Oliver Keyes wrote:
But we /can't/ have one for Wikimedia, you see,
because we need to
discuss it more. Yes, it's nice that you've come up with a policy,
based on those other policies that have helped in those similar areas
- but we need to discuss it more and justify why it should exist.
There's nothing wrong with discussion and justification.
But we are BEYOND "ooh, I don't know whether
this is useful ~even in
theory~ or not" and the fact that such a discussion is going on is
proof positive that we have a problem. Because there are marginalised
voices speaking out within our community, and marginalised voices
within the wider tech ecosystem, and pretty much all of them agree
that yes, this is useful, in theory and in practice.
Who in our community is marginalised and speaking out? A number of people
have asked for concrete examples of problems so that a proposed solution
can meet the appropriate requirements. This is standard practice in almost
any technical community: evaluate the problem(s) and then discuss
potential solutions. That's not what seems to be happening here.
A proposed code of conduct like this is quite expensive to implement and
enforce/maintain. I personally don't get the sense from reading your
replies that you acknowledge the high cost.
This policy is not for you. This policy is not for me.
This policy is
for the people who are marginalised and shoved aside and lack
franchise in our existing processes and ways of interacting.
Can you please be more specific here? Who lacks franchise in our existing
processes and ways of interacting? Can you name a specific problem or
problems that have come up in the past? How would having this proposed
code of conduct have helped? It's reasonable, prior to creating additional
bureaucracy, for people to push back and ask whether it's necessary.
MZMcBride