Universal Code of Conduct/Functionary consultations/April 2021/Notes

Functionary Summit Notes edit

Session 1: April 10, 2021 edit

High-level introduction provided

  • Including Friendly Space Policy
  • Confidentiality agreement among people in the virtual room

Question asked:

  • Space for folks to provide additional written notes post meeting because participants may not be able to provide their full perspective on the call.

Maggie Presentation (11:16am) edit

Any questions from participants?

  • I do appreciate that we have a functionaries meeting. But there are differences between local issues and crosswiki ones. Will we handle both equally?
    • Will there be additional meetings for cross wiki issues or local issues? How will this happen
    • Answer: This is a start of a better relationship between all of us. I hope we will be able to do more of this and support projects across the board. We don’t know yet but we want to figure it out. If we have to take it to writing we can figure it out, because folks are volunteering their time.

Breakout Room Reflections (11:57am)

  • We were talking about our motivations about being here. We want to make sure that communities have impacted. UCOC document is not a bad document but it is going to be about how it is implemented. There is a difference between San Francisco and other countries/languages
  • We are supportive of the general motivating factors of the UCOC. Where it can be most helpful will be around implementation and the processes will be involved. Concerns will be different based on the community and the active members (editors)

Break edit

Branimir Presentation - 12:11 edit

  • Questions
    • How come the Serbocroatian Wikipedia doesn't have these problems? Do unpolitical Editors from Croatian and Serbian migrate to Serbocroation Wikipedia?
      • Answer: Some do migrate to serbocrotion but this is the underlying political challenge I have shared. The current platform encouraged folks to have this division (based on border)
    • Do you have few metrics about the WP:hr Community ? (like number of active editors, of admins, etc.)
      • [answers on public meta stats page]
    • What about other dialect wp outside of languages of former Yugoslavia? Do they all tend to nationalism and or separatism? Was it a strategic mistake to allow them?
      • Answer: It is a strategic mistake, when we have diverse cultural groups but have shared languages. It is a strategic mistake to divide them, by keeping them together in the long run you are making this soft pressure for communities to iron out their differences without having folks present with more nationalist leaning perspectives.
    • We have langcom which decides if we create language forks. An example would be Egpyptian Arabic. The folks who tend to moderate it, have an understanding of the language but not the specific language (variation of arabic). We can put things into google translate but we don’t have folks with those languages which makes it hard for us to navigate. How can we get lancom involved? We allow numbers to dictate what happens on projects. Who is looking at this?
      • Answer: It is more a matter of knowing the regional context, beyond the language. You may survive without having a native speaker, but you can’t survive if you don’t know what is happening in the area.
      • Follow up: I provided the Arabic example because Google Translate doesn’t provide the best translation but I also don’t know if the resource that is cited is a state run media.
      • Not having a clear process (from Langcom) makes it difficult for them.
      • I do fear the same problem for any kind of (global) dispute resolution committee/body which might be designed to enforce UCoC :/
and it took stewards and others years to convince WMF to look deeper into hrwiki; I'm very glad to have this research now! it's probably not super easily repeatable

    • Is the UCOC intended to address these types of problems (disinformation/misinformation). I thought it was mainly about civility issues or wide complexities around community groups. Is the UCOC meant to be wide reaching (BLP, Disinformation etc) or is there a more limited scope.
      • Answer: It is hard for the project team to state if it should track all of the issues at hand, it is up to the community. In the committee meetings folks wanted it to be all encompassing
      • Follow Up : UCOC as a conduct policy that tries to keep wikimedia a positive space just in general vs specifically one of the aims to protect the integrity of the projects and the users. This requires different goals and different process
      • Conduct issues and conduct issues are connected, for us to come out to say it is going to solve this problem etc it will take more discussion over years.  

Break edit

Group Discussion 1:15pm edit

  • One assumption we are making is that when we fix conduct that it will support content. We need to be thoughtful about that and clear.
  • We chatted about the content conversations to address conduct, but it is important to be conscious of that as an assumption. There are many ways to push people off wiki without content.
  • Point of clarification - Around the relationship between conduct + content
    • They are separate/individual problems they are connected but they are distinct problems that influence each other
    • Edit wars are a conduct problem that is easy to recognize and easy to fix. We can remove them and the content will be good. It is harder to deal with information like Branimir has brought up it is a content problem around conduct. Using bad sources to impact the project is harder to deal with and harder to recognize.
  • We need a process to appeal on an international level
    • We cannot be indifferent but I still don’t see how the UCOC would fix this issue
    • The communication around UCOC was unclear, now I understand why it was set up this way but it was unclear and it stayed unclear.

Reflections

  • Today was an opportunity for learning. Maggie shared the external threats around our projects and Branimir provided a perspective around internal challenges. Tomorrow will be about brainstorming around what the UCOC can do to solve this.

April 11th Summit Session 2 edit

The meeting attendees agree there is a gap in current processes and that the community will work together to address those gaps.

  • Getting some notebooks for meeting attendees (followup)

Reflections from Yesterday edit

  • What are the legal requirements WMF has that needs to be fulfilled by communities and which projects need to fulfill it?
    • Answer: We know the PACT act will be concerning but we have a policy team working on it to try to make sure it will take us into account and our practices. We can’t predict it but we are going to figure it out as it develops. If and when they are legal requirements we want to make sure we have the processes to meet them.
  • What role does the foundation expect for global sysops and stewards to play in UCOC. Unlike arbcom we aren’t conduct functionaries, stewards don’t deal with conflict most of the time (in local conduct disputes) we are here to deal with spam etc. What is our expected role?
    • Answer: This is what I do know and this is what I can’t take on. This is an opportunity for us to figure out this gap and what we can do to fill the gap. There isn’t full documentation around roles and expectations
    • Follow up: there is not an expectation that stewards or global sysops would simply assume new responsibilities and authority. This is why the community should discuss if there are new roles needed, with new responsibilities given, so that those in other roles now don't have to do work they didn't sign up to do.

Reflections edit

  • Creation of a global arbcom
    • Is it too big of a role for the community? Should they be paid honorarium?
    • Should they be elected or appointed?
      • Like one person from English community should be elected (to make sure we have a diverse perspective)
      • Having appointed members you can figure out diversity and elections will be hard because you will deal with harassment
    • Elected or appointed
      • Paid or not paid
    • Chief concern for global arbcom is around the process of getting people involved. You will be hard pressed to get volunteers for it if they are elected, no one wants to be in a global popularity contest
  • Agreed on problems on small wiki communities
    • Having small wiki councils to support communities
  • A supreme court like body that can support large/medium size wiki’s
    • It is hard to support that but we aren’t sure if we can agree to a fully global council
    • It should be able to alter and change local wikis (including small wikis)
    • A smaller wiki council would be able to figure challenges compared to large global wiki councils
  • A mix of community votes + appointed
    • A community votes for members and the WMF can select
  • It is hard to get volunteers, because no one wants to go on the wiki pages and just see folks fighting
  • Suggest to not call it an arbcom
  • The decision of the group should not be shaped by just the majority
  • It is hard to figure out local context
  • Decentralized umbrella councils for smaller wikis can help with the language issues
  • For larger communities we need an advisory role to deal with meta issues
    • For issues that folks don’t want to deal with
    • A meditator
  • We have an issue of scope
    • We have challenges within local communities and we have larger mechanism within larger wikis
    • Smaller wikis don’t have the capacity to deal with everyday problems but they need the support
    • The Croatian wiki problem is a different problem than the everyday problems (such as harassment) . This is a different capacity and trying to solve this issue in the same way wouldn’t be possible.
    • There will be tension on wikis
    • Multiple levels and multiple groups - We should be pragmatic It will need to deal with different sorts of things (local issues and broader bigger scale actions local arb coms weren’t able to deal with)
    • How will you organize this? Would it be different groups for different languages or different challenges?
      • WMF hiring translators or in some way being involved in resources
    • If the limitation is infrastructure we need to be able to figure out what that is and we can figure out how we can set this up
    • What is the 3 sentence lead for UCOC
      • UCOC is very broad but we need to see a more concrete explanation
  • Final reflections (how to engage moving forward)
    • Have folks interested in this topic can meet in smaller groups and make a proposal that can be discussed in a larger setting
    • What hasn’t been discussed yet is affiliates and how the UCOC engages with them.
      • If the solutions we are brainstorming acknowledge the affiliates and other parties
    • Quick question
      • How do we make people safe?
      • What will Trust and Safety involvement in UCOC look like?
      • Answer:  It will be determined based on input from Phase 2 consults/drafting committee recommendations
    • Discussing UCOC with ArbComs that are interested!
    • Meet with other groups about these new global paths
    • Supporting new users in their journey knowing ca@ etc
    • It has been mentioned that if we want to follow a one council idea that would not influence local arbcoms, then it’s the sysops and stewards that should talk together, as arbcoms don’t see problems beyond their own field

    • Suggest longer meetings (especially when we have breakout rooms!}