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Hello Everyone,

My name is Stella Ng, and I am a Senior Manager (Policy) in Trust and Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation. I am writing with an update on the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and to address a few outstanding questions. First let me start by thanking everyone who attended last Friday’s Conversation Hour where the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 Drafting committee and the Trust and Safety Policy Team provided an update on the enforcement guidelines of the UCoC. We also had an opportunity to respond to several questions with regards to the voting process, the proposed enforcement guidelines, and the next steps.

As the UCoC Project Team, we realize the importance of these sessions as they assist us to connect with you, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the enforcement guidelines and the Universal Code of Conduct itself. We also view these sessions as extremely important in highlighting the upcoming voting process. Therefore, we have scheduled two more sessions that will be held on the 25th of February 2022 at 12:00 UTC, and on the 4th of March 2022 at 15:00 UTC, and we urge everyone who is able to attend and dialogue with us. For more information on the upcoming conversation sessions, please refer here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/2021_consultations/Roundtable_discussions#Conversation_Hours .

Similarly, over the last couple of weeks, we have received feedback, recommendations, and questions with regards to the enforcement guidelines of the UCoC. As a precursor to our meeting on the 25th of February 2022, I thought that I could take this opportunity to highlight where we are at this point.

As many of you are aware, the call for the UCoC was a recommendation of the 2018-2020 Wikimedia Movement Strategy https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Provide_for_Safety_and_Inclusion to provide safety and inclusion for everyone. The UCoC policy was then developed by a volunteer committee and underwent extensive community consultations with dozens of revisions prior to the Board resolution that adopted it. The UCoC guidelines should elevate good conduct on Wikimedia projects and should empower all our communities to address harassment and negative behavior while creating a more welcoming and inclusive environment for contributors and readers. I agree with those who built the recommendation that this will support an environment that will have great potential to reduce bias and confusion, and to concentrate efforts at the local level whenever possible.

With that context, I’ll answer some questions that have been posed here, at the February 4th conversation hour, and on other platforms.

1. Where are we with the vote for enforcement guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) As of now, a vote to ratify the enforcement guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) is scheduled for March 7, 2022 to March 21, 2022 via SecurePoll. For more information on voting, please visit this page here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines/Voter_information .

2. Who can vote? All registered Wikimedia contributors who meet minimum activity requirements https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines/Voter_information#Voting_eligibility, affiliate and Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors (employed prior to 17 January 2022), and current and former Wikimedia Foundation trustees will have the opportunity to vote on the enforcement guidelines proposal in SecurePoll.

*3. *Are staff forced or encouraged to vote in a specific way? No, the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation and those of the affiliates are not encouraged to vote in a specific way. We are encouraging everyone to vote independently. For the Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines to be effective, we need honest input to help us detect if there are areas of needed improvement.

*4. *Will people outside the Wikimedia Foundation be involved in scrutinizing the vote to verify authenticity? The UCoC project team has already reached out to multiple non-staff Wikimedians with experience with global community voting and verification processes (including the stewards) to request their experienced help in designing and implementing the scrutinizing of the vote. The scrutinizing team will be announced as soon as it's finalized.

*5. I*s the Trust and Safety team biased with relation to the outcome of the vote? In answering this, let me start by noting that the Trust and Safety unit has three arms: Policy, Disinformation, and Operations. The team facilitating the UCoC is the Policy team. The Policy team is not involved in investigations of user conduct. While we don't believe the Operations team is or would be biased, this separation of functions was intentional precisely to avoid inadvertent bias. I lead the Policy team, and we are not assessed by whether or not this collaboratively created document reaches approval on its first run or further development is needed. We are, however, assessed on whether we work well with the community. This means developing a collaborative approach to enforcing the UCoC that will function for the community. Our goal is to meet that responsibility as well as we can.

*6. *What do the UCoC Enforcement guidelines consist of? The UCoC Enforcement guidelines consist of preventive work (promoting UCoC awareness, recommending UCoC training, among others) and responsive work (detailing a process for filing, processing reported violations, providing resources for reported violations, designating enforcement actions for violations…) that are intended to help community members coordinate well together with processes that are fair and equitable across communities to provide the safest working environment for all.

*7. *Why should I vote? Ratification of the enforcement guidelines is necessary to finalize enforcement pathways, processes, and actions for the UCoC. The vote on the Enforcement Guidelines is designed to evaluate the community’s support for the UCoC and gather feedback if voters have reservations about the present proposals. If the enforcement guidelines are not felt to be currently ready to test, they can be modified until they are.

While there will be time to evaluate how well they are working prior to the one year review of both the policy and the enforcement approach, we don’t think it will be possible to fully understand what works and what doesn’t until we see it in practice.

We also hope that there will be immediate improvement to the conditions volunteers experience on movement wikis. Clear expectations of behavior and approaches when disagreements occur should help everyone.

*8. *What happens after the vote concludes? For the Enforcement Outline to be ratified, the community-led vote will need to be 50%+1 majority “yes”. From there, the draft will be sent to the Board of Trustees for ratification.

If the vote produces a majority “no” or an exactly even split, the UCoC project team will anonymize and publish the reasons given by “no” voters, and prepare a summarized report. Members of the two UCoC Drafting Committees will be invited to form a Revisions Committee; this group will look at improvements to the Guidelines based on concerns raised in the voting process. Similar to this process, the revisions will be published for review, and a second vote will be held. This is why, if you decide to vote "no" on ratification of the current version of the Guidelines, it's so very important that you provide some comments about what you think needs to be changed!

*9. I*s there a voter information page that can provide me with all the information needed for the vote? Yes, the Foundation has set up a page to provide guidance on the vote. You can access this page through this https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines/Voter_information#Voting_FAQ link.

Finally, allow me to remind you to attend the next conversation hours that will be held on the 25th of February 2022 at 12:00 UTC, and on the 4th of March 2022 at 15:00 UTC, so that we can dialogue together.

Best,

Stella Ng