Dear Reke,
Many thanks to the Wikimedia Taiwan’s Board for sharing its statement and for inviting a
response.
Your concerns about stagnation in the process are very well made. Speaking as a long-term
Wikimedian, I am very familiar with the kind of debate fatigue you describe. It is not our
wish, and neither is it the wish of the staff to discourage those who supported the
guidelines as currently written from participating in future votes, or in future
conversations. On the contrary, what we took away from the vote is that the guidelines are
already functional for most participants, and that addressing some concerns may help make
them better.
While the policy was ratified by a Board vote and is already in effect, we recognized that
building out a global system of enforcement is a difficult matter that requires changes to
processes and structures. Our hope with the recently concluded vote was to discover if
there were major areas of concern, and to identify areas of improvement. The vote did
point out areas of concern and we have requested the staff to lead further discussion on
these specific topics.
In our conversation with staff, we learned that one of the challenges with supporting the
implementation of the guidelines prior to resolving these issues is that the
recommendations ask for changes that have dependencies on each other. We also know that
the voter’s comments may indicate areas of general agreement where preliminary work can
start sooner. This is why we felt it was important for us to collectively examine these
areas deeply after the report is produced later this month.
While delaying the implementation in Enforcement Guidelines is not ideal, I do want to
point out that the Universal Code of Conduct is already an active policy. In fact, there
are a number of communities who have already begun referring to it while enforcing
behavioral issues, and as Maggie said in another thread, the Foundation’s staff have been
implementing it in their work for over a year now.
Consensus-building is key to progress in relation to enforcement matters. This does not
mean that we are ignoring the opinions of those who feel the Enforcement Guidelines are
ready now. It just means that we would like to recognize that valid concerns were shared
that bear additional conversation to help the enforcement guidelines work better in our
communities. This would mean a better framework for everybody.
I believe that the staff will publish the timelines of the next steps very soon and
provide a clearer picture of how we can move forward.
Best,
Rosie
rosiestep / Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
Acting Chair, Community Affairs Committee
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees