at
"Some have voiced concerns that the UCoC requires thinking around consent. How are
communities expected to engage with that?"
Jan Eissfeld said: (35:08)
"The UCoC, this is probably a useful way to think about it, has been designed as a
minimum standard for expected behaviour as well as to help identify unwanted behaviour.
Now, the foundation and the communities have always agreed and the foundation has always
trusted in the communities being able to exercise a reasonable person standard, so
community members who adjudicate concerns or bring concerns to the attention of the
community have always exercised the ability to look at the intent and look at the context
to the best of their abilities and then find reasonable solutions.
I would think about this issue in a comparable manner. And this is also a long-established
practice, if you think about two examples: For example, 26 communities already have rules
in place, or guidelines, at least, in place related to not gaming the system of self
governance. That very heavily depends on both the intent and the context. And in general,
communities have done an excellent job enforcing that on their own. Equally, the blocking
reason for not being here in order to contribute to the encyclopedia is one of the oldest,
and most widely used blocking reasons on many Wikipedia language versions. Which very
specifically is a question of intent. So the communities are very, very good at handling
that.
We certainly do not believe that the community drafting committee for phase 1 assumed a
different standard than the reasonable person standard that has always been used across
the movement, I think very successfully. So if you think about consent in that context,
this strikes me a as a reasonable way to think about it."
He almost makes it sound as if the communities were doing very, very well without the
UCoC. Funny that.
Sent with [
secure email.
------- Original Message -------
On Monday, April 25th, 2022 at 11:38 AM, Stella Ng <sng(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I appreciate the questions and concerns regarding intent - I’m going to reference Jan
Eissfeldt here, the Global Head of Trust and Safety, and how he interpreted this concern
during the last CAC conversation hour on April 21st (
https://youtu.be/3cd2FxovdXE)
As mentioned previously, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set of guidelines
for expected and unacceptable behavior. The policy was written to take into account two
main points: intent and context. It trusts people to exercise the reasonable person
standard - which indicates that based on a reasonable person’s judgment of the scenario,
the personalities behind it, and the context of the individuals involved in, as well as
any extrapolating information, could make a call on an enforcement action.
This is not a new way of working for many of our communities. For instance, guidelines
against “Gaming the system” exist in 26 projects, most if not all of which refer to
deliberate intention or bad faith.
We do not believe that the crafters of the UCoC were looking for people to engage in any
form of law interpretation or anything complex, but instead, to exercise their experience
using the parameters of what a reasonable person would be expected to tolerate in a
global, intercultural environment.
Regards,
Stella
On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 2:14 AM Peter Southwood <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net>
wrote:
> 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 <sng(a)wikimedia.org> 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&t…
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 <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> 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 <jayen466(a)gmail.com> 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> 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…).
>>>>
>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>> [
foundationsite:](https://wikimediafoundation.org/)
>>>>
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