This code has been under discussion at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the summer of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus in 2015 had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community for ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the drafting of the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated that the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed, which will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial consensus, and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the WMF choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community views on the subject?
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised?
"Rogol"
Hello,
As of January the WMF has presented these also -
Dealing with online harassment < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Training_modules/Online_harassment/First_dra...
Keeping events safe < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Training_modules/Keeping_events_safe/First_d...
I would like for whatever is adopted to match other similar proposals. So far as I know, the technical space proposal is not compared with the "online" proposal or the "events" proposal.
All of these are fine for informal consideration but I am not sure that now is the time to call for final review of any of them. Votes take so much community attention. I would be happy with any small group informally approving any of these and circulating them slowly for a while instead of calling for a vote just yet.
Thoughts?
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 5:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
This code has been under discussion at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the summer of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus in 2015 had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community for ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the drafting of the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated that the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed, which will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial consensus, and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the WMF choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community views on the subject?
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised?
"Rogol" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On 02/21/2017 05:36 PM, Lane Rasberry wrote:
I would like for whatever is adopted to match other similar proposals. So far as I know, the technical space proposal is not compared with the "online" proposal or the "events" proposal.
Although those are training modules and the Code of Conduct for technical spaces is a draft policy, the purposes are consistent.
Matt Flaschen
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 2:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
This code has been under discussion at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the summer of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus in 2015 had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community for ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the drafting of the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated that the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed, which will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial consensus, and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the WMF choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community views on the subject?
It's not particularly clear hear, which community? The developers of
mediawiki-core? extension developers? people who attend hackathons and such? It seems all of these groups have been bombarded with calls to participate in the process over the last year and have had plenty of opportunity to be heard. That only a small group of WMF staff have decided to participate, almost entirely in their free time as volunteers and not paid employees, doesn't seem to change that.
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised?
"Rogol" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Actually, I had no idea it was going on until very recently. It seems the initial communications were pretty much restricted to those already involved in technical areas or mailing lists.
"The community", when we're talking about something that will affect everyone, means, well, everyone who cares to participate in the discussion. The final version should be advertised as widely as possible, and the community (not a subset of it) should decide if it's acceptable.
The fact that some people have participated on specific parts does not negate the need for ratification of the full and final version. Work on individual sections hammers out what you're going to present to the community. It does not bypass the need to actually do that.
Todd
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Erik Bernhardson < ebernhardson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 2:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
This code has been under discussion at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the
summer
of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus in
2015
had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community for ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the drafting
of
the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated that the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed,
which
will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial
consensus,
and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the WMF choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community views on the subject?
It's not particularly clear hear, which community? The developers of
mediawiki-core? extension developers? people who attend hackathons and such? It seems all of these groups have been bombarded with calls to participate in the process over the last year and have had plenty of opportunity to be heard. That only a small group of WMF staff have decided to participate, almost entirely in their free time as volunteers and not paid employees, doesn't seem to change that.
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised?
"Rogol" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 3:17 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, I had no idea it was going on until very recently. It seems the initial communications were pretty much restricted to those already involved in technical areas or mailing lists.
"The community", when we're talking about something that will affect everyone, means, well, everyone who cares to participate in the discussion. The final version should be advertised as widely as possible, and the community (not a subset of it) should decide if it's acceptable.
Again this hasn't defined what the community is. The opening statement of
the draft says
This is a *code of conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces*. It applies both
within physical spaces, such as Wikimedia technical events and Wikimedia technical presentations in other events, and virtual spaces (MediaWiki.org, wikitech.wikimedia.org https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/, Phabricator https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Phabricator, Gerrit https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Gerrit, technical mailing lists https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview#MediaWiki_and_technical , technical IRC channels https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Channels#MediaWiki_and_technical, and Etherpad https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Etherpad ).
Is this the community you are referring to?
The fact that some people have participated on specific parts does not negate the need for ratification of the full and final version. Work on individual sections hammers out what you're going to present to the community. It does not bypass the need to actually do that.
Todd
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Erik Bernhardson < ebernhardson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 2:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors <
domedonfors@gmail.com>
wrote:
This code has been under discussion at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the
summer
of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus in
2015
had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community
for
ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the drafting
of
the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff,
and
they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated
that
the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed,
which
will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial
consensus,
and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the
WMF
choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community views on the subject?
It's not particularly clear hear, which community? The developers of
mediawiki-core? extension developers? people who attend hackathons and such? It seems all of these groups have been bombarded with calls to participate in the process over the last year and have had plenty of opportunity to be heard. That only a small group of WMF staff have
decided
to participate, almost entirely in their free time as volunteers and not paid employees, doesn't seem to change that.
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be
publicised?
"Rogol" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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No. The community I am referring to is all WMF project participants who might be interested in presenting their opinion on the subject, regardless of whether or not they currently participate in any given specific area. That is always the case.
Todd
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 4:21 PM, Erik Bernhardson < ebernhardson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 3:17 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, I had no idea it was going on until very recently. It seems the initial communications were pretty much restricted to those already involved in technical areas or mailing lists.
"The community", when we're talking about something that will affect everyone, means, well, everyone who cares to participate in the
discussion.
The final version should be advertised as widely as possible, and the community (not a subset of it) should decide if it's acceptable.
Again this hasn't defined what the community is. The opening statement
of the draft says
This is a *code of conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces*. It applies both
within physical spaces, such as Wikimedia technical events and Wikimedia technical presentations in other events, and virtual spaces
(MediaWiki.org,
wikitech.wikimedia.org https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/,
Phabricator
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Phabricator, Gerrit https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Gerrit, technical mailing lists <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview#
MediaWiki_and_technical>
, technical IRC channels https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Channels#MediaWiki_and_technical, and Etherpad <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Etherpad
).
Is this the community you are referring to?
The fact that some people have participated on specific parts does not negate the need for ratification of the full and final version. Work on individual sections hammers out what you're going to present to the community. It does not bypass the need to actually do that.
Todd
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Erik Bernhardson < ebernhardson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 2:27 PM, Rogol Domedonfors <
domedonfors@gmail.com>
wrote:
This code has been under discussion at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft since the
summer
of 2015, and is finally nearing completion. The original consensus
in
2015
had been that the completed code would be submitted to the community
for
ratification and adoption. However, since the end of 2015 the
drafting
of
the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff,
and
they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated
that
the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed,
which
will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial
consensus,
and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the
WMF
choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any
community
views on the subject?
It's not particularly clear hear, which community? The developers of
mediawiki-core? extension developers? people who attend hackathons and such? It seems all of these groups have been bombarded with calls to participate in the process over the last year and have had plenty of opportunity to be heard. That only a small group of WMF staff have
decided
to participate, almost entirely in their free time as volunteers and
not
paid employees, doesn't seem to change that.
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be
publicised?
"Rogol" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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On 02/21/2017 06:24 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
No. The community I am referring to is all WMF project participants who might be interested in presenting their opinion on the subject, regardless of whether or not they currently participate in any given specific area. That is always the case.
No, it certainly is not.
Generally users who are not part of the community/just joined for the discussion do not have the same weight, and their position may be disregarded entirely.
English Wikipedia policy is clear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry): "In votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded or given significantly less weight, especially if there are many of them expressing the same opinion."
Other wikis have similar conventions and policies, and some other wikis even formalize this into required edit counts.
Matt Flaschen
On 02/21/2017 05:42 PM, Erik Bernhardson wrote:
It's not particularly clear hear, which community? The developers of
mediawiki-core? extension developers? people who attend hackathons and such? It seems all of these groups have been bombarded with calls to participate in the process over the last year and have had plenty of opportunity to be heard. That only a small group of WMF staff have decided to participate, almost entirely in their free time as volunteers and not paid employees, doesn't seem to change that.
I agree that it's been widely announced in the appropriate venues (e.g. wikitech-l and other lists, Phabricator, MediaWiki.org). Ultimately, what matters is whether they are a participant in the technical community, not whether they are a volunteer or staff. However, both volunteers and staff participants have joined the CoC process.
Matt Flaschen
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 3:46 AM, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
However, both volunteers and staff participants have joined the CoC process.
Matthew is too modest – the discussions has been managed by staff since late 2015, almost all of the contributions to the discussion have been from staff members, the consultants discussed the process only with staff and their alleged report was never shown to other participants, part of the text was dictated directly by WMF Legal staff with others forbidden to discuss it, and Matthew himself has managed most of the recent work on opening and closing the discussions, and promoting his "decision" that a community vote was not necessary.
Without a reference to the community for acceptance, this will be a WMF policy, imposed by the authority of the WMF. If the community are happy with that, all well and good. But let's not pretend that it's anything else.
"Rogol"
Hi Rogol,
When I last spent some time looking at the proposal, I too felt that the contributions indicated that the policy had far too little community influence. *However*, if you'll entertain a hypothetical with me for a moment, let's suppose that the status quo continues and there is effectively no conduct policy for technical spaces -- in particular, Phabricator and MediaWiki, unless I am missing a conduct policy that already applies to them outside of the ToS. If there is no policy, is that better than the policy that Matthew has been drafting?
I am not saying that I am happy with the process or content of the proposed policy. On the other hand, I also think there should be something resembling a civility policy and a system for enforcing it, for Phabricator and MediaWiki in particular. So if the Code of Conduct that Matthew is proposing fails in any number of ways (e.g. failing its RfC, failing through lack of enforcement, etc.), what would you propose be done instead?
I'll note that I'm an admin on the Outreach wiki, where are policies are few and far between, but fortunately there are few disputes on Outreach, and most of the problematic behavior that I've seen as an admin involved clear-cut cases of spam, so I haven't felt a need for us to spend countless hours drafting and discussing policies. I wonder, are the Phabricator and Mediawiki spaces generally civil enough that this CoC is disproportionately weighty as compared to the problems, or would a CoC be a net benefit to them? What do you (and others) think? I'm not experienced enough in those spaces to feel like I know enough about them to say one way or the other. Much as I'm unenthusiastic about the TCoC, I would hope that if there is not a consensus to implement it, that the consequences and possible follow-up actions from that decision are carefully considered.
Pine
Pine
When I last spent some time looking at the proposal, I too felt that the
contributions indicated that the policy had far too little community influence. *However*, if you'll entertain a hypothetical with me for a moment, let's suppose that the status quo continues and there is effectively no conduct policy for technical spaces -- in particular, Phabricator and MediaWiki, unless I am missing a conduct policy that already applies to them outside of the ToS. If there is no policy, is that better than the policy that Matthew has been drafting?
Perhaps that is a good reason for putting the decision to the Community: collectively they are the people who have to deal with the consequences of a flawed or non-existent policy.
"Rogol"
Well, WMF will have to deal with this policy too. (:
I'm cautious about using a plurality of comments on this list as a proxy for an RfC, but if I was WMF and I was looking at the comments on this thread, I would be giving a lot of thought to fallbacks in case the RfC either fails to achieve consensus or if there is a consensus against it.
I'm going to do something bold here and ping Maggie. I met her long before she was promoted to her current exalted position, and I like how she thinks about problems. I'm not promising to agree with her on this issue, but I'd be really interested in hearing her thoughts about options if the TCoC does not achieve consensus. I'm asking for opinions and options,rather than decisions.While I have mixed feelings about TCoC and the process for its creation, I also don't want anarchy in Phabricator and MediaWiki, so it seems prudent to explore alternatives.
A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made some good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far less WMF involvement with the draft, but in principle I tend to think that there should be some kind of baseline expectation for civil conduct, some explanations of what that means, and some ways for the community (i.e. not WMF) to address behavior problems in places like Phabricator and MediaWiki. Even if this iteration of the TCoC is not adopted, perhaps with some modifications or revisions and with community leadership, some kind of TCoC will be adopted at a future date.
Pine
I think we definitely should think about next steps if the draft fails to gain consensus. (And, for that matter, if it does get consensus, there will be a lot of followup work in that case too.)
But if it fails, one of the most important questions will be "Why did people object to this and how can we address those issues?"
On Feb 24, 2017 2:15 PM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Well, WMF will have to deal with this policy too. (:
I'm cautious about using a plurality of comments on this list as a proxy for an RfC, but if I was WMF and I was looking at the comments on this thread, I would be giving a lot of thought to fallbacks in case the RfC either fails to achieve consensus or if there is a consensus against it.
I'm going to do something bold here and ping Maggie. I met her long before she was promoted to her current exalted position, and I like how she thinks about problems. I'm not promising to agree with her on this issue, but I'd be really interested in hearing her thoughts about options if the TCoC does not achieve consensus. I'm asking for opinions and options,rather than decisions.While I have mixed feelings about TCoC and the process for its creation, I also don't want anarchy in Phabricator and MediaWiki, so it seems prudent to explore alternatives.
A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made some good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far less WMF involvement with the draft, but in principle I tend to think that there should be some kind of baseline expectation for civil conduct, some explanations of what that means, and some ways for the community (i.e. not WMF) to address behavior problems in places like Phabricator and MediaWiki. Even if this iteration of the TCoC is not adopted, perhaps with some modifications or revisions and with community leadership, some kind of TCoC will be adopted at a future date.
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made some good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far less WMF involvement with the draft
One thing I just don't understand here, why should the people that participate in technical spaces more than most (because it's their job to do so) not be involved?
Let me rephrase and elaborate on that point. Phabricator and MediaWiki aren't the WMF wiki. I think that WMF employees' proposals, comments, questions, and suggestions can be welcome for TCoC drafting. However, in terms of process leadership and in terms of proportion of input, I would like to see -- and I think that the proposal would be more likely to pass an RfC on adoption for the whole document -- community leadership of the process, and a greater proportion of community input.
Pine
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:36 PM, Erik Bernhardson < ebernhardson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made some good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far less WMF involvement with the draft
One thing I just don't understand here, why should the people that participate in technical spaces more than most (because it's their job to do so) not be involved? _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
* The people in the WMF and the Affiliates are /part of/ of the communities. * Even the people without extensive years of volunteering, or those who only started volunteering at the same time as they became professionally involved, are part of the communities. * It is illogical for us to tell the people who take on highly-active roles, that they are no longer able to lead. * We (collectively) try to encourage the extremely capable volunteers to apply for jobs, and for grants. * If Wikimedia Cascadia becomes a well-funded chapter, and you were a staffer of it, would you become ineligible to lead proposals that effect your area of activity?
WMF staff are certainly contributors within the technical spaces. There's no reason why they shouldn't be able to participate in the COC formation process (which I have unrelated concerns with...)
A lack of other community members participation is perhaps half on a lack of advertising, and half on a lack of interest.
Adrian Raddatz
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 4:12 PM, quiddity pandiculation@gmail.com wrote:
- The people in the WMF and the Affiliates are /part of/ of the
communities.
- Even the people without extensive years of volunteering, or those who
only started volunteering at the same time as they became professionally involved, are part of the communities.
- It is illogical for us to tell the people who take on highly-active
roles, that they are no longer able to lead.
- We (collectively) try to encourage the extremely capable volunteers to
apply for jobs, and for grants.
- If Wikimedia Cascadia becomes a well-funded chapter, and you were a
staffer of it, would you become ineligible to lead proposals that effect your area of activity?
-- quiddity
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 2:26 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Let me rephrase and elaborate on that point. Phabricator and MediaWiki aren't the WMF wiki. I think that WMF employees' proposals, comments, questions, and suggestions can be welcome for TCoC drafting. However, in terms of process leadership and in terms of proportion of input, I would like to see -- and I think that the proposal would be more likely to pass an RfC on adoption for the whole document -- community leadership of the process, and a greater proportion of community input.
Pine
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:36 PM, Erik Bernhardson < ebernhardson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
A point I should make is that I think that Matthew and others made
some
good-faith efforts with the current draft. I would have proposed far
less
WMF involvement with the draft
One thing I just don't understand here, why should the people that participate in technical spaces more than most (because it's their job
to
do so) not be involved? _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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- The people in the WMF and the Affiliates are /part of/ of the
communities.
- Even the people without extensive years of volunteering, or those who
only started volunteering at the same time as they became professionally involved, are part of the communities.
- It is illogical for us to tell the people who take on highly-active
roles, that they are no longer able to lead.
- We (collectively) try to encourage the extremely capable volunteers to
apply for jobs, and for grants.
- If Wikimedia Cascadia becomes a well-funded chapter, and you were a
staffer of it, would you become ineligible to lead proposals that effect your area of activity?
The way that I tend to think about this question -- which as I'll explain in a minute, I know is simplified -- is that by "the community" we mean people who are not WMF employees or employees of affiliates, and who contribute to the Wikiverse in some way.
This email is going to sound legalistic at first but I hope you'll read it all the way through.
The reason behind that thinking (and others may have their own thoughts on this) is that WMF and affiliate employees are receiving financial and non-financial compensation from WMF or their affiliate, and they have strong incentives -- in some cases, legal obligations -- to do what their employer tells them to do and to comply with their contracts, or else lose their job and possibly get a bad reference which could impact the likelihood of them being hired by anyone else. Also, I doubt that many WMF and affiliate employees would feel that it's permissible and safe for them to publicly critique the members of their governing boards, which is another difference between employees and community members.
There are also cultural differences. WMF is organized hierarchically, is opaque about details of its financial spending (an illustration of this was the contract with Sue for consulting work which was a surprise when I learned about it), has chosen to use technical means to override community RfC decisions (such as with Superprotect), and isn't a membership organization.
WMF does a lot of valuable work in support of the community, for example by running servers, handling subpoenas, developing software, and providing grants to individuals and organizations. Affiliate employees also do very important work, such as with Wikidata and the Wikipedia in Education program.
Admittedly, the dichotomy of "community membership" / "employee" is a simplification. For example, individual grantees and contractors may do temporary or part-time work for WMF or an affiliate. Affiliates as organizations have some interest in the health and policies of WMF and staying on somewhat good terms with WMF, particularly regarding WMF's role as a grantmaker and provider of trademark licenses.
I think that having WMF and affiliate employees in support roles is important and valuable. However, one place where problems start to surface is when WMF or affiliate employees start to tell their communities what to do. That is not their job. Their job is to support the community and to implement policy, not to manage the community, and not to create policy without approval from either their organization's board or from the community that they serve.
The "community" vs "employee" dichotomy makes it sound like there are no shades of gray, but there are, and I'd welcome conversations about how to develop a vocabulary that better illustrates this.
To answer your last question directly: yes, there are initiatives which I would feel would be inappropriate for me to lead as an affiliate or WMF employee, for example I would feel OK about *facilitating* community discussion about a global ban policy but I wouldn't want to create and impose that policy myself without some kind of community consensus. Also, I would be much more cautious about what I chose to say about the governance of WMF and my affiliate employer, because I would have financial and employment interests that would conflict with my ability to speak candidly, especially in public.
A brief follow-up to Adrian regarding :
A lack of other community members participation is perhaps half on a lack of advertising, and half on a lack of interest.
From what I can see, Matthew has been thorough about trying to recruit
participation.
I'm trying to leave the door open to approving some kind of TCoC. Perhaps there will indeed be community consensus to approve the draft that's currently in the works -- I don't know. I prefer a different process and some changes to the draft, but with the information that I have it's impossible for me to predict what the outcome of an RfC on the final document will be. If it's approved with significant community (i.e. non-WMF support), I'll learn to accept it or propose amendments at some point. I realize that there has been good-faith effort in developing that draft, and I appreciate the effort even if the draft doesn't pass. From my perspective, a bigger problem with conduct policy at the moment is the situation with WMF's global ban practices, as has been discussed elsewhere.
Pine
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 4:44 PM, Adrian Raddatz ajraddatz@gmail.com wrote:
A lack of other community members participation is perhaps half on a lack of advertising, and half on a lack of interest.
The drafting process was advertised to the point of obnoxiousness. I count 30 announcements in my inbox from Matt, and that's with Gmail merging identical emails from multiple mailing lists. There has been a discussion section in all IRL tech events. There has been an extended talk page discussion with 126 distinct accounts (36 of which have "WMF" in their name).
For comparison, AFAIK the largest discussion in the technical community so far was the one to switch from Bugzilla to Phabricator (something that affects the average contributor far, far more than the existence of a group of people who address harassment concerns), which had seen the involvement of 91 accounts: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Phabricator
So IMO neither interest nor participation has been lacking. I'll also note that I find it unhelpful that this topic is being forum-shopped here instead of one of the discussion channels of the Wikimedia tech community (wikitech-l being the obvious one).
I would like to also point out a central notice banner was displayed on Mediawiki.org to logged in users.
Seddon
On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 2:28 AM, Gergő Tisza gtisza@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 4:44 PM, Adrian Raddatz ajraddatz@gmail.com wrote:
A lack of other community members participation is perhaps half on a lack of advertising, and half on a lack of interest.
The drafting process was advertised to the point of obnoxiousness. I count 30 announcements in my inbox from Matt, and that's with Gmail merging identical emails from multiple mailing lists. There has been a discussion section in all IRL tech events. There has been an extended talk page discussion with 126 distinct accounts (36 of which have "WMF" in their name).
For comparison, AFAIK the largest discussion in the technical community so far was the one to switch from Bugzilla to Phabricator (something that affects the average contributor far, far more than the existence of a group of people who address harassment concerns), which had seen the involvement of 91 accounts: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Phabricator
So IMO neither interest nor participation has been lacking. I'll also note that I find it unhelpful that this topic is being forum-shopped here instead of one of the discussion channels of the Wikimedia tech community (wikitech-l being the obvious one). _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Pine W wrote:
When I last spent some time looking at the proposal, I too felt that the contributions indicated that the policy had far too little community influence. *However*, if you'll entertain a hypothetical with me for a moment, let's suppose that the status quo continues and there is effectively no conduct policy for technical spaces -- in particular, Phabricator and MediaWiki, unless I am missing a conduct policy that already applies to them outside of the ToS. If there is no policy, is that better than the policy that Matthew has been drafting?
The "no conduct policy for technical spaces" argument was debunked here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085573.html
Pine W also wrote:
Well, WMF will have to deal with this policy too. (:
Sort of. The proposed text currently includes "If a WMF employee or contractor is accused of wrongdoing, or a WMF employee or contractor is reported as being subjected to wrongdoing, the Committee will forward the report to the employee's or contractor’s manager, and to WMF HR in writing." It remains very unclear whether this code of conduct policy can apply to Wikimedia Foundation employees, given comments from the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Human Resources departments.
While I have mixed feelings about TCoC and the process for its creation, I also don't want anarchy in Phabricator and MediaWiki, so it seems prudent to explore alternatives.
Anarchy? Huh?
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:
However, since the end of 2015 the drafting of the code has largely been in the hands of a small group of WMF staff, and they have taken it on themselves to change that consensus and stated that the code will come into effect as soon as the last section is agreed, which will be quite soon.
Do the WMF and the wider Community wish to adhere to the initial consensus, and put the draft code out to the comunity for adoption? Or will the WMF choose to enact it on their own authority irrespective of any community views on the subject?
If the code is to be voted on by the Community, what would be the appropriate venue for the vote, and where should the vote be publicised?
It's pretty bizarre that nobody has addressed this. Many people supported specific sections of the proposed document with an explicit understanding that there would be a final vote on the full document later. A few members of Wikimedia Foundation staff then tried to declare that a final vote was not necessary, violating previous statements and agreements. These same staff members have also been involved in closing discussions in which they were active participants or even the initiators of the discussion.
This is all noted at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft. I think these actions will delegitimize the entire document and any processes or procedures it attempts to implement.
Matthew Flaschen wrote:
English Wikipedia policy is clear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry): "In votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded or given significantly less weight, especially if there are many of them expressing the same opinion."
Other wikis have similar conventions and policies, and some other wikis even formalize this into required edit counts.
It's darkly amusing to see you citing the English Wikipedia. When I pointed out to you on mediawiki.org that "it would never be appropriate for the person who began a discussion to then also close that discussion," you replied that "English Wikipedia policies do not apply here."
MZMcBride
Hi MZMcBride,
On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 11:15 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Matthew Flaschen wrote:
English Wikipedia policy is clear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry): "In votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded or given significantly less weight, especially if there are many of them expressing the same opinion."
Other wikis have similar conventions and policies, and some other wikis even formalize this into required edit counts.
It's darkly amusing to see you citing the English Wikipedia. When I pointed out to you on mediawiki.org that "it would never be appropriate for the person who began a discussion to then also close that discussion," you replied that "English Wikipedia policies do not apply here."
Note that when Matthew brought up the example of English Wikipedia (in "English Wikipedia policy is clear ..."), it was in response to "This is always the case." in the following comment:
On 02/21/2017 06:24 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
No. The community I am referring to is all WMF project participants who might be interested in presenting their opinion on the subject, regardless of whether or not they currently participate in any given specific area. That is always the case.
Matthew used English Wikipedia as one example to say that the statement "This is always the case." is not correct. Using English Wikipedia as an example to negate that statement is not in contradiction with what Matthew said to you on mediawiki.org.
On a separate note to those of you who contribute to technical spaces and are not happy about how some aspects have gone:
Matthew and a few other people have been trying /really hard/ to make Wikimedia's technical spaces better. You know that embarking on such a path is very difficult: it requires spending many many hours of your time (read life) on it, elaborating, deliberating, documenting, discussing things with people from different paths of life, etc. They have been doing it for months now. It's my understanding that they are doing this not to exercise power over others but to make our technical spaces better, to make them more enjoyable to contribute in.
For all of us who contribute in technical spaces, we should remember: We may not agree with every step they take, but we all owe it to them to help them on this path. What they are doing is a good thing and that's something that sometimes gets lost in these lengthy conversations.
Best, Leila
-- Leila Zia Senior Research Scientist Wikimedia Foundation
MZMcBride
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Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
[…]
On a separate note to those of you who contribute to technical spaces and are not happy about how some aspects have gone:
Matthew and a few other people have been trying /really hard/ to make Wikimedia's technical spaces better. You know that embarking on such a path is very difficult: it requires spending many many hours of your time (read life) on it, elaborating, deliberating, documenting, discussing things with people from different paths of life, etc. They have been doing it for months now. It's my understanding that they are doing this not to exercise power over others but to make our technical spaces better, to make them more enjoyable to contribute in.
For all of us who contribute in technical spaces, we should remember: We may not agree with every step they take, but we all owe it to them to help them on this path. What they are doing is a good thing and that's something that sometimes gets lost in these lengthy conversations.
This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- cation is self-destructive.
Personally I'm much more grateful for the people who did not spend their energy on this code of conduct to "accidentally" exercise power over others, but made our technical spaces better and more enjoyable by reporting bugs, debugging, an- swering questions, writing patches, reviewing contributions or creating or translating documentation.
Tim
Personally I'm much more grateful for the people who did not spend their energy on this code of conduct to "accidentally" exercise power over others
If the organizers of this proposal responded in kind with even a fraction of the bad faith accusations that have been leveled at them, the howls of outrage would be deafening.
On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 10:39 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
[…]
On a separate note to those of you who contribute to technical spaces and are not happy about how some aspects have gone:
Matthew and a few other people have been trying /really hard/ to make Wikimedia's technical spaces better. You know that embarking on such a
path
is very difficult: it requires spending many many hours of your time
(read
life) on it, elaborating, deliberating, documenting, discussing things
with
people from different paths of life, etc. They have been doing it for months now. It's my understanding that they are doing this not to
exercise
power over others but to make our technical spaces better, to make them more enjoyable to contribute in.
For all of us who contribute in technical spaces, we should remember: We may not agree with every step they take, but we all owe it to them to
help
them on this path. What they are doing is a good thing and that's
something
that sometimes gets lost in these lengthy conversations.
This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- cation is self-destructive.
Personally I'm much more grateful for the people who did not spend their energy on this code of conduct to "accidentally" exercise power over others, but made our technical spaces better and more enjoyable by reporting bugs, debugging, an- swering questions, writing patches, reviewing contributions or creating or translating documentation.
Tim
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I think methodological objections shouldn't prevail over substantial objections. I can agree most of consensus in CoC draft came from WMF staffers/contractors, but: *no one was prevented from weighing-in *lists were filled with invitations to weigh-in *I think most of us didn't comment just because they agree with the overall meaning of the draft. IMHO most of criticism doesn't actually target the draft but rather increasing influence of WMF in various sectors traditionally community-driven or unregulated. I'm not commenting nor this influence nor the objections but I think CoC is just a symbol of another issue.
Vito
2017-02-26 15:31 GMT+01:00 Robert Fernandez wikigamaliel@gmail.com:
Personally I'm much more grateful for the people who did not spend their energy on this code of conduct to "accidentally" exercise power over others
If the organizers of this proposal responded in kind with even a fraction of the bad faith accusations that have been leveled at them, the howls of outrage would be deafening.
On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 10:39 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
[…]
On a separate note to those of you who contribute to technical spaces
and
are not happy about how some aspects have gone:
Matthew and a few other people have been trying /really hard/ to make Wikimedia's technical spaces better. You know that embarking on such a
path
is very difficult: it requires spending many many hours of your time
(read
life) on it, elaborating, deliberating, documenting, discussing things
with
people from different paths of life, etc. They have been doing it for months now. It's my understanding that they are doing this not to
exercise
power over others but to make our technical spaces better, to make them more enjoyable to contribute in.
For all of us who contribute in technical spaces, we should remember:
We
may not agree with every step they take, but we all owe it to them to
help
them on this path. What they are doing is a good thing and that's
something
that sometimes gets lost in these lengthy conversations.
This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- cation is self-destructive.
Personally I'm much more grateful for the people who did not spend their energy on this code of conduct to "accidentally" exercise power over others, but made our technical spaces better and more enjoyable by reporting bugs, debugging, an- swering questions, writing patches, reviewing contributions or creating or translating documentation.
Tim
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Robert Fernandez wikigamaliel@gmail.com wrote:
Personally I'm much more grateful for the people who did not spend their energy on this code of conduct to "accidentally" exercise power over others
If the organizers of this proposal responded in kind with even a fraction of the bad faith accusations that have been leveled at them, the howls of outrage would be deafening.
[…]
Eh, they do and that is one of the reasons to oppose the Code of Conduct. Its draft implicitly alleges that the technical spaces currently are a cesspit that is in urgent need of someone with a rake while protecting actual offend- ers by granting immunity to "neuroatypical" behaviour.
It also turns the technical spaces from a place that served to advance Wikimedia's mission into an aimless "community".
Tim
On 26 February 2017 at 17:49, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
Eh, they do and that is one of the reasons to oppose the Code of Conduct. Its draft implicitly alleges that the technical spaces currently are a cesspit that is in urgent need of someone with a rake while protecting actual offend- ers by granting immunity to "neuroatypical" behaviour.
This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems.
e.g. "You literally cannot pay me to speak without a Code of Conduct" http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/
This is literally all well-worn discourse territory, but I'm sure if you both persist you can wear everyone down.
- d.
Thank you for sharing that Rachel Nabors post, David; bookmarked. I think some on this list are missing the point that codes of conduct are necessary to help provide a welcoming and safer environment for marginalized people, including the neuroatypical that Tim refers to (somewhat disparagingly). It isn't about virtual signaling or earning social justice cred; it's about addressing some of the legitimate concerns and fears that prevent people including women (of all races), people of color (of all genders), LGBT+ people, and others from participating fully in spaces and events.
- Pax aka Funcrunch
On 2/26/17 9:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 26 February 2017 at 17:49, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
Eh, they do and that is one of the reasons to oppose the Code of Conduct. Its draft implicitly alleges that the technical spaces currently are a cesspit that is in urgent need of someone with a rake while protecting actual offend- ers by granting immunity to "neuroatypical" behaviour.
This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems.
e.g. "You literally cannot pay me to speak without a Code of Conduct" http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/
This is literally all well-worn discourse territory, but I'm sure if you both persist you can wear everyone down.
- d.
In terms of substantive concerns, the ArbCom model is what most non-staff commenters seem to be caught up on. I'm personally concerned with any creation of a dispute resolution "class" of editor, since I feel that the community does a terrible job of mob resolution at places like ANI on enwiki, or RfC on meta. The less you can exclusively resolve disputes on-wiki, the better.
And this proposal for an ArbCom is perhaps the most bureaucratic and expansive one I've ever seen. A regular and supplementary committee? And one which hears all cases, rather than just appeals? This sounds like a perfect recipe for diffusing responsibility for blocks/bans and that's not a good thing. The benefit to individual admins (and whatever the equivalent is on phab) making decisions about blocks is that you know who did it and how to appeal it. That's a lot harder when it was done because of a 3-2 vote on some strange committee that will be hard for newcomers or occasional users to understand the composition of.
Replace the enforcement section with authority for admins (and equivalent) to add sanctions as they see fit, but with some sort of formal appeal option like asking another admin, or a small and randomly selected group of them, or a small and randomly selected group of others.
Adrian Raddatz
On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 10:12 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen < list-wikimedia@funcrunch.org> wrote:
Thank you for sharing that Rachel Nabors post, David; bookmarked. I think some on this list are missing the point that codes of conduct are necessary to help provide a welcoming and safer environment for marginalized people, including the neuroatypical that Tim refers to (somewhat disparagingly). It isn't about virtual signaling or earning social justice cred; it's about addressing some of the legitimate concerns and fears that prevent people including women (of all races), people of color (of all genders), LGBT+ people, and others from participating fully in spaces and events.
- Pax aka Funcrunch
On 2/26/17 9:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 26 February 2017 at 17:49, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
Eh, they do and that is one of the reasons to oppose the
Code of Conduct. Its draft implicitly alleges that the technical spaces currently are a cesspit that is in urgent need of someone with a rake while protecting actual offend- ers by granting immunity to "neuroatypical" behaviour.
This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems.
e.g. "You literally cannot pay me to speak without a Code of Conduct" http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/
This is literally all well-worn discourse territory, but I'm sure if you both persist you can wear everyone down.
- d.
--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org
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On 02/26/2017 01:23 PM, Adrian Raddatz wrote:
The benefit to individual admins (and whatever the equivalent is on phab) making decisions about blocks is that you know who did it and how to appeal it.
There is no equivalent on Phabricator. That just had enforcement by Developer Relations, first based on best judgment and the Phabricator etiquette and later their own interpretation of the community-written CoC draft.
Going forward, Phabricator enforcement will be less WMF-centric, since it will be done by the Committee (once it's up and running), with only appeals handled by Technical Collaboration.
Matt Flaschen
I am very curious. Why is it that there seems to be so much resistance to this draft code of conduct? This document closely parallels both the WMF friendly space policy and similar policies in the broader tech/developer community. It is also not that far from policies that exist on many Wikimedia projects, with the possible exception of having a better delineated path of reporting of problem behaviour, and a stronger expectation of having problem behaviour addressed. Do people have a problem with the document itself, or just the process of its development?
If, for example, the communities of Polish Wikipedia and Polish Wikisource got together with Wikimedia Poland and they jointly developed a similar policy to apply in those projects and in events relating to those projects and organizations, would people from other projects be upset because (in the rare event that they might edit Polish Wikipedia or attend a Wikimedia Poland event) those expectations would be applied to them? Would we, as a broader community, think that it would be okay to (attempt to) block those closely related projects/organizations from developing such a policy?
This is a genuine question; I'm having a hard time sorting out some of the comments that have been made in this thread.
Risker/Anne
Commenting generally (i.e. not specifically to Risker), this topic has been giving me enough of a headache that I would like to see some kind of path forward, preferably one with the most harmony. I suggest that what should happen based on my admittedly not-detailed look at the draft's history and present state is that the whole document should go forward with an RfC. After that happens, I hope we'll all have enough clarity about the document to figure out what should happen next.
Personally, I'm kind of tired of this topic and would like to move on with something that is less contentious.
I do want some kind of behavior policy for Phabricator in particular. I'm not sure that it's this one as it's currently written, but I'm more concerned at this point about procedure than substance. Whatever the outcome of an RfC on the whole document is, I'd suggest accepting it and moving forward from there.
Pine
Risker wrote:
I am very curious. Why is it that there seems to be so much resistance to this draft code of conduct?
You may find these links helpful:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-February/086595.html https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct#Summary_of_criticisms
MZMcBride
Hoi, With all respect, the summary is not a summary. Wading through long, long more of the same is not helpful. We have had more of the same here on this list. Thanks, GerardM
On 8 March 2017 at 06:45, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Risker wrote:
I am very curious. Why is it that there seems to be so much resistance to this draft code of conduct?
You may find these links helpful:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017- February/086595.html https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct#Summary_of_criticisms
MZMcBride
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On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 7:09 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
On 8 March 2017 at 06:45, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Risker wrote:
I am very curious. Why is it that there seems to be so much resistance to this draft code of conduct?
You may find these links helpful:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017- February/086595.html https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct#Summary_of_criticisms
With all respect, the summary is not a summary. Wading through long, long more of the same is not helpful. We have had more of the same here on this list.
risker asked if it is process or contents. as far as i was able to follow: both. isarra hits it so much on the spot, with "When designing anything - processes, software, architecture - you need to know your use cases in order to properly address them." from process perspective it is driven by WMF employees. (nearly) no input from volunteers, and if there was input, it was "WMF, please let the volunteers run making policies for volunteers". from a content perspective, the policy is bloated, does not remove something else. no case was shown where the pre-existing or common sense is not good enough. the WMF persons driving it seemed to be fine with ignoring these inputs - or mainly the "no-input". at the end of the day if you have 1000 pages of policies, or 1050, what is the big difference? what is the difference of having 40 committees or 41? one. or, maybe 42 for the douglas adams fans.
sometimes i feel a mentality of "less is more" would be a benefit. 1050 pages of policies sounds like a harassment by itself. but would i invest time to address it? no way - i is not fun and makes tired. if we want less policies or more efficient ones, WMF could pay less persons, they would then have no time any more to produce texts like this. or WFM could pay a person to delete pages, instead of paying a person to add pages. kind of paying a fitness trainer to loose weight i guess.
On 26 February 2017 at 18:12, Pax Ahimsa Gethen list-wikimedia@funcrunch.org wrote:
Thank you for sharing that Rachel Nabors post, David; bookmarked. I think some on this list are missing the point that codes of conduct are necessary to help provide a welcoming and safer environment for marginalized people, including the neuroatypical that Tim refers to (somewhat disparagingly). It isn't about virtual signaling or earning social justice cred; it's about addressing some of the legitimate concerns and fears that prevent people including women (of all races), people of color (of all genders), LGBT+ people, and others from participating fully in spaces and events.
- Pax aka Funcrunch
Sorry to disagree, but this particular committee is being created on hypothetical grounds rather than on practical experience and past case histories for the technical environments being targeted.
Based on my experience of homophobic harassment, I would not go near this committee to report an issue as it cannot provide any assurance of confidentiality, nor can they provide assurance that information provided will not be used for other purposes. Emails sent to the envisioned committee can be kept as records indefinitely by WMF legal, who have already refused to explain what records they already hold on volunteers, and will not cooperate with the police or an attorney of a victim of harassment without a subpoena (which presumes you already know what evidence they are holding).
It's a nice thought that the motivation for a code of conduct is to provide safer spaces for LGBT+ people and others, but the implementation, in this case, is an overly bureaucratic ghastly mess, before it has even started.
Fae
David Gerard wrote:
This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems.
Then you and others should have no problem providing specific examples. I'd like to see links to Gerrit changesets and Phabricator tasks where this new policy and its committee would help. If you want to make claims of serious unacknowledged problems, substantiate them with evidence. This is exactly the same burden of proof you would expect from anyone else.
MZMcBride
On 26/02/17 18:21, MZMcBride wrote:
Then you and others should have no problem providing specific examples. I'd like to see links to Gerrit changesets and Phabricator tasks where this new policy and its committee would help. If you want to make claims of serious unacknowledged problems, substantiate them with evidence. This is exactly the same burden of proof you would expect from anyone else.
MZMcBride
I've asked for this before, but got nothing but hypotheticals. It's hard to weigh in on a document that does not cite specific examples, with context, of what it seeks to address. When designing anything - processes, software, architecture - you need to know your use cases in order to properly address them. We spent months researching what the users were actually doing, and the problems they were running into, before we started making anything for WikiProject X. For every decision we made, we can point to examples on-wiki of the trends that led us to this; or the software limitations; or the fact that it actually was kind of arbitrary, and that if any actual reasons to change it are provided, this can totally be done.
And this Code of Conduct is much bigger, in both scope and likely impact, than WikiProject X.
-I
Perhaps this need for use cases was addressed in the "report" which the staff commissioned from consultants over a year ago but which was never shared with the community at large – assuming that it was ever produced.
"Rogol"
On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 7:22 PM, Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/02/17 18:21, MZMcBride wrote:
Then you and others should have no problem providing specific examples. I'd like to see links to Gerrit changesets and Phabricator tasks where this new policy and its committee would help. If you want to make claims of serious unacknowledged problems, substantiate them with evidence. This is exactly the same burden of proof you would expect from anyone else.
MZMcBride
I've asked for this before, but got nothing but hypotheticals. It's hard to weigh in on a document that does not cite specific examples, with context, of what it seeks to address. When designing anything - processes, software, architecture - you need to know your use cases in order to properly address them. We spent months researching what the users were actually doing, and the problems they were running into, before we started making anything for WikiProject X. For every decision we made, we can point to examples on-wiki of the trends that led us to this; or the software limitations; or the fact that it actually was kind of arbitrary, and that if any actual reasons to change it are provided, this can totally be done.
And this Code of Conduct is much bigger, in both scope and likely impact, than WikiProject X.
-I
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David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Eh, they do and that is one of the reasons to oppose the Code of Conduct. Its draft implicitly alleges that the technical spaces currently are a cesspit that is in urgent need of someone with a rake while protecting actual offend- ers by granting immunity to "neuroatypical" behaviour.
This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems.
e.g. "You literally cannot pay me to speak without a Code of Conduct" http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/
This is literally all well-worn discourse territory, but I'm sure if you both persist you can wear everyone down.
Repeating "reasonable" does not replace arguments. There is a lot of conjecture around code of conducts, just like there are a lot of prejudices elsewhere. Even if a belief is held by a significant number of people that does not make it a fact.
Tim
Tim Landscheidt wrote:
This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- cation is self-destructive.
This is basically the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy. This also can partially explain many of the software development-related disputes we've seen with the Wikimedia Foundation. Once a bunch of time, energy, and other resources are devoted to a particular software project, it becomes a lot more difficult to give it up, even if it's doomed.
Leila Zia wrote:
Matthew used English Wikipedia as one example to say that the statement "This is always the case." is not correct. Using English Wikipedia as an example to negate that statement is not in contradiction with what Matthew said to you on mediawiki.org.
Sure, but that wasn't the contradiction (or hypocrisy) I was discussing. In one case, Matthew is relying on outside behavior and accepted practices on other Wikimedia wikis (re: meatpuppetry, sockpuppetry, etc.). In the other case, Matthew is saying outside policies and practices are irrelevant as those policies are local to that wiki. You both are quite smart enough to see what's happening here.
Vi to wrote:
I think methodological objections shouldn't prevail over substantial objections. I can agree most of consensus in CoC draft came from WMF staffers/contractors, but: *no one was prevented from weighing-in *lists were filled with invitations to weigh-in *I think most of us didn't comment just because they agree with the overall meaning of the draft. IMHO most of criticism doesn't actually target the draft but rather increasing influence of WMF in various sectors traditionally community-driven or unregulated. I'm not commenting nor this influence nor the objections but I think CoC is just a symbol of another issue.
I'll try to summarize the latest criticisms and I'll copy them to the talk page as well, for posterity.
Re: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Draft
In the most cynical outlook, this is a Wikimedia Foundation-imposed policy. The revision history of the page and activity on the related Phabricator tasks make this pretty clear: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P4985 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90908.
The draft text regarding initial committee membership reads: "The first Committee will be chosen by the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration team."
As I pointed out to Pine, there's been a decent amount of discussion regarding whether this proposed committee or this entire document can even apply to Wikimedia Foundation staff. The Wikimedia Foundation Human Resources and Legal teams have weighed in and seem to have attempted to carve out an exemption for employees, since they're (probably rightfully) concerned that this proposed policy and its committee will create HR and Legal headaches.
When asked about specific examples that this code of conduct is attempting to address, there has been extreme evasiveness. Problematic behavior in technical spaces (for example, spammers in IRC channels, Phabricator, and Gerrit) are typically quickly resolved. What is this committee intending to work on, exactly? Getting a simple answer to that question has been nearly impossible.
And the previous explicit agreements to have a final vote on the document have now been changed by one side. Instead of having a final vote, Matthew and the rest of the people pushing this document forward are trying to claim the ability to use per-section consensus as a basis for overall consensus, even though they specifically told people there would be a final vote and people supported specific sections with this understanding.
Yes, it is a cynical outlook to be sure, but if you examine what's happening here, this a proposed policy from Wikimedia Foundation staffers that puts the Wikimedia Foundation in charge of creating a code of conduct committee. That's already a huge red flag. Add to it that the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to exempt itself from its own creation, can't cite what specific problems this new policy/committee is intended to solve, and has now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote, presumably because there's a concern that a final vote would result in rejection of this policy. Bleh.
MZMcBride
I don't think the WMF is "trying to exempt itself from its own creation", it is simpy giving its own staff a privileged position within it. Anyone who makes a complaint against a member of staff will have the privacy of their complaint breached by having details sent to the WMF with its millions of dollars and its staff of lawyers whose remit is to protect the Foundation, not the volunteers. That creates a two-tier system within the technical community and is bound to have a chilling effect on complaints of that kind.
Nonetheless, the question I think we should focus on is, should the code as written be put to the Community for approval and, if so, how?
"Rogol"
On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 5:45 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Tim Landscheidt wrote:
This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- cation is self-destructive.
This is basically the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy. This also can partially explain many of the software development-related disputes we've seen with the Wikimedia Foundation. Once a bunch of time, energy, and other resources are devoted to a particular software project, it becomes a lot more difficult to give it up, even if it's doomed.
Leila Zia wrote:
Matthew used English Wikipedia as one example to say that the statement "This is always the case." is not correct. Using English Wikipedia as an example to negate that statement is not in contradiction with what Matthew said to you on mediawiki.org.
Sure, but that wasn't the contradiction (or hypocrisy) I was discussing. In one case, Matthew is relying on outside behavior and accepted practices on other Wikimedia wikis (re: meatpuppetry, sockpuppetry, etc.). In the other case, Matthew is saying outside policies and practices are irrelevant as those policies are local to that wiki. You both are quite smart enough to see what's happening here.
Vi to wrote:
I think methodological objections shouldn't prevail over substantial objections. I can agree most of consensus in CoC draft came from WMF staffers/contractors, but: *no one was prevented from weighing-in *lists were filled with invitations to weigh-in *I think most of us didn't comment just because they agree with the overall meaning of the draft. IMHO most of criticism doesn't actually target the draft but rather increasing influence of WMF in various sectors traditionally community-driven or unregulated. I'm not commenting nor this influence nor the objections but I think CoC is just a symbol of another issue.
I'll try to summarize the latest criticisms and I'll copy them to the talk page as well, for posterity.
Re: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Draft
In the most cynical outlook, this is a Wikimedia Foundation-imposed policy. The revision history of the page and activity on the related Phabricator tasks make this pretty clear: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P4985 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90908.
The draft text regarding initial committee membership reads: "The first Committee will be chosen by the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration team."
As I pointed out to Pine, there's been a decent amount of discussion regarding whether this proposed committee or this entire document can even apply to Wikimedia Foundation staff. The Wikimedia Foundation Human Resources and Legal teams have weighed in and seem to have attempted to carve out an exemption for employees, since they're (probably rightfully) concerned that this proposed policy and its committee will create HR and Legal headaches.
When asked about specific examples that this code of conduct is attempting to address, there has been extreme evasiveness. Problematic behavior in technical spaces (for example, spammers in IRC channels, Phabricator, and Gerrit) are typically quickly resolved. What is this committee intending to work on, exactly? Getting a simple answer to that question has been nearly impossible.
And the previous explicit agreements to have a final vote on the document have now been changed by one side. Instead of having a final vote, Matthew and the rest of the people pushing this document forward are trying to claim the ability to use per-section consensus as a basis for overall consensus, even though they specifically told people there would be a final vote and people supported specific sections with this understanding.
Yes, it is a cynical outlook to be sure, but if you examine what's happening here, this a proposed policy from Wikimedia Foundation staffers that puts the Wikimedia Foundation in charge of creating a code of conduct committee. That's already a huge red flag. Add to it that the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to exempt itself from its own creation, can't cite what specific problems this new policy/committee is intended to solve, and has now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote, presumably because there's a concern that a final vote would result in rejection of this policy. Bleh.
MZMcBride
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On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 7:39 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
[…]
On a separate note to those of you who contribute to technical spaces and are not happy about how some aspects have gone:
Matthew and a few other people have been trying /really hard/ to make Wikimedia's technical spaces better. You know that embarking on such a
path
is very difficult: it requires spending many many hours of your time
(read
life) on it, elaborating, deliberating, documenting, discussing things
with
people from different paths of life, etc. They have been doing it for months now. It's my understanding that they are doing this not to
exercise
power over others but to make our technical spaces better, to make them more enjoyable to contribute in.
For all of us who contribute in technical spaces, we should remember: We may not agree with every step they take, but we all owe it to them to
help
them on this path. What they are doing is a good thing and that's
something
that sometimes gets lost in these lengthy conversations.
This is a circular and illogical argument. Just because someone has good intentions or invested time and effort does not mean that the path they chose is the right one to take. And if someone is steering towards a cliff, encouraging peo- ple to keep pushing the cart to honour the navigator's dedi- cation is self-destructive.
I agree with everything you say above, and I'd like to clarify something in response to your first sentence, as reading that and re-reading the latter part of my initial post, I realize I may have signaled something that I didn't mean to:
I didn't mean to say that since people have spent a lot of time on task X, we need to help them finish it. I meant to say the following:
* I wanted to ask everyone involved in these discussions to have more empathy towards one another. Things sometimes don't go well when we start sending back-and-forth emails on this list, and on this thread specifically, we've already started some loaded statements. My request was to please remember that there is a human on the other side reading your message, most likely operating based on good faith: this person is, hopefully, making decisions based on logic, but he/she does have emotions, let's keep that in mind.
Leila
Tim
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now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote
Has that actually happened? I'm hoping that no statement like "the total document isn't subject to an RfC" was actually made. That would add needless disagreement to a process that is challenging enough even in the best of circumstances, and in any case would likely be overridden by the community.
Pine
The idea was floated that since discussion has taken place on individual sections, discussion was not needed for the final document. I did not see any indication that this was the final decision on the matter. Though clarification would be quite appreciated.
Todd
On Feb 26, 2017 5:12 PM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote
Has that actually happened? I'm hoping that no statement like "the total document isn't subject to an RfC" was actually made. That would add needless disagreement to a process that is challenging enough even in the best of circumstances, and in any case would likely be overridden by the community.
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Yes. See https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft&o... at section "Final approval of CoC", where Matt's statement at https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft&o... is discussed.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 12:11 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote
Has that actually happened? I'm hoping that no statement like "the total document isn't subject to an RfC" was actually made. That would add needless disagreement to a process that is challenging enough even in the best of circumstances, and in any case would likely be overridden by the community.
To be honest, i am a bit concerned about Matt Flaschen's conduct here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Summary_of_critici... This is not the behavior which i expect from a payed staffer.
Apart from that, i see a big COI - the staffer in question is voting at the voting sections, striking out votes, defending the code of conduct and the he is marking a section as "consensus". Imho the COI is obvious, such a behavior wouldn't be possible at dewp or commons.
Best,
--Steinsplitter
________________________________ Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag von Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com Gesendet: Montag, 27. Februar 2017 08:32 An: Wikimedia Mailing List Betreff: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces
Yes. See https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft&o... at section "Final approval of CoC", where Matt's statement at https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft&o... is discussed.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 12:11 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote
Has that actually happened? I'm hoping that no statement like "the total document isn't subject to an RfC" was actually made. That would add needless disagreement to a process that is challenging enough even in the best of circumstances, and in any case would likely be overridden by the community.
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On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 3:59 AM, Steinsplitter Wiki < steinsplitter-wiki@live.com> wrote:
Apart from that, i see a big COI - the staffer in question is voting at the voting sections, striking out votes, defending the code of conduct and the he is marking a section as "consensus". Imho the COI is obvious, such a behavior wouldn't be possible at dewp or commons.
Commons has 30 thousand active editors; dewp has 20 thousand; mediawiki.org has one thousand. Many smaller wikis don't have the kind of COI rules around voting that the big ones have, because it's harder to find uninvolved bystanders who care enough to do the administration. (On huwiki for example it's customary for the person who proposed the vote to be the closer.)
In this case every section closed as consensus had clear majority (60%+ by my count) and all struck votes were made weeks after the given section was closed, so I don't see anything problematic about that.
As I'm looking at that talk page, I see a situation which looks like no one will "win", which is the opposite of how I would like discussions about policy to go in the ideal world.
Trying to salvage that situation is more than I can take on at this time. My hunch is that if the RfC is approved, even if I would change parts of it, it'll be something that I can mostly accept and to which I may propose amendments to the future. A more difficult web of problems will be the relationships that are fraying and the accusations that have been going back and forth. I don't have time to investigate all that now, and even if I did, I'm not sure that it would do much good.
I think it would be helpful, and would be appropriate, for WMF employees to *support* conversations like the development of CoCs in places like Phabricator. But trying to *lead* those conversations is different matter.
Pine
So is there a Community RFC or not? If so, where?
"Rogol"
On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 8:59 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
As I'm looking at that talk page, I see a situation which looks like no one will "win", which is the opposite of how I would like discussions about policy to go in the ideal world.
Trying to salvage that situation is more than I can take on at this time. My hunch is that if the RfC is approved, even if I would change parts of it, it'll be something that I can mostly accept and to which I may propose amendments to the future. A more difficult web of problems will be the relationships that are fraying and the accusations that have been going back and forth. I don't have time to investigate all that now, and even if I did, I'm not sure that it would do much good.
I think it would be helpful, and would be appropriate, for WMF employees to *support* conversations like the development of CoCs in places like Phabricator. But trying to *lead* those conversations is different matter.
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On 02/25/2017 02:15 PM, MZMcBride wrote:
The "no conduct policy for technical spaces" argument was debunked here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-November/085573.html
This is false. None of the three policies you cited are a code of conduct for technical spaces that applies online to everyone, including volunteers:
* https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct_policy - Only binding on staff and Board.
* https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use - Not a code of conduct, does not define harassment. A legal document that encourages creating project policies like the code of conduct ("The Wikimedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by the community or Foundation policies applicable to the specific Project edition, including but not limited to warning, investigating, blocking, or banning users who violate those policies.")
* https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy - Does not apply online, or to Wikimedia tech events that are not funded by the foundation.
Pine W also wrote:
Well, WMF will have to deal with this policy too. (:
Sort of. The proposed text currently includes "If a WMF employee or contractor is accused of wrongdoing, or a WMF employee or contractor is reported as being subjected to wrongdoing, the Committee will forward the report to the employee's or contractor’s manager, and to WMF HR in writing." It remains very unclear whether this code of conduct policy can apply to Wikimedia Foundation employees, given comments from the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Human Resources departments.
No "sort of". It unambiguously applies to all members of the community regardless of status, and Legal posted consistent with that (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct#Freedom_of_the_Code_of_C...)
It's darkly amusing to see you citing the English Wikipedia. When I pointed out to you on mediawiki.org that "it would never be appropriate for the person who began a discussion to then also close that discussion," you replied that "English Wikipedia policies do not apply here."
I noted that in response to a claim about all WMF wikis: "That is always the case.", so in this case citing any wiki was a sufficient counter-example to disprove that claim.
Matt Flaschen
Hello Matthew Flaschen, Hello List,
The code of conduct is affecting the whole Wikimedia community, including dewp/enwp/et all. Why? Because if someone from dewp for example want to report a bug the code of conduct applies. So the local community should be notified as well, imho.
I am also not a fan if a Staffer (Matthew in this case) is taking part of the vote and then closing/evaluating the section himself, i see a conflict of interest here. This should be done by someone completely uninvolved. Matthew is highly involved and should, imho, abstain from marking section as done/consensus and striking votes.
I am not against a code of conduct (of course not! if someone is insulting other users or playing nasty games then he should get blocked ), but i am against a code of conduct whit a arbcom like constructions which lives door and gate open for potential abuse.
Just a few thoughts :-)
Regards,
Steinsplitter
________________________________ Von: Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org im Auftrag von Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org Gesendet: Donnerstag, 23. Februar 2017 04:46 An: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces
On 02/21/2017 05:42 PM, Erik Bernhardson wrote:
It's not particularly clear hear, which community? The developers of
mediawiki-core? extension developers? people who attend hackathons and such? It seems all of these groups have been bombarded with calls to participate in the process over the last year and have had plenty of opportunity to be heard. That only a small group of WMF staff have decided to participate, almost entirely in their free time as volunteers and not paid employees, doesn't seem to change that.
I agree that it's been widely announced in the appropriate venues (e.g. wikitech-l and other lists, Phabricator, MediaWiki.org). Ultimately, what matters is whether they are a participant in the technical community, not whether they are a volunteer or staff. However, both volunteers and staff participants have joined the CoC process.
Matt Flaschen
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