Mr. Szymborski,
I understand you have very little faith in the Wikimedia Foundation, and are upset about some past decisions and statements it has made. As I already wrote above, you are welcome to express that criticism so long as you manage to remain civil, which includes avoiding vulgarity.
But I also must insist that you not hijack this thread, which is for discussing the draft UCoC. If you see value in bringing up your concerns on those other matters on this list, please do so on separate threads. Since you have expressed the opinion that this UCoC draft is illegitimate, I suggest there is really no reason for you to post further on this thread, leaving it for those who *would* like to discuss it.
As you have seen, we have not yet prevented any of your messages from reaching the list, but we will, if you refuse to respect this express expectation.
A.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 9:15 PM Dan Szymborski dszymborski@gmail.com wrote:
Sure, WMF running roughshod over the community is something that doesn't happen.
I must be imagining the events that led to the community open letter on renaming, which featured nearly a thousand individual endorsers and 72 community affiliates.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming
And do we *really* want to go into events leading to Heilman's suspension from the board or Tretikov's resignation? The Fram suspension and under whose authority the investigation was launched? Should we talk a bit about the Funds Dissemination Committee?
I would wager we don't, but if someone's going to suggest to me with a straight face that we should assume the goodness and purity of the WMF, then there's all this and a *lot* more to unwind. This can't be hand-waved away; too many people "know where the bodies are buried."
Cheers,
Dan
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 10:48 AM Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
I want to echo Jackies two mail
The community for svwp is not so big and complicated issues on conduct are uncommon. But when they occur we often get caught in argument like " you who claim to decide over svwp CoC are just a small kabal of some 10-120 admins, you are unrepresentative and the enwp CoC says otherwise". It will be of big help for us when we need not go into detailed discussion over every abuse, but can refer to the UCoC (and not just ToU).
And wordings... We consist of people form many different culture and language, so what one small group can be seen as acceptable wording can be seen as offensive to other.
When I worked in the Swedish global company Ericsson, the interal language was English. But in reality that internal vocabulary only used 5-10% of the English words, and never puns or sarcasm, and often rather blunt expressions than too "flowery". I think something similar must be what we use in our internal communication of Wikimedia. And that will be welcome for all non-native English people, but can be harder for native English people. I have given feedback to top WMF people when the used too complicated/flowery sentences that made it hard for non-natives to understand what was said.
Anders
Den 2020-09-10 kl. 16:16, skrev Jackie:
Dan,
I am so glad you have given us a real-world example as to how a
Universal
Code of Conduct would be super helpful. It would provide you with a
clear
understanding of how your comments impacted others. It wasn't just your
use
of the word "flatulence" (which, funny enough, I had to reference
spelling
from your email because I have *never* written this word in any correspondence). As a parent, I certainly understand the place of such words in juvenile humor, but your use here was to implicate an
organization
of professionals is simply operating in bad faith. That sort of comment
is
hostile and denigrates people who *actually* work very hard to empower people in the free knowledge movement.
This language serves to alienate people from participation and sews discord. These mailing lists are already missing a lot of the people
who
*should* be at the table in these discussions. The mailing lists are
rather
homogeneous in participation because of responses like this call for discussion. I hope the future means we move to something more inclusive
and
covered by a Code of Conduct.
In a situation like this where someone has said something offensive, a
CoC
would provide a process for everyone to follow and understand. The
people
reporting the concern would have avenues on which to do so without
facing
public backlash and the steps for reviewing reports would be clear.
Based
off of other CoC examples, this often includes who will respond to such concerns and how they will respond. CoCs often go further to clearly identify which steps will be taken for certain offenses and what
response
and support the original person reporting the issue can receive. I feel education is a huge part of CoC violation response. Perhaps the person violating the CoC can do better after becoming aware of how their
behavior
impacts others and still be a valuable member of the community.
If you are still genuinely confused about how what you said is
offensive, I
am more than happy to discuss this with you via phone or video chat. I
find
that text-based communication provides complications for discussions
about
emotional topics. I can see you feel passionate about this situation
and
upset about the result.
Best,
Jackie
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 7:23 AM Joseph Seddon josephseddon@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia has been a third tier social media platform since its
inception.
Luckily we are better known for being an encyclopedia.
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 10:31 AM Dan Szymborski <
dszymborski@gmail.com>
wrote:
I am absolutely flabbergasted that a generic reference of an
organization
to flatulence, something we see in rated-G television isn't
considered
"collegial" enough yet the actions that the WMF has taken over the
last
18
months, many of which were pushed by people on this list *are*
considered
collegial.
If a joke that would be appropriate for a four-year-old leads to
special
moderation, what action ought be taken for someone on the list
pushing
the
failure of a collaborative process that WMF is foisting upon the
community?
One of the people "doth protesting too much" about the reference is
also
someone banned from English Wikipedia for a whole litany of *actual*
things
that took up countless hours of community time, including making
legal
threats based on finding offense in normal Wikipedia actions.
I am a longtime, accredited journalist, possibly even slightly
respected
in
the field -- though there's always that risk of Dunning-Kruger -- who
has
written for a ton of outlets and there's not an editor in the world
that
I've worked with who would've asked me to change the *very* gentle
wording.
If anything, I was too mild. *I'm* grossly offended by the WMF's
actions
over the last 18 months. *I'm* grossly offended by the perversion of
a
free
information movement being converted into a third-tier social media
app.
*I'm* grossly offended by board policies that empower the vested, the connected, the politically adept to judge the weak and the voiceless.
*I'm*
grossly offended by the people here who cheerfully announce the board arbitrarily changing board terms or that the community has no actual
say
in
what the *community* (not the board) built. The Wiki movement is far
bigger
than the WMF; which is a good thing because I can't imagine it being smaller than the board's self-dealing petty bourgeoisie affair.
No, I didn't mean petit.
Yet I don't call for anyone to be silenced because, well, disagreeing vigorously is what adults are able to do.
It matters not if this message is censored by the list overlords. One
of
the few benefits of being a journalist is that combination of self-righteousness and having myriad ways to prevent an opinion from
being
suppressed on dubious grounds.
Cheers,
Dan
On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 2:55 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello,
A code of conduct id something many of us have asked the WMF to
write
for
many years. We are asking the WMF to take an active part in stopping abusive behaviors in our community.
On fr wiki, many admins say they are tired of conflicts and that
they
did
not enroll to deal with them. A code of conduct could help then take
action
because it offers a frame.
This is COMPLETELY different with the branding process.
We are one of the few projects in the open source world without a
code
of
conduct.
So thank you for this draft, thank you for opening up for
discussions,
and
I hope the language will remain respectful.
I believe moderators should ban from this list the person who spoke
about
« wmf flatulence ».
I dont want to read that type of language among people who are
supposedly
asked to write neutral enccyclopedias.
It puts pressure and stress on those who would like to answer on
this
thread, it sets an aggressive climate.
Please could we all feel empowered to apply our founding principles
and
refuse any such language here and on meta in these discussions?
Kind regards,
Nattes à chat
Envoyé de mon iPhone
> Le 10 sept. 2020 à 03:53, Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com a écrit
:
> > Yair > > I was in the room in 2017 when the first community consultation on
the
> strategy program took place. Affiliates were asked to send a person > specifically for the strategy process, and WMF also invited some
other
> community members. There was absolutely no coercion, or control
over
what
> topics were raised during those discussions. The program was not
run
by
the > WMF and everyone was free to contribute any ideas they had, as the program > went on we chose which areas and topics we wanted to be the focus.
Trust
> and safety, and user conduct were areas that were identified as
necessary
> to the future development of the movement. This process has been
open
for
> ideas, comments, and suggestions. Yes the WMF has funded the
process
but
> every choice has been made by community members without any duress
or
> reward as to where each step lead. > > As someone who actively runs projects for the last 10 years to
bring
in
new > contributors, I have concerns about the UCoC process in giving
advantages
> to those who have been around longer but that is not something that
will
be > unique to this as its already an issue in all projects where the
new
person > is the one frequently dismissed as wrong when there is a clash
between
> them and someone who has been around long enough to be known. > > > >> On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 at 09:11, Yair Rand yyairrand@gmail.com
wrote:
>> The UCoC is obviously a WMF-driven project. It was announced in
June
2019 >> by a member of the WMF Trust and Safety team, was added to the
strategy
>> process by the group of WMF appointees (or sometimes WMF >> appointee-appointees) who made up the working group, had >> pseudo-consultations about it started by WMF staff (with wildly-misleading >> reports written up afterward, again by the WMF), and the UCoC
itself
was
>> drafted by a mixed group of WMF staff and WMF appointees, through
a
process >> set by the WMF. >> >> The communities have repeatedly expressed unambiguous consensus
against
>> having a WMF-imposed UCoC. The WMF has absolutely no business in
setting
>> ordinary conduct policy, and they could have the ED and every
board
member >> and C-level declare the UCoC to be policy, and threaten every
affiliate
>> into declaring it as policy, and the only impact would be
demonstrating
how >> far removed they are from Wikimedia. The communities are
self-governing
and >> will implement policy based on community decisions. >> >> That said, I disagree with Dan's calls for nonparticipation/noncooperation >> or for specifically withholding funds or support. If we end up in
a
>> situation where the WMF tries to block, desysop, threaten, or sue >> contributors, or to seize control over the projects, that would be
the
time >> for all editors and affiliates and donors to level-headedly level
the
>> Foundation to its foundations. Until then, we should attempt to
work
with >> them, even when their behaviour leaves much to be desired. >> >> -- Yair Rand >> >> >> >> בתאריך יום ד׳, 9 בספט׳ 2020 ב-16:03 מאת Jackie < >> jackie.koerner@gmail.com>: >> >>> Hi Dan, >>> >>> I hear that you are upset by the suggestion and likely
implementation
of >> a >>> Universal Code of Conduct. I also hear that you feel like this
is a
>>> WMF-driven project. I cannot change your opinion about the UCoC,
but
I
>> can >>> say your feelings about this being a WMF-driven project are
untrue.
It
>>> doesn't matter how strongly you feel this, it's actually many
groups
of
>>> people working together. It was determined as a major need during >>> discussions I had as part of the Community Health Working Group
and I
am >>> glad to see this moving forward. >>> >>> I am glad you feel comfortable expressing yourself and your
feelings
>> about >>> the UCoC. I also would like to say the way in which people
express
>>> themselves and mask insults as "lively discussion" is a huge
reason
why
>> we >>> need a UCoC. To that point, I agree with Isaac and would suggest
you
>> share >>> in a (collegiate) conversation on the Meta talk page. I just
cannot
take >>> you seriously with the language you used in your email. I,
however,
would >>> love to take your comments seriously and have you engage in a good-faith >>> discussion about the UCoC. >>> >>> Our roles in the discussion should consider not only our needs as >>> individuals but the needs of the broader communities. To dismiss
the
UCoC >>> is failing to recognize privilege and power structures and their
effect
>> on >>> people in and outside of the Wikimedia community. >>> >>> Best, >>> >>> Jackie >>> >>> On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 1:42 PM Isaac Olatunde < reachout2isaac@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hello Dan, >>>> >>>> You are allowed to offer an opinion but I Honestly think that's
better
>>> and >>>> more useful on the Draft talk page. >>>> >>>> That being said, by "effective vote or representation in the >>> proceedings", >>>> you probably expected a different model where different language >>>> Wikip(m)edia community would be represented or vote on weather
to
have
>> a >>>> UCoC. >>>> >>>> The current model isn't bad. I do think we should review the
draft
and >>> if >>>> there are specific wording we disagree with, we can either
suggest
>>>> improvement or removal altogether. I honestly think we need to
help
and >>>> support the drafting committee at this stage. >>>> >>>> Regards >>>> >>>> Isaac >>>> >>>> On Tue, 8 Sep 2020, 19:25 Dan Szymborski, <
dszymborski@gmail.com>
>> wrote: >>>>> I'm also perfectly free to express to the IRS that I'd really
like
to
>>>> get a >>>>> $10 million check from them at tax time. The ability to offer
an
>>> opinion >>>> on >>>>> proceedings with no effective vote or representation in the >> proceedings >>>> is >>>>> about as good as a fart in the wind. I'd prefer the WMF keep
its
>>>> flatulence >>>>> to itself. >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 2:17 PM Isaac Olatunde < >>> reachout2isaac@gmail.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On the contrary, I do not think this is an imposition by the
Board
>> or >>>> WMF >>>>>> as we are allowed to comment on the draft, and suggest
improvement.
>>>>>> I have been following the process closely and I do not see
anything
>>>> that >>>>>> looks like an "imposition" >>>>>> >>>>>> The Universal Code of Conduct is not a substitute to the
existing
>>>> policy >>>>> or >>>>>> guidelines but a behavioural guidelines expected of users in
any
>>>>> Wikimedia >>>>>> project. >>>>>> >>>>>> Regards >>>>>> >>>>>> Isaac >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tue, 8 Sep 2020, 16:11 Dan Szymborski, <
dszymborski@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> As this is being explicitly imposed by the board from above >> without >>>>>>> community approval, participating in any way is ethically >> unsound. >>>>> Doubly >>>>>>> so without a board election preceding this as the WMF has >>> arbitrarily >>>>>>> denied communities the right, as manifested in the election
of
>> the >>>>>>> community seats, to voice their opinions of actions that WMF
has
>>>> taken >>>>>> over >>>>>>> the last 18 months. A collaborative process is a
collaborative
>>>> process >>>>>> when >>>>>>> it's actually a collaborative process, not just when it's
called
>>> one. >>>>>>> The best use of time at this point is to organize the
communities
>>> to >>>>> use >>>>>>> every means at its disposal to resist such an imposition. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 4:18 PM Patrick Earley < >>> pearley@wikimedia.org >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> We are excited to share a draft of the Universal Code of >> Conduct >>>>>>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct
,
>>> which >>>>> the >>>>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called for earlier
this
>>> year >>>>>>>> < >>>>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/May_2...
>>>>>>>>> , >>>>>>>> for your review and feedback. The discussion will be open
until
>>>>> October >>>>>>> 6, >>>>>>>> 2020. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The UCoC Drafting Committee >>>>>>>> < >>>>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Drafting_committee
>>>>>>>>> wants >>>>>>>> to learn which parts of the draft would present challenges
for
>>> you >>>> or >>>>>>> your >>>>>>>> work. What is missing from this draft? What do you like, and >> what >>>>> could >>>>>>> be >>>>>>>> improved? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Many thanks to the Committee, and everyone who has helped
with
>>>>>>> translations >>>>>>>> so far. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Please join the conversation >>>>>>>> <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Draft_review
>>>>>>>> and share this email with others who may be interested to
join,
>>>> too. >>>>>>>> To learn more about the UCoC project, see the Universal Code
of
>>>>> Conduct >>>>>>>> page >>>>>>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct
,
>> and >>>> the >>>>>> FAQ >>>>>>>> <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/FAQ
>>> , >>>> on >>>>>>> Meta. >>>>>>>> [1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct
>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> [2] >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/May_2...
>>>>>>>> [3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Draft_review
>>>>>>>> [4] >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/FAQ >>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>> Patrick Earley >>>>>>>> Policy Manager, Trust and Safety >>>>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation >>>>>>>> pearley@wikimedia.org >>>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >>>>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
and
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