I want to talk to you about the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct). You may also access this presentation to get a quick idea about what UCoC plans to do and achieve (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mNVLIz9pmS_7JdlELYnzV7NcUGmQklX8MIvilpb6CUA/edit#slide=id.p).

While we have always adhered to high standards of content policies on our projects, we have often struggled around maintaining civility. There have been numerous incidents where our contributors have faced abuse, harassment, or suffered from uncivil behaviours of others. Because of such an unfriendly atmosphere, many users have stopped contributing to Wikimedia projects, and thus, we have missed out on important knowledge. One of the many reasons for this has been a lack of behavioural guidelines in many of our projects.

Universal Code of Conduct aims to cover such gaps. The idea behind Universal Code of Conduct is to harmonize the already existing behavioural guidelines on various projects and collectively create a standard set of behavioural policies that are going to be binding throughout the movement. These will be equally applicable to all the projects, all the community members, and all the staff members. The UCoC project is an outcome of the Movement Strategy Recommendations, with support from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.

What do we need to find out:

1) What are the major challenges that your community is facing with respect to behavioural issues in the projects?

2) How do they usually resolve those issues? Have the policies been useful?

3) How do they feel about having a universal code of conduct?

4) What are their major concerns?

5) Things that your community wants to see in a Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC).

6) Things that your community does not want to see in a UCoC.

The project highly depends on ideas and feedback from the community. I want to talk to the members of Tamil Wikipedia communities to obtain their feedback so that this can be factored into the existing UCoC. We understand that it is extremely difficult to have a ‘universal’ set of values that are representative of all the cultures and communities, however, it is definitely possible to come up with a basic set of guidelines that can ensure that we have a safe space for everyone to be able to contribute. Through this consultation, you can influence the language and content of the code of conduct and contribute to leading the movement to make it a harassment-free space.

I would be very grateful if you agree to speak with me. Additionally, if you can put me in touch with some of the active members of Tamil Wikipedia communities who would be interested in speaking with me about issues mentioned above, that would be very helpful.