Hey all,
The Trust & Safety team appreciates and has carefully reviewed the input provided here, in person during the event, and off-list. As the wider Wikimedia movement and offline Wikimedia events grow and mature, so must support for those events. That support takes many forms, but includes friendly/safe space policies (FSP).
This is not a need surfaced by the Foundation or by any specific group, but a request raised by countless event attendees and organizers. Attendees, regardless of culture and background, want to be sure that there is some baseline standard of behavior they can expect and that they are empowered to set their own boundaries within reason - and that those will be respected. Event organizers want help to set up a process like this and to ensure that it is appropriately communicated and enforced.
This type of support is ongoing from both multiple Foundation departments and many affiliates. Trust & Safety has, for example, been working on a collection of trainings and visual materials for event organizers which were recently published on Meta-Wiki[1] and used at Wikimania. The feedback so far from event organizers and attendees has been good (and we welcome more feedback on Meta!), but it is very clear that there is more that can and should be done from all directions.
The event has surfaced a number of issues relating to event safety, including how best to handle incidents when they are discussed publicly, and clarifying the distinction between friendly spaces situations and Trust & Safety issues (which may touch on FSP needs but are generally longer term situations) which are often being dealt with simultaneously. The support role we take on at large events such as Wikimania, which are attended by hundreds of people and run by relatively small organizing teams, can blur this line.
These and other items raised strike us as opportunities for a more structured discussion of how to improve the existing policy and the implementation expectations it sets.
Therefore, we will be facilitating a public review of our friendly space policies early in Q3 (January-March 2019). The facilitated process will aim to have a reviewed version of the FSP ready for final conversations and refinements around the time of the Wikimedia Conference 2019 in March.
In addition, the Board asked the Community Engagement department in April to produce a report on FSP violations reported to us, which will happen twice-yearly. The first of these is due December 21 for violations during the first half of our fiscal year, and so that will also will be available for the consultation period and cover incidents tracked since July 1st in appropriate form.
Again, we recognize that this is a important topic to get right, and we hope that these steps will help to improve these processes within the Wikimedia movement going forward.
James
1, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Keeping_events_safe
*James Alexander* Manager, Trust & Safety (Operations) Wikimedia Foundation
On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 12:46 PM Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Since I didn't went to wikimania and other people were already making the points I wanted to make I tried to stay out of the conversation, but now I need to answer something.
***Men (add well-educated, straight, able-bodied, wealthy if you wish) from whatever ethnic group is most prominent in the country they live in have a different experience of life to everyone else.
Harassment, bullying and various other forms of discrimination are much more frequent , even normal, for women, people from ethnic minorities, LGBT people, and others who don't match that description.***
First of all, let's not forget that the incident that started all of this happened to a white straight man from Europe, and so far the only people who were "disqualified" from the conversation for their identity (and trus suffered harassment for something they CAN'T Change) were white males. So if we are going to town identity politics into this, I would say with the basis of this conversation that they are MORE likely to suffer discrimination not less.
Second, no. Every man (or woman) is an island. Each experience is different. Telling someone that all white people thinks the same is like saying <insert racist stereotype here> (I can give exemples but if I do this thread will devolve into a discussion of the stereotype and we done want that).
The best thing that come up of the suffragete and civil rights movements are that we should listen to the ideas not the person who has them, and we should uphold to that if equality is what we want.
PS. : Because I know people will say stuff about if, let's preempt all of it: for those who don't know, I'm Latina and a woman, but that SHOULDN'T be the reason why you listen to me.
On Jul 30, 2018 3:13 PM, "Chris Keating" chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Probably the best thing that can happen to this thread now is that it dies off, but I did just want to respond to this point by Pine, because it's really important:
- How, exactly, are white males unqualified to discuss the Friendly
Space Policy because of their/our identity as white males?
Men (add well-educated, straight, able-bodied, wealthy if you wish) from whatever ethnic group is most prominent in the country they live in have a different experience of life to everyone else.
Harassment, bullying and various other forms of discrimination are much more frequent , even normal, for women, people from ethnic minorities, LGBT people, and others who don't match that description.
So a conversation mainly conducted by white men about something like a Friendly Space Policy is mainly being conducted by people who do not experience the issue that the Friendly Space Policy is designed to address. Or if they do experience it, it's an unusual thing that's easy to laugh off.
Therefore this kind of conversation is much more likely to conclude that there isn't a real problem, or the policy isn't working, or other things are more important (e.g. being REALLY TRANSPARENT ABOUT EVERYTHING), or whatever has happened in a particular case isn't an issue. Which, predictably enough, is *exactly* what has happened in this conversation.
Regards,
Chris
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l