[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

This question has been asked before, and so far no workable answer has been suggested. Cheers, Peter. *From:* H4CUSEG via Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org] *Sent:* 20 April 2022 19:44 *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List *Cc:* H4CUSEG *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines Stella, how are the community members who review situations supposed to establish the mens rea of the accused? Intent is one of the hardest things to prove in criminal cases, and we're going to rely on volunteers to get it right? We should not look at intent at all, consider only the actual harm that occurred and focus on remediation, harm reduction and rehabilitation in stead of punishing people. Vexations Sent with ProtonMail <https://protonmail.com/> secure email. ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 at 2:24 PM, Stella Ng &lt;sng(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: Hello Andreas and Todd, I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this. First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set of guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. However, it does not make existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in our global movement may have different policies around the disclosure of private information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is going on on a day-to-day basis, as well as relationship and political dynamics (such as the position of power or influence) that the individuals involved could have. Depending on the specific context of your examples, interpretation and action could differ widely under those doxxing policies. What would be contextually consistent across the communities, however, is the UCoC. If we look specifically at section 3.1, which is what doxxing is nested under, what is important to note is context - specifically that if the information is provided or the behavior is “*intended primarily* to intimidate, outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would reasonably be considered the most likely main outcome” (emphasis added). The next sentence expands further that “Behaviour can be considered* harassment if it is beyond what a reasonable person would be expected to tolerate in a global, intercultural environment*.” (emphasis added) The policy as written is pretty clear that both intent and what is often called in law the “reasonable person <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reasonable_person#:~:text=Noun&text=(law)%20A%20fictional%20person%20used,due%20care%20in%20like%20circumstances.%22>” test applies. This is one of the reasons that the Enforcement Guidelines are built around human review since application of policy will always require judgment. The community members who review situations will hopefully read the text in context within the policy and will also have experience in understanding the parties involved, their unique dynamics within their respective communities, and their own project policies on doxxing as COI, as they will have the experience of dealing with the day to day. However, it is likely the standards could be clarified further in the round of Policy review that will be conducted a year after the completion of Phase 2. Regards, Stella On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:02 PM Todd Allen &lt;toddmallen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Actually, you're technically even breaching it saying it here, since the mailing list is "outside the Wikimedia projects". I would agree that this needs substantial clarification, especially regarding both spammers and already-public information. Regards, Todd Allen On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 12:02 PM Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Dear Rosie, Could you kindly also look at and clarify the following passage in the Universal Code of Conduct: · *Disclosure of personal data (Doxing):* sharing other contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email address without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects. As written, the first part of this says that contributors must no longer state – on Wikipedia or elsewhere – that a particular editor appears to be working for a PR firm, is a congressional staffer,[1] etc. The second part forbids any and all discussion of contributors' Wikimedia activity outside the projects. (For example, if I were to say on Twitter that User:Koavf has made over 2 million edits to Wikipedia, I would already be in breach of the code as written.) Thanks, Andreas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 5:09 PM Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight < rstephenson(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: Hello, The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees would like to thank everyone who participated in the recently concluded community vote on the Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines>. The volunteer scrutinizing group has completed the review of the accuracy of the vote and has reported the total number of votes received as 2,283. Out of the 2,283 votes received, 1,338 (58.6%) community members voted for the enforcement guidelines, and a total of 945 (41.4%) community members voted against it. In addition, 658 participants left comments, with 77% of the comments written in English. We recognize and appreciate the passion and commitment that community members have demonstrated in creating a safe and welcoming culture. Wikimedia community culture stops hostile and toxic behavior, supports people targeted by such behavior, and encourages good faith people to be productive on the Wikimedia projects. Even at this incomplete stage, this is evident in the comments received. The Enforcement Guidelines did reach a threshold of support necessary for the Board to review. However, we encouraged voters, regardless of how they were voting, to provide feedback on the elements of the enforcement guidelines. We asked the voters to inform us what changes were needed and in case it was prudent to launch a further round of edits that would address community concerns. Foundation staff who have been reviewing comments have advised us of the emerging themes. As a result, as Community Affairs Committee, we have decided to ask the Foundation to reconvene the Drafting Committee. The Drafting Committee will undertake another community engagement to refine the enforcement guidelines based on the community feedback received from the recently concluded vote. For clarity, this feedback has been clustered into four sections as follows: 1. To identify the type, purpose, and applicability of the UCoC training; 2. To simplify the language for more accessible translation and comprehension by non-experts; 3. To explore the concept of affirmation, including its pros and cons; 4. To review the conflicting roles of privacy/victim protection and the right to be heard. Other issues may emerge during conversations, particularly as the draft Enforcement Guidelines evolve, but we see these as the primary areas of concern for voters. Therefore, we are asking staff to facilitate a review of these issues. Then, after the further engagement, the Foundation should re-run the community vote to evaluate the redrafted Enforcement Outline to see if the new document is ready for its official ratification. Further, we are aware of the concerns with note 3.1 in the Universal Code of Conduct Policy. Therefore, we are directing the Foundation to review this part of the Code to ensure that the Policy meets its intended purposes of supporting a safe and inclusive community without waiting for the planned review of the entire Policy at the end of the year. Again, we thank all who participated in the vote and discussion, thinking about these complex challenges and contributing to better approaches to working together well across the movement. Best, Rosie *Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight *(she/her) Acting Chair, Community Affairs Committee Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> Board of Trustees <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org