Universal Code of Conduct/Revision discussions

Revisions to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines[edit]

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Hello all,

We'd like to provide an update on the work on the Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct. After the conclusion of the community vote on the guidelines in March, the Community Affairs committee (CAC) of the Board asked that several areas of the guidelines be reviewed for improvements before the Board does its final review. These areas were identified based on community discussions and comments provided during the vote. The CAC also requested review of the controversial Note in 3.1 of the UCoC itself.

Once more, a big thank you to all who voted, especially to all who left constructive feedback and comments! The project team is working with the Board to establish a timeline for this work, and will communicate this next month.

Members of the two prior UCoC Drafting Committees have generously offered their time to help shape improvements to the Guidelines. You can read more about them and their work here, as well as read summaries of their weekly meetings in 2022.

Wikimedians have provided many valuable comments together with the vote and in other conversations. Given the size and diversity of the Wikimedia community, there are even more voices out there who can give ideas on how to improve the enforcement guidelines and add even more valuable ideas to the process. To help the Revisions committee identify improvements, input on several questions for the committee’s review is requested. Visit the Meta-wiki pages (Enforcement Guidelines revision discussions, Policy text revision discussions) to get your ideas to the Committee - it is very important that viewpoints are heard from different communities before the Committee begins drafting revision proposals.

On behalf of the UCoC project team

VOTE HERE

To help the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Revisions committee identify improvements to the Enforcement Guidelines of the Universal Code of Conduct, input on the following questions for the committee's review is requested. These improvement areas were identified from community discussions and comments submitted during the March 2022 community vote on the guidelines.

If you have a concern about the Guidelines outside of these areas, please use the General discussion area. Thank you for your time and effort in helping to make our shared collaborative spaces safer for everyone.

Training[edit]

Current text: The Wikimedia Foundation should develop and implement training for community members, with guidance from local communities and affiliates, to be able to identify, address, and mitigate the harms caused by UCoC violations, in particular harassment and similar conduct issues.
Individuals required to acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct will be required to attend training to ensure a common understanding of implementation. Other members of the community will be able to attend this training if they wish to do so.

Question: The drafters' intent is to help ensure that local communities govern themselves effectively for safe collaboration on all wikis and across communities, based on the shared minimal expectations set out by the UCoC and, where applicable and appropriate, the local project rules that go beyond it. Some have voiced concerns with the present language. Can training be better addressed?

Discussion (Training)[edit]

Any training should be community-led, not WMF-led. For a dozen reasons, including multilingualism, regional robustness, and developing shared capacity for finesse. Proposed text, also shorter and to the point: : "The WMF should help communities develop and implement workshops to help community members identify, address, and mitigate harms caused by harassment and similar conduct issues. Functionaries expected to uphold the Code of Conduct will be encouraged to participate periodically in such workshops to align the understanding and interpretation of the Code across the movement."

–SJ talk 21:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

DWI is right. Reading complex text shifts the window of how one thinks in the moment :) I do think the idea that this is a dynamic document, regularly revisited (whether in 'training' or otherwise) and placed into context, is worth mentioning. [I'd prefer this whole doc be named 'implementation guidelines', since "how does a broad community implement a shared sense of 'conduct'" is more interesting for a self-governing network than "who drops the hammer on this part of the mechanism"] Perhaps something like:

"Communities may periodically run workshops to help improve community health, including reviewing this code of conduct and how it is applied. The WMF can help with such workshops and with incorporating feedback into future revisions or clarifications of the Code." –SJ talk 19:12, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I say keep it simple: Drop trainings completly. Also: Guidelines that are so complex that you need training to understand them, are an indicator the problem is the guidelines. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:32, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

SJ's and DWI's suggestions are both more sensible than what we currently have. Either would be fine by me. Andreas JN 466 17:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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FWIW, the statement above about drafter's intent is incorrect but the drafters were asked about the language too late to actually make changes so the inaccurate statement remains. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:35, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If nothing else the requirement that advanced permission holders have to take the training should be removed. This is well outside what people would consider reasonable and frankly isn't going to happen - most people in those permission groups (several thousand) will simply refuse and will resent whoever told them they had to take this training. If the requirement was actually enforced, by removing permissions from anyone who won't take the training, or refusing to give advanced permissions to anyone who hasn't done it, then it would cause major damage to projects. If you want to have this training then it should be optional and it should ideally be developed by communities themselves. However I do agree that the UCoC should be sufficiently transparent that people don't require training to understand and/or enforce it. Hut 8.5 13:02, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One of the most important principles of English Wikipedia is accountability. While obviously the details of CheckUser-based actions may be private, the basic expectation is that anyone who performs an enforcement act should be able to explain the reasons to the community who did not pass any enforcement training. This means the enforcement rules should be simple enough that such training not be required. 93.172.252.36 06:54, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And we especially shouldn't be using the term "attend training", as this implies an in-person (or at least scheduled) process that would present an undue burden to many editors. "Participate in training" might be better. -- Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:23, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to define "Individuals required to acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct" within the enforcement guidelines. As it stands, it is entirely unclear who is being required to attend training. ONUnicorn (talk) 01:17, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure that's a reference to the people listed in the "Affirmation of the UCoC among certain groups" section, which includes admins. Hut 8.5 18:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is completely unreasonable and is not going to work. I will vote against any version of the document which mandates training for advanced rights holders.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:51, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And so will I. There are too many mandatory requirements for a volunteer-driven project. Looks like we are drifting towards a "police state". I seriously fear the enforcement turning into prosecution. Lozman (talk) 17:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Its section title "Recommendations for UCoC training for community members" gotta go. You cannot mandate someone to do something when it is just a recommendation. Or you can replace "mandate" in the main text with "recommend" although I'm not sure who is recommending the training to whom. --Rotten Apple777 (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As Hut 8.5 writes, I can't see most admin-level permission holders being prepared to "attend training"; a smaller group of ArbCom members and checkusers perhaps. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The group in WM that has most dramatically and repeatedly proven its incapability of handling behavioral guidelines in a fair and appropriate manner, is the WMF. Their insensitivity to the basic principles of fair play and justice has several times threatened to spit or destroy the movement. The most notorious recent instance is of course their actions leading to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram. The most far reaching is the attempt to legislate not just the principles of conduct (which is a reasonable movement-wide function), but the details of enforcement (as in the proposals leading to the present discussion), in conjuction with their attempt to supersede the actions of established WP communities with effective ArbComs., and simultaneously deal with those communities insufficiently large or representative to yet be fully responsible. Of course we're discussing here the details of language in the hope of harmonizing their proposals with current good practice; it would have been enormously better to avoid details and exhaustive lists of misbehavior, and let the communities work it out as it applies to them.

This does not mean I trust all the individual community procedures. Based on my 5 years at enWP arbcom, I continue my advice to never go there, for it too is subject to over-specific and ill-devised action combined with equally frequent refusal to take direct actiion when needed and rely instead on platitudes. But at least this affects only its own WP, and the members are elected in a single straightforward and direct manner. DGG (talk) 08:27, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"it would have been enormously better to avoid details and exhaustive lists of misbehavior, and let the communities work it out as it applies to them." <— A fine point. Let's shift these documents in that direction through this and future edits, simplifying and streamlining here while inviting communities to work out their own approaches. –SJ talk 16:55, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am personally quite happy to attend a training session; at worst, it would be a waste of time (god knows I've seen a lot of poorly crafted "diversity training" sessions, but that's neither here nor there). However, a considerable number of advanced rights holders that I know have made it quite clear they would rather resign than attend a mandatory training. Losing this group is not going to aid the goals the UCoC claims to have; quite the contrary.
I would strongly recommend offering resources for people interested in accessing them, and doing nothing further. You cannot program sensitivity into a person unwilling to learn it; you certainly cannot do so via a two hour video lecture. Those advanced rights holders interested in educating themselves about internet harassment will do so; those who aren't cannot be compelled, and it is not in the movement's interest to jettison them in response. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:42, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Vanamonde for the most part about programming sensitivity into a person unwilling to learn it, but will add that in some cases, it isn't necessarily unwillingness but rather a personality disorder that impedes proper social interaction. Anonymity makes that nearly impossible to know, and certainly doesn't offer much guidance in responding to it. I can certainly relate sympathetically to other female editors who have been/still are targets of classic bullying, hounding and/or mistreatment, especially in topic areas that are influenced by subjectivity and epistemic differences. While I support WMF's involvement and understand some of the actions that were taken in the past, I tend to agree with what others opined that training should be a decision made with input from the respective communities. At the same time, I question the efficacy of such training. I am a volunteer trainer for NPPSCHOOL and have had excellent results, but that is more about learning WP:PAG, not behavioral issues. Also, none of the aforementioned takes alliances into consideration; therefore, it can be, and in many instances is, a rather complex situation. Perhaps some of our WMF team members would consider training with some of the community's trainers in an effort to have a better understanding of where the behavioral issues tend to surface. Just an idea. Atsme^📞📧 21:00, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

These sorts of trainings have unfortunate connotations of long, dull, bureaucratic, mandatory seminars in the corporate world. At their worst, such seminars are a complete waste of time or even breed resentment that exacerbates existing problems in workplace culture. The UCoC trainings, however, are as yet formless. Perhaps they will be short, perhaps they will be tailored to communities, perhaps they will be modular to allow people to take just the ones they want, perhaps they will be designed to be tolerable. I don't know what work has been done on them already; I suspect none, but there are so many layers to this process I may have just missed it. The key at this stage is, IMO, securing a reasonable process for their creation, testing, feedback, and implementation. I know nobody wants yet another "process" in this process-o-processes, but it's an important part of the overall project, and I don't think there's any rush.
In my view, the best role for the WMF would be to distill some bare minimum standards from all of these discussions and create a baseline version of the training for communities to use by default. For those communities which want to develop their own training that meets those bare minimum standards, provide them with lots of resources (e.g. paid designers/consultants) to accomplish the task.
I'd like to disagree with comments above (and which I've seen elsewhere) that either "we don't need training" or "if training is needed, the guidelines are too complex". The UCoC isn't just about guidelines; it's about people. It's about being better able to handle extremely sensitive and extremely complicated phenomena like harassment. We shouldn't expect admins, et al. to be psychologists or social workers, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement in the way we support folks dealing with emotionally intense situations (I'd include people accused of violating UCoC in that category, btw). Yes, some of it is going to be bureaucratic, inevitably, but it's also about making sure people understand what recourse they have, what resources are out there, not falling into communication pitfalls that make things worse, etc.
One more thing: Any training should also make it very clear what's not expected of admins. Many admins do not get involved with complicated/intense behavioral issues. Some people tend to a particular area of the project and rarely even interact with other people -- and that's perfectly fine. I could see those folks being intimidated by this prospect of UCoC/training and responding negatively to the idea that they will be pushed outside of their comfort zone. As volunteers, I find that completely reasonable. So part of the training is, yes, about the UCoC and how it works, but also to make clear that if you signed up to clear administrative backlogs, you're not suddenly going to be drafted into the conduct police, so how about e.g. a module on "here's how to pass this off to someone else" or the like. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:28, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Almost all large communities have already developed their own rules of conduct. For all of those communities, the UCoC principles are not new per se. The novelty is perhaps in the form they have expressed. Therefore, why advanced users, without any charge of violation of the rules, periodically passing strict qualifications within their own communities and often having years of prior experience, should benefit from bureaucratic training sessions on topic they know very well, possibly provided in a language they are not familiar with, and by trainers having less experience and poor mastery of peculiarities of that local community? Has WMF assessed how many administrators will resign to avoid these, quite shaming, mandatory remedial courses, clearly conflicting with the voluntarism that so far dove any action in projects? And how WMF is verifying that volunteers forced to be exposed to those training sessions will have an adequate level of comprehension of contents, or will take care of it in their activities within the projects? --Nicolabel (talk) 14:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SJ and DWI both make a strong range of correct points here. 1) Any mandatory training (especially as required by a group other than their local community) is likely to lose us many admins/functionaries. 2) The Community, not the Foundation, should be the dominant party on deciding training content and method. At a minimum, absolute veto power. 3) Speaking for myself, I despise training that tries to teach me stuff I know, or is obvious. Unless you have a way to ensure the training doesn't waste my time (in which case, go make your millions), don't require it. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Did the folks on this committee just totally forget that we are all volunteers around here? You want to make anything mandatory, you need to pay for it. I've held numerous advanced permissions for over a decade and not a single one of them had mandatory anything, now you're going to tell us that we are all now saddled with this new responsibility, whether we like it or not, and there is mandatory training. I thought perhaps in the revision process you all would have the sense to back down on this point and I'm sorry to see that's not the case. It is my intent, should this become an actual rule, to refuse to take the mandatory training, and to encourage other advanced permission holders to refuse. We won't quit our duly-elected community positions, and we won't take your mandatory training. We'll see who blinks first, all you have to threaten us with is to fire us from jobs we don't get paid to do. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:56, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Generally speaking, I agree with Beeblebrox. I certainly would have no issue if training were made available for those who would like it, but it should be optional—we're volunteers, not employees. I honestly don't imagine the WMF could offer any training which would teach me anything that fifteen years' experience as an admin hasn't, and I will not be attending any "mandatory training" unless you're planning to pay me for my time. Seraphimblade (talk) 05:27, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with many previous commenters that mandatory training is completely unacceptable. The WMF should only go so far as to provide training materials; it will then be up to the communities to either use them as-is or adapt them if necessary (or neither). Silver hr (talk) 16:49, 3 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The English Wikipedia (and many other Wikipedias) has strong rules about "No legal threats". Unfortunately many wikipedians do not understand what constitutes a "legal threat".

I suggest that any administrator who takes an action that has a legal dimension (such as en:WP:NLT) should show evidence of having at least some legal knowledge (for example, having received credit for at least one law-related module at college level) and that such evidence should be noted on their user page BEFORE they take any such action. If the number of admins who are able to deal with such situations is small, they might well develop techniques that will calm a situation rather than inflame it. Such a technique might include blocking a user until they have given a satisfactory response to a few simple questions such as "Who exactly are you going to sue?" and "In which court?" etc. If privacy is an issue, responses could be made by e-mail to the administrator concerend. If the hot-headed editor realises that he has been "shooting his mouth off" about an issue that he does not really understand, he could well be re-instated after a proper appology. If on the other hand there is a genuine problem, the administrator is better equiped to deal with it. Martinvl (talk) 17:23, 3 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Affirmation[edit]

Current text: The following individuals should be required to affirm (through signed declaration or other format to be decided) they will acknowledge and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct.
The users listed above should accomplish the affirmation at the occasion of acquiring the right or role, as well as every re-election, renewal or prolongation, the existing ones do so within a short time after the ratification of these guidelines, with exception of current advanced rights holders with rights that are not up for renewal who will not have a set timeframe to accomplish these affirmations. This may be changed on review after a year following the ratification of these guidelines. Once formed, the U4C will create procedures to facilitate these affirmations.

Question: While every user of Wikimedia platforms agrees to abide by the Terms of Use with each edit, the drafters' intent here was to meet a perceived need to ensure that those in positions of governance understand and follow the UCoC (or the local project rules going beyond it) in their own behavior as well as any governance actions they take related to conduct. Some have voiced concerns with the present language. What are the pros and cons of this affirmation and how can it be best stated to strengthen volunteer community self-governance?

Discussion (Affirmation)[edit]

Noone should be required to affirm anything. Remove these paragraphs entirely. We have no such pledges in the movement, and should not start now. The UCoC, like the existence of other global and local policies, is an applicable policy that community members are expected to abide by, and functionaries are expected to be familiar with. As with other policies, choosing not to comply may lead to losing some community privileges, but all should be free to question it or argue against it, in general or in specific cases. The U4C has a hard enough job without having to create procedures for and oversee such a thing. –SJ talk 21:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- If desired, a substitute sentence might read "[user groups + functionaries] are expected to be familiar with the CoC and to help others (who may be less familiar) abide by it. –SJ talk 21:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: Just remove this. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

+1. Andreas JN 466 17:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. Ymblanter (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes please. Remove this for good. No-one should have to affirm anything (except employees). Lozman (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Again, doing this is going to create substantial resentment amongst the people who have to do it (thousands of people), some of whom will refuse. What benefit do we get from this which justifies that? This affirmation is obviously redundant anyway. Possibly we could change the places were people agree to abide by the Terms of Use to say that they agree to abide by the UCoC as well. Hut 8.5 13:13, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone does agree to the UCOC. You did so just now by publishing your comment. By clicking "Reply", you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and GFDL. Or By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use,...

Following the link to the Terms of Use, you go to section 11. Resolutions and Project Policies and find The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees releases official policies from time to time. Some of these policies may be mandatory for a particular Project or Project edition, and, when they are, you agree to abide by them as applicable. Following that link, you'll find 2021-02-25: Resolution:Update to Universal Code of Conduct Timeline and 2020-12-09: Resolution:Approval of a Universal Code of Conduct Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 13:34, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, remove that section. Wikis are not going to en-masse implement affirmations like this.--Snævar (talk) 08:25, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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I do think a very high proportion of admins would simply resign if required to explicitly affirm any text from the Foundation, almost independent of the wording. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:38, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Espresso Addict. We're expected to adhere to policy without signing a document; the same principle should apply here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fundamental question: what are the functional, actionable differences between a signed affirmation and a less formal agreement baked into e.g. the definition of adminship? Are there legal differences that may apply to individual actors as well as organizations (like affiliates)? I'm not asking about intention with this question, but the effect. What kind of exposure does this create? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Does the current formulation implies that users (volunteers) with advanced permissions, such as administrators, should disclose their real identities to subscribe that declaration? In other terms, does it implies that any role - for paid persons (staff) as well as for volunteers - in any WMF project wouldn't be anymore compatible with anonymity or the underage condition? Should it be the case, I will expect that a large part of current volunteers will resign, the remaining ones will feel a higher vulnerability and higher workload, perspective volunteers to be appointed with special permissions will be difficult to be found, so implying a lesser suitability for the role in new recruits, and the general service to the project will be worsened. Since everyone is already responsible for the actions he/she performs, irrespective of the formal signing off of the UCoC, I am skeptical that any addition of bureaucracy would be in the interests of the WMF projects. --Nicolabel (talk) 14:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The text says through signed declaration or other format to be decided. They probably had the process in mind how CUs and OS sign the confidentiality agreement: By editing a page with your account. Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information/How to sign. But according to the text, it is unsure how ("to be decided") Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 14:55, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Expresso Addict has it - the affirmation could literally be "admins affirm that pancakes are a superior food" and we'd likely still lose some. I think this is particularly the case that we look at everything we've done as editors and admins, making content (our actual purpose) blocking problems, up to and including death threats...and now we're asked to make an affirmation that we won't be arseholes. I don't think it's a "loyalty oath" as so many name it, but I still found it offensive to be asked. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will go over the list of people who are "required" to affirm the UCoC with the current draft one by one:

All Wikimedia Foundation staff, Board members, Wikimedia affiliate board members, staff and contractors;
- For Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors (Why are staff mentioned twice?), make it part of employment/contact process.
- For Board members and Wikimedia affiliate board members, make it part of swearing in after election, re-election, renewal or prolongation.
All advanced rights holders;
- Remove this group.
All members of any project’s high-level decision-making body;
- For members of any project’s high-level decision-making body, make it part of conditions to join such a decision-making body.
Any individual who wants to use the Wikimedia Foundation trademark in an event; this includes, but is not limited to, events branded with Wikimedia trademarks (such as by including them in the event's title), and representation of the Wikimedia organization, community, or project at an event (such as, but not limited to, a presenter or a booth operator);
- Leave it as as is.
Any officer of a Wikimedia affiliate or aspiring Wikimedia affiliate (such as, but not limited to: an individual, or group of individuals, who is seeking to promote and/or collaborate a Wikimedia sponsored event, group, study, either on or off-wiki in a research setting).
- Leave it as is.

My understanding is that the UCoC will be incorporated in or displayed alongside with the Terms of Use every time we post something online via the Wikimedia servers. And we will supposedly be agreeing the Terms of Use and the UCoC every time we click on the submit button. Why do advanced rights holders, who participate in Wikimedia projects almost exclusively online via the Wikimedia platforms, have to affirm the UCoC? That's redundant. People who have to affirm the UCoC separately are those who participate/engage in Wikimedia suctioned off-wiki (=not using Wikimedia online platforms) events and meetings. --AppleRingo777 (talk) 14:59, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Forced promises are the most worthless promises. I will not do this, and I'm not alone. If a large percentage of advanced permission holders refuse, you will have to override all the local communities and fire us from our positions. This is what you are facing if this insane provision goes through. There's no way it ends that doesn't make this committee and the WMF look awful, so it'd be better if you just dropped this idea. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:00, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment One more reason why we should drop all advanced rights holders (volunteers) from the groups of people who are required to affirm the UCoC is: It is NOT enforceable.

As we can see, Beeblebrox is not the first person I came across who states that he/she/they will not sign the affirmation. What are we going to do with those advance right holders who refuse to sign the affirmation? No sane local community will punish or expel those advance right holders just because they refuse to sign the affirmation. I don't think that the U4C would have the guts to do so either. If they do, I'm sure someone will start a campaign against such committee members so that they would be voted out. How about the Office Actions? I don't think the WMF would have an appetite for punishing or expelling advance right holders just because they refuse to sign the affirmation, either. If they do, there will be a riot or two.

Since there will be no consequences of not signing the affirmation, I would think there will be a whole lot of advance right holders who would refuse to sign. However, I don't think anything would happen to them by refusing it. Thus, this will be unenforceable for advance rights holders.

For other people who are listed in this section of the guidelines, that's a different story. They might lose their job, contract, committee/board membership, permission to hold an event etc. even though the guidelines do not provide a penalty phase in them.

What is a point of having the unenforceable item in the enforcement guidelines? --AppleRingo777 (talk) 21:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will not be doing any "affirmation" of this stuff. It doesn't matter whether I agree with it or not; I would not even sign a forced affirmation that two plus two equals four. And while I agree with the general "don't be a jerk" stuff in UCoC, I don't agree with several parts of it (or at least with certain reasonable interpretations of parts of it), so I would essentially be asked to lie. Seraphimblade (talk) 20:41, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just add some text in certain places like Special:Block? Just like there is a licensing disclaimer just below the edit summary? I do sympathize with the intent of this provision, as on most small wikis there is zero training or oversight of the admin tools. But the logistics of making all admins affirm something are impractical. --Rs chen 7754 21:46, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The short version: I won't sign anything that I would describe as an "affirmation". There are other things I could sign, assuming of course that a well-attended RFC on the English Wikipedia supports the idea of signing. Dank (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
RFC ... RFC ... what was that again? Ah yes, that is what volunteers used to do before there were "committees" deciding things for them. Andreas JN 466 16:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It would probably be best to strike out this provision altogether and just treat the UCOC like any other site-wide policy, such as the terms of use. This policy will create a waste of time for thousands of administrators and functionaries, so it is better to just make the UCOC a site policy. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:AD3F:66E6:B1C0:3D9E 18:31, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who lives in a formerly communist country, the concept of having to swear an oath of allegiance to the ~~One True Party~~WMF raises serious flags. Silver hr (talk) 17:00, 3 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Balancing privacy and due process[edit]

Current text: When more information is needed to support a decision by the U4C and by staying within the expectation of the privacy policy and while minimizing undue harm to the accuser or the accusee while continuing due process, high level decision making bodies and communities will invite perspectives from the accused.

Question: The drafters' intent is to both protect the safety and dignity of individuals who have experienced abuse on the one hand and the right of those accused of misbehavior to be heard on the other. When investigating reports of abuse or harassment, what is the best balance of the privacy and confidentiality needs of people reporting problems, and the needs of people who are reported to be able to present their views on the reported behavior?

Discussion (Balancing privacy and due process)[edit]

Please replace "accusee" with "accused" everywhere. Any time the Committee passes judgement restricting the accused, they should have the right to be heard. Complaints can be anonymized or aggregated in communicating with the accused. (if there are specific exceptional cases you can imagine where this would not be appropriate, please list one or two so that we can discuss them; else don't create this standard up front but provide a way for the Committee in the future to flag cases that might merit exceptions to this.) –SJ talk 21:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This sentence is like a very long worm: Once you found the end, you already forgot the start. See also section below "Readability and translatability".

Also, this sencence says only "When more info is needed". So when an Admin thinks he doesn't need more info, then he can immediatly block a user, declining the blocked user to defend?

The guideline should be, that everyone gets the possibility to defend at least before a final decision. That gives the possibility of immeidate action/blocks in case of some urgency, but then the blocked user has to get after that the possibility to change that decision later. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

+1 to both Sj and DWI. Andreas JN 466 18:03, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Constructively combining the above: While the policy as a whole could be 2x shorter, this is one place where an extra few sentences may be appropriate. –SJ talk 18:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Community members have both an expectation of privacy and a right to be heard. Those sanctioned by the committee have a right to be heard before a final decision, though immediate temporary action may be taken in cases of urgency. Those asking for sanctions have an expectation of privacy; in cases where the committee declines sanctions they may not notify the accused, in other cases they may anonymize or aggregate details of complaints, to preserve the privacy of either party."
- @Sj: I have to disagree with the proposal above. For any sense of fairness, you need the actual diff, or off-wiki problematic action/statements, in order to be able to provide a full defence. If you're just accused of, say, hounding someone (perhaps one of the newly formalised "okay in single nature, problematic as a recurring pattern" types given in the UCOC policy text) that's going to be a contextual heavy case, with both the individual actions and pattern up for review. For the anonymisation/aggregation to hold, then the detail needed is lost - you'd need to know the actual edits to be able to bring up all the relevant info and memories. The RTBH actually has two aspects - being heard and knowing the charge/accusation. Having the former without the latter is insufficient. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - I might add "where there is a risk of retaliation or other harm" after the last sentence in my proposed text. But I'm afraid that this may be common rather than rare, which is why I suggest "may ... where" rather than "may not ... except where". Your longer proposal (framed either way) seems fine as a separate linked document, I don't think that level of detail should be in a core slow-to-update overview. –SJ talk 16:55, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sj even as a general concept statement, I would say yours would lead to anonymisation in the vast majority of cases. In regards to evidence, which I actually view as the more core aspect of RTBH, that basically "Appreciable threat of off-wiki retaliation or socking". If your proposal had something along the lines of except for those two cases then while I'd prefer the safeguards of more detail I'd include it. As it is, I'd be reticent to do so, as I'd be concerned it would be accepted but not provide any difference in practical terms. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There should be an off-wiki, private method of reporting UCOC violations. This is to minimize retaliation by the accused party or their supporters. If the reporting party is uninvolved in the conflict, their identity should not be revealed at all. Maybe have an email address for the U4C? As long as the accused gets a chance to defend themselves, there won't be many problems. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 19:15, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 so the case of non-involved reporting bodies having a means of reporting without identification is not unreasonable - however an email route to the U4C would be a poor mechanism given that the U4C would be the first port of call for almost no conduct cases. Let's say you were reporting an en-wiki issue, would they then be responsible for reporting any case to the correct noticeboard? For the smallest wikis, how will they handle it then - determine if there is a board with enough participation to discuss it or if it needs a global sysop to handle it. This is what the platform is supposed to deal with, but even it will need to deal with these issues to not cost community time. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear Thank you for your feedback. I think your argument about saving community time could use some improvement. Hypothetically, let's say you report a UCOC violation on SomeLocalWiki, but the entire wiki refuses to fix the problem. In that case, you'd need a way to report to the U4C. Your report would be made no matter what, so there's no time wasted by choosing email. If you make a premature report to the U4C (through email or on-wiki), they could just ask you to report locally first. Reading between the lines, you seem to be implying that only the highest-ranking officials on any wiki should be able to escalate cases to the U4C. But that would not be practical or ethical. What if local wiki officials are corrupt, and they want to protect certain editors from sanctions? Certainly, they're not going to report their favored member to the U4C. (Please see the Kubura Case, which ended with a global ban). Overall, I think the pros outweigh the cons of having a U4C email address. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 19:50, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 that's not what I propose at all, and would prefer you to not read between the lines of my comment in such a drastic incorrect fashion. In fact, I'm confident that the U4C will have an email, both for process stuff but also for x-wiki cases involving private evidence, that they are arb-com equivalent for (not merely a court of final resort). No, my issue was that your methodology had zero facets included for everything below "the entire wiki refuses to fix the problem". You say "there's no time wasted by choosing email", but there's time wasted even if they immediately just tell you to go local. There's even more wasted if the U4C need to figure out whether you have exhausted the local conduct pathways, and yet more if they need to figure out the specific local pathway for you to next take. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear None of that makes not having an email address better than having one. Even if all reports were made on-wiki, there's always a risk that people will make premature reports to the U4C. "...your methodology had zero facets included for everything below 'the entire wiki refuses to fix the problem.'" Because it's obvious that everything below that level would be handled locally. See the first paragraph of this section. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:21, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted in my previous comment I said there almost certainly would be an email. But because we're in a "how to change the text" discussion, lines such as "There should be an off-wiki, private method of reporting UCOC violations" would need to be phrased as "There should be an off-wiki, private method of reporting U4C-level UCOC violations" to avoid indicating you want a change from the current text. In practical terms, this would also seem a little odd. Unless every level of the process has an in-place anonymisation function, we'd know that ExampleEditor1 had submitted it to the Community conduct board. When the case then went to the MCDC level, most would probably assume it was them there...even if, in fact, it was DiffExampleEditor2 who had taken that final step. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:22, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In your first reply, you said, "...an email route to the U4C would be a poor mechanism given that the U4C would be the first port of call for almost no conduct cases." This gives the impression that you're strictly against having an email address for the U4C. But you shouldn't be... because on-wiki and email reports both carry risk of time being wasted. "But because we're in a 'how to change the text' discussion, lines such as 'There should be an off-wiki, private method of reporting UCOC violations' would need to be phrased as 'There should be an off-wiki, private method of reporting U4C-level UCOC violations' to avoid indicating you want a change from the current text." This page is for more than just suggesting changes. As the opening paragraph states, this page is for "input on the following questions for the committee's review". Input also includes agreement, and agreement lets people know what they should not change. Furthermore, the Enforcement Guidelines say nothing about U4C being the only body to have a private method of receiving reports. My original statement, exactly as written, still reflects what's already in the current text. "Unless every level of the process has an in-place anonymisation function, we'd know that ExampleEditor1 had submitted it to the Community conduct board. When the case then went to the MCDC level, most would probably assume it was them there...even if, in fact, it was DiffExampleEditor2 who had taken that final step." That's a necessary risk in my opinion. Without an off-wiki, private method of reporting to the U4C, DiffExampleEditor2 might be too scared to report at all. That's why I said "minimize", not "eliminate", when I talked about retaliation. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:30, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Though I don't think it's quite ideal yet (but don't as yet have an alternative), SJ's text is an improvement on the current language. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RTBH for non-English speakers[edit]

I wrote this before, and I write this again. RTBH should be extended to non-English speakers. How accused can defend himself/herself sufficiently when he/she doesn't understand English, the de fact official language of Wikimedia global communication, and/or can't articulate in English? AppleRingo777 (talk) 14:19, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@AppleRingo777 what form do you see this being in actual changes - perhaps that anyone involved in a U4C case, or dealing with a global sysop, should have the right to someone who can translate text between the two languages? Nosebagbear (talk) 08:30, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: Thank you for asking. I've been questioning myself what is the best way to illiterate this concern. Unfortunately, I have not come up with a good proposal yet. I wish the WMF to provide the language assistance at least to the accused if requested by them, but I'm not sure if the WMF is willing to do so as it actually adds, if I'm correct, legal liabilities to the WMF.AppleRingo777 (talk) 15:21, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A RTBH Proposal[edit]

RTBH, throughout the discussion on the EG talk page and the limited call discussion time allocated to it has two main prongs: (1) the accused knowing both the specific charge(s) and the specific evidence & (2) the accused having a chance to respond to accusations prior to any action being taken.

It is the former that directly collides with a right to anonymity, but merely providing the latter as a right is useless. Being approached for one's position is useless without the ability to provide targeted, responsive, answers to any accusations. The two clearly aren't synonymous, and have differing logical exceptions. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nosebagbear (talk) 15:51, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RTBH proposal - full text

Overarching safeguards[edit]

The following points would be the minimum standing safeguards (communities could provide more, as always), except as limited by the later exceptions:

The accused is entitled to know the full details of the accusation against them, and the evidence on which those accusations are justified. This information should be provided in the language of the project the accusation is tendered on.
The accused is entitled to be offered a reasonable chance to respond to accusations prior to any non-warning sanction being levied.

Right to prior reply: exceptions[edit]

Absolutely! While there will always be edge cases, the following categories would be logical exclusions from a guaranteed right to a reasonable opportunity to reply prior to sanctions being levied (communities could of course still choose to offer the rights for some of these):

Vandalism and equivalent levels of disruptive editing
Threats of harm (including aspects such as wilful doxxing) and egregious personal attacks
Legal threats
Edit warring generating sanctions less than 72 hours
Socking

Right to hear evidence: exceptions[edit]

Then there is the much narrower category of cases where the accused should not have the right to hear all the evidence against them. Inclusions:

Socking - where the accused is a repeat offender and evidence is likely to aid their future socking
Cases where a clear indication that the accused would (and could) retaliate off-wiki

Right to later reply: ongoing misconduct[edit]

Finally, there would definitely be cases where providing a right to be heard prior to sanctions would be non-viable, outside of the exceptions listed. In short, this could be summarised as "cases with likelihood of ongoing/recurring misconduct". Communities would be left the right to define where this line would be drawn. But in cases where someone was sanctioned prior to a right to be heard, then any appeal should require a specific decision for a block to remain (that is a "no consensus" would revert any sanction).

Proposal for including the right to be heard in the enforcement guidelines[edit]

My idea would be to replace the current phrase with this:

Right to be heard: Before a decision is taken against a community member, the decision-making body informs them about the alleged violation and allows them to tell their side of the story. In urgent cases and in cases of on-wiki vandalism and trolling, a preliminary decision can be taken without informing and hearing a community member if the right to be heard is granted in an appeals process.

Maybe I should repeat why adding a strong right to be heard to the enforcement guidelines is important: The right to be heard is a centuries-old principle of treating someone fairly after they have been accused of misconduct. Imposing sanctions or even banning a community member without hearing them can create harmful mistrust in the Universal Code of Conduct and the decision-making bodies.

What are your thoughts? Are there constellations in which the proposed rule would not work to the benefit of the affected community members? Thank you, --Gnom (talk) 23:10, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support This looks like a good way of writing things. I would however add the words which are shown in bold:

Right to be heard: Before a decision is taken against a community member, the decision-making body informs them about the alleged violation together with the supporting evidence and allows them to tell their side of the story. In urgent cases and in cases of on-wiki vandalism and trolling, a preliminary decision can be taken without informing and hearing a community member if the right to be heard is granted in ~~an appeals~~ a follow-up process.

I have chosen the wording follow-up process to emphasise that this is part of the initial hearing and that once the follow-up has been completed, appeals by the member concerned will follow the same procedure regardless of whether action was taken on as a result of a preliminary hearing or a full hearing. Martinvl (talk) 10:09, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Readability and translatability[edit]

Based on community comments in the vote, the Board's Community Affairs Committee also asked the Committee to find easier language for the Guidelines. This aspect will be considered in addition to the comments and ideas provided in response to the questions above.

Glossary: Please move the link to the "definition on Meta" so that the text "definition on Meta" becomes blue/clickable and the heading becomes black. That's because the "definition on Meta" is what's being linked, and the link target isn't obvious at the moment. ToBeFree (talk) 19:36, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect description list syntax: In the section "Enforcement by types of violations", HTML description list syntax (Wikicode ";" at the beginning of the line) is misused to stylize headings. Use heading syntax, as correctly done in the "Selection, membership, and roles" section, instead. ToBeFree (talk) 19:36, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"System issues" and "systematic issues": Please check if you mean "systemic issues" instead. ToBeFree (talk) 19:36, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support Change back to "systemic". Taylor 49 (talk) 20:24, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Move the definitions back to the document instead of linking. If a major change occcurs at meta (for example the group "stewards" decommissioned or split), the Enforcement Guidelines will have to get updated, exactly as it would be the case with outsourced definitions and linking to meta. Taylor 49 (talk) 20:24, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Defining the term "functionaries"[edit]

Include the definition of "functionaries" in the Glossary. If it cannot be defined, it should not be used in the guidelines. --AppleRingo777 (talk) 19:05, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@AppleRingo777: See en:WP:FUNCT. According to that page, functionaries are CU/OS and ArbCom (former) members. In this context, I think the word refers to community users who are CU and/or OS on at least one wiki. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 19:26, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh: Thank you for your reply. As you pointed out, that's the definition for the English version of Wikipedia...one wiki. My understanding is that there are some wiki whose definition for the functionaries does not correspond to the definition provided by the enwiki. Aren't we trying to enforce the UCoC that includes the concept of "inclusiveness"? --AppleRingo777 (talk) 19:50, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@AppleRingo777: I found another definition at Enforcement draft guidelines review: Users with advanced permissions, such as, but not limited to: administrators, bureaucrats etc. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 19:58, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow. So now the administrators are part of functionaries. I bet there would be many admins who would not like that. Thank you for pointing that out.--AppleRingo777 (talk) 20:11, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see the word functionarie several times:

WHO is responsible for enforcing the UCoC? - Designated community functionaries and bodies -( such as, but not limited to administrators or Arbitration Committees)
Local and global functionaries should understand how UCoC enforcement works
Code enforcement is a responsibility of designated functionaries and bodies with technical or decision-making power, such as, but not limited to: local sysops, stewards, Arbitration Committees (ArbComs) and their members, event safety coordinators, the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C), and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Designating functionaries will be done, whenever possible, by local communities....
Local and global functionaries who implement policies, codes, rules, and regulations on the Wikimedia spaces, both online and offline, are supposed to understand the management of the code enforcement function and the process.
A training process for users and staff, developed by the Wikimedia Foundation with the input from the functionaries, to learn how to apply due processes and understand the UCoC in practice
Advanced rights holder [Definition]: user who holds administrative rights above typical editing permissions, generally elected through community processes or appointed by Arbitration Committees. This includes, as a non-exhaustive list: local sysops / administrators, functionaries, global sysops, stewards.

The last part seems inconsistent to me. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 20:19, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The word functionaries also appears in the UCoC. The definition of the word in the UCoC and the guidelines should be consistent too. Otherwise, we will end up with unenforceable enforcement guidelines, won't we? --AppleRingo777 (talk) 21:07, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

┌───────────────────┘
Pinging @MNadzikiewicz (WMF), who made this edit, @Xeno (WMF), who created Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines, and @Vermont, as a Phase 2 drafting committee member. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 21:42, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking, functionaries refers to bureaucrats, suppressors, and checkusers, as well as stewards. Periodically global sysops are considered functionaries; depends on the use case. If there are instances of the term in the revised version of this document, I'll make sure to discuss a specific definition with the rest of the committee. Best, Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 23:55, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the list above, this definition would be quite limiting: Responsible for code enforcement are only crats, suppressors and CUs but not regular Admins? Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 08:09, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The 'functionaries' confusion was mentioned in an earlier report: the term "functionary" can be confusing as might refer to 1) a general class of users that administrate (as used in the UCoC); 2) arbitration committee members (as used globally, in a more restrictive sense); or 3) subscribers to the "functionaries-en" mailing list on English Wikipedia. I agree adding it to the glossary to make it clear which users to which it refers would be ideal. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 13:05, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Xeno. Please add 4) bureaucrats, suppressors, and checkusers, as well as stewards (per Vermont's post above); 5) CU/OS and ArbCom (current and former) members per en:WP:FUNCT to your list. Please also note that those two additional definitions do not include administrators (sysops). Thus, I don't think many sysops interpret that many provisions that are referring to functionaries in the UCoC and the draft guidelines apply to them. Any clarification and clear communication are helpful. Thank you in advance.--AppleRingo777 (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing I would like to ask you to clarify is: what's a difference between "functionaries" and "advance rights holders" if you are defining "functionaries" as 1) a general class of users that administrate (as used in the UCoC)," please? --AppleRingo777 (talk) 16:32, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The very reason why we need to clarify the definition of the word "functionaries" is so that we will know exactly who will be subjected to the following article of the UCoC:

3.2 – Abuse of power, privilege, or influence
- Abuse of office by functionaries, officials and staff

--AppleRingo777 (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO, the word functionary should not be tied to particular classes of user, but is a function of what the user does in certain circumstances. In civil society, a jailer is a functionary. He might be the person who locks you up, but he does not have the authority to order you to be locked up - that authority lies with the judge - the jailer merely does what he is told to do. In the case of Wikipedia, an administrator is acting as a functionary when they are renaming a file at the request of a user, but they are not acting as a functionary when they are assessing the quality of a complaint made by one user against another user. Martinvl (talk) 13:37, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then, can anyone potentially be a functionary? For example, we generally should not modify other people's comments on a talk page or the Village Pump at my wiki. A newbie posts something at the Village Pump, but it doesn't display in a way he/she intended it should be (can be an inter-project link or format or whatever). Then, he/she requests someone to edit for him/her. I, a non-advance-rights-holder, see his/her request and fix it for him/her. Now am I a functionary? I didn't have the authority to modify his/her post. However, I was merely performing the newbie's request, who has the authority for modifying his/her comment.--AppleRingo777 (talk) 16:11, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the context of the UCoC, the word functionary applies to users who exercise privilleges not available to the normal user. For example, if I were to lock you up in a cell against your will, then in most societies I would be charged with kidnap. If however, a judge instructed me, in my capacity as a jailer, to lock you up, then I am a functionary as I do not exercise my own viewpoint. Martinvl (talk) 13:45, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Privileges like rollback, move pages, patrol, IP-excemption,... Or privileges like admin and steward? Or even more than this? Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:57, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then, ArbCom members are NOT functionaries, are they? They exercise their own viewpoint and make judgements.--AppleRingo777 (talk) 00:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Abuse of Power[edit]

The current text lacks safeguards against an abuse of power by the Wikimedia Foundation. As past discussions shows, communities and individuals needs protection against it. Habitator terrae (talk) 15:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Universal Code of Conduct/Policy text/Revision discussions#Abuse of office by functionaries, officials and staff Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 17:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, but I think, there must also be an explicit process, about how to enforce something against the Foundation to stop a potential abuse of power by it. Habitator terrae (talk) 17:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While I certainly agree that WMF should exercise caution relative to potential abuse, there are greater concerns over the abuse of power by project administrators. I am quite familiar with en.WP and am happy to provide whatever assistance WMF needs to help them further understand what takes place, and how it leads to abuse. Atsme^📞📧 21:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand the WMF itself can abuse its powers. E.g. their ombuds commission this year removed the rights of two checkusers, because they missunderstood the English Policy, with one removal was tacking place at a time, while the checkuser was with a surgery in a hospital.

Habitator terrae (talk) 18:59, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or in other words: How can an institution stop abuse of power, if the power of this institution itself is without limits? Habitator terrae (talk) 21:26, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Enforcement Officer[edit]

I think there is problem with the language that there are special persons, which are specially responsible for enforcement, because in fact this are volunteers (only with more abilities). Habitator terrae (talk) 15:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I am looking for a simple button when a page is being vandalized repeatedly. In today's Google doodle, the Wikipedia page should correctly read as this version, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oskar_Sala&oldid=1098979095. I don't think it is helpful to revert to this version without looping in someone who could give the time for whatever progressive discipline the community agrees is appropriate. Peace. Jplvnv (talk) 11:41, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion[edit]

Hierarchical headings[edit]

[edit]

Can we add tiered numbers (hierarchical headings) for the guidelines? It's much easier for us when we have to refer a paragraph or a sentence in the guidelines during our discussions. -- Rotten Apple777 (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Scope of U4C[edit]

Current text:

The U4C shall have jurisdiction for final decision making:
Where no local structure exists to address a complaint;

Where local structures are unable to handle a case;

Where local structures themselves decide to escalate a case to the U4C committee for final decision making;

For severe systematic issues, that cannot be handled by existing enforcement structures, such as, but not limited to, cases of local structures counteracting the UCoC, UCoC violations spanning multiple Wikimedia communities or projects, or cases involving a large number of individuals. The U4C itself or the U4C building committee will impose detailed rules for acceptance of such cases.

Where the case is referred to the U4C by the Wikimedia Foundation and accepted at the U4C’s discretion

This section is phrased awkardly, especially condition #4. It seems like the U4C can't sanction users who are allowed by functionaries to violate the UCOC, but it can sanction functionaries who refuse to enforce the UCOC. That's probably not what the authors intended, but that's what it reads like. I propose adding a sixth condition to the list above:

6. Where local structures, for whatever reason, do not stop someone from violating the UCoC.

This looks similar to condition #2, but it's not. Condition #2 says "unable to handle a case". Condition #6 would allow the U4C to sanction users who were allowed by rebellious functionaries to violate the UCOC. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 08:10, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This bit deserves some attention as well: "The U4C itself or the U4C building committee will impose detailed rules for acceptance of such cases." If so, those rules shouldn't be too restrictive. Otherwise, some people who need help would be turned away. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 08:10, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are "rebellious functionaries" the kind that did not block the guy who "was being uncivil" towards you, resulting in you threatening him, resulting in you being blocked indef on en wiki? Or are you refering to other rebellious functionaries? Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 10:06, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Answer: Both. Your question is useless because it has nothing to do with the UCOC or its Enforcement Guidelines. You clearly struggle at reporting events accurately. I "threatened" to report someone for being rude and condescending to someone else, not for refusing to block another user. Looks like I've hurt your feelings by using the phrase "rebellious functionaries", even though I was neither talking about you nor stereotyping functionaries. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 21:00, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 6. Where local structures, for whatever reason, do not stop someone from violating the UCoC. this definition would, for example, have the U4C take over (say) the Icewhiz remit. A case where despite major efforts by arbcom, Checkusers, and regular editors alike, there continue to be UCOC breaches, although most (not all, with one notable instance coming to mind) being dealt with quickly. Adding in U4C wouldn't help, but would be scoped by this change.

Far more frequently, the point is where the Community believes it has (or the person is not violating the UCOC), and does so in good faith. Now where such problems were systematic they can be handled per condition 4. But your condition would have numerous "not-guilty" verdicts challenged up under this criteria. Both removing the final-court nature of an arbcom and costing huge amounts of U4C time. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:55, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: Your concerns are reasonable, but I don't agree that adding in the U4C would be unhelpful. The U4C can share an ArbCom's workload, especially if that ArbCom is busy with other cases. Unfortunately, ArbComs aren't perfect (and neither is the U4C, to be fair). Some "not guilty" verdicts may be made with less-than-good reasoning. In those cases, the U4C needs authority to act. Anyone reading this is probably asking, "So why should I be more skeptical of ArbComs than I am of the U4C?" Good question. It's because at least one ArbCom has made some questionable decisions.[1][2] They can be lenient to some uncivil users while being strict to others who've committed the same offense at a similar severity. And finally, thanks for being calm and reasonable. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 04:06, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really not in the mood of reading an entire arbcom case. What's the problem? What was the "questionable decision"? Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 10:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In my first link, two editors were shown to have a long history of incivility, both towards other people and to each other. Even though their conduct was equally severe, only one of them got banned. My second link can be ignored. I scrolled down too fast and read the wrong subsection for ArbCom's decision to decline. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 I fear that doesn't really answer any of the issues I raise. Pointing out cases when an Arbcom may have made errors (and, I'd note, that 8 year old examples serve no benefit - please provide recent ones) can't demonstrate we should be less sceptical of the U4C who inherently have thus far made zero correct decisions.

I would say that sharing workload doesn't require a topdown decision - if an ArbCom wants to authorise the U4C to share some work because they're being overwhelmed then the arbcom can decide to do so. That's fine - it's in the same vein that communities delegated handling certain types of case to T&S. Out of interest, are any of the current arbcoms particularly hit by workflow - I wouldn't know for, say, fa-wiki's arbcom etc, so

And your response still needs to address the main facet - how to stop this leading to the vast majority of not guilty judgements being reheard again (most arbcom cases not being the first time a conduct issue is heard). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:23, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: "8 year old examples serve no benefit - please provide recent ones" Please say exactly how recent you want my examples to be. Then, explain why you chose that cutoff date. "Pointing out cases when an Arbcom may have made errors can't demonstrate we should be less sceptical of the U4C who inherently have thus far made zero correct decisions." They've also made zero incorrect decisions. "I would say that sharing workload doesn't require a topdown decision - if an ArbCom wants to authorise the U4C to share some work because they're being overwhelmed then the arbcom can decide to do so." It doesn't need to be a top-down decision, but that doesn't mean it should never be. If condition #6 is included, U4C could share ArbCom's workload without waiting for ArbCom's permission. Not waiting for permission saves time. "Out of interest, are any of the current arbcoms particularly hit by workflow[?]" I'm not sure, but by acknowledging the possibility of overwork, I'm avoiding the assumption of bad faith. EnWiki's ArbCom has declined at least five cases where evidence against the accused party was solid.[3][4][5][6][7] If they're not overworked, then they're corrupt or have sub-optimal judgment. I prefer not to make the latter two assumptions. "how to stop this leading to the vast majority of not guilty judgements being reheard again" We wouldn't be able to stop it, but the U4C could. Not-guilty verdicts that should've been guilty would have a chance to be reheard. Some correct not-guilty verdicts might also be reheard, but I think most people should accept that risk, and here's why: One of the U4C's duties is to correct systemic issues,[8][9] but condition #4 only lets them do half the job, if at all.

If, and I mean if, local functionaries give false-but-believable reasons for not enforcing the UCOC, the U4C would have a hard time sanctioning them. The only other way to correct systemic problems would be to sanction users who were allowed to violate UCOC. That's what the proposed condition #6 is for.
It makes no logical sense to sanction an enabler, but not the offender who was enabled. Offenders should be found more guilty than enablers because they directly committed an offense.

Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 - I believe 3 years is the longest term length any arbcom has, so let's use that as the timeband. That the U4C have made zero incorrect decisions is irrelevant here - you'd never be able to generate a statistically reliable (let alone practically reliable) comparison that suggested they were better. Without knowing U4C's process I'm not sure how it could be stated to save time, thus too the issues of systemic vs solo cases.

To focus on your key point that (en-wiki's) arbcom must be either overworked, corrupt, or have sub-optimal judgement to reject a case where there is significant evidence against the accused party I'd reply that your reasoning lacks a key fourth option. I've (re)-read the first four - citation 7 I'll need to go find the actual wiki case page to review. ArbCom takes cases with evidence where Community action has not and cannot reasonably prove sufficient.^ , even if we took every case request to show sufficient evidence, that wouldn't mean ArbCom should hear it. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:45, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: "I believe 3 years is the longest term length any arbcom has, so let's use that as the timeband." Here you go: [10][11][12]. You've already read two of them.

"That the U4C have made zero incorrect decisions is irrelevant here - you'd never be able to generate a statistically reliable (let alone practically reliable) comparison that suggested they were better." I confess to having no good rebuttal for that.

"Without knowing U4C's process I'm not sure how it could be stated to save time, thus too the issues of systemic vs solo cases." Even if the U4C's process for accepting cases were slow, it would be faster if they didn't have to wait for permission from an ArbCom.

"ArbCom takes cases with evidence where Community action has not and cannot reasonably prove sufficient." If that's true, I would have no choice but to describe ArbCom's judgment as being sub-optimal. It's always possible that Community action can prove reasonably sufficient, but that doesn't mean it's probable. You could have ninety-nine failed Community efforts to fix a problem, and the one-hundredth attempt could still be successful. Waiting for the moment when Community action can't fix a problem means waiting until the source of the problem dies from old age. (I'm not being snarky; I meant what I wrote literally.)

And, of course, not including condition #6 would neuter U4C's ability to fix systemic issues with UCOC enforcement. Most functionaries who refuse to enforce the UCOC out of spite are not likely to admit it openly. They'll give convincing excuses. Thus, U4C will have to sanction the actual violators instead of their enablers. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 03:57, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 - regarding point about faster/slower - it would be slower if the U4C case takes longer than the Arbcom case would have taken, even including any delay. As it would appear likely that no arbcom is going to hear a case if the U4C is simultaneously hearing it.

Regarding your latter point, this would of course be correct if an arbcom were actually operating off a "99th (or whatever obviously flawed large number) times the trick" method to avoid ever hearing a case. That would be clear sign of a systematic failure.

But en-wiki's doesn't (other arbcoms may be different, including not requiring prior community review) - it requires a sign that the community has tried to resolve it, failed, and no indication that a future attempt would turn out differently. In practical terms, this normally comes in the form of at least one ANI (or equivalent) discussion and, where relevant, a followup or review discussion from that. Where someone can't show that and further indication of sanctionable behaviour in the same nexus, it's unlikely to be accepted. The FPS case request is a good example of this. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:16, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: "it requires a sign that the community has tried to resolve it, failed, and no indication that a future attempt would turn out differently." That's quite different from what you said before. What you're saying now means, "The accuser must prove that their Community has not shown that the Community can resolve this issue." You previously said, "ArbCom takes cases with evidence where Community action has not and cannot reasonably prove sufficient." What you said before means, "The accuser must prove that their Community cannot resolve this issue." I was responding to what you said before, not after. It's easy to prove that a Community hasn't solved a problem, but it's impossible to prove that they can't. Please see my previous reply if you don't know why it's impossible. Please pick the claim you want to stick with. My next reply depends on your next reply. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The latter is a more formal (drawn from the policy line "To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve;"). Because, as your correctly noted earlier, someone could interpret that as ruling out almost all case requests, I also gave the actual practical interpretation used - which is for cases not involving an admin (only arbcom can remove admin userrights) a case request must show that the community has tried to resolve it and failed, and that there isn't indication of a future community process that may do so. The "indication" would usually be something like an ongoing conduct case or an RfC to resolve the underlying problem etc etc.

I should note that we may want to hat (put into a expandable/collapsable box) this discussion between the two of us, as length-wise, it's starting to dominate this page. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:49, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
In three of the most recent declined case requests I cited, the accused party had at least one ANI that ended with no sanction or warning for them.[13][14][15] Admittedly, the two declined Fram requests did not.[16][17] But as you noted, requested cases of alleged sysop misconduct are an exception to the standard DR policies. All aforementioned incidents showed no indication of being resolved by the community. "Interactions at GGTF"[18][19] ended with Carol Moore getting a much heavier sanction than Eric Corbett, whose conduct was no less (or only slightly less) severe. All these cases met the criteria for acceptance, yet most were declined. For the one that was accepted, the final remedies are highly questionable. "we may want to hat (put into a expandable/collapsable box) this discussion between the two of us, as length-wise, it's starting to dominate this page." No objections from me. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 20:31, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Human Rights Impact Assessment[edit]

It may be useful to know that admin training regarding harassment was one of the priority recommendations in the Wikimedia Foundation Human Rights Impact Assessment ("Develop and deploy training programs for admins and volunteers with advanced rights on detecting and responding to harassment claims"). This is a 2020 report by an external consultancy firm that has only been published by the WMF this week. See Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Human Rights Impact Assessment for a complete list of recommendations – some of which have already been implemented, others of which have not. --Andreas JN 466 19:51, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Shared ArbComs[edit]

This is another thing that used to be in the draft at some time but vanished from there later. If there is no ArbCom, then there is nobody to enforce anything. There are wikis besides English wikipedia. A single sysop cannot be the ArbCom, the stewards extremely rarely want to, and if the U4C receives this task at some time, then it is likely that they will have 17'000'000 queued cases one hour after the reporting interface is opened. I have a private proposal about this challenge. Taylor 49 (talk) 20:34, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning the workload ot U4C, you only can guess. But chances are high it will be eiter overworked or underworked. Usually you try and then later fix the problem.

Else I don't see a big problem. On de-wiki there is approximatly one Arbcom request per month. That's not much. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 22:53, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

VOTE HERE

Safe and inclusive community (Section 3.1 note)[edit]

After the conclusion of the community vote on the guidelines in March, the Community Affairs Committee (CAC) of the Board requested review of the controversial Note in 3.1 of the Universal Code of Conduct itself.

Current text: Note: The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people. Their inclusion here is to mark that they are prohibited in use against others as the basis for personal attacks.

Question: Conversations about identity factors^[1] are challenging, as they touch upon deep beliefs and often painful experiences in many. Questions have been raised about the Note on race and ethnicity in section 3.1 by multiple individuals, including in this letter by Wikimedia user group Whose Knowledge?, which articulates some of the points of concern. It has been suggested that the Note be removed, which would not diminish the protections against hate speech in the preceding text. The Note’s inclusion is on the contrary running counter to the goals of fostering safety and inclusion. Do you support the proposal to remove the Note in Section 3.1 on race and ethnicity or do you have alternative proposals?

Local references[edit]

↑ https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN%20Strategy%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Hate%20Speech%2018%20June%20SYNOPSIS.pdf

Discussion (Section 3.1)[edit]

[edit]

Yes, strike this sentence. –SJ talk 21:31, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, remove. --Andreas JN 466 07:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest replacing the sentence with

While it is right and proper for "race" and "ethnicity" to be discussed in an encyclopeadic context in an appropriate Wikipedia, their use as a basis of personal attacks between members of the Wikimedia community is prohibited.

Martinvl (talk) 11:32, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"...their use as a basis of personal attacks [...] is prohibited." So I'm allowed to use other criteria as a basis of personal attacks? That's probably not what you had in mind with that sentence. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 18:15, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Disallowing one criterion does not mean all others are automatically allowed. That said, personal attacks are prohibited anyway, so explicitly prohibiting race and ethnicity as a basis for them is somewhat redundant. --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:58C5:FCC4:481D:C5BF 12:40, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While race does not exist in humans, racism does. So please rewrite the clauses in question so, that the word race is unnecessary and the prohibited behavior is described as what it is: racism. --h-stt !? 16:03, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the clauses in question were written the way they are in order to give a definition of what is to be considered racist, instead of just writing ‘racism’ and letting everyone figure out for themselves what exactly that term covers. The wording of the two very sentences discussed here horribly fails to convey that, though; it sounds as if ‘race’ were a universal concept, just one that the Foundation does not endorse as a distinction among people. Actually ‘race’ is far from being a universal concept: In addition to being a biological notion that has turned out to be inappropriate for humans as a species, it has also become a social construct in, e.g., the United States. And in that sense, ‘race’ does exist. Instead of using the problematic term ‘race,’ the clauses should be precise about the types of distinctions between people that, when referred to as (assumed or actual) personal traits of a conversational partner, induce an insult. (That isn’t easy at all.) --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:E590:C336:DB5B:5CA8 11:30, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Probably too far-reaching for this discussion, but most of the categories after ‘perceived characteristics like’ could be collectively replaced with something along the lines of affiliation with a group of people based on biological or social constructions, which would definitely cover ‘race,’ ‘ethnicity,’ ‘culture,’ ‘caste,’ ‘sex,’ ‘disability,’ ‘age,’ arguably also ‘nationality,’ and possibly ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender’ as well (though mentioning them explicitly greatly reduces the risk of misunderstandings). Another way of distancing the Code’s language from the problematic notion of ‘race’ could be to add something like regardless of whether there is an evidential basis or not for considering them meaningful distinctions among people after ‘or other characteristics.’ --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:E590:C336:DB5B:5CA8 12:37, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Again, as before, personal attacks are prohibited, just leave it as that. If you want to include not making judgements of any type based on charateristics X, Y, Z, then we need some far better defining. That is, the definitions better be good enough that they translate effectively into 100+ languages and execute in a practical fashion. Currently, they would not. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:49, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with removing it. Race does exist as a social construct and is hugely influential in the world, and we aren't doing anyone any favours by denying it. I can also see this statement making the movement less welcoming to non-white contributors. Hut 8.5 12:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Biological races and subspecies do exist, and anyone who asserts “there is no such thing as biological race” is ignoring how the term is used by actual biologists, at least in English. As to whether the various and wonderfully diverse human lineages can be considered subspecies, or races, or something else, actually doesn't matter. Most modern “racial” discrimination and vilification is based on cultural heritage (ethnicity), genealogy, and appearance, not 19th-century concepts of the “species of Man”. This is somewhat tangential to whether race is a “meaningful distinction”; rather, I'm making a counter-argument against the rationale “there is no such thing as race, therefore keep/delete the sentence”. Pelagic (talk) 20:58, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While a biological concept of race or subspecies obviously exists, as far as I am informed it has turned out to be inappropriate for the (single remaining) human species. If I recall the argumentation correctly, one of the reasons is the low genetic variance among humans. Another argument that I have heard is that the variance within (the ‘classical’) ‘races’ is actually higher than the variance between them. While I am quite sure that many ethnic groups also manifest themselves as well-defined clusters in terms of genetic disposition, this is probably not what people commonly call ‘race,’ and it is obviously not a desirable basis for personal attacks either. --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:F856:AAC0:D489:2DC2 13:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I fully support removing this. I can understand where whoever wrote this was coming from—they were that including the word race in the UCoC could be construed as support for race realism—but as written this is cludgy and just factually incorrect. As any first year anthropology student could tell you, race is a social construct, but it absolutely does not follow that it isn't a "meaningful distinction" between people. Social categories by definition lead to powerful, meaningful distinctions being made between people, and race is obviously no exception. This poor attempt at clarification adds nothing to the UCoC and, as the Whose Knowledge? group's letter explains much better than I could, it is much more likely that this statement will be taken as dismissing the experiences of people who have experienced racism or other forms of ethnic discrimination – because, intentional or not, that is what it says. Joe Roe (talk) 14:13, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, what’s a ‘meaningful distinction’ between people anyway? --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:F856:AAC0:D489:2DC2 13:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A few years ago, I was working on the ground floor of an office block in London. One of my colleagues from (I think) the Hong Kong office visited our office and telephoned me, inviting me to join him for a discussion. He told me "I am the Chinese guy who is half-way down the [open-plan] office". Obviously, the word "Chinese" was meaningful in this context, otherwise he would not have used it.

Definitely ;) And so could have been ‘black’ or ‘white.’ In a personal attack, such a distinction would be unacceptable in all cases (including ‘Chinese’). --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:C001:45DF:1213:6741 12:25, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or, to elaborate a bit more on what I wanted to get at: ‘Meaningful’ is such a fuzzy, context-dependent word that calling something (not) a ‘meaningful distinction between people’ is not very meaningful here… Maybe it would help to put ‘race’ in a line with ‘other constructs’ (whatever the correct language) to clarify that the word ‘race’ is supposed to refer to a(n existing) social construct without supporting, denying or commenting on any claim made by that construct. --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:C14C:5ADA:FDB2:22D 20:18, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Remove it, please. As many others have pointed out, "race" as defined by and for human society has no basis in evolutionary reality, but society has given it meaning; and denying that meaning is akin to race blindness. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:51, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
مع تعديلها وليس إزالتها كلية، فالتميز العرقي والاثني أمر واقع ولا يوجد حرج كبير في استعمال التمييز فإن ناداني أحدهم "أيها العربي" فلن ، يُحرك مشاعري أو يجعلني مضطهدا، لأنه في الأخير يتعلق بسياق الحديث وليس في التمييز في حد ذاته ، لكن تكرار أو استعمال هذا التمييز بغير موضعه هو الذي يجب أن يكون محظورا (والأمر في رمته تقديري، ويحتمل عدة تأويلات)

التعديل المقترح: ترى حركة ويكيميديا "العرق" و"الإثنية" باعتبارهما تمييزًا ذا مغزى بين الناس أمرًا ثانويًا، وتحظر استخدامها ضد الآخرين كأساس للهجمات الشخصية.--Nehaoua (talk) 22:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the note, but I have no problem if you remove it. I am not interested in any personal information on contributors ("race", gender, religion, visual acuity, biceps size or whatever). A contributor is a contributor, period. JohnNewton8 (talk) 09:08, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The note seems logically flawed (you can't deny the existence of something and prohibit it). However the rhetoric of the so called "whose knowledge" user group is much more disturbing, since it can easily be used to promote a racialist agenda ("racists exist thus races exist, and it's pertinent and moraly right to base policies on race categories... blah blah blah"). In consequence, either keep the present formulation as a lesser evil, or find one that will bar any perverse interpretation. Diderot1 (talk) 06:46, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agreed to remove it because the note doesn't help to make clear of any thing. it's not needed because personal attack always included as attack on biological identity of the person which is used as target. Agus Damanik (talk) 07:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

أقترح إزالة هذه الكلمات لأنها كلمات غير واضحة وبحاجة لتعريف دقيق، بخلاف ذلك فنحن نستعمل فهمنا الشخصي لها القائم على الانحيازات الثقافية التي اكتسبناها من مجتمعاتنا نتيجة التربية.

نعاني في المجتمع العربي من ترجمة هذه الكلمات بدقة، وفتحنا مؤخراً نقاشاً حول ذلك ولم نصل لنتيجة، وحتى لو رجعنا إلى المعاجم المختصة فيوجد اختلاف شاسع في التفسير.

لذلك الافضل برأي هو الإزالة، مع إمكانية الإبقاء ولكن بشرط تعريف المصطلحات تعريفاً دقيقاً وشاملاً لإزالة اي ليس ولحماية الأفراد من استعمال هذه الكلمات للتمييز--Michel Bakni (talk) 13:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

أميل إلى تأييد مُقترح الزميل @Nehaoua:، فنعتنا بالانتماء إلى هذه الجماعة أو تلك لن يُؤثِّر علينا طالما نحن فعلًا ننتمي إليها أو نُعرِّف أنفسنا أننا منها، والأفضل تعديل الصياغة بأن لا يكون الهدف من النعت الاستهزاء أو التحقير--باسم (talk) 13:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, strike this. Among other issues, the callout of race and ethnicity specifically implies that the Foundation *does* endorse the other distinctions listed as being meaningful. Ganesha811 (talk) 18:46, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
أتفق مع إزالة النص بشكله الحالي لعدم وجود تعريف دقيق للعرق والإثنية، ولا توضح الفكرة المطلوبة ولكن أشير لتعديله ليصبح: لا تؤيد حركة ويكيميديا التمييز على أساس الجنس والأصل والدين، باعتبارهما تمييزًا ذا مغزى بين الناس. يتم تضمينها هنا للإشارة إلى أن استخدامها ضد الآخرين كأساس للهجمات الشخصية محظور.

أي بالرغم من تعريف كل شخص لذاته بانتمائه لشيء معين، إلا أنَّه من المحظور التنابذ بالانتماء وبالهوية الشخصية للفرد.--Sandra HANBO (talk) 21:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC) Yes, Strike it, as there is no clear definition for "Race" and "Ethnicity" word, thus the idea wouldn't be clear, But I suggest replacing it with: "The Wikimedia movement does not endorse origin, gender and religion as meaningful distinctions among people. Their inclusion here is to mark that they are prohibited from using against others as the basis for personal attacks." The meaning as even everybody has their own definition of themselves. It should be prohibited to use it for personal attack--Sandra HANBO (talk) 21:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another related thought just struck me: Since the UCoC is also supposed to be apply to Main namespace, I think it should be made clear somewhere in the UCoC that the prime standard for content is w:Wikipedia:Verifiability (or some project-specific variant thereof). Otherwise there could (and probably would) be people trying to construe the UCoC as requiring the removal of (verifiably sourced) information of which they claim that it contradicts (for example) their religious beliefs, thus (allegedly) being harassment. (I have also seen this in cases where private companies demanded the removal of sourced-but-uncomfortable information from their Wikipedia articles. This would not be harassment in the UCoC sense, though, since companies are not persons.) --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:1841:71F1:5036:836 08:58, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the note should be removed entirely from section 3.1 of the UCoC. After reading diverse arguments and opinions in this thread, it is still clear that the note doesn't help in any way to protect non-white contributors in the Wikimedia projects. As a movement, we should continue advancing in our efforts (not only intentions), to tackle racism as a system of power, privilege and oppression, not merely as a "distinction" among people. --Mariana Fossatti (WK?) (talk) 16:11, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Or change to

Note: The Wikimedia movement does not endorse use of concepts like "race", "ethnicity", "sex", "gender" or similar as meaningful distinctions among people. Their inclusion here is to mark that they are prohibited in use against others as the basis for personal attacks.

Taylor 49 (talk) 19:49, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just say "ad hominem attacks based on race are prohibited" or similar? If not, the moment this becomes ratified all WMF collaboration with Black Lunch Table would have to cease, right? -Indy beetle (talk) 08:43, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If all personal attacks are prohibited, then specifying the bases on which personal attacks are prohibited is unnecessary. Silver hr (talk) 17:34, 3 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Safe and inclusive community (Doxing)[edit]

I would like us to look at this section as well:

Current text: Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email address without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects.

Question 1

As written, this means that if someone in government or in a commercial company edits a Wikipedia article in a way that indicates a conflict of interest, no Wikipedian is allowed to comment on that on-wiki or off-wiki. In fact, as written, this passage categorically forbids Wikipedians from commenting on what other people are doing in Wikipedia anywhere outside of Wikipedia. This would be a very major and far-reaching paradigm shift. Do you support rewording of this passage? --Andreas JN 466 18:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Question 2

Suppose that User:A libels User:B with the result that User:B suffers a financial loss. Although User:A be banned from editing, the WMF cannot force User:A to make good User:B's financial losses. User:B's only recourse is to take legal action which will neccessitate disclosing User:A's personal details to the court and if the matter goes to a hearing, to the general public. The text, as it currently stands, puts the WMF above the courts. Do you support rewording the current text to recognise that the courts are a higher authority than the WMF? Martinvl (talk) 21:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Doxing)[edit]

Note that having a page like en:Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits would be forbidden under this rule as presently written. It would also be forbidden to mention such edits to anyone outside Wikipedia (family, academics, reporters, etc.). --Andreas JN 466 13:34, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict, twice; not again!) This has a number of issues.

explicit consent: There could (and probably would) be discussions about what constitutes ‘explicit consent’ and how to prove that the user in question did provide it. Declaring consent on-wiki would seem strange to me, since instead of expressing consent the user could just have disclosed the information themself. On the other hand, what about information the user did disclose in the past? Can this be seen as explicit consent to making this information public again, years later possibly, when nobody remembers the original disclosure anymore?
either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere: This is tricky given that Wikimedia is obviously not in a position to make rules for outside the Wikimedia projects, and sanctions within a Wikimedia project against a user who violated some Wikimedia rule somewhere else (e.g. by disclosing personal information of a fellow Wikipedian) would themselves require drawing a connection between the infringing person there and the Wikimedia user here, which could itself be a violation of this policy.
sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects: Posting a link to a user’s Contributions outside a Wikimedia project could be seen as a violation of this policy, which (at least to me) seems unreasonably strict.

Suggestion: dropping the consent-based policy altogether (nobody is allowed to disclose private information about other Wikimedia users that they have not previously disclosed themselves) and restricting it to cases that can reasonably be dealt with inside the Wikimedia universe. --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:58C5:FCC4:481D:C5BF 13:36, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are multiple issues here. The COI one is likely the biggest, but the lack of sharing outside the project is both a vast expansion of UCOC scope, tough to enforce, and comes with some problems when sharing would be logical. I believe it is also worth discussing with fr-wiki, as they have some anti paid-coi efforts that would be prohibited by this. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:40, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would strike "place of employment", as there is no way to enforce our COI and UPE policies when that sort of discussion is prohibited. The "explicit consent" is also a bit concerning -- if a user posts "Hi, I'm John Smith" on their user page, that seems like implied consent, not explicit consent, yet I can't see anyone having an issue with using that information. "Intentionally disclosed" seems like a better test. As for the "outside of Wikipedia" section, I understand the intent is to prohibit publishing "John Smith is User:Example", but as written it seems to prohibit "User:Ahecht posted on the revision discussions page". I would suggest rewording the entire thing to: Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing information, either on a Wikimedia project or elsewhere, that links a Wikimedia contributer's username with private information that they haven't intentionally disclosed or otherwise explicitly consented to sharing. Private information includes, but is not limited to, name, physical address, or email address.. -- Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:50, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This needs to be written in a way that does not hamper current enforcement against long-term abuse, off-wiki coordination, COI, paid editing, sockpuppetry, and any other form of abuse that is currently routinely discussed between and/or with admins and functionaries. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are two big considerations here. The first is just a matter of clarity/organization: sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects, simply isn't doxing. If it's to be included, it should be its own line about off-wiki harassment. The second issue is that it opens a larger question: this is the only part of the UCoC that deals with harassment on other sites. To what extent should the UCoC extend to Wikimedians' participation on third-party sites? To what extent can it? Undoubtedly, a non-trivial amount of harassment occurs outside of Wikimedia projects, and we need to be able to consider that evidence in some cases. But given how difficult and fraught it is to try to police users' activities elsewhere, the bar needs to be higher than simply "sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity". How to formulate a line about off-wiki harassment is something that needs its own sizable discussion, frankly (it's such an obvious element of the harassment discussion that I'd be shocked if there weren't a few already). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:10, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
حتما سيضعنا هذا الأمر في مأزق، عدد المساهمات المدفوعة وتضارب المصالح كبير جدا، مما يجعل حيادية الموسوعة في المحك، ووجود اللوبيات وجماعات الضغط وغيرها، والتي تجعل في كثير من الأحيان من الصعب تحييدها دون الكشف عن معلومات شخصية عنها وتتبعها للتقليل من التخريب وأدلجة الموسوعة، لكن من جهة أخرى الكشف عنها دون الحاجة قد يجعل من الأشخاص عرضة لعدة انتهكات --Nehaoua (talk) 22:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Question 1: it must be added "unless such information is publicly available", like in any good Non Disclosure Agreement. For instance if the IP of a contribution leads to the US Congress, it may be said as anyone can trace it; if a user has previously revealed on WP or in a Tweet his identity, it may be used as well. JohnNewton8 (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Question 2: I do not understand the point. In the example, User:A is legally responsible for having libelled User:B. User:B should take the case to court. WMF is not a court, and is not in charge of causing User:A to compensate for harm User:B. JohnNewton8 (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

بصورة عامة أنا ضد الكشف عن أي بيانات شخصية لأي سبب كان (ما خلا حالات ضيقة جداً جداً)، سأجيب على السؤال الثاني: الجواب هو لا، لا يمكن الكشف عن البيانات في هذه الحالة، كون الضرر حصل وكشف البيانات لن يؤدي إلى رده. ويكيبيديا ليست طرفاً في النزاعات القضائية ولا يجب أن تكون كذلك.

من الحلول المقترحة أيضاً تفعيل دور الرقابة المجتمعية على صفحات المحتوى فلا تجد التعديلات التخريبية طريقها إلى الموسوعة، وإن وجدت لا تضل طويلاً، فيكون تأثيرها محدوداً.--Michel Bakni (talk) 13:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JohnNewton8: The rules, as they stand, prohibit User:B from disclosing User:A's identity and will sanction him if he does so, yet to get the compensation due to him, the courts require User:B to disclose User:A's identity. Do you not see a contradiction here? Martinvl (talk) 20:55, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Martinvl: sorry, still not. User:B can file a complaint without disclosing (and without knowing) user:A's real name. The courts will request WMF to disclose user:A's IP, and user:A's FAI to disclose user:B's real name. JohnNewton8 (talk) 14:37, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

もちろん、嫌がらせとして個人情報を"doxing"するのは、非常に良くない行為です。ただ私は、ウィキメディアが、私たちの国の裁判所や司法より上位にきてはならないと考えます。例えば、明らかな犯罪行為が犯された場合でも、私たちは自国の身近な警察や裁判所を頼れなくなってしまいます。嫌がらせとしての"doxing"に対しては、相談窓口があると良いでしょう。--Kizhiya (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

question1-2: 私はこの鋭い質問が公開された場合、私たちの国では、WikipediaとWMFが信頼を失うかもしれないと指摘します。WMFが、何か邪悪な意図を持った秘密結社のように考えられる可能性があります。 Kizhiya (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JohnNewton8:: I was assuming that User:B knows the identity of User:A. To recap, I was assuming further that User:A had libelled User:B, that as a result User:B had incurred a financial loss and that in order to recoup that loss, User:B had sued User:A directly in User:A's local courts on grounds that WMF could not (or would not) make good User:B's loss. In such cases, would WMF stand by and watch its no-doxing rules as they now stand being broken or would it sanction User:B thereby putting itself above the courts. Ideally UCoC should look at its rules and allow for the situation where they are unable to make good a financial loss. Martinvl (talk) 15:54, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Change to

Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' or 3:rd parties' private information, such as but not limited to name, place of employment or physical or email address, unless explicit consent of the affected person is available, or the action is obviously justified for other reasons.

Doxing of 3:rd parties must be prohibited too. Posting private information about people who never have edited any wiki is a common problem and must be addressed too. Taylor 49 (talk) 20:35, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for making proposals for improvments, not only here also in the other sections. The purpose of written rules is, that everyone can check them and should then know what is allowed and prohibited. Considering that, your text has two problematic parts:

such as but not limited to That means there are other things but they are not mentioned here. If I have an information about you, that is not one of the mentioned types, then I still don't know if I may share that info. You can find a definition in the WMFs Privacy Policy: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Definitions Btw, "place of employment" is not mentioned there but here.
obviously justified for other reasons It is up to debate what is "obvious" and what are justifying reasons. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 08:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Taylor 49:: Are you suggesting that the statement "There is a fellow called Joe Biden. His address is '1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20500' " should be prohibitted? This information is available at en:White_House and is very much in the public domain. We need ot avoid simplistic rules otherwise we will run into these types of problems. The English WIkipedia already has guidelines for this sort of thing. Martinvl (talk) 21:45, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@User talk:Martinvl: That's exactly why I added "the action is obviously justified for other reasons". Already solved. Taylor 49 (talk) 00:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And NO, exhaustivity is not a sane objective. You are not supposed to publish someone else's real name, current or former, physical address, current or former, place of employment, current or former, personal number, current or former, passport number, current or former, criminal record, complete or part of it, list of debts, complete or part of it, information about bank accounts, HIV-status, COVID-19-status, genome, complete or part of it, photo or video of the body, complete or part of it, fingerprint or print of some other body part, voice recording, drug consumption, other addictions, addiction-like behaviour or any other potentially problematic behavioral patterns, details on sex life or preferences, registration string and other details about the car, details about membership in political parties, labour unions, terror organizations and other problematic bodies, phone number, PIN and PUK for the SIM card, wiki passwords, PIN for the bank card, other passwords and access codes, body mass, shoe size, ... do you need an even longer list? Taylor 49 (talk) 00:23, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note that every single editor who shared or discussed the recent press article describing an editor's ten-year hoax spree in Chinese Wikipedia on Twitter, Facebook or even in the pub violated the Universal Code of Conduct's prohibition against "sharing information concerning other contributors' Wikimedia activity". --Andreas JN 466 11:20, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Psychological manipulation[edit]

I would also like us to look at this section:

Current text: Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want.

Question

What is described here is indistinguishable from the process by which ordinary people everywhere seek to change each other's minds – except for the attribution of malice. If an editor seeks, e.g., to insert content into Wikipedia, in good faith, that violates some content policy that they don't understand or agree with, they will experience something which from their perspective will match exactly what is being described here: people – other Wikipedians – will want to cause them to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force them to behave the way they want – i.e. to stop inserting said content, which the editor may feel is vitally important to represent their world view. In such a situation, this passage will encourage them to attribute other Wikipedians' behaviour to malice. It is likely to further personalise content disputes. Do you agree that this section should be dropped? --Andreas JN 466 18:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Psychological manipulation)[edit]

I would completly drop this paragraf: During the vote, several people complained about this part. I'm also unable to see the point why it is there at all. It's also an example of very high level English (maliciously, perception), which should be avoided. --Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 08:14, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions or senses is psychological manipulation, that should be out of question here. The problematic part is that about ‘understanding,’ since ‘causing someone to doubt their own understanding with the objective to win an argument’ is precisely what (academic) discussion and discourse are all about. This has to be re-worded at least. The intention behind this paragraph might have been to ban gaslighting, but with its current language, such an intention (if present) is not made very clear. --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:58C5:FCC4:481D:C5BF 12:17, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This applies to so much that I'm certain it'll be gamed/abused. E.g., the UCoC calls for "respect, civility [...] without expectations based on [...] sexual orientation, gender identity, [or] sex", but some people who don't "respect [...] gender identity" are known for saying promoting respect is a malicious authoritarian effort to cause them "to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding". So, is a user who maliciously misgenders others wrong (as various clauses suggest, and because such misgendering is "maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding"), or are people who object to it wrong for "causing [the misgenderer] to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding" in a way the user is motivated to assert is malicious? It's hard to write a rule about this that isn't applicable to all disagreement (motivating people to claim others are acting in bad faith, as Andreas notes) and/or liable to be abused; I think it might be better to drop this entirely. -sche (talk) 09:28, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The core here is "maliciously", without that, it's just normal reasoning. But detecting wilful maliciousness is hard enough in other edit categories with countless edge cases (hence AGF existing at all). When it comes to discussions on things like perceptions and senses, I'm struggling to see how we would detect maliciousness without the person already having crossed one or more other lines within the UCOC. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:42, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If the whole thing hinges on "maliciously", then just ban "malicious behavior" and be done with it. Adding the rest doesn't seem to add anything and is verging on en:WP:BEANS. -- Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:56, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- - whether we just ban "malicious behaviour" or something more complicated, the key factor is the intent to do harm. It is very difficult in a WP ccontext to distinguish this from lesser degrees of undersiraable behavior,suchas harm from honest over-zealous behavior. It requires judgment of intent, and we have no wway of judging intent except in the most extreme of cases, for which we already haverules enough. DGG (talk) 14:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Ahecht: I mean, yeah, and we could replace NPOV with "be neutral" but it helps to explain the various ways content is/isn't neutral (even if we don't write out every exception). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that I see an issue with this. Much of this document requires judgments about things like intent. In a world where you can say one thing and mean another (or say one thing and mean two things), this is pretty fundamental. Any one instance of possibly malicious manipulation can be AGFed, but that decreases the more evidence you have, and the wider variety of evidence you have. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites can you (or anyone, if you see this first) provide some examples where this malicious psychological manipulation was carried out but no other part of the UCOC was breached? I think that would help provide some basis for this discussion to focus on - once they're proved to exist, we can then tailor the phrasing to catch more equivalent cases. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that's a good basis for this discussion. Context is important. Even if a form of harassment only accompanies other forms of harassment, that doesn't mean it's not a form of harassment unto itself, or that it's not worth pulling out here. Remember that a code of conduct isn't just for people to read and say "I won't do that"; it's also for victims of harassment to put words to their experiences. The very nature of "psychological manipulation" makes it one of those things that may cause great distress for someone, even while they have a hard time pinning down and articulating the problematic behavior. This kind of manipulation is typically only even "effective" over a longer period of time, pointing again to the need to consider entire cases and context, including other evidence of harassment, rather than a diff. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The main problem I see with this passage is that it can be invoked by anyone who has lost an argument about what article content to include or exclude. It's human for a person to assume malice when they weren't able to get their way; this passage reinforces and legitimises that. I don't see how it helps, and can think of a number of ways in which it would be harmful. Andreas JN 466 21:16, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
حالات كثيرة يدعي أصحابها أنهم تعرضوا لضغوط نفسية، حالت دون تمريرهم لفكرتهم (والتي قد تكون فعلًا غير مقبولة) ولكنهم بوجود مثل هذا البند يُمكنهم التحجج به وتوقيف أي مُناقش (خاصة إن كانوا محررين مخضرمين او إداريين) لا يوافقهم الرأي ويوجههم إلى سياسات التحرير وآداب النقاش وغيرها من الأمور التي قد لا يفقهونها أو لا يريدون ذلك --Nehaoua (talk) 22:35, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
أتفق مع إزالة هذا الجزء. لا يوجد حد واضح فاصل يحدد متى تكون المسألة تلاعباً بالرأي وكتة كون مساعدةً على بناء المعرفة. نحرص في ويكيبيديا على تأمين بيئة خالية من النظريات الهامشية والإشاعات والأخبار الكاذبة وهذا دورنا، ولكن دور القارئ أن يطور فكره النقدي ليكون قادراً على التصدي لهذه الأساليب. بخلاف ذلك، يمكن استعمال هذه الحجة لإغلاق قنوات التلفاز والإذاعة في كل مكان في العالم بحجة أنها قد تستخدم من قبل السياسيين أو التجار للتلاعب بالرأي العام. باختصار: تطوير الذات وشحذ العقل وامتلاك الفكر النقدي هو مسؤولية كل فرد.--Michel Bakni (talk) 13:10, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
أعتقد أنَّ هذا الجزء قد يُتخذ مدخلًا من طرف بعض المُتلاعبين أو أصحاب نظريَّة المُؤامرة لإلقاء اللائمة على المُجتمع الويكيبيدي أو على بعض أفراده بحُجَّة أنهم تعرَّضوا لضغوطات حالت دون تحريرهم بحُريَّة. وهي فئة موجودة بكثرة في أغلب المُجتمعات. لذا أُؤيِّد إزالته--باسم (talk) 13:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another related thought just struck me: Since the UCoC is also supposed to be apply to Main namespace, I think it should be made clear somewhere in the UCoC that the prime standard for content is w:Wikipedia:Verifiability (or some project-specific variant thereof). Otherwise there could (and probably would) be people trying to construe the UCoC as requiring the removal of (verifiably sourced) information of which they claim that it contradicts (for example) their religious beliefs, thus ‘causing [them] to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the [alleged] objective to win an argument.’ (So far, such claims could easily be dismissed by pointing out that the information in question is sufficiently sourced.) --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:1841:71F1:5036:836 09:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's precisely the sort of scenario I had in mind. This passage positively encourages people involved in content disputes to think, "They are doing this because they hate my scientific/religious/political belief." Not helpful towards resolving such disputes. Andreas JN 466 17:16, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

•I am logging into the English Wikipedia Three notifications were received The content has only two key points [1.Welcome to English Wikipedia],[2.I see that your native language is not English Encyclopedia in English may not be able to contribute You can go to Chinese Wikipedia.....]last night another administrator Notify with warning template[ *I found that you may not be able to use English：I saw you use English in the comment area text message other than We are here in English encyclopedia can you leave a message in english It's easier for us editors help you,We also need translators]These two notifications let me I feel like my words are not welcome =====Original text below Chinese/Hanja====我正在登錄英文維基百科收到三個通知內容只有兩個重點[1.歡迎來到英文維基百科],[2.我看到你的母語不是英文百科全英文可能無法投稿你可以去中文維基百科.....]昨晚另一個管理員用警告模板通知[ *我發現你可能不會用英文：我看到你在評論區短信裡用英文除了我們在英文百科，你能不能用英文留言更方便我們編輯幫助你，我們也需要翻譯]這兩個通知讓我覺得我的文字不受歡迎Ch.Jaguar (talk) 00:09, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This section should be dropped. There is no way of knowing someone's internal state of mind, i.e. whether they're malicious or not. If you want to ban gaslighting, then describe it without resorting to unknowable things or undefined terms, and make sure your text clearly distinguishes between gaslighting and just plain discussion (the purpose of which is very often to change someone's mind). Silver hr (talk) 17:52, 3 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Abuse of office by functionaries, officials and staff[edit]

(under "3.2 – Abuse of power, privilege, or influence"):

Current text

Abuse of office by functionaries, officials and staff:use of authority, knowledge, or resources at the disposal of designated functionaries, as well as officials and staff of the Wikimedia Foundation or Wikimedia affiliates, to intimidate or threaten others.

This definition misses some clear cases of abuse and includes other cases that are clearly no abuse:

So when someone violates some rules and I warn him not to repeat that via "next time, I will block you", then I would threaten that user to use my authority and resources, therefore violating the UCOC myself.

When there is a user who didn't do anything wrong, but I don't like them so I block them, then it was not Abuse of office according to UCOC, because I did not "intimidate or threaten" to use my power to block, I just blocked them.

--Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 08:08, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Der-Wir-IngI support this argument， administrator because see my post in non-English just use the warning template warning! :found that the user is not using English to leave a message]content below completely different]：I hope you can leave a message in English So our editors to help you we need translators too.He didn't threaten with words but with template warning===我支持這個說法，我收到管理員用警告！！：發現該用戶不會使用英文留言下面的內容完全不同]：希望你能用英文留言所以我們的編輯可以幫助您我們也需要翻譯。他沒有用言語威脅，而是用模板警告Ch.Jaguar (talk) 00:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Staff abuse)[edit]

I agree the present wording is not fit for purpose. It will cause unnecessary confusion and strife. At worst, it will encourage double standards, where some people will be punished for a certain behaviour while others are not. The ostensible rule infraction then becomes a mere pretext for sanctioning someone. We should not build such things into our disciplinary system. --Andreas JN 466 12:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflict. I think the problem here is ‘intimidate or threaten.’ That is not what we want to get rid of when talking about abuse of (sysop or other) power. At least ‘threaten’ is misplaced (there may be a point for ‘intimidate,’ but only as one case of abuse). In my understanding, ‘use of authority, knowledge, or resources at the disposal of designated functionaries’ is abuse in cases where

a measure is outside the functionary-in-question’s discretion (e.g. blocking someone without a valid and sufficiently objective reason to do so)
or there is a conflict of interests (e.g. check-usering someone with whom the checkuser-in-question is in a dispute).

Threatening to use authority and so on in an abusive way may be abuse itself (especially against people who are not aware of the abusive nature of the measure they are being threatened with), and there may be other kinds of abusive use, but the aim here should be to define the modalities of abuse as precisely as possible. And abuse cannot be precisely defined without a notion or model of what intended or expected (not abusive) use is expected to look like. --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:58C5:FCC4:481D:C5BF 12:37, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. Andreas JN 466 13:30, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Both DWI & IP C5BF make some good points. I should also note, however, two problems with the conflict of interest one ("INVOLVED" should be included, in some form, but needs detail) - one is that most projects permit INVOLVED admin actions in certain circumstances (vandalism, rule of necessity etc) the other is that some projects have very few admins. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:46, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
فعلًا الأمر غير واضح ومتناقض في آن واحد، كثيرة هي الرسائل التي تُرسل للمستخدمين بالتهديد بالمنع في حالة عدم الاستجابة للسياسات أو متابعته أمام جهة أخرى (الشكوى إلى إدارى أو استدعاء طرف ثالث) فهل يُعد تنبيها أو تهديدا، يجب التمييز بينهما --Nehaoua (talk) 22:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Translaton from Google: In fact, the matter is not clear and contradictory at the same time. There are many messages that are sent to users threatening to ban in the event of failure to respond to policies or follow it up before another party (complaining to an administrator or summoning a third party). Is it considered a warning or a threat? A distinction must be made between them. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 09:33, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the present wording is not fit for purpose. A warning from a sysop ("if you continue to vandalize, you will be blocked"), or from any contributor ("if you infringe again en:WP:NPA, I will ask a sysop to draw the consequences") are fully acceptable, and even better than blocking without warning. My English is not the best, but may I suggest "unduly intimidate or threaten" (in French : "menacer ou intimider indûment") ? JohnNewton8 (talk) 08:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC), sysop on fr-WP.[reply]
Dictionary gives for French 'indûment' "without permission/right to do" but the English 'unduly' gives only "more than needed, excessivly".

Well, every Admin has the technical right to block users, but in some wikis there are additonal rules that they are only allowed to do so, if someone violates other rules. Some projects don't have these additonal rules. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 09:42, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Additionnal comment: procedures do exist within the communities to get rid of an abusive sysop or of an user with a long established reputation, and they work. What is the procedure to avoid abuse from WMF? JohnNewton8 (talk) 08:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Warning is not necessarily threatening, nor intimidating ; see this proposal which may be applicable on each wiki since it's interpretative and relying on existing rules. In other words, 'abuse' or 'misuse' should be defined by an appropriate policy, independently of this conduct line.
Use of authority, knowledge, or resources at the disposal of designated functionaries, as well as officials and staff of the Wikimedia Foundation or Wikimedia affiliates, in a way that is manifestly not in accordance with the applicable local rules and global policies.
LD (talk) 20:29, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

هذا البند غير واضح، ويلزم تحديد ما هو التنبيه وما هو التنويه وما هي الملاحظة ما هي الإشارة ومتى تستعمل كل منها في صفحات نقاش المستخدمين

Change to

Abuse of office by functionaries, officials and staff: use of authority, knowledge, or resources at the disposal of designated functionaries, as well as officials and staff of the Wikimedia Foundation or Wikimedia affiliates, to intimidate or threaten others or obstruct their work on a wiki project, unless this is needed in order to enforce the UCOC, and in such a case done only to the degree that is absolutely necessary for that purpose.

Taylor 49 (talk) 20:31, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for making proposals for improvments. The purpose of written rules is, that everyone can check them and should then know what is allowed and prohibited. Considering that, your text has two problematic parts:

There are many local policies that are not part of the UCOC and enforcing them by functonaries would automatically be abuse of power.
done only to the degree that is absolutely necessary Trolls and vandals would love that passage. In many cases it's correct to block an account, but not absolutely necessary: You could warn them first. And if they keep vandalizing, then it's still not absolutly necessary: You could warn them a second time.

I checked some real live laws about abuse of power. The ones that I found go like "a funktionary does something without having the permission" That only works because in real live, there is usually a law with a list of things that the functonary is allowed to to. We don't have these lists on our projects. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 08:57, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Prohibiting retaliation[edit]

I don't know where I should address this, but I think something like "Retaliating against those who have filed a complaint is prohibited" should be included in somewhere. Retaliation can take different forms including, but not limited to, ignoring. If an accuser is a non-advance rights holder and files a complaint against an advance right holder, it will cause an issue in a small wiki with a small number of advance rights holders if the accused decides to ignore all legitimate wiki editing-related requests from the accuser. --AppleRingo777 (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I second this proposal. Anti-retaliation measures are a must. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 22:32, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This could have unintended consequences. Consider the case where User:A makes an derogatory comments about User:B which User:B ignores. User:B that reverts something that User:A has written. User:A then accuses User:B of "retalliation" for User:A's comments. The wording must be done very carefully to avoid this sort of situation. Martinvl (talk) 14:27, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We're volunteers. You cannot force anyone to respond to a request, nor can you sanction someone for ignoring a request. Vexations (talk) 11:09, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Prohibiting retaliation, more or less means forcing someone to forgiveness. Good luck with that. I don't know how you would be able to enforce these rules, even how would you know for sure (!) 'why' someone is ignoring you. Also, there is a big difference between

false, but plausible accusations,
false and made up accusations,
correct and plausible accusations and
correct but unplausible accusations or correct accusation with made up reasoning.

I was confronted with all of them (Yea, even I made some mistakes: misspellings, blocked wrong guy,....) What I really dislike, are false, made up accusations, especially if they are made public. But usually that backfires for the accusing person, not because of me, but because everyone else finds out. No problem at all, are false but plausible accusations, especially when they first confronted me personally instead of accusing me publicly: I always had an easy explanation and we both were happy the accusations turned out to be false. --Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 12:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Prohibiting retaliation is not as difficult as you claim. Example: If you report someone, and they block you without you having broken any rules, they're retaliating. Such actions may be rare, but they should still be forbidden. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Need to define the term "designated functionaries"[edit]

Please define the words "designated functionaries" so that we know who would be subjected to this particular article; and that we can avoid to subject a certain group of people to unwarranted accusations. In addition, the word "designated" implies that there are also functionaries who are "not designated" as well. Who are those "designated functionaries" exactly? Who would designate them? We need to be on the same page so that we won't unintentionally create a breeding ground to promote false accusations with the undefined terminology. Please also read: Defining the term "functionaries". --AppleRingo777 (talk) 14:55, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1 — Introduction[edit]

Current text:

Actions that contradict the Universal Code of Conduct can result in sanctions.

I think your intro should clarify that UCOC enforcement is mandatory on all local wikis. Sooner or later, someone's going to say that the Enforcement Guidelines are "only guidelines", and that they "don't have to" enforce the UCOC if they don't want to. I suggest changing the above text to, "Actions that contradict the Universal Code of Conduct, including refusal to enforce it, can result in sanctions." Adrianmn1110 (talk) 03:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Intro)[edit]

I think that the word "contradict" should be replaced by the word "contravene". Having said that, I am concerned that the authros of the UCoC have not taken into account the power of local courts - for example, a local court might order an editor/administrator who lives within the jurisdiction of that court to divulge the identity of another editor. Martinvl (talk) 17:16, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In hindsight, I agree with you. "Contravene" would be better than contradict". Adrianmn1110 (talk) 19:54, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What if the state is radically totalitarian? Then everything should be revealed to him, because he just wants it? Because someone is visiting a site in another state? Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 06:07, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adrianmn1110 if I refuse to sanction someone, because I disagree with the UCOC, your proposal is that I, myself, be sanctioned? You are aware that as both an editor and an administrator I'm under zero obligation to make any specific action? If I do make an activity, I'm obliged to meet en:WP:ADMINACCT, and I need to make some minimal level of activity as an admin, but the communities are ardently against ceasing to be volunteers. A huge amount of complaints were made about even needing to affirm and adhere to the affirmation clause. I cannot imagine the scale of blowback were you to propose that anyone failing to enforce it would immediately be sanctioned. Forget local courts interfering, your proposal strips Wikimedia of the underlying facet of our creation. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Imagine the nightmare that would result from requiring police officers to enforce all laws, always, against everyone, to the maximum extent of the law. We'd all be in prison, even the police officers. Vexations (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Nosebagbear Thank you for your feedback, but it's not my proposal. Mandatory enforcement is already a part of the UCOC Enforcement Guidelines. It's under "Systematic failure to follow the UCoC". I'm just saying that part should also be in the policy text. At any rate, I know that compulsory enforcement is opposed by some people. But if we don't have compulsory enforcement, we might end up with another Fram Incident, in which complaints about problematic editors are consistently ignored.[20][21][22][23][24][25] I consider protests to be the lesser of two evils. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:21, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is systematic failure by projects - projects can't be sanctioned in their own right, as they are a space and not part of new and experienced contributors, functionaries within the projects, event organizers and participants, employees and board members of affiliates and employees and board members of the Wikimedia Foundation - the systematic failure section is "just" that the U4C would act as a body that would act in those circumstances listed. However, Actions that contradict the Universal Code of Conduct, including refusal to enforce it, can result in sanctions doesn't specify projects - so it would apply to the same people as the "actions that contradict the UCOC" - which is every editor. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:49, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"That is systematic failure by projects" Based on the exact words written, the Enforcement Guidelines seem to be describing people and projects. Since a project is only a space, and not a person, how can it make "consistent local decisions that conflict with the UCoC"? How can it "refuse" to enforce the UCOC? Decision-making and refusal are both human actions. "Lack of will to address issues" is also listed as a failure to follow the UCOC. Since a project has no sentience, wouldn't it be redundant to describe its lack of will? It makes more sense to apply that description to people. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:31, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Definitly against this addition! Excuse me, user:Adrianmn1110, but shall I have to stick 24/7 on my keyboard to take actions and thus avoid your "sanction"? I get no salary for contributing in the project, and I claim the right not to act when I decide not to. JohnNewton8 (talk) 17:58, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ar: أعتقد أن المدونة هي فعلا إرشادات وفي الكثير من البنود التي تحتاج لتوضيح وأقلمة مع سياسات المجتمع المحلي وكذلك القوانين والتشريعات المعمول بها والتي قد تكون متناقضة مع المدونة في بعض تفاصيلها، فكيف يجدر بي تطبيقها في حالة التناقض لأنه في كلتا الحالتين سأعاقب

en:I suppose that the Universal Code of Conduct is really guidelines and in numerous the particulars that need to be clarified and acclimated to the code of the local community as well as the applicable laws and legislation in the country of residence of the subject, which may contradict the law in some of its details, so how should I apply it in case of contradiction because in both cases I'll be penalized if I do not respect one of them Nehaoua (talk) 19:03, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You have an example how exactly this could happen? I guess insulting people is bad in every country in the world, so it's probably not insults. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 19:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

يتعلق الأمر بتعريف الإهانة، فليس كل المجتمعات لها نفس التعريف، ونحن هنا نريد عقاب أحدهم بحجة الإهانة Nehaoua (talk) 19:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to remove this sentence entirely from the Universal Code of Conduct, because I can't see anything "universal" in it. Habitator terrae (talk) 21:08, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But then, is there anything ‘universal’ in this Code of Conduct at all? --2A02:8108:50BF:C694:C14C:5ADA:FDB2:22D 20:21, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you assume, that you can write down things, which you think are you universal, you can write them down, but the means to archieve them shouldn't be part of this list. Habitator terrae (talk) 18:27, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Change to

Actions that contravene the Universal Code of Conduct, including persistent refusal to enforce it, can result in sanctions.

No single sysop has a duty to intervene in a single particular case. You can abstain from a single case without having to give "hard reaons" for doing so. But if the sysop is active, repeatedly blocks users expressing opinions different from eirs, or just blocks ordinary vandals, but refuses to block users violating the UCOC in a particular manner (for example by transphobic harassment), then YES, this sysop does violate the UCOC and must be removed. Taylor 49 (talk) 20:20, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Using "persistent refusal" as the only standard would be too restrictive. A single refusal to enforce the UCOC could be so grossly unreasonable that it warrants a sanction. Furthermore, some sysops will let their friends get away with violating the UCOC while sanctioning editors they dislike (for the same violations). If I had to change my suggestion above, I would change it to this:
Actions that contravene the Universal Code of Conduct, including persistent, unfair, or unreasonable refusal to enforce it, can result in sanctions.

Adrianmn1110 (talk) 22:11, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can see the good point in your proposal. The problem is that a wiki sysop is a volunteer, whereas a police officer, judge or executioner is a paid worker. I do not think that a single sysop ever has a duty to act (within a specified time). However, if none of the listed sysops acts, then the problem MUST be eligible for the U4C. And if it turns out that a single sysop or the complete bunch on a project act in a "unfair" or "selective" way then they should be removed (but not necessarily hanged).

Active actions that contravene the Universal Code of Conduct as a rule result in sanctions. Failure or refusal to enforce it can result in loss of advaced rights or further sanctions only if the person in charge acts in an unreasonable, unfair or selective way.

Taylor 49 (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An administrator who knows zero about copyright law may selectively avoid taking any action where copyright is involved. That could apply to any particular area of policy, or any particular aspect of a code of conduct. An admin who does not feel competent in blocking, or who feels uncomfortable with blocking, may selectively limit their work to other tasks. Not only are proposals for sanctions here contrary to VOLUNTEER, they perversely demand people work in areas where they may lack competence or understanding. If an an entire wiki is found to be systematically dysfunctional it may be necessary for the global community to step in to remedy the situation, potentially so far as to replacing an entire admin corp. However it would be perverse to sanction an administrator for either disagreeing on the appropriate outcome in a particular case, or to sanction them for responsibly refraining from taking an action where they feel incompetent to do so. Alsee (talk) 21:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Alsee. This is particlarly true in the case of legal actions. There was a case a few years ago when an editor was blocked on the EN Wikipedia for "making legal threats" when anybody who had done a single course in law would have seen that there were no legal threats. The editor who was was blocked threatend to go to the press - he was a Nobel laureate and retired Cambridge professor. Had Arbcom not promptly readmitted him, Wikipedia would have been the laughing stock to the world. Martinvl (talk) 14:27, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's why Taylor 49 said "can result in loss of advanced rights or further sanctions", not "will". The U4C would have to apply discretion to each individual case. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... that's the "bad laws are not a problem because judges have discretion" argument. Nothing can possibly go wrong. Vexations (talk) 18:57, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's a strawman. I didn't say bad rules aren't a problem, and I didn't say nothing will go wrong. I pointed out that the U4C would have discretion under Taylor 49's proposal. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 00:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

... or that the authors of the law recognised that they cannot possibly foresee all possible scenarios so they provided a "get out" clause to allow for what they might or could not have foreseen. Martinvl (talk) 20:23, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I propose a new rule that sanctions behaviour I don't like with bans. I give a very poor definition of such behaviours. People object to my new rule, and point out that enforcing it will lead to sanctioning people who haven't done anything wrong. I don't rewrite my rule, but instead say, well, you know, we'll give the enforcers discretion to not enforce it. Should I be fired from rule-writing? Hell yes. Vexations (talk) 14:29, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Either you've never heard of Framgate, or you completely failed to learn anything from it. Not enforcing civility in the short run led to bigger problems in the long run. Two mainstream media outlets even reported on the incident. Taylor 49 and I had to word our suggestions in a way that could be interpreted flexibly. We could've said, "Functionaries must enforce the UCOC at least three times per calendar month." But then, they could revert vandalism three times per month while ignoring severe harassment. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 03:26, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, spare me from the usual "we're all volunteers" argument. Volunteering to hold advanced permissions doesn't entitle you to keep holding them in the future. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 03:32, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've learned plenty from Framgate. We just came to different conclusions. Your takeaway seems to be that not enforcing civility leads to bigger problem. One of my conclusions was that enforcing civility by policing behaviour and sanctioning people doesn't work. You can't create a welcoming, inclusive community by punishing everyone who behaves like an asshole. We agree that letting bad behaviour fester leads to problems. But I'd like to add that once you've arrived at a point where you feel you need to resort to sanctions, you have already failed, because everybody just sat around waiting for someone else to do something. If you want a less toxic environment, you need to empower everyone to act, not just a few people. The community should not relinquish its responsibility for its own culture. But that's what these calls for policing of speech accomplish. Vexations (talk) 12:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"One of my conclusions was that enforcing civility by policing behaviour and sanctioning people doesn't work." How did you come to that conclusion? Fram only got away with his conduct for so long because he wasn't policed closely enough. By ArbCom's own admission, they didn't do anything about him in 2016 and 2018 when they had the chance. No wonder his last accuser went straight to the Wikimedia Foundation. "You can't create a welcoming, inclusive community by punishing everyone who behaves like an asshole." Maybe not, but you can use blocks to prevent them from assing or holing. "If you want a less toxic environment, you need to empower everyone to act, not just a few people." How do you suggest doing that? Make everyone a sysop? The current sysops might protest about losing their social status. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 22:38, 10 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The way to handle assholes is by not acting like asshole yourself and express your disapproval of assholery without engaging in the same. Individual members of the community will be reluctant to act when there is some higher authority they can appeal to, anonymously if need be. That results in a low-trust environment where nothing is said but much is prohibited. That is neither safe nor welcoming for anyone. Adding more policing and secretive investigations just makes that worse. But I can see where this is going: we're going to implement something police-like. If we find later that it didn't work, we'll hire more police, not rethink what we've done. I don't want to be a part of that. The creation and implementation of the UCoC has exhausted my motivation to contribute. Vexations (talk) 14:09, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"The way to handle assholes is by not acting like [an] asshole yourself and express your disapproval of assholery without engaging in the same." How would that stop people who don't care about public opinion? "Individual members of the community will be reluctant to act when there is some higher authority they can appeal to" Since you're speculating, I'll do the same. I think, without someone to appeal to, people are even less likely to act. They'll worry about retaliation because they have no one to protect them. "That is neither safe nor welcoming for anyone." It would be more safe and welcoming than letting serial bullies do what they want without getting blocked. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 04:29, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Have you noticed how, in the past few years, public discourse has become coarser? Does it seem plausible to you that this has something to do with how public figures use aggressive, discriminatory and degrading language that signals that violence against people you disagree with is OK? Does is seem likely that the increased harassment and abuse that members of minority groups have had to suffer is enabled and encouraged by those same public figures who stand to benefit from stirring up discord? And have you noticed how the moderation policies of the social media platforms where this abuse takes place have utterly failed to reverse that trend? If I conclude that it's not possible to fix toxic discourse with policing, that's more than mere speculation.

Everyone needs to accept some level of responsibility in creating saner, healthier conversations. Am I never going to say something that offends someone? I'm pretty sure I will, and already have. Does that make me a bully? Perhaps someone might see it that way. But I'd prefer that the person who takes offence lets me know how what I did affected them and lets me have an opportunity to make it right, instead of calling the cops. Wouldn't it be nice if we could "implement" the assumption of good faith and codify that as: "If I did something that you have a problem with, please come to me first before seeking sanctions". I don't see that in the UCoC. Vexations (talk) 23:01, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"And have you noticed how the moderation policies of the social media platforms where this abuse takes place have utterly failed to reverse that trend?" So what makes you think the solution is less policing rather than more? Is it possible that, without those policies, people would be even more toxic than they already are? Is it possible that some mods don't enforce policies that already exist? "If I conclude that it's not possible to fix toxic discourse with policing, that's more than mere speculation." That's not what I'm talking about, though. You said, "Individual members of the community will be reluctant to act when there is some higher authority they can appeal to". That's speculation. "Everyone needs to accept some level of responsibility in creating saner, healthier conversations." Obviously, but you still haven't answered my question: How is "expressing disapproval" going to work against people who don't care what others think? Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:07, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a psychologist, but I'd say that most people are sensitive to individual responses that aggregate to produce a group-level pattern of norms. I'm not aware of an effective treatment for psychopathy. People who are thus afflicted may need to find another hobby. It is most unfortunate that some of those people are immensely popular, but you can't fix that with legislation. An empathic response, as I understand the literature, yields much better results. Vexations (talk) 19:56, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
"I'd say that most people are sensitive to individual responses that aggregate to produce a group-level pattern of norms." Even if that were true, we'd need a way to deal with the few who aren't. "I'm not aware of an effective treatment for psychopathy. People who are thus afflicted may need to find another hobby." Good luck getting them to find another hobby without blocking them. "It is most unfortunate that some of those people are immensely popular, but you can't fix that with legislation." You can't reduce their popularity with legislation, but you can sure block them from abusing others. Once again, how would expressing disapproval stop people who don't care what others think, from being aggressive? Adrianmn1110 (talk) 08:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just told you: It doesn't work with psychopaths. I prefer to see people as generally sane and acting in good faith. True psychopaths are rare. I'm opposed to generalizing a pathology and treating everyone accordingly. Yes, some folks are so disruptive that they'll have to leave. I called that "find another hobby": We implement that as a ban. But let's not treat everyone as if have a personality disorder, shall we? Vexations (talk) 12:17, 17 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"I just told you: It doesn't work with psychopaths." That's why I suggested an option to sanction functionaries who don't do their job, which they volunteered for, with all its responsibilities. Because "psychopaths", as you describe them, don't care if other people disapprove of their behavior. You can only get rid of them by blocking them, which only functionaries can do. "But let's not treat everyone as if [they] have a personality disorder, shall we?" When did I do anything remotely similar to that? Adrianmn1110 (talk) 09:15, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you didn't mean to suggest that. But what you're proposing has that outcome. I've wasted to much time on this. I'm sorry I couldn't explain my views better. I don't want to live in the world that the UCoC supporters want to create, so good luck and farewell. You can have the last word. Vexations (talk) 13:58, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"But what you're proposing has that outcome." I can live with that. Wikimedia's current enforcement of civility could (and should) be improved.[26][27][28][29][30][31]. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 01:45, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttps://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN%20Strategy%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Hate%20Speech%2018%20June%20SYNOPSIS.pdf

[1]