Universal Code of Conduct/2021 consultations/Enforcement/Maithili, Newari, Bhojpuri, Doteli & Awadhi Wikipedia Community

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Universal Code of Conduct
Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Facilitation Summary - Maithili, Newari, Bhojpuri, Doteli & Awadhi Wikipedia Community


Introduction[edit]

Maithili Wikipedia[edit]

The Maithili Wikipedia is the Maithili-language edition of the free online encyclopedia. The project was started on 2014 November 6. As of March 13, 2021, the project has 13,615 articles with 9,897 registered users. The Wikipedia project is the 133rd largest Wikipedia project in terms of articles with 9 active editors per month. The project has 5 administrators.

Maithili Wikimedians User Group was set up on 8th February 2016 to organize and promote Maithili Wikipedia online and offline activities.

Newari Wikipedia[edit]

The Newari Wikipedia is the Newari-language edition of the free online encyclopedia. The project was started on 2006 October 2. As of March 13, 2021, the project has 72,326 articles with 22,930 registered users. The Wikipedia project is the 80th largest Wikipedia project in terms of articles with 2 active editors per month. The project has 1 administrator.

Bhojpuri Wikipedia[edit]

The Bhojpuri Wikipedia is the Bhojpuri-language edition of the free online encyclopedia. The project was started on 2003 February 21. As of March 13, 2021, the project has 7,429 articles with 25,203 registered users. The Wikipedia project is the 167th largest Wikipedia project in terms of articles with 7 active editors per month. The project has 1 administrator.

Doteli Wikipedia[edit]

The Doteli Wikipedia is the Doteli-language edition of the free online encyclopedia. The project was started on 2017 April 27. As of March 13, 2021, the project has 3,295 articles with 4,418 registered users. The Wikipedia project is the 216th largest Wikipedia project in terms of articles with 6 active editors per month. The project has 2 administrators.

Awadhi Wikipedia[edit]

The Awadhi Wikipedia is the Awadhi-language edition of the free online encyclopedia. The project was started on 2020 May 20. As of March 13, 2021, the project has 2,432 articles with 988 registered users. The Wikipedia project is the 230th largest Wikipedia project in terms of articles with 2 active editors per month. The project has no administrator.

Status/Summary of behavioral policies[edit]

All these Wikipedia communities don't have any behavioral policies so far. There are no official policies on how editors can successfully collaborate and what sort of behavior is acceptable or unacceptable on the project.

It is to be noted that there have hardly been reported cases of discrimination, abuse, harassment, or any other conduct-related issues on the project. The local sysops are responsible for managing and concluding the community discussions, whether it is about policymaking or general discussion of the community.

Facilitation process[edit]

The on-wiki consultations about the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) were started on following Wikipedias:

We have contacted the communities for the discussion via the following mediums:

  • Village Pump Discussion: Most of the discussions take place in Village pump of these community
  • Personal connection: We knew that these communities were not so much interested to participate in Foundation led discussion, so we have contacted the active users of the community via social media and in-person calls
  • Community Meeting: We have also initiated a community meeting with Maithili and Newari community members to engage their participation in the survey

The on-wiki engagement received from the communities was good enough because these communities have a small number of active editors. We have received 2 feedback answers, both from sysops (1 male and 1 female) from Maithili Community, 1 feedback from Doteli and 1 from Bhojpuri community, both are sysop of their respective community.

To facilitate a more private feedback-sharing process, we launched a survey with all the key questions on UCoC enforcement. The survey ran from 14 February 2021 to 4 March 2021. The engagement of users was better than on-wiki discussions. We have received 23 feedback answers (14 male and 9 female) from the Maithili community and 2 answers (both are sysop) from Doteli community, 1 (female user) from Newari community, 2 (active users) from Awadhi community and 1 (sysop) from Bhojpuri community respectively.

Community’s feedback[edit]

The community contributors have appreciated the foundation’s effort to reach out to the community in their own language. They felt happy to have been included in a project of such high importance as the UCoC. Globally, the community unanimously shared the need and urgency of the Universal Code of Conduct in their communities. On specific enforcement questions, we did not receive concrete ideas - neither on the preferred enforcement mechanism nor on the enforcement body. However, throughout the discussion, the communities advocated for the implementation of the UCoC to help it tackle behavior-related issues so that one can freely contribute to the Wikimedia projects.

We tried our best to engage more users from the communities to express their voice in the Village pump discussion but lastly, we ended with 2 participants from Maithili, 1 from Bhojpuri, and 1 from Doteli. Among the 4 users who participated in the UCoC discussion, everyone supported the UCoC implementation in their communities.

The survey shows some increment in the number of participants and we are quite satisfied with the participation.

Important note from the Surveys[edit]

  • Total number of participants: 29
  • Male : 19 (65.5%)
  • Female : 10 (34.5%)
  • 5 participants reported that they have over 5 years of experience in the movement, 9 participants showed that they are in the movement for between 1-5 years and 15 participants showed that they are in the movement for less than 1 year.
  • 89.7% of participants indicated that they have never participated in the local community policy-making process.
  • 95% of editors expressed that they need a behavioral policy in the local Wikipedia community.
  • 13% (4 participants) users indicated that they have been personally attacked on Wikipedia and 6.9% (2 participants) reported that they experienced some kind of unethical behavior in the community.
  • 2% of users indicated that at some point in time they have considered taking a break from editing or leaving the project altogether due to harassment and abuse of power.
  • 55% of participants were not aware of UCoC while 45% were aware of the Universal Code of Conduct.
  • 67.9% are in favor of adopting the UCoC as a guiding principle to establish a unique local policy and 32% of users are in favor of accepting the policy as it is.

Enforcement body mechanism[edit]

  • The Wikipedia contributors of Maithili, Newari, Bhojpuri, Doteli and Awadhi think that a new, globally created body (with 37.9% favor response) will play a key role in enforcing the UCoC in Wikimedia projects. With 32% response, local community sysops stand at second place and Wikimedia Foundation stands at third place with 17.2% response.
  • 57.1% of users are in favour, 28.6% neutral and 14.1% said ‘No’ on whether members of the UCoC enforcement body should receive a form of financial compensation/remuneration for their service.
  • 48.3% of users are neutral that Wikimedia Foundation and its Affiliates are able to handle the cases of UCoC violations while 31% users went neutral and 20.7% users think that they can handle the cases of violation.
  • 48.3% are in favor of a standard procedure to protect the rights and obligations of complaining parties, complainants, and enforcers in an UCoC violation case and the rest of the users went neutral on this point.
  • 58.6% of users were recorded that there should be an appellate review mechanism handled by a global body in cases of an UCoC violation that the community could not resolve.
  • 55.2% of participants cast their response for the need of the global body to enforce UCoC in Wikimedia projects where there is no local capacity of enforcement.
  • 64.3% are in favor of a periodic review of UCoC text.
  • 75% of users were expressed that UCoC mechanisms should be available publicly, which includes reporting, arbitration, sanction enforcement, etc.

Enforcement pathways and escalation channels[edit]

  • 55.2% of users indicated that they are not aware of the steps to report harassment, abuse of power, and/or vandalism on Wikipedia.
  • Among the users who experienced unacceptable behavior within the community, only 40% of users reported while 60% did not report to the community leaders.

Support for the targets of harassment[edit]

Towards the end of the consultation, we have also asked the community if they think there should be a better peer support system for community members who have faced abuse and harassment in the movement. One major idea that came out in these regards was -

The Foundation should create a task force team to hear about the users’ harassment, abuse and unacceptable behaviour cases. The team should consist of local and global community members who are well known to the community and their mechanism. This way can only offer help, support and motivation to the victims and punishment for the culprit. There should be a framework for the level of abuse so it will also help to minimize the future cases of unacceptable behavior in the community

— Maithili Wikipedian, UCoC Survey 2021

Interesting stories/ideas/observations (anonymized)[edit]

The Wikimedia community and projects needed a similar policy initiative that is about to be completed after reading the Universal Code of Conduct draft. Lack of policies in small Wikipedia communities poses a variety of problems and challenges. For the policies, we always have to look for other developed Wikipedias. The UCOC is going to benefit the community in the diversified Wikimedia project.

— Sysop of Maithili Wikipedian, UCoC Survey 2021

After reading the approved draft of UCoC, I think this proposal is really awesome. In particular, issues related to COI are very sensitive at a time to be dealt with.

All these policies are not written in great detail on this small Wikipedia project, and this is why we have to explain by using the policy of English Wikipedia.

After the implementation of this worldwide policy, it will be easy that we just have to translate it into local Wikipedia. After the implementation of one kind of policy at all places, members will be able to understand it. I welcome this step, and I believe that the smaller Wikipedia community will definitely benefit from this policy. Thank you very much.

— Sysop of a project, UCoC Survey 2021

Interesting stories/ideas/observations (anonymized)[edit]

Since the smaller Wikipedia Community has very few users, there is nothing much to express any thoughts regarding what the foundation can learn from us. Yes, it would be beneficial for us because we are locally not capable enough to enact and enforce such things as we are a smaller community.

— User of a project, UCoC Survey 2021

Conclusion[edit]

These Wikipedia communities have been enthusiastically involved in this important policy discussion. Even though these communities are small in terms of the number of articles and active users, active participation shows its strength. The editors of these Wikipedia communities accepted the importance of the Universal Code of Conduct. Still, they have not been able to come up with a concrete alternative of the enforcement pathways. These communities also think that it would be appropriate to make this policy official by discussing it in accordance with local values and the needs of the local community.

These communities accepted that they are not capable enough to enforce the UCoC in their respective projects. They preferred to create a new global body with the help of Wikimedia Foundation that will be responsible to enforce and handle the UCoC.

The diverse Wikipedia communities have not yet faced the problem of unethical behavior publicly within the community. That might have reduced the chances of the need for the behavioral policy in their respective communities so far. But after every possible medium of discussion with the community members, there is a fair consensus of the need and adaptation of the Universal Code of Conduct in order to handle future problems and challenges.