims to help community members identify situations of bad behavior, which is something that should be supported with all the possible tools, and these guidelines are a strong ally in prevention.
This is necessary in order to have a better and more organized Wikipedia with regard to the relationship between editors.
I support it.
I support
I strongly support!
The enforcement guidelines can effectively prevent some of the unacceptable behaviours and protect the victims.
The benefits are many, and the downsides are few
I believe the UCoC is an important step towards addressing the unacceptable but often unactionable behavior of some volunteers (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unblockables). In my personal experience, such behavior has driven me to contribute less and consider leaving altogether, so I am glad something is being done about it.
Always supportive of measures that strive to provide non-toxic, ethical environments.
This is a tough decision! Having been on various WMF projects for a long time I've witnessed many unfortunate instances of mistreatment of contributors. Those individuals were driven from the projects they enjoyed contributing to without successful recourse or alternatives. The UCC is a chance to prevent reoccurrences. If all involved focus of constructive criticism I believe the process can succeed.
I do support the UCOC because we need an ecosystem that's harass free and new users can come and contribute without any fear or prejudice. We really encourage the organization to pump something soonest in action to local wikis. This is in other for them to have access to report and knows how to report harassment and bitting. In other for all of us to feel safer while in the community. This is very very good initiative.
I like the structure of Expected vs Unacceptable behaviour - it's well thought out as a way to be clear. As with all these things, the worst offenders probably won't be dissuaded by policies and guidelines, but using it as the scaffold to organise processes is sensible. I hope that U4C gets good applicants since I'm sure it'll be an extremely challenging role.
I support it, while still emphasizing the importance of taking into account the local culture and customs (my concern especially for Indonesian languages' communities)
hopefully many old admins will learn to respect this, they often block the development of wikipedia
Very minor request: Can a professional editor please be asked to take a pass through the Code of Conduct and other related documents? There are numerous small inconsistencies (mixing upper and lower case, lack of parallel structure, etc.) that can easily be fixed without substantively changing the content.
Providing a framework for the CoC should be helpful in the global punishment of severe/multi-wiki vandals.
I support
I hope that the Universal Code of Conduct is not just ink on paper and words without actions.
I'm glad that the UCoC ratyfication process is moving forward. And the enforcement guidelines clearly supporti and empower the communities so that they can create kind and safe environment for the editors. It is important to have the ratification as soon as possible since the communities and affiliates are already preparing and putting work into being ready.
Please support local wikicommunities in promoting the Universal Code of Conduct in the spirit of wikilove and translated into their context.
It's okay.
I am. however, concerned that Wikiquote is apparently absent
It's not perfectly workable yet but it's a good base to begin with. "Right to be Heard" needs to be included.
No concerns from me
should be tougher on disturbers
I am curious to see how the practical implementation of the enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct will yield the desired outcome of preventing harassment and ensuring the safety of all volunteers.
I vote this way because what we have is better than the status quo. However I believe that a community vote should have been held in phase 1 about the code of conduct itself.
I'm voting yes but it's sad that we need something like this.
Everything that supports and strengthens the personal rights and freedoms of a person is good.
I totally agree this principle to be passed.
Great work all!
"Appeals are not possible in following cases: for vandalizing IPs, spam-only accounts, and similar cases for light sanctions (under 2 weeks ban)" Well, IPs seem to be discriminated against. Also, a ban is a ban, and everyone should get an appeal no matter the duration IMO, though I'm not too sure if I feel too strongly about this. However, the enforcement itself seems fine IMO, so I'll vote Yes for now, though my opinion may be subject to change.
Because, I support for the Universal code of Conduct, avoiding the illegal practices and hoaxes
I would also be interested in Code of Conduct training
I was initially worried that the enforcement guidelines would be too vague, but the guidelines make it clear who would be enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct and how. It’s also not too bureaucratic. The members of the U4C will be elected and the enforcement of the UCoC will be done by local administration first before reaching the U4C. It’s not too different than the Arbitration Committee of Wikipedia, except it covers all Wikimedia projects. As such, I will be voting yes.
Having read and understood it, I fully support UCC based on the proposed guidelines. This is a great move towards the right direction of the vision of Wikimedia. I am glad it has covered all the main points regarding responsibility for one's actions, decisions and behaviour.
Happy to support
The UcoC, because it allows for articulation of key community values, represents an important step forward in the maintenance and sustainability of the Wikimedia movement.
Yes
The entire document seems well thought-out and balanced. I hope this UCoC will help to align expected behaviours across all projects, and help streamline enforcement when needed.
UCoC can help everyone contribute on Wikipedia
Less because I think this is a good approach, and more because I think the existing approaches are bad, and because I think if this goes south too much the community will force changes pretty quickly.
very good idea, thank you
I fully support this Code.
Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines Ratification is very important for a whole project of Wikimedia, especially Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is a gate for travelling to the deep of knowledge. That's why, Wikipedia has to worked with a good faith and respectful by all of the contributors.
Hi! Thank you for adding the transparency of process. Best wishes from Belarus.
Nice work! Pretty simple and easy to understand. Can we offer it to the UN as guidelines for diplomacy?
I support the policies have been mentioned
support the UCoC contents
Hi, I support because I think this is the right way. Greetings [redacted]
This is for the benefit of Wikimedia as a whole.
This vote is very important. Mutual respect and appreciation are elementary important for a good and constructive cooperation. When I think about the rough tone in some wiki projects, it is more important than ever to cast my vote with a yes.
It can help provide a consistent expectation of acceptable behaviours in the community.
I vote yes, but I'd refer to Gricean maxims to complete the Code.
everything seems ok.
I generally trust the foundation, supervised by the board of directors, and monitored by the community, to do the right thing. If there are flaws in this code, and there probably are, I think they can be corrected. Rejecting the code at this time would send the message that poor conduct is acceptable. I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Because it will be good to wikimedia movement to have guidelines Universal Code of Conduct and further more this will unite Wikipedia editors worldwide. And also if there is Universal Code of Conduct I believed that no one can blame injustice for any action/punishment that take about him! Thanks all I'm so happy to be a Wikipedia editor.
I believe the UCoC is going to help a lot in curbing certain abuses especially on the Wikis.
This effort to safeguard quality and integrity of the system seems reasonable to me.
This will help the movement enforcement pathways and processes for the UCoC
I do not endorse gender as a meaningful distinction among people. Therefore, in section 2.1, I don't agree the mention "People who identify with a certain sexual orientation or gender identity using distinct names or pronouns". Such rule can only add division among peoples. Everything else is OK.
The code is clear and (thank you to the authors) short. The guidelines are a bit long, but I can't see a way to shorten them. Again, thanks to the authors!
I would like to mention the case of user:[redacted], aka [redacted], a LTA who has been continuously committing personal attacks, death threats, slander, puppets abuse to Wikipedians on both Wikipedia and third party platforms since 2017. He was global blocked on 2018 and finally blocked by the Wikimedia Foundation on 2021 after being reported to T&S. Despite receiving the most severe penalty on Wikipedia, this person is not deterred and is still persistently creating countless one-time puppets to vandalise wiki pages and harass people on several Wikipedia projects. Even more, he has been using other platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Fandom, Matters, Baidu Tieba (貼吧), Zhihu (知乎) and Uncyclopedia to commit personal attacks, death threats, slander and other misconducts to Wikipedians. Some of his inappropriate contents were removed, but many are still remain unhandled by the admins of these platforms, especially on Baidu Tieba (貼吧), Zhihu (知乎), Youtube and Uncyclopedia. Generally, I believe the enforcement of the UCoC based on the proposed guidelines is a must to handles this and any other similar situations (such as the cases of LTA user:[redacted] and user:[redacted]who also committed harassment to Wikipedian on other platforms) , since currently there seems to be no actual guidelines to handle this kind of issues. Thank you.
It will be the best
I like the content material stated in UCoC.
There's no future for our projects without a safe community!!!
I am super happy that the privacy and protection of targets of harassment and reporters are prioritized over transparency and the loud voices calling for a "Right to be Heard"
The Universal Code of Conduct seems to be the best step forward for the community as a whole, in my opinion. The new process of reported violations in particular interests me as it keeps admins in check and will hopefully give more explanation as to why certain accounts are banned and blocked.
I think the goals of the UCoC are clear and will make significant impact to how editors interact across all Wikis
I like the "without tolerance for harrassment" bit. This is because several of the female-biography articles created by me were descended on by bullies and misogynists who proceeded to try to delete the articles, failed, then tried to minimise them any way they could, so that they could then delete them. When I took it to arbitration, I was descended on by all their friends who proceeded to deny all wrongdoing, support the misogynists and trash me and the female biographical subjects. I was not able to find an administrator who was able to stop them. Is it any wonder that we have too small a proportion of female biographies on English Wikipedia? So I am supporting this UCC in hope that the situation will be improved.
The UCoC provides a system of checks and balances that are necessary for any community where a relatively small group of people have absolute power at their sole discretion, and there are no term limits.
Just Go !
Provides a formal basis for enforcement, when relevant situations arise.
U4C is urgently needed for the local communities that dont have any defined formal structure to solve a case.
I am in favor of publicly known and widely agreed-to behavioral guidelines.
This is very important step for making online and offline communities follow some standard of behaviour and rub off the initial meritocratic protectionism from participating in making culture and knowledge accessible to everybody. The Internet as an ecosystem is doomed if even Wikimedians cannot pass this simple fix!
Seems like a logical next step.
I welcome and support it. It was timely.
Awesome work by all the Wiki-people behind the scenes.
The implementation of a Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) in conjunction with the community is appreciated. It was a necessary step for the sustainability and proper future development of Wikimedia projects.
I have doubts on how it will work out for smaller wikis. At the same time, I believe we need to start somewhere and improve from there and I think current version is good enough for that.
A baseline code is necessary for governance of the entire project
I strongly support the enforcement of the UCC. I personally have faced personal attacks and bullying from a user who was permanently blocked afterwards. Having such guidelines would allow a speedy handling of such abusers.
Something helpful that will hopefully make Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation in general, even more friendlier and professional.
It's absolutely necessary that we commit to the Enforcement of UCoC as soon as possible. To provide safety and inclusion is crucial to achieve diversity in the movement.
Thank you all for your efforts on this
Makes sense to have rules governing the conduct of members.
very important issue
This policy seems well thought out, much to the credit of those who developed it!
The proposed guidelines touched almost every Conner of ethnic groups and diversity for this reason i support the enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct
I support the ratification process since the enforcement of Universal Code of Conduct is important for strengthening the wiki projects. However, the guidelines for its enforcement needs to be clearly specified.
Key is number of people invested into enforcement and whether they come from background that are both understanding the issue and have no bias in enforcement
Help make the Khmer Wikipedia more advanced
absolutely
Voted “Yes”, but reluctantly as I never worked my way through all the text, but think/hope decent people are acting decently on the matter.
Not entirely sure. I don't want any form of global ArbCom, considering previous failures of ArbCom on enwiki but I feel a U4C may work.
Needs much further work, but vote YES nevertheless. Most nobably, shared ArbComs should be strongly encouraged.
Although my involvement with Wikimedia has waned in recent years, I'm proud of the small role I've played. The development of the UCoC makes me all the more proud of my contributions. Thank you.
No comments.
We need to get this started to keep faith with those affected by these issues
This should be done for long to keep Wikipedia projects be a clean and active space for volunteering works in everywhere.
Not great but might be the best we can have.
I definitely support an UCoC, especially when it comes to incivility or harrassment.
We should set Movement-wide norms for an environment that is inclusive, inviting, safe, and devoid of harassment. We will be able to better attract and retain new and varied volunteers, as well as expand as a movement, as a result of this.
May need some improvement to the guidelines, but seems okay enough.
Thanks for working on this. It's not perfect but certainly a good start in improving our communities.
I find it necessary for the Universal Code of Conduct to be properly implemented that the U4C has some full-time staff members on the Committee who can devote a fixed set of hours to the important tasks at hand.
I think this is a step in the right direction as we have a need for this more than ever as our community continues to grow in diversity with much complexity. This will ensure a more harmonious working environment for all
I wish this could have been explained over a 30 min. conference-call with some Q&A but, from what I read, I think it's an improvement.
I hope it allows to stop abusing in relatively small and corrupted local communities.
Nothing is perfect but I believe this to be a strong and important start.
Having a written Code of Conduct is a good idea, and I support its contents. I could not find enforcement details in the Code and that is just as important (perhaps more so) than the Code itself.
It is very necessary for Catalan Wikipedia
Seems good; we needed this for a long time
It is good to standardize a code of conduct so that things are done more fairly and consistently, and the rules are better explained and understood, with the same rules for everyone. I support this, because things have been too inconsistent in the past and this has caused controversies, for example when Jimbo Wales had special privileges as just one example. If there are issues with this new code of conduct we can amend/change it later, but it is better to have it than not to have it.
It's a good initiative. Though, I'd like to see some changes, those changes aren't radical enough to vote No here. Over time, with some trial and errors we'll have what is the best.
Good job!
this document is important, but still needs improvements
I support the enforcement because if there is no Universal Code of Conduct, then anyone who had a strongly unacceptable behavior won't be held accountable that easily. Take a look at the case of Kubura, which basically "ran" Croatian Wikipedia for a decade. Despite the attempts to hold him accountable for seven years alongside his accomplices (!) he still had a sway until he got globally banned in November 2020, which in the aftermath his influence was purged and Croatian Wikipedia is back on track ever since. However, due to the long time it took to finally take full action against that cabal, it shows that the current method is not very effective. Universal Code of Conduct should hold these kinds of people accountable, allowing us to take action much more earlier on.
I think it's fine, but we shouldn't make it seem like a whole new set of policies, further confusing and burdening especially newcomers in trying to understand editing. At its core it's just about civility, and so we should treat it as such: an emphasis on existing guidelines. "Per the Wikipedia guidelines *and the Universal Code of Conduct*, you shouldn't do A." Or perhaps I'm not making myself clear, pardon me I only ate crackers for breakfast.
It's too abstractly worded and too unspecific to convince me to say "yes."
Any text that is crammed with idiotic *innen is rejected as a matter of principle.
The Wikimedia Foundation projects have always been known for their autonomy and federalism, which is why they have developed so well. If external management is introduced as in usual corporations, it will cause users who liked to write articles voluntarily and without interference to leave. It doesn't matter why a particular person participates in a Wiki, and it doesn't matter what they are like outside of their hobby. Restricting their freedom of action is unacceptable.
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The third section of the Universal Code of Conduct also needs reworking.
To the extent that the UCoC expects that participants defer to others' self-identification preferences rather than biology when the two conflict, it's inherently unreasonable nonsense that cannot be enforced reasonably.
I don't see them helping our community
Overall, the proposed guidelines fall seriously short in establishing accountability and guarding against mistakes and deliberate abuse of the process by enforcers. The "Transparent documentation" section contains several good points, but fails to express the goals of transparency (which should include accountability but also e.g. supporting evaluations of the system's overall effectiveness and fairness). Explicitly stating these goals would then also help to state reporting requirements more concretely, for example to record the specific UCoC clauses that were found to be violated in each case. Furthermore, I agree with several of the concerns brought up by others at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines , e.g. Wikimedia Germany's points 3. (rehabilitation and resocialization) and 4. (right to be heard). As many community members have pointed out, the current version of the UCoC contains problematic clauses with overbroad wording that criminalizes actions that are widespread in the community and have been crucial to Wikipedia's success in combating disinformation: * The definition of "Doxing" includes "sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects" * "Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want." which basically could be used to persecute a large part Wikipedia talk page comments, with defenses hinging on a tenuous interpretation of "maliciously". While we may be hopeful that in the short term the people tasked with enforcing the UCoC will consist only of responsible people whose individual sense of justice and duty will have them resist any wikilawyering attempts to weaponize these problematic clauses, the history of law enforcement shows that such hopes can't be relied upon in the long term. This makes it especially important that the enforcement guidelines do a better job of facilitating accountability and transparency.
I'll quote a fellow user who complained at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Policy_text : "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". How can communities enforce policies that are, in some parts, really hard to translate and understand?
I have been disappointed by the lack of clarity in both the enforcement guidelines and the Code of Conduct itself
For the most part, these guidelines are commonsense and unobjectionable, and for that reason pointless because any functioning wiki will already have the same rules in place. I disagree with some of the focus and a few of the particular points (especially the requirement to abide by neo-pronouns and Wikimedia deciding in its own voice that race isn't meaningful when clearly so very many people currently think it's of overriding importance). I further object to the broad and vague prohibitions on "hate speech" (what exactly constitutes this?) and "intimidating symbols" (what?). Nevertheless, having some unified set of principles is better than nothing and this set is better than it could have been, so I support their adoption.
Unfortunately, this poll and related pages have not been translated for Persian speakers and the subject is vague for them.
Compared to the UCoC the language of the Enforcement guidelines is more complex, the sentences more convoluted, and consequently it has been difficult to translate. The translation of the UCoC itself was mostly a breeze. Since the english version takes precedence it should ideally be comprehensible by En-3-standards. I'm concerned that in its current form it isn't.
See also https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Global_policy_against_vanishing_while_still_condemning_anyone
Disagree the "Promoting UCoC awareness" section. It's nice to be important, but also important to be nice.
I am strongly against implementing this policy, and also oppose any second vote on this. I am confident that any changes made will not be sufficient.
There must be many comments in many languages for this voting. Please translate all of them via translation agencies.
The Universal Code of Conduct is not good so should not be enforced.
Preference should be given to the local language text of the UCoC, not the English text.