Hello all,

As you may be aware, in December 2020 the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation resolved to adopt a policy regarding conduct on all Wikimedia projects and spaces called the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC).

The UCoC  was created to provide a global baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement without tolerance for harassment. It was created through a collaborative process through two phases.

After the ratification of the policy, Phase 2 has focused on drafting Enforcement Guidelines. The drafting committee has been revising the enforcement guidelines based on community feedback from a community-wide vote in March of 2022, and staff are engaging with the community until the beginning of October for feedback on the revisions before the committee reconvenes again to ingest and implement further changes.

In the course of conversations,  it was raised that a footnote within the policy itself, specifically within section 3.1, created equity issues within our community and  did not meet its intended purposes of supporting a safe and inclusive environment.

In April 2022, the Community Affairs Committee of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees asked staff to lead review of the note to the Board-ratified Universal Code of Conduct policy (UCoC) section 3.1 “Harassment - Insults”.

After reviewing community sentiment on this note at the community discussion and other venues, the Board of Trustees has resolved that it be removed from the Universal Code of Conduct.  The UCoC project team will implement this change directly.  

Other potential changes to policy will be reviewed in upcoming rounds of consultation as it moves into the implementation stage and we are able to observe the policy in action. This particular provision was felt by a number of people to be directly harmful to the policy’s goals and unnecessary for the function of the policy. For that reason, we have expedited review and action.

We want to thank everyone who contributed to conversations on this text and worked to improve the UCoC policy. 

Best, 

Shani Evenstein Sigalov, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees.