Anne/Risker:
I've never been convinced that including a mixture
of required, forbidden, and aspirational standards all in one document is a good idea, and
I personally struggle to see how including essentially unenforceable aspects of the UCoC
will do anything other than weaken the effectiveness of rest of the document.
Dear Risker,
This is exactly my concern about the UCoC. Thank you for your words,
which, as usually, point to the essence of the subject.
Someone who tries to achieve too much, will finally achieve nothing.
In parts, the document reads like the job description for a paid
social media manager, not like a basic guideline for volunteers who
decide themselves how much time they want or can to invest in their
hobby.
On the other hand, I do agree that the owner of a wiki has a
responsibility to provide basic rules, and I do regret that the global
community did not create such a code itself. It did not happen in ...
20 years!
We will see how this all will turn out in practice. Even if you can,
theoretically, get banned for not helping a (problematic) newbie, we
hope that the enforcers will know how to wisely use the new
instrument. The acceptance within the community will depend more on
that than on the exact content or wording.
Kind regards
Ziko
Am Mi., 3. Feb. 2021 um 03:34 Uhr schrieb Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com>om>:
While I often agree with you, Yair Rand, in this case I think you're mistaken. Aside
from the long-ago "community vote" on licensing (which was pretty much required
based on the prior licensing scheme), every Wikimedia-wide policy has been authorized by
the WMF Board of Trustees. That includes the terms of use and the privacy policy. As the
technical owners of the infrastructure, the WMF Board does have the right (if not the
responsibility) to identify the manner in which the websites it supports and hosts can be
used, and I think this principle is actually pretty widely held, at least in the abstract
(i.e., hosting organizations can and should apply standards on the services they host). In
every policy-related case that I have reviewed going back to the very earliest days, there
has been at least some level of community discussion, and there have always been
detractors of every policy the Board has approved; that has not made the policies either
invalid or unworkable.
I've never been convinced that including a mixture of required, forbidden, and
aspirational standards all in one document is a good idea, and I personally struggle to
see how including essentially unenforceable aspects of the UCoC will do anything other
than weaken the effectiveness of rest of the document. For example, I cannot imagine
anyone being sanctioned in any way for "failure to thank" or "failure to
mentor", although both of these are considered expectations in the
"Civility" section; and one thing that a Uniform Code of Conduct would logically
have is a uniform enforcement scheme.
Nonetheless, I do believe that it is within the Board's scope and responsibility to
approve this and other global policies designed to protect the WMF, the projects, the
users of the websites, and the content managers/editors/etc (what we often call "the
community").
Risker/Anne
On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 17:28, Yair Rand <yyairrand(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The community has not approved the WMF's UCoC. It is not a Wikimedia policy, it is
not binding, it has no authority. The WMF does not control the Wikimedia projects, and has
no jurisdiction in this area.
The community rejected this over and over again. It is harmful that the Board is
pretending they can do this unilaterally.
-- Yair Rand
בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-6:59 מאת María Sefidari
<maria@wikimedia.org>:
Hi everyone,
I’m pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has unanimously approved a Universal
Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia projects and movement.[1] A Universal Code of Conduct
was one of the final recommendations of the Movement Strategy 2030 process - a multi-year,
participatory community effort to define the future of our movement. The final Universal
Code of Conduct seeks to address disparities in conduct policies across our hundreds of
projects and communities, by creating a binding minimum set of standards for conduct on
the Wikimedia projects that directly address many of the challenges that contributors
face.
The Board is deeply grateful to the communities who have grappled with these challenging
topics. Over the past six months, communities around the world have participated in
conversations and consultations to help build this code collectively, including local
discussions in 19 languages, surveys, discussions on Meta, and policy drafting by a
committee of volunteers and staff. The document presented to us reflects a significant
investment of time and effort by many of you, and especially by the joint staff/volunteer
committee who created the base draft after reviewing input collected from community
outreach efforts. We also appreciate the dedication of the Foundation, and its Trust &
Safety policy team, in getting us to this phase.
This was the first phase of our Universal Code of Conduct - from here, the Trust &
Safety team will begin consultations on how best to enforce this code. In the coming
weeks, they will follow-up with more instructions on how you can participate in
discussions around enforcing the new code. Over the next few months, they will be
facilitating consultation discussions in many local languages, with our affiliates, and on
Meta to support a new volunteer/staff committee in drafting enforcement pathways. For more
information on the process, timeline, and how to participate in this next phase, please
review the Universal Code of Conduct page on Meta.[2]
The Universal Code of Conduct represents an essential step towards our vision of a world
in which all people can participate in the sum of all knowledge. Together, we have built
something extraordinary. Today, we celebrate this milestone in making our movement a safer
space for contribution for all.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees,
María Sefidari
Board Chair
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Draft_review
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct
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