Wikimedia Foundation Community Affairs Committee/2024-03-21 Conversation with Trustees/Conversation about Francophone Wikipedia
- This is a transcript of the conversation about the situation on the Francophone Wikipedia, starting at 1h 21m 26s in the recording.
Owen Blacker, WMLGBT+ board member edit
Hi, I’m one of the board members at the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group and I know I’ve asked you questions similar to this before — and the Board has previously reaffirmed its support for minoritised wikimedians and those who work on minoritised subject areas.
I know you are all aware of the extraordinary situation we are seeing on the French-language Wikipedia, where the last queer admins have stepped down in the last few days after a long-brewing sense of mistrust has solidified into assumptions-of-good-faith breaking down — partly as a result of a vocal minority of editors overriding previous consensus on deadnames in trans biographies, using a slim majority in a disputed vote rather than forming a new consensus. There have also been suggestions that queer editors should not edit on queer topics because we cannot be unbiased and we have seen admin reviews and bans of dissenting editors.
It's been a decade since we’ve been talking about Countering Systemic Bias and 18 months since the Open letter in support of Les sans pagEs, but the situation has only worsened. And while the Francophone Wikipedia is the pot that’s currently boiling over, the situation in the wider world means that issues of hostility to minorities can be pretty universal.
With respect, talk is cheap and visible actions seem few thusfar. We believe that the French Wikipedia has become actively hostile to queer editors and seems in urgent need of Office actions. But, given that dissent is being suppressed and good faith is lacking all around, such actions are unlikely to gain community consensus. After all, if a group could rely on perpetual goodwill from the majority, we wouldn’t be minoritised.
We believe that, to keep to your commitment to support marginalised communities, the Board will need to be prepared to sometimes act to the benefit of the community in ways that do not always defer to the consensus of the majority. You have repeatedly committed to supporting minoritised wikimedians and editors on minoritised subjects. Pending the outcome of Trust & Safety’s investigations, will you commit to supporting their findings — even if doing so is unpopular?
Can you reassure LGBTQ+ editors and other minoritised groups that we aren’t expected to sit around and endure the ever-increasing hostility and harassment that we are seeing across multiple instances?
Esra’a al-Shafei, Board trustee edit
Thank you so much, Owen, for articulating the gravity of this issue and the importance of keeping the Board accountable to its commitments and protecting minoritized and marginalized communities that are, of course, often impacted by these situations.
The Board is aware of the issue and, based on the Trust and Safety investigations, will be prepared to stand by its commitments to support Community health and inclusive and safe communities.
And we also stand by the commitment the Foundation made in 2020 (and maybe Mayur if you can maybe drop a link to that) to be vigilant where individuals are targeted for identity factors in their Trust and Safety systems.
- Link posted in chat: Board Statement on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe Spaces
The Foundation has been closely looking into the situation in French Wikipedia but for now just want to reiterate that the Board will commit to supporting Trust and Safety’s findings and, if it comes to it, any related actionable steps towards protecting marginalized communities being targeted by this hostility and harassment, regardless of whether or not it would be a popular decision.
The right thing is the right thing, regardless of the popularity of it. So we are fully expecting the Community to also hold us accountable to the commitments that we have made.
Maggie Dennis, vice-president of Community Resilience & Sustainability edit
For those of you who might have seen me smile, it’s been a day for me; I’ve had a lot to talk about. So, yes, thank you. Oh, and, I want to also put out another call for the U4C.
- Note from the chat: U4C = Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee
Please, please, please apply for this committee because we have a lot of things that we need to work on in our movement in terms of globally interesting issues.
So: The U4C is responsible for many of the things that we’ve talked about but they don't exist yet and, since they don't exist yet, Trust & Safety does have an accountability.
And we are investigating this. It is going to take some time; there's quite a lot of material.
But we are going through it and we are putting resources into it and I promise we’re taking it very seriously.
Dr Shlomit Aharoni Lir, community member edit
I think it’s important to hear zero tolerance for for this treatment of people based on their sexual orientation and and I really thank Owen for his courage to speak out and share this, which must not be that simple, and I think we expect to hear immediately condemnation: “okay, we will examine it, but this cannot happen within Wikipedia. People cannot be singled out because of their sexual preferences”. So thank you so much for sharing this, but the greater question is how can we address issues like that?
How can we make sure that people feel safe within Wikipedia. And again, I want to say the fact that there's between 15% to 20% and even less women shows that there is a fundamental problem that is going on for years and it must be addressed and the issue of being free and feeling safe within Wikipedia is of extreme importance.
Elena Lappen, WMF Community Relations (call host) edit
Sure. All extremely important topics and I think a lot of this is about partnership between the Foundation and the Communities and moving this work forward.
And what I did hear Esra’a say is that there is a deep commitment to this, to this work, on the Board’s behalf and on the Foundation’s behalf.
Dr Shlomit Aharoni Lir edit
And there’s a question: is the board itself diverse enough? Is there diversity within the board in terms of the race? In terms of ethnicity? This is so important because it’s of tremendous importance.
Wikipedia is so important, it has an amazing influence. So if the people who produce the knowledge from a certain race, from a certain origin, a certain opinion, then the knowledge is not really knowledge.
There’s a very important issue here that needs to be addressed. And I would really like to hear zero tolerance to treating people in an unrespectful way because they are ABC. It’s so basic.
Ellen Lappen edit
Well, I think we can also drop a link to chat about the upcoming board elections where we’re always, always looking for more diverse candidates. And I don't know if anybody would— yeah, I think we've got to move on. We are actually at the top of the call. The time has run out for the rest of this call.
Link posted in chat: Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Election/2024