Universal Code of Conduct/Revised enforcement guidelines/Voter comments report/Comments

This page contains voter comments submitted during the second vote to ratify the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines. Please do not edit it.

Voters comments

Overregulation!
This will do nothing to stop abusive users (who will just create new accounts, or use proxy IPs). But this bureaucratic nightmare will install fear, uncertainty, and doubt in those who combat abuse. Because we are trying to do the right thing. And we have no idea what the right thing is, anymore.
Too buerocratic.
The whole thing just means even more control, even more bureaucracy and even more waste of money
The guidelines themselves are OK, but not the bureaucratic tangle of this vote itself. This is too bureaucratic, Wikipedia harms itself with it. The whole sub-organization that forms as a result is to be rejected. A problem of every large organization
Bureaucracy monster
Still too complicated, too authoritarian, too remote from local communities. Moreover, the basic rights of any Wikipedian who is accused are still not guaranteed (notably the right to respond to possible accusations) and the level at which decisions are taken is absolutely unclear. Finally, the code claims to create new rights that will create more difficulties than anything else because they are not recognised by states.
This code is a summary of the worst that can be done in terms of bureaucratic tutelage.
I don't understand why what happens in private between contributors should concern the foundation?
We really have too much process, and yet we have never gotten sources for the allegations of fact in the 9/11 attacks first paragraph, and because of onerous process, I am now topic banned from same. So, contrary to Jimbo's "we make the internet not suck" we are allowing wikimedia projects to be sabotaged such that the internet sucks more. Because we have too much process.
Each project should be independent and govern on its own with few exceptions. I'm against global dictatorship and global interference with other projects.
We already have national laws and informal codes of conduct for this, such a set of codes and the rules for enforcement will only create an additional layer of bureaucracy.
too many layers of bureaucracy to work long-term; certification as antipattern
It starts like a good idea but ends up with another sheer oppressive way of controlling people on a global scale.
English Wiki is a big boy that can handle itself that doesn't need a "U4C"
No email.Thx. — The Ucoc is still having too much power
Much too bureaucratic
It is not fair to take away from the volunteers of a specific wiki their freedom to decide for themselves the fate of the wiki, in which they invest a lot of time and effort in this wiki
Everything I don't like about the Foundation: top-down approach, endless discussions, American bias, interference in the work of volunteers, misuse of donors' money... for a result that adds nothing to our already existing rules (at least on the French Wikipedia). Waste of time in my opinion.
There are far too few people who know philosophy of science. Increasing the power for those who do not know how to work and argue scientifically will lead to a decline of Wikipedia in the long run. It is better to maintain the current state, bad as it is.
Quite frankly I think the WMF has forced this through and they've intentionally made community consultation as hard as possible by hosting stuff on zoom calls and the like instead of on the Wikipedias themselves. Also I think it is unnecessary and would be an impediment to the already functioning rules of the English Wikipedia.
1) The proposed rules appear to be unduly complex. 2) The proposed rules do not trace to a description of the problem being solved, or to a rationale. In particular, the search for the word "rationale" on page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines/en#UCoC_Enforcement_Guidelines does not find anything, and nor does "justification". It is difficult or impossible to find what the problem being solved is using a reasonably low effort. It is therefore difficult or impossible to tell whether the problem being solved is worth the increased complexity of the rules. As a general principle, in case of doubt, additional rules ought to be rejected, especially when apparently complex (in terms of the number of words or concepts) and failing to trace to a problem description or a rationale.
What works, don't change. — Don't change what works.
These enforcement guidelines, as well as the Code itself, do not seem either appropriate or useful; rather, they support some kind of ideology, frequent in the "universalist" or "globalist" milieus, which makes me quite ill-at-ease because, despite of all the claims that are made in the Code, it is unnecessary to the Wikipedia project and rather unable to stop any kinds of manipulation if said manipulation is politically correct.
All of it, it's an ill thought idea designed to bludgeon good standing editors. Yet more attempts by WMF to impose itself on all wikis
And what will this code do for the project? Will it somehow help the participants in the creation of the encyclopedia? Will it help write better articles? - I do not see a single example of a problem that would be solved by the introduction of this code. - But it will create new problems. - It will breed bureaucracy - It will increase the number of quibbles on words and demotivate participants to debate - And it may create a dictatorship of those participants who can complain the loudest
I believe that the code would in any case restrict freedom of speech, already curtailed in Wikipedia, and also create opportunities for local abuse amongst administrators and complainers.
I already contest the add of "linguistically or technically feasible" about the use of one's pronouns because it's open the door to free misgendenring and respect of pronouns and non binary people can't be enforced with those words. It must be erased from the UCoC. The UCoC had to be clear about non binary people, does it protect them from misgendering or does it permit it, it's not clear.
I worry that contributors with a shaky linguistic foundation in their second tongues will inadvertently offend by using outdated terms for people, groups, etc., many of which they will have learned in language classes. We need to be welcoming and forgiving of those who are not native speakers of English or other dominant languages.
very longwinded for a set of *guidelines*, and I will not use nonstandard English pronouns. The third person singular in English is "he" or "she" for anything human or anthropomorphic.
Oh those pronouns. What a debacle. I really give a shit about anaphor resolution. (As should anyone, in my opinion, who wishes to edit an encyclopedia.) The singular/plural distinction in the English language pronoun system is one of the axes we use to keep anaphors straight. "They" is plural. It refers to more than one person. This was the inbuilt logic of English for hundreds of years. (Yes, Virginia, there are known exceptions, at the hands of many famous authors, where accurate anaphor resolution is not actively in play. That doesn't count—though rarely does any linguist bother to think hard enough to properly figure this out.) I'm not throwing this under the bus because the IDE crowd won't properly deal with the problem. By all means, create new pronouns if people feel they need them. Make a closed list so that we know what pronouns are on the menu. Is that too much to ask when mucking around under the hood of an anaphor system with hundreds of years of inbuilt wisdom (not all of it on the oppression–victimization axis)? — In my own notes, when both uses commingle, I use 'thəy' to distinguish a bespoke singular pronoun from a pronoun used with correct singular/plural anaphor resolution. I really don't care whether the original plural 'they" is newly written as 'thəy' or whether the new singular personal pronoun 'they' is written as 'thəy'. What I care about is that I can still tell the difference between 'they' intended to distinguish plural from singular, as long established, and 'they' intended to evade he/she. The code of conduct should in no way, shape or form be weighing on my decision to keep plural 'they' distinct from non-plural 'they'. That's my personal semi-autistic choice. Maybe it's an ugly shirt, but I'm flying my semi-autistic colours with extreme pride. Yes, I'm willing to play along with the IDE mandates. No, I'm not willing to do so by throwing pre-existing language equity under the bus. At issue is not the determination of the IDE movement to add something new and newly challenging that gripes me. It's the complete idiocy of throwing something that was previously useful under the bus in order to get there by only the (seemingly) most convenient available path, as voted by the mob. It also irks me that half of the time the pomo crowd is saying (biological) sex is passe and irrelevant, and the other half of the time saying that failure to comply with self-selected gender accoutrements is the new holocaust. If sex these days is nothing more than a genital hair colour, do we really need an entire pronoun system to advertise our narcissistic choices the way we tattoo our faces, bodies, and limbs? Or is it merely functioning as a chip on the shoulder, all the better to vote the non-conforming off the island? — As I see things, the collective institutions of higher education have gained unreasonable power in this debate. Outside of that purview, which admittedly now touches on more than half the population in developed nations, there is *no* established consensus about how this social issue should be handled. I'm an atheist in part because God is way too much "fill in the blanks". By that lifetime standard, I regard higher education as no more infallible than the Pope. I prefer Wikipedia over Harvard, and all the rest. That's why I'm here. Those fancy pieces of paper are NOT the gateway to human knowledge. Wikipedia does that job far better, with far less baggage, in my opinion. The IDE movement originated almost entirely within university campus culture. If you're attracted to "power" as your primary analytic tool in the social domain (which I regard as a mistake, but not a crippling mistake, because it really is a thing), begin with the ridiculously elite pinnacle of higher education. In the modern world, as recently reconfigured, it's the obvious starting point, and the present nexus of greatest abuse. (About my use of that word: If you refuse to wear Kevlar pants while using a chainsaw, you might just end up differently abled. *brain explodes* No, you fxxxxg end up crippled. Am I too much on the spectrum to exist in this Brave New World? I ask myself that question almost every day, now. Remember, everyone: friends don't let friends become differently abled—ideally, you take the car keys away from a drunk person long before that eventuality comes to pass. Gah! To call this "mental retardation" would be too kind, because the people who prefer to reshape language in this way have no intention to someday catch up, as the phrase was originally designed to imply, out of empathy.) — All this aside, I voted to approve, with this one item of dissent (the pronoun part) on record. — P.S. Satire. We have a page in our fine encyclopedia that explains this, if you're satire challenged. Short version: It's a mode of expression designed to make a point when you're being bullied by a self-congratulatory hegemanium. —
Persons and groups are not reliable sources to define themselves who and what they are. — Also, religious views are not equivalent to inborn predicates and given their destructive nature should not receive forced respect.
In accordance with the recommendations of the Council for German Orthography, I read texts marked with gender signs only when it is unavoidable. Reading the texts for voting is not unavoidable.
I am fully in favour of the application of the Universal Code of Conduct. However, it does state in paragraph 2.1 "where linguistically and technically possible". It is essential that those who are sensitive about their membership realise that in some cases it is simply not possible to meet their requirements for language distortion. Their interlocutors are, for the most part, good and constructive people who try to adapt to ever-changing demands. - On the other hand, paragraph 3.3 clearly states that "systematic manipulation of content in order to favour a particular interpretation of facts or views" is objectionable. The suppression of sources, in particular the identity of a person who is the subject of an article and who has requirements as to how to qualify it, is not acceptable. The subject of an article is not a secondary source about himself or herself.
On a point: Respect how participants name and describe themselves. There is a local rule about unacceptable names of participants. This rule may contravene the UPC.
Obviously, the code will be used to discriminate against and persecute people whose opinions do not coincide with the majority opinion. In particular, it creates even more comfortable conditions for bullying of persons who do not share the views of LGBT people.
The German text is written in extremely offensive gender language. The grammar is absurd and the text is dripping with wokeness. Therefore, of course, a rejection.
Disability and neurodiversity should be referred to in the 4.5 of the new UCoC. The current UCoC are just showing the foundation continues its ignorance of UCoC violations to autistic & neurodivergent users and users with physical, psychological and intellectual disabilities.
Missing protections for sex characteristics (Intersex people) — First of all, I support adoption of the UCoC. (That I am leaving a comment for improvement does not imply I am rejecting the proposed UCoC) — Regarding protected class enumeration, it seems intersex people were forgotten. Typically nondiscrimination statements that explicitly protect intersex people add the term "sex characteristics." Granted, I am not intersex, so I am not the authority to consult on this. Hopefully in practice protections would apply under "other characteristics" or the definitions of sex/gender/etc. — In part 2 (Expected behavior) it reads "In all Wikimedia projects, spaces and events, behaviour will be founded in respect, civility, collegiality, solidarity and good citizenship. This applies to all contributors and participants in their interaction with all contributors and participants, without expectations based on age, mental or physical disabilities, physical appearance, national, religious, ethnic and cultural background, caste, social class, language fluency, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex or career field." In Part 3.1 (Unacceptable behavior-->Harassment) it reads "Insults: This includes name calling, using slurs or stereotypes, and any attacks based on personal characteristics. Insults may refer to perceived characteristics like intelligence, appearance, ethnicity, race, religion (or lack thereof), culture, caste, sexual orientation, gender, sex, disability, age, nationality, political affiliation, or other characteristics." — Is there a way sex characteristics can be added? Or maybe also gender expression for trans, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people? — Thanks!
I welcome the attempt to use inclusive language. Unfortunately, this has been forgotten in the first sentence of point 2. It would be nice if this could be made up for.
The proposed changes do not allow enough flexibility for the communities, that takes into account the nature of the local culture, which varies among the communities.
not enough being done to address racism and stereotypes in wiki content. I'm a person of asian descent, i'm tired of trying to edit content that pertains to asian people and persons of interest, and it gets reverted due to some white man who thinks they know but they are too racist to know better, and risk turning into an edit war. i'm trying to stop perpetual foreigner racism on wiki, when people edit an article and mention where a asian person comes from, yet in similar articles where the article subject is non asian, it is not mentioned and always assumed he is a us citizen
Bureaucracy should be reduced, not multiplied by orders of magnitudes. Also, this enforces stratagems of the Western academic left (self-selected pronouns etc.) that I oppose and that will destroy WP as they destroy every institution the woke revolution takes over.
The policy is colonial and forces US liberal values on a world wide organisation in a world in which a majority of people do not hold those values
The policies should be imposed LESS not more as vague accusations of hate speech are an unconscionable attack on freedom of speech and thought, so I couldn’t possibly support changing the Code of Conduct to give it more teeth by changing ‘should’ to ‘shall’ and so forth. Some daft allegations should most categorically NOT be investigated.
the impact of enforcement will have a far greater impact than that of even a global block on the life and future of an individual. Its an appropriate action for the Community to chose to disproportionately penalise a person in this way. — I can see this draining many millions of dollars from the community.
I have concerns about the Enforcement Guidelines
I don't think that OCoC is necessary neither useful, but deleterious to the project
as a general rule, I don't believe in codified guidelines, or rules, such as this.
I understand that the new guidelines use firmer language (should to will most notably), but apart from that, it feels irrelevant.
I am not in favour of having a universal code of conduct; therefore, I am equally do not support enforcement of a universal code of conduct if it is to exist.
I don't support UCoC full stop so don't support any revised guidelines.
The feedback from the first vote was not sufficiently taken into account.
We don't need "Code of Conducts", we need more democracy.
Bullshit !
I'm against any behavioural ruling: each time must be analysed in a case by case base.
traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash
The current universal code of conduct is very bad because it was arrogantly designed in an ivory tower. I oppose any enforcement of such a bad idea.
There should be no UCoC.
afraid of too much enforcement and guidelines.
THERE SHOULD NOT EVEN BE A SO-CALLED "UCOC".
No serious changes were made to address criticisms and concerns from the previous round
lack
No.
See the section about anglocentricity in the talk page and consider how to mitigate the issues raised there.
these guidlines will not help. since they may stop people from taking part in several activities
I don't think we need this
Bureaucratic horseshit.
Nothing that comes from on high is good for the individual project.
I am totally against UCoC because the world is colorful. The cultural, religions differences etc. are very very large. I mean, that the rules of conduct must be in the competence of the local community. The freedom is for me very important good and I am afraid the UCoC is against it. — In the extreme case UCoC could be only very general, like some "ethical codex" without penal consequences, but I am not convinced that it is necessary to introduce it.
I'm just sort of apathetic and wary, sorry...
I will always concerns about the Enforcement Guidelines.
Empathy was removed. It is inacceptable because of the growing presence of and conflicts with hardcore-rationalists in the Wikipedia. Furthermore I strongly suggest to offer an EQ-test to all the Wikipedia editors by setting a lower limit in the result for higher decision makers incl. admins. Such as: https://www.psychomeda.de/online-tests/eq-test.html
Blabla, The 5th pillar is the 5th blabla... — This looks like a massive outreach of power. and frankly I'm offended by the shear size of this thing. — But maybe, just maybe, it came from a real need. So i'll abstain to do a WP:point by voting no.
You have fake nationalities by Germans and US Citizens here, and they delete sources and authors out of the commons templates for the licenses and delete the data. Nothing than phrases here. Only US Propaganda.
The best rules are no rules.
We do not need outside education
The hole idea is bad; not matter the flavor.
Strong oppose
This version would still lead to uncertainty and do a disservice to the protection of affected persons, especially because the relationship to existing regulations has not been thought through at all.
I don't see a significant improvement compared to the first draft.
because you cannot be harsh for the time being.
I am opposed to a Universal Code of Conduct as a matter of principle and therefore cannot agree to any enforcement guidelines whatsoever.
The whole "Universal Code of Conduct" project has not convinced me that it is useful. It will cause harm instead of benefit for the community of Wikipedia authors like me as claimed.
I think the Universal Code of Conduct is good, the guidelines for implementation seem to me: repressive. - Therefore I vote with: NO
And they actually think they can impose on me a work order of considerable magnitude, namely that of researching and reading all the text presented, after which I am then supposed to nod benevolently?
The people who violate such guidelines don't read them anyway, and don't care if they are reprimanded.
I reject rules of conduct, especially written down for the Wikimedia area and reinforced with measures in case of violation, as far as they essentially correspond to normal, civil manners. Should I be forced to commit myself to such normal, civil manners, I would refuse, accepting the consequences.
I reject the "all or nothing" procedure.
I have my own moral values, which do not require me to support or empathise with people whose behaviour or ideology I disapprove of. Intellectual honesty and politeness are necessary and sufficient. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopaedic work, not a cult.
I believe that UCoC in the quoted form are detrtimental to the Wikipedia community and will serve to impose censorship.
Seems awfully subjective.
Wikipedia needs to be reformed through the implementation of processes, procedures, and standards. The platform resides on a corrosive culture full of conflict, bias, and inaccuracy. If the goal is to have a social network - the goal has been reached. The product is not an encyclopedia by any metric.
In my opinion, a Code of Conduct is neither necessary nor useful.
In my opinion the value of subsidiarity for such a project should be more relevant than the principle of decentralisation, which could lead to discontinuities
Why doesn't the definition of off-wiki include real-life (offline) spaces? I know examples of Wikipedia harassment/"fights" that happened IRL. —
There must be no on-wiki enforcement of the UCoC without community approval of the UCoC.
This is putting the cart before the horse. Thrash out the UCoC first, THEN discuss enforcement. This is being done backwards, which is going to lead to "square peg in round hole" situations further down the line.
Until the UCoC gains community consensus, attempts to enforce it would not be in accordance with community consensus.
The attempt to impose a code of conduct on the community is unacceptable.
No ratification of enforcements guidelines without community approval of code of conduct itself.
while I don't many concerns about the enforcement guidelines, I think it makes more sense to get community consensus through its own Secure Poll vote for the UCoC before the enforcement guidelines vote
Enforcement of an unsupported and poor code of conduct, by an agency known to have serious issues with fair enforcement? No, never.
1. The EGs should have formally noted that they felt the moral state of the base policy text was in extreme doubt without its own ratification vote. This vote is not to be taken as assent to the UCOC text. — 2. The general quality of the EGs is much improved from the original form (which I opposed). Rather than list a bunch of positives, anything not covered elsewhere I can be viewed as either neutral (e.g. the nature of the training) or supportive (e.g. reduction of affirmation). — 3. The limitations on the scope of the revisions committee to the enforcement guidelines were unacceptable. The committee should have openly repudiated them to community and BOT — 4. A codified amendment process with thresholds and method remains needed - not "we'll talk about it in one year". — 5. The building committee makeup is more under the power of the WMF than is wise. It should have specified number of seats per grouping. Or, alternatively, if community is going off the "non-affiliate" meaning, that aspect should have been made clearer. — 6. The sharing of evidence side was much more permissible. While I don't share all of their position, there were huge numbers of individuals about RTBH in the sense of being heard before any block was issued (with varying exceptions) - this aspect seems missing?
As the communities have not endorsed UCoC, WMF has no right to enforce it.
I can not, in good conscience, support any guideline on a UCoC that hasn't been put to a vote to all communities it is supposed to apply to. Any processes that involve the Trust & Safety team, which has neither been voted on or its personnel been subject to scrutiny by all communities it is supposed to provide trust and safety to. — As long as the or any UCoC hasn't been approved by all (!) communities it is supposed to be applied to there can not be any kind of enforcement guideline. The way the Foundation, its employees and other people involved have handled the entire process lacks transparency and responsiveness to valid questions raised by numerous community members. I neither trust the processes that lead to the current state of affairs nor do I think they are necessary.
The content of the Code of Conduct is botched. — The process to produce the Code of Conduct was botched. — The Code of Conduct was never approved by the community. — Revising Enforcement Guidelines can never fix those problems. —
I support the changes in the guidelines, but oppose the UCoC as a whole. It should have been ratified through a vote, and any local Wiki should have been able to veto it.
Valid questions about the UCoC have been raised but have not been properly addressed.
Without community approval for the underlying code of conduct there is no reason to approve enforcing it.
Implementation of UCoC does not have consensus approval from wp:en (and many other "communities")
I can not support enforcement of a broken code of conduct. Until there is a method for the community to amend the CoC, and community consensus has been demonstrated for the UCoC itself, it must not be enforced by any process. The UCoC is vague, does not clearly distinguish between requirements and best practice, and must be rewritten. I also have serious concerns about the powers of the U4C, of how the EGs deal with the balance between privacy and RTBH, and transparency of process.
The community has not yet ratified the Universal Code of Conduct. It is therefore premature to ratify the Enforcement Guidelines.
I am concerned that there is no vote on the UCOC itself, and I feel like the enforcement guidelines should not be ratified until the UCOC itself is ratified by the community
The Universal Code of Conduct has already been soundly rejected by the community. We should not even be voting on this again.
The Code itself is flawed and has not been ratified by the community. It makes no sense to ratify enforcement guidelines if the Code isn't accepted by the community. Will reconsider once that has been addressed.
The considerable problems with the UCoC and EG have been gone over heavily in the past. Enacting a problematic guideline, that was not developed by the community, is a bad idea. This "ratification vote" also lacks legitimacy since the WMF has not allowed for any way to reject UCoC approval. Given the fraud committed in the last vote (that numerous comments were edited in ways that completely altered the meanings, before publication), I don't have high hopes that this time will be different, so I figure this box is fairly pointless.
The UCoC itself has not been ratified. It is not sufficient to reach a simple majority that supports its enforcement. My participation in this vote is not to be misconstrued as supporting the process. The UCoC should be revoked and decisions regarding a code of conduct should be based in true consensus.
It is grossly inappropriate to ask a volunteer community to 'enforce' guidelines it has at no point approved.
As long as the UCoC itselve has not been voted on by the comunity I do not agree with any enforcement.
The guidelines and the UCoC should have been developed by the community. This is the only feasible way in a grassroots democratic project. Imposing them from above is not acceptable.
I am supporting the guidelines because they have been improved from earlier drafts based on feedback from the community, and I believe that this is about as good a version as we can expect to get. However, as an editor at the English Wikipedia, I have reservations about going forward with the Code itself, which does not have clear support from our community, but is being moved forward in spite of that.
No approval of the code yet, it didn't make sense that we have the enforcement without the code being ratified first.
Useless change. Centralisation of power into WMF, an entity structurally unable to contribute usefully in this area. Nothing is done about the biggest source of harassment, i.e. WMF itself.
This is not a matter for the WMF to impose upon enwiki.
Against this excessive control of the communities by the WMF, against the administrative burdens of the proposed committees
Nope nope nope nope nope. Let's see if the WMF edits this comment too before posting it. We don't need the UCOC pushed on us. It's a solution in search of a problem. What the WMF has done here is absurd and unacceptable.
I don't trust the Foundation to implement this or any code of conduct in a fair or reasonable way.
The available documentation indicates that the resources that went into this process went to staff of the Wikimedia Foundation rather than stakeholder communities. The resource inequalities have flawed the process and biased the guidelines. Adopting these guidelines without using money to correct the power imbalance only perpetuates the problems that these guidelines seek to address. Some example problems include this comment format itself which seeks individual comments from individuals while prohibiting them from identifying themselves, rather than encouraging community collective discussion and organizing from stakeholder groups. These guidelines divest responsibility for problems from the Wikimedia Foundation to the already overburdened community and community groups. Staff of the Wikimedia Foundation designed this; there were no community advocates sponsored in this process. The process is the root problem; the guidelines themselves are still worth critique in themselves though.
This message box is too narrow for ease of writing!*** — Seems good for smaller projects, but works to erode the independence of larger, better self-governing ones. A one-size-fits-all might be simple, but larger projects are inherently complex. The UCOC Enforcement oversteps their autonomy and greatly increases the chances of misuse and abuse, even if only by invocation/threat. — Further, advanced permissions on larger projects are democratic _within these projects_ as opposed to having external actors who are likely to lack familiarity with these larger projects. I doubt the UCOC would pass in many of these, and I highly doubt it would pass in the English Wikipedia (EN), the project I am most active in. — Myself, I've joined the English Wikipedia in 2004 and became an admin in 2005. Things have evolved since then in many ways, but the independence of EN has not significantly eroded. I am wary of such an erosion here. In my experience, T&S for the most part does a decent job, so wrt EN, I don't understand this problem in search of a solution that effectively replicates them with a sort of parallel ARBCOM. — To be clear, I don't think the intent behind this measure is to erode the independence of larger projects, but when you lump smaller projects together with larger one, I fear it'll have that effect. An exception to that would be the Japanese Wikipedia, where Far-Right revisionist history reigns supreme, which does need WMF intervention. But I've given up on the WMF ever doing anything about that disgrace and I sort of doubt this measure will help with that. — But back to this: if this vote were to fail, I hope you, WMF reviewer/s, etc., won't revise it again for yet another vote, vote after vote after vote until you get the outcome you want. Please don't do that. It's undemocratic. — Anyway, I've been vocal in my criticism of the UCOC Enforcement mechanism at EN (about its effect on EN), criticism which a large majority seems to agree with. Will anyone read this? Time will tell. Or not, 'cause how would I know? But if anyone has gotten this far in my lengthy note, thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on this. — Yours truly, — English Wikipedia contributor
The code of conduct itself needs some attention before I can support enforcing it. As things stand, it's still ripe for another Framgate. But I think that's the whole point of this exercise, giving the power group a framework to succeed where Framgate failed, so I doubt that will happen.
Keep Wikipedia editions free of your impositions!
This vote only means that the wording is better that the original one. — It does'nt mean any endorsement of the regulation as a whole. I think that the dependency on WMF is too high, and this problem should be addressed.
I have experienced firsthand what it means when the WMF lives out its rules. You are not only not to be trusted, you are a really disgusting association that bullies and torments the communities. You don't care about us, you just want to expand your power to rake in more and more money. In the end, you are just waiting for the moment to replace us with AI, until then we (we are Wikipedia and the other projects, not you!) are just a necessary evil for you. So no. Your rules, with which one can get rid of so fantastically unpleasant persons, I reject.
Too much centralisation for the benefit of the Foundation, which is a dismantling of the communities
I am not confident that the foundation can do a good job in applying code-of-conduct-type rules across all projects.
I thought, Wikipedia was about writing articles, not generating more and more jobs for regulating the writers.
I take issue with the preconditions and procedures of granting anonymity and / or the status of underrepresented. I don't trust T&S and / or other entities that they appropriately handle the balance between protection to the accusing party versus the ability to defend oneself against the complains.
I view the entire UCoC project as unnecessary and counterproductive.
Quite honestly the first edition of the EG was better (why can't admins agree to follow such basic rules as the UCoC?), but this is better than nothing, I guess.
That voting is so good for my wiki, and I want do it that vote, to support wikipedia
Code of Conduct is important for sustainable development of the Movement
I fully support the new drafting of UCoC because doing so will greatly help my community.
A huge shoutout to our wonderful and dedicated community, for acting to protect the space we all share! <33
Wikimedia is a diverse community with different people from different religious and cultural background. There is therefore a need to enforce good conduct among Wikimedians
The only way to keep the wiki spirit alive is to enforce the guidelines for collaborative and respectful interaction; for world knowledge, for a united humanity.
I really hope that can help the movement to be at its best potential. A big thank you to the volunteers who worked hard on it.
As stated in past Wikimedia Taiwan's (WMTW) statement <https://w.wiki/6HKU>, we should stop wasting time on voting and move forward. — Furthermore, the Wikimedia movement is a global movement, and we shouldn't only consider opinions from large wikis like enwiki. We need to consider the views of small and medium wikis that lack effective and well-functioning governance structures. UCoC and U4C support is important for them. We should also consider implementation on small and medium wikis first.
Commendable efforts towards clarification and translation have been made.
The changes reduce the scope for endless circular arguments by making language tighter. For example improving "give their perspectives" with "perspectives on the issues and evidence".
The revised version is better - in particular, it is clearer and more practical
Yes
It seems a lot of thought went into the changes being proposed by looking at the comparison (thank you for that!) and it is reassuring that there will be a discussion after one year to see how well these new rules have worked.
I vote yes.
I explicitly also agree to the Code of Conduct itself.
My comments from the previous round were taken into account, and I can now support the document.
Seems harmless enough.
Again that this is an improved one and explicitly state that this will be reviewed seems to be a good to go for me.
None for now
Transparency and appealability are better now.
We have delayed the UCoC for long enough. Let's enact it ASAP.
Hopefully, these steps will allow for the fulfillment of the purposes of Jimmy Wales when founding (along with Larry Sanger) and funding the Wikipedia. 20230118 (Wednesday). ~~~~
None at the moment. I believe the Foundation has been clear on these and given the community sufficient time to not only debate on these revisions but also reflect on them.
It's timely.
These guidelines are not only well thought out, but truly inspirational! As an early chair of the English Wikipedia Mediation Committee (almost two decades ago), I am so glad to see such a thoughtful and thorough set of guidelines!
Seems reasonable
No CoC is perfect, but this is a great improvement on the current situation. So long as it is able to evolve over time as issues come up (whilst not becoming to complex) I think this is a good baseline of expected and prohibited behaviours. Of course, the real challenge is in how it is actioned in practice, but that shouldn't discourage taking this as the first step.
I Strongly Support Revised Enforcement Guidelines and it should be mentioned and 'pinned' on every village pump and all talk pages
Kudos for this smooth process, clear communication, and high functionality. The attention to multiple languages (translations) is particularly valuable since linguistic diversity shrinks weekly.
You’re welcome.
Totally agree!
I have a few misgivings about the Universal Code of Conduct as a concept, but I believe that the revisions are a net positive.
Help create a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. — This proposition is like the introductory sentence of the world I've been dreaming of.
I think a lot of it is common sense. My only concern is that some, as with all rules, may try to interpret the rules in a way that is advantageous to them. However, I assume this was carefully written and revised in order to mitigate that.
Thank you to all who worked on the revised Universal Code of Conduct!
I am pleased with the revision.
Thanks 🙏
I have had content removed with hardly any discussion. I argued against the proposed actions and my comments were ignored and there was np response to them. I did not know there was any procedure to complain about this. — The enforcement procedures as described do not seem over the top, which is the danger of such procedures.
We need to start implementing the UCOC asap hence my vote!
I carefully read the text, I agree 99% and voted Yes, but don't see one specific complex topic that comes to mind: taking legal action is not just treated as an act of violation (in this case of this Code) but generally also seem complete taboo – but what about a justified reason in cases of defamation through Wikipedia content? Especially a content (sourced or not) that no party wants to remove or/and is even guarded by users, and that defamation info is de facto false? We had a case of silent infamation of a family through a difficult war-theme article. Sometimes Wikipedia articles are used as a notice board of certain dogma, political view or narrowminded priciple in which the worse case for example can be this: in a post war situation someone was actually executed (!) without a fair trial, not even a grave is marked - and it was justified on the basis of war situation, later backed by faked defamation (official, but ideologically motivated false information) according to which a person was a traitor and "enemy of society". Now, the info came into an article and the family member said "I will be more than pleased to sue the user (who claims that my executed grandfather was a traitor), and the duty of Wikipedia will be to reveal his identity so the person could answer in court, and Wikipedia will officially (sic) be forced to delete the defamation content which the user(s) were sticking to, unwilling to remove it." In normal life this is an everyday procedure, why is Wikipedia any different? We are not some sort of secret, untouchable society, right? In spite of Wikipedia being used as a channel of defamation the Wikipedians involved all immediately tabooed the case and said suing is not even an option, its a mere evil, and bla bla. I was pretty dissappointed, and confused. The disgraced person at least deserved some reasanble answer (instead of communicating its evil for him to take desperate action in his own defense). How to act, who to turn to in such difficult cases (especially when the local user community is unable to deal with it respectfully)? We seem too loose sometimes, and this Code is not enough to ensure that things like this never happen. NOTICE: the term "legal action" is used only per "Harrasment" section. What in real suing cases, or threats of justified litigation (when errors are at this side, and it happens) is there a code of conduct recommendation? (Sorry, I understand this is a very extreme topic and case.)
The fact that the committee has excluded the "advanced rights holders" from the obligation to affirm its following the UCoC is one of the reasons I voted yes. This can be discussed in the future but the previous drafts were overkill in this respect.
I voted for the guidelines in the previous vote, but I had some mild concerns about the right of the accused. I reviewed the revisions and I'm a bit disappointed not to see any substantial changes. I would prefer to see the section in question read something like: "Accused individuals shall have access to the particulars of the alleged violation made against them unless such access would pose a significant risk of concrete harm to the reporter or another individual." I believe this stronger language would continue to provide protection to reporters while reassuring community members who (unlike me) lack trust in the enforcement mechanisms and the Foundation. — However, I continue to believe that the enforcement guidelines are a very good thing and support their adoption.
The Universal Code of Conduct is important and the changes are reasonable.
Basically I agree with the revision, but the revised version of the UCoC will be completely useless if the Wikimedia Foundation, especially Trust & Safety, do not handle local violations of the UCoC more strictly. As a translator, I have helped others submit their complaints about off-line harassment cases which happened in in-person editathons to Trust & Safety, and I myself submitted a complaint about an on-line harrasment case, but Trust & Safety did not help us: it took too much time and we have to wait forever, enduring the on-going harrasment.
I think the UCOC create a safer environment for all, So I support it.
I believe current concerns should be heard and incorporated and future iterations, and it should not be set in stone. But I also believe that it is good enough, to start using it, instead of postponing it for another year or two. In the end of the day we need to put it to test, to see what does work and what doesn't work well.
Thank you for your efforts.
The Enforcement guidelines is a welcome idea
The Universal Code of Conduct is very important and I think it is essential to move forward as soon as possible in its appropriate use. Adjustments will follow. thanks for this important work.
I feel a lot of fear and distrust in the community. But we cant keep doing amateur class any longer.
I vote „yes”, even if i’m sure that UCC will be used to persecute and exclude me and people alike me by another people with quasi-scientifical and ideological beliefs and actions, especially theese with „power of grasp”.
As I read them, I believe the revised guidelines are a sound plan for implementing a UCoC that is honest, transparent and respects the complexity of the Wiki community.
As a new editor, I have found the most discouraging interactions to be “big-footing” from long-time editors who sometimes seem to operate from positions of privilege with arrogance. Often this is relatively minor, but it is a problem. I hope these enforcement guidelines will help on these little micro-aggressions as well as the major events. Thanks for all the work on these for several years!!
Good initiative
I have no concerns about the Enforcement Guidelines. Thank you so much for everything.
I hope and request that if the Universal Code of Conduct are approved, there will be enforcement of the Wikimedia Foundation in all of the Foundation's projects. Currently there are many cases of disrespect between users which is both unfortunate and unnecessary. — Thank you very much —
I believe the revised guidelines will improve the process.
I think the revised Universal Code of Conduct will make the Wikipedia Foundation more functional and safer.
Because wikipedia is a universal so its good to be guide by universal code of conduct
I'd like to emphasize a global baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement without tolerance for harassment.
People certainly should not get away with being jerks because local policy doesn't prevent it.
thank you for all of the hard work you put into this
In my opinion, it is not really necessary to have a Code like this. But I think it's acceptable the way it is now.
The editing was worthwhile. Thanks to those involved.
It seems to be okay.
I want Wikipedia to be a better place
Thank you
I vote for these rules because I participated in their correction with Wiki RDC
Yes.
The proposals are developed. Thank you for this excellent work
Yes, I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to feel that their voice counts and that the changes resulting from the vote should be democratic as always. -
no particular concerns but whether voting for more entries could not be submitted on the Facebook pages of affiliated groups?
I appreciate that texts in English are more often translated. - I appreciate that texts in English are more often translated.
I haven't read the details and I haven't scrutinised them, but I agree out of respect because it is something being done by people who are trying to move us in the right direction.
My concern is that long-term admins will not abide by it. They will not recognize its authority for themselves and will refuse to enforce it for others
I will start by noting that I am a trans woman, a member of one of the groups that this sort of thing is generally aimed at protecting. That shouldn't be relevant - I would prefer that people take arguments on their own merits and ignore who said them - but some people will assume otherwise and disregard everything I say based on that. — First, I disagree with the imposition of the UCoC on communities with already functioning community rules and procedures (enwiki is the one I'm familiar with, but not the only one). The enwiki community has repeatedly proven itself capable of effectively handling this sort of problem (Athaenara's block is the most recent one I can think of) and repeatedly expressed a desire to do so without the WMF's help (Fram's). The WMF's insistence on trying to "help" enwiki only further erodes trust and drives the two apart. — I do see the value of a base set of rules for wikis that don't have this luxury. However, I would prefer that they be only imposed on those wikis that have that problem, and applied in a way reminiscent of the initial set of rules in Nomic: as a base set of rules that the community should be able to easily amend as they see fit. — If we must have this imposed on us, though, let it be an improvement. I would like to see explicit provisions in the EG to mitigate the witch hunt effect that codes of conduct often produce, what some would call cancel culture. Too often, good people (e.g. Guy Macon) are driven away from communities because they made some minor perceived slight against a minority, often without even realizing they did so, and half the internet taking up pitchforks against them.
Easily abusable. May as well be reddit moderator rules.
It passes the burden of awareness and enforcement onto unpaid volunteers at the local wikis, which could be unmanageable and open to abuse.
Should also exist an enforcement on vandalism as well as on almost duplicated or similar articles, which should be either deleted or meged.
When there is something that fits one content and the same cannot be used in a similar one because wikipedia admins doesn't admit without a clear reason is not fare. Should be always the same decission.
There is no mention of the severity of penalties for various violations.
Please provide examples for Violations related to affiliate governance
It doesn't stop people from big wikipedias from flooding small wikipedias with their good ideas. — It's fine within a community, but when good ideas (I feel like there should be a copyright mark there) come to the boundaries between languages, the instigators have no idea why their size 57 feet cause problems for size 9 shoes.
Close enough for shared web work. The real consequences are the local level for conduct enforcement, which are necessarily missing from the fallback guidelines.
I'm afraid it will be misused mostly. Notabene Wikipedia is a kind of vanity fair! I mean a clear and open opinion is a displaced comment. So a lot of people will complain.
I choose to "vote" neutrally this time, while the implementation in this case does create yet another ban hammer ⚒️ on top of the MANY ban hammers that the Wikimedia websites already have (local blocks, local bans, ArbCom bans, Steward global locks which function as de facto global bans, "community" global bans, SanFran Bans / WMF bans including WMF Office bans and WMF Legal bans, and I'm sure that I'm missing a dozen more), the additions allow for some WMF bans / SanFran bans to be appealable. While I find it a shame that UCOC doesn't allow for "community" global bans to be appealed, the fact that WMF Office bans (but NOT WMF Legal bans) can be appealed is good news as this would open the door for some users like Reguyla / Kumioko and others who have historically been very productive possibly return to Wikimedia websites. — While I still find it ashamed that there not more ban appeals committees inside of this proposal I think that Wikimedians should take a look and ask, is this really something we need? Take a good look at what we have and I think that this might be the final ban hammer, users can get locally banned by administrators / moderators for violating local policy, ArbComs can sanction and ban users outside of this simply as a form of "dispute resolution", Stewards can act as a global ban hammer without community approval, if a user is blocked on only one (1) or two (2) Wikimedia websites they could be de facto globally banned through global locks, many years ago I've seen an example of a user who was blocked at the Turkish-language Wikipedia and the Turkish-language Wikisource get globally locked and then when they "evaded their lock" 🔐 (something which OFFICIAL POLICY claims is permissible as global locks aren't supposed to be global bans but are de facto global bans) at the Wikimedia Commons all of their educational content was deleted. The WMF can ban users for any reason without any form of transparency and they don't have a duty to communicate why. At literally every level users can get banned and "the global community" (a handful of users at the Meta-Wiki) can also choose to globally ban people if EVEN a Steward says "no" to a global lock request. The UCOC simply says "local policies and local enforcement is now irrelevant" and introduces yet another ban hammer 🔨 to the equation. On top of that if your e-mail address gets blacklisted by the ArbCom, you can't e-mail any users, your e-mail address is blacklisted by the Stewards, your e-mail address is blacklisted by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), and the few Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) employees who respond tell you to e-mail people who have blocked your e-mail address how do you appeal a block? It's simply not possible, one has to be LUCKY that an uninvolved person writes an appeal for you and ONLY THEN is it possible to get unbanned AT A SINGLE LEVEL, after that you still have to find a way to appeal more levels of blocks. Basically anything beyond the content of Wikimedia websites is designed to exclude people from contributing. The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and the communities of Wikimedia websites should be to create educational content, not to exclude people from adding educational content based on some past transgression that has no chance of being repeated. But the golden rule of Wikimedians is "never forget, NEVER forgive", Wikimedia websites don't seek to be "the sum of human knowledge" they seek to be "the sum of human pettiness" and exclusion, creating yet another ban hammer ⚒️ for this purpose will only bring more drama as people who can't get a local administrator or Steward to get rid of a user they don't like can now (likely anonymously) try to use the UCOC to get a user banned. The rules are vague enough that if anyone wants they can report anyone for anything and as a lack of transparency seems almost always guaranteed at Wikimedia websites my guess is that the idea of any ban being actually appealable is laughable and any accepted appeal will have a laundry list of indefinite sanctions. — So why do I call it "the final ban hammer ⚒️" then? Well that's simple, the UCOC throws out any pretense of local autonomy left, while earlier users were banned for breaking local policies and rules the UCOC established global rules that only a small minority voted on to be globally enforced and overrules any decisions by local admins. If local admins recognise a user as being valuable and accept that user despite having a block on another Wikimedia website someone with a grudge can simply throw the UCOC book at them and have them globally excluded. There are no more ban hammers possible after this because this just throws out all rules and decision making bodies in favour of a system that essentially says "if authority A doesn't want to ban then continue to B, C, D, Etc." and this being "Z"; the UCOC will essentially make all local rules irrelevant. And while I believe that the Wikimedia websites now have all the ban hammers that they can possibly have the next direction that the Exclusionists will go to is by making these ban hammers easier to use, that is the UCOC will initially only ban a handful of the worst users as "dipping their toes" in the water and later will ban users left and right and then nobody will dare speak against them. — This is already what happened with SanFran Bans / WMF (global) bans, initially it was only a few a year, then one year had more global bans than the preceding half a decade, this is despite a shrinking user base. If the number of active users has been on a downward trend line for over a decade, is it really wise to try to get every rule possible to exclude the few people who STILL wish to contribute? I'd already refer to Wikimedia websites today as "a toxic environment" but my impression of the UCOC is that it's essentially the poison that will kill the entire milieu. Who even needs vandals when you have a community like this? Well, there's no use in opposing it. This community has had a history of creating and implementing as many ban hammers as they can set their minds to, why not just create one more to give a façade of legitimacy? For every one (1) actually toxic user that gets banned through this system a dozen users who were productive but just had one (1) bad day and failed to maintain their calm will face lifelong exclusion. Wikimedia websites have been operating 20 (twenty) years with local rules and local enforcement, why try to bypass them? Simple, someone thought that Wikimedia websites weren't exclusive enough. Someone thought that "anyone can contribute to" wasn't as fake a bold-faced lie as it is, someone thought that a user with a local block on another Wikimedia website should immediately be excluded from all. — The Pareto Principle states that 20% (twenty percent) of users create 80% (eighty percent) of content, these top creators are most likely to get into disputes with each other because they each all have their own vision, this makes them most prone to content disputes and in turn makes them most prone to ene up with a UCOC court case against them, even if most users will never see the UCOC in their lives it's precisely the most active users who will get kicked off the project, after this Wikimedia websites will slowly deteriorate into editors who occasionally add stuff and occasionally maintain pages, the handful of socially wealthy top users will gain a complete oligarchy over content and their biases will shine through and I predict that they'll make the implementation of the UCOC in the future so trigger happy that they'll use it to exclude others from getting near their positions. On many major Wikimedia websites adminship is already "a landed aristocracy" and this is simply another brick 🧱 raising the wall between users and content. — I don't oppose it because there's nothing to oppose here, the UCOC is inevitable, the ban-happy Zeitgeist demands it. The appeals committee will be a farce as no ban appeals will actually be heard or considered, the UCOC is just a global ArbCom with arbitrary rules and a lack of transparency we could expect, they just didn't dare name it "a global ArbCom" because they knew that more people would oppose it. "Community banned" global users can't appeal to it, in fact, as a mechanism it works exactly like an ArbCom, it implements sanctions but it is unwilling to remove them. Do we really need a "global ArbCom" by another name? — Re-reading the guidelines it essentially reads "where no local ban hammers 🔨 exist this UCOC will create them" for whatever the reporters deems fit. It basically reads as if this UCOC is trying to add ALL THE BAN HAMMERS ⚒️ that possibly could be made for the sake of making them, the only good thing about it is that the revised guidelines now state that local policies override the UCOC where contradictions may exist. The fact that the guidelines AIM to be transparent makes me support this implementation despite knowing the dangers simply because I wish for Office actions to become appealable which is not possible in the current milieu, unfortunately by only selecting users to have had a history will enforcement (admins) to serve on this committee and the only way one can become an admin is by being the type of user who loves excluding others I think that even the best systems will likely be corrupted by the corrupt people that occupy them. So why support it? I think that this might be more of a matter of principle, I also think that there should be a separate UCOC Wiki off the Meta-Wiki where users can comment and neutral parties may also be able to comment on ongoing cases, we need to have "Devil's advocates" arguing in favour of defendants, I further suggest that all appeals and e-mails should be publicly published (both by the parties and the members of the committee) for transparency's sake unless it involves sensitive data, the reporting system must specifically give the option to not publish e-mails but
Violations involving litigation or legal threats section - I foresee that the Wikimedia Foundation legal team may be used as a shield for bad behavior.
Section 3.1 – I recommend it be changed as follows: — From: Resources for translation must be provided by the Wikimedia Foundation when reports are provided in languages that designated individuals are not proficient — To: Resources for translation must be provided by the Wikimedia Foundation when reports are provided in languages in which designated individuals lack proficiency
3.3.3 Appeals — Appeals are not possible against certain decisions made by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department. - from the text it is not clear which / what kind of decisions — 3.3.3 Appeals — However, some Wikimedia Foundation office actions and decisions are reviewable by the Case Review Committee. - from the text it is not clear which / what kind of actions — 3.1.2 Enforcement by type of violations — Violations related to affiliate governance * Handled by the Affiliations Committee or equivalent body - from the text it is not clear what equivalent body; this creates a possibility that same as AffCom also that equivalent body would be not capacitated enough to responsibly fulfill this work, and thus failing to fulfill the intention of UCoC — 5. Glossary — definition of AffCom as a "High-level decision making body", specifically, that beyond it there can be no appeal, together with the lack of credible ensurement that AffCom will be capacitated enough to responsibly fulfill its UCoC-related work (e.g. U4C is mentioned as a co-equal body to AffCom, which presents / suggests that even U4C would not be able to effectively deal with AffCom's UCoC-related misdecisions); for that to be fair and in full alignment with the principle of shared power (one of WMF guiding principles), AffCom would need to be capacitated enough to be responsibly fulfilling its work, including UCoC-related work (while the experience shows, that this is not the case); this creates a possibility that AffCom would still be not capacitated enough to responsibly fulfill its proposed UCoC-related work and thus failing to fulfill the intention of UCoC; — this could be mitigated or maybe even solved by better future appointments of AffCom members (so only the individuals that already have the capacities required for their work would be appointed), capacity development for current AffCom members, requirement to leave AffCom for the AffCom members that does not have the required capacities, more effective support from AffCom Support stuff (e.g. in cases when AffCom does not understand presented question, logic, or affiliation's bylaws, or is repeatedly not answering questions about its own credibility (e.g. when AffCom is asked about its opinion about the alignment of AffCom's work with the WMF guiding principles))
Users who continually send bad faith or unjustified reports risk facing loss of reporting privileges — No, they shouldn't "risk" facing loss of reporting privileges, they MUST lose reporting privileges after a certain threshold has been reached, both in terms of numbers of false reports and severity of the lies. They must also be automatically found in breach of the UCoC with all the consequences that entails. — At the same time, the ban shouldn't last forever – people should have a chance of returning if they regret their mistakes and correct their behaviour. — "Accused individuals shall have access to the particulars of the alleged violation made against them unless such access would risk danger or likely harm to the reporter or others’ safety" — This is unacceptable. Accused individuals should ALWAYS have access to all particulars of the alleged violation made against them, except specific details that "would risk danger or likely harm" (such as personally identifying information, exact place of residence, etc.). The sentence as it is written now could be interpreted to mean that ALL particulars could be hidden from the accused if the accuser says they feel threatened, and we know that there are liars, and they will use this loophole to smear innocent people while denying them the chance to defend themselves because all details of the accusation will have been hidden. — "All parties will usually have the opportunity to give their perspective on the issues and evidence…" — Again, a loophole. Why has the word "should" in the previous revision been replaced with "will usually"? Who will determine what situation is "usual" and what is "unusual"? All parties SHOULD have the opportunity to respond, no exceptions. If they break the rules and include some personally identifying information in their response, that piece of information must be removed from their response (with explicit note about the removal), but the rest of the response must stay visible. — "Members will be selected by the Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability of the Wikimedia Foundation." — This is an authoritarian system. Members – at least volunteer members from the community – should be selected by vote. — "Volunteer members for the committee should be respected community members." — Who decides who is "respected" and who is not? — "Its members shall reflect the diversity of the movement, such as but not limited to: languages spoken, gender, age, geography, and project type." — Personally, I don't like diversity quotas and prefer meritocratic approach (with additional safeguards to ensure that the voices of the underpriviliged are heard). — But if we're going to adopt diversity quotas, the quotas should be PROPORTIONAL. For example, if it is found through a rigorous study that, say, 15% of Wikipedia editors are under 25 y.o., 40% are 25–40 y.o. and 45% are over 40 y.o., then we should have 1 person from the under 25 bracket, 3 (rounded 2⅔) people from the 25–40 bracket and 3 people from the over 40 bracket.
I am concerned about the nuances; e.g., using irony is a valid resource to make some people think, but they may take it as an offense or an aggression... who decides? who decides? how do you discern?
The Universal Code of Conduct suffers from trying to promote neutrality, which is the basis for most conflicts. Political, religious or economic interests lead to systematic persecution of users. It is therefore necessary to revise this code in its intentions, so that it focuses on protecting the neutral point of view, which is the sum of different opposing views on the same issue or subject. All should prevail in the articles, even the minority ones.
According to personal experiences, it seems that it is not so comfortable for Iranian users to edit. For example, Iranian users must adapt to relevant government and security agencies to be permitted to edit, and if they do not comply with them, cyber police will appear as a manager, bureaucrats, etc. and throw them out. If you look at my conflicts from the beginning, it will be a good experience.
In the Persian Wikipedia, the terrorist government of dictatorship "the Islamic Republic of Iran" has a great influence on its propaganda as well as the power to prevent the creation and expansion of articles related to its crimes and inhumane acts and whatever negative it has done. For this reason, managers of the Persian Wikipedia or high level users (such as bureaucrats, etc.) may be agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also the Board of Directors for Managers has been inactive for several months in the Persian Wikipedia. So, I urge you to follow the abidance of codes of conducts more strictly and observe the performance of managers and users more thoroughly in local Wikipedias where there is a great chance of penetration and sabotage by government agents (such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, China, Turkey, Russia, etc.).
Beyond the application of the Code of Conduct, I realized that it would be important, even urgent, to work on a real sensitization (regional and local committees...) without forgetting the consideration of socio-cultural realities.
Too much to do with good conscience. Empathy, the first requirement of the code to achieve respect, is almost impossible to obtain from a distance; the presumption of good faith is constantly being misused; respecting the way each person calls himself or herself ignores translation problems. The unacceptable behaviours could be OK, but there are many others (e.g. lying is not condemned!); however, the present list is already quite good.
The vote on the Universal Code of Conduct seems to me to be a biased debate that cannot be opposed. Obviously, a contributor can only encourage this initiative which is implicit in the community through the rules of etiquette, but which proves insufficient over time given the problematic cases. The regulation of the community must be carried out in a formal way, which leads me to vote in favour.
Even though I agree with most of the proposed assertions, I am more concerned about the implementation of the code of conduct. Experience shows that such codes, once they are determined, tend to be abused in most cases.
Looking at the situation on the Japanese version of Wikipedia, even if you make various detailed rules, if there is no one to enforce them, the 'rules' are just something in writing. In the first place, why are the questions in English when we come to this page from the Japanese version of the posting? I think that is also unfair. We also think that it is not a legitimate voting method to require comments for those who oppose, but not in the case for those in favor.
I have concerns about enforcement. There is a fear that it will ultimately be used arbitrarily for the convenience of a person or group with a specific authority. —
I am opposed to the fact that it still forces 'senior authority holders' to make users comply with the UCoC, that the penalties for not complying with the UCoC are unclear, that what was previously resolved locally may now be subject to interference from the Foundation with absolute higher authority, that ignoring vandals using sophistry may regarded as the violation of the UCoC, that it is not taken into consideration of the fact that vandals may abuse the reporting function, and that we are not in favour of the Foundation itself attempting to define universal norms. against it on the grounds that it could be taken as a violation, that it is not expected that some vandals will abuse the reporting function, and that I do not have a good impression towards the Foundation itself, which attempts to regulate a universal conduct.
Too short a time to vote. It should be at least a year. Too much, too fast. I don't like the wording "decisions will be made in accordance with the English version of the document."
I hope this vote will help curb editors with small power syndrome and who have harassing and authoritarian attitudes just because of their status in the project.
No. I wrote last time that the UCoC exists separately and Wikipedia separately. And some will ignore it as they now ignore the Five Pillars, and for others it will only be another "stick". My fears were justified: 1) the results of the poll and the last time were far from being correct (the game with the percentages of the result, and the fact that I voted, but my name is not shown in the list of those who voted) 2) The situation a year later has become even worse: a) the so-called "updates" are only cosmetic, but do not answer the question of what to do when "UCoC" will be used by unscrupulous people. And the platform where it can be challenged as well as the regulations on how to do it still does not exist (examples were last time). b) "UCoC" will become another tool for the persecution of political opponents, so I'm against it.
The only point on the application of UCoC that I find problematic is the pursuit of a contributor by project/projects. In my practice I have encountered a number of participants creating articles of an advertising nature, presumably of a paid nature, in which case moving the contribution nominated them for removal. There have also been articles created in other language sections. Each such case of nominating a number of articles for deletion was accompanied by counter accusations of harassment. Hence the indiscriminate application of this clause may be helpful to creators of advertising and/or paid content.
Accused parties must always have access to the information against them,
It has very good ideas but others whose implementation will create problems. For the same reason, I propose that you can vote section by section in order to evaluate the text in each part, and not as a whole.
I do hope the enforcement process to handle cases related to UCoC must be quick (within an acceptable duration) and solve better in the global space (such as Meta) since many small communities are nonchalant or do not keep a neutral point of view when considering cases.
The tooling, or lack of consistent and secure tooling more like, still causes some concern to me, but this vote is about the guidelines, not whether support tools are sufficient for success.
While there is improvement in areas like affirmation and the like, there is still no ratification by individual projects, nor even an opt-out for those which would wish not to participate. As such, these are still not acceptable.
To ensure fair and universal enforcement, the Board must hire and continuously employ experts in the field of online harassment who are accountable to the Board. While volunteer oversight is desirable, it is not sufficient on its own to provide one-time resources to train a team of volunteers to enforce such a Code.
The document should much more promote creation of shared ArbComs.
3.2 - As far as I understand there's no information how to handle the situations, when someone is abusing its race/sexuality/position etc. to create fake news or making a fake accusations to pose itself as a victim. Such situaltions were currently observed in some movements and fractions around the world. Leaving an open way for such behavior may lead to lose a trust for the Wiki community and should be handled with special care to provide maximum safety and respect.
Most of our wikis, including every version of Wikipedia, are intended for particular languages. Yes we should treat visitors to such wikis with respect regardless of linguistic ability. But we should discriminate by linguistic ability - I do not speak Scots and am unlikely to learn it. But I want the Scots Wiki or any other of our wikis to be able to say that someone doesn't yet have sufficient skill in that language should not do things that require fluency in that language. There are also laws about age discrimination that we need to follow, especially if we hold an event in a place that sells alcohol. As for mental disabilities, one of my relatives is currently losing memories to dementia, I hope that doesn't happen to me for several years, but when it does I don't want the UCOC to prevent others from retiring me as my abilities deteriorate.
In a cultural diverse world there can be no Universal Code of Coduct. We need to redifine our rules of conduct individually within the setting of the people getting together and working together. "When in Rome, do as the Romans". I as a Western-European can not impose my rules on people(s) from other continents and religions. And on the other hand, I don't want others to impose rules and regulations on me that would impose on freedoms and customs that I consider valuable to myself.
I am very interested that we create a mechanism to disseminate these guidelines throughout the movement.
I suggest, for future versions, the possibility of recusing some Wikimedians who have acted rudely or with inordinate zeal and speed. Such recusals could be requested by each Wikimedian, with some limit. For example, I could request that such an editor be excluded from making drastic interventions such as deleting articles created by me, although I could leave critical comments...
Not enough info is given on what makes something a "non-public case". Preserving privacy in non-public cases doesn't mean very much without this information.
In the Universal Code of Conduct, it could be clarified that "hounding" does not mean systematically checking paid posts (without further stalking the person). Or does it also mean this type of behavior? — 2.1.1 "Promoting awareness of the UCoC" seems a bit broad to me.
There are still many unsolved question regarding processes and especially the impact on affiliates (E.g. How will staff members be held accountable? Will that only be the case for affiliates with gratns while big orgs like WMDE can do whatver they want etc). This needs to be resolved asap to be fully equitable! I approve, because I think the UCoC is important and should not be delayed, but the process to get here was far from perfect, feedback from affiliates was ignored by the WMF etc. I hope this will be mended in future.
Add without political or philosophical distinction to the paragraph: This applies to all contributors and participants in all their interactions with other contributors and participants in the projects, regardless of age, mental or physical disability, physical appearance, nationality, religion, ethnic or cultural group, caste, social class, language ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, or occupation. Nor will exceptions be made on the basis of people's position, skills or achievements within the Wikimedia projects or movement.
A concern I have, based on my experience, is that I see no straightforward recourse when a Wikipedia user deletes or replaces legitimate, factual, well-sourced information with prejudiced information from a biased source. — I’ve experienced this a few times. One time in particular sticks with me. In that incident, a user replaced legitimate, well-sourced content I’d inserted into an article with misleading, incomplete information obtained from a biased, outdated source. After I put my content back and explained my reasoning, the user ignored my remarks and reverted the content to what he had written. — I went back and forth with him a couple more times before deciding it was fruitless. I tried to connect with the Wikimedia Trust & Safety team or some other way to settle instances such as mine, when users with strong personal views insist their version of an article is the one to remain. — I could not reach anyone from Wikimedia Trust & Safety, and the faulty information in the article remained. I find this sad as well as frustrating. I also found the process to reach Wikimedia Trust & Safety (or some other arbitrator) not clearly spelled out and not straightforward. I consider both of these a problem.
No arbitrary and secret bans.
The main comment relates to how the foundation's legal team handles the legal threats that individuals/groups may be exposed to due to editing Wikipedia or any of its sister projects. — According to the current text, the Foundation has no legal obligation to support the individual/group that may be under legal threat and they have to protect themselves. I quote the text in the guidelines: Violations involving litigation or legal threats ... Sent to the Wikimedia Foundation Legal team, or, when appropriate, other professionals who can appropriately evaluate the merit of the threats
I very much hope that especially the reaction to threats of physical violence (topic Armenia: I know where you live!) will be successful. Then no one will need to hide behind a sock puppet anymore.
A vote of the U4C is obligatory for me. I also think the right to be heard is very important.
Right to be heard should be strongly emphasized here — I cannot vote for a UCoC that says: "It will be enforced over minority communities even if they are against it, because the majority of other communities voted for it". We are adult and know our best, we don't need other communities to decide on what our community should do.
TL;DR: Right to be forgotten is not mentioned anywhere. — Long version: When we are going to create actual "case files" about individuals, after how many years will these be deleted? And what's the process for an individual to get access to the information stored about them? Which jurisdiction will apply? US law? Or will it depend on the individuals citizenship? It worries me that this is barely mentioned. The minimum is – in my opinion – a maximum number of years of inactivity after which a record must be deleted. — There is this sentence: "Accused individuals shall have access to the particulars of the alleged violation made against them unless such access would risk danger or likely harm to the reporter or others’ safety". While this is part of what I ask for it's limited to the currently active case and does not include what's recorded in an individuals case file at this point in time. — To clarify: I'm not talking about false allegations. What I ask for is a chance for every individual – including the accused one – to learn and become better. I would love to support both the UCoC as well as these guidelines but can't with this crucial bit missing.
still no right to be heard and no right to be forgotten implemented
I think I am against adding UCoC to Wikimedia terms of use. Terms of use should not be vague and instead be clear-cut imo. UCoC is being enforced in all communities, and making terms and condition unclear for medium and small communities is one of the ways to bring potential issues in it's interpretation. They should be kept separated.
I will not support this as long as the suggestion that UCoC be made part of the Terms of Use remains. There will always be occasional exceptions in which it's appropriate to take action even when it deviates from written rules (it's why "Ignore all rules" is formal policy across the WMF ecosystem). As such, the ToU should only include those policies with legal implications or actions that would obviously be grossly out of line with core values. I refuse to support something that would potentially not only lead to people being banned, but lead to projects being _obliged_ to ban people, for actions taken for the clear benefit of a project or of Wikimedia as a whole.
Training modules seem a poor use of WMF funds.
Is there a communication training course based on the findings of Thomas Gordon and Marshall B. Rosenberg that all Wikipedians can take part in?
In general, it’s a necessary and good transition, but there’s a serious risk of more bureaucracy. — My main concern is the aspect of Training. I see C1 “identifying credibility of threats” as potentially going too far in one direction, while “protecting the safety of victims and other vulnerable people” (“other vulnerable” is vague — needs definition from a reliable source) could go too far in another direction. — More significantly, there isn’t a clear outline of who will initially develop the trainings. We read that “relevant stakeholders” will be consulted, which implies a passive role. And further, the word “relevant” suggest an in-group that is larger than a committee but smaller than the set of editors qualified to vote on these guidelines. Why not invite feedback from anyone, and on a continuous basis? After all, the trainings will be “instructor-led and tailored” which signals flexibility and adaptability. — “When possible the materials for these instructor-led trainings…will be publicly available.” Why would it not be possible? It’s fairly easy to predict that most users will not read them, but the whole point of openness is that you can’t predict who actually will — it might be someone unexpected who is outside of admin roles and has useful feedback to give. — I also find it somewhat disconcerting that the transition in 4.5 from bullet list to narrative paragraph sheds explicit reference to key people skills: “cooperating” and “empathy” and “collaborating”. — Finally, the word “systemic” is misused throughout, most obvious in the Section 4 oxymoronic phrase “systemic failures by local groups”. I assume the intended meaning is closer to “willful” or “egregious” with “repeated” perhaps sufficient but not necessary. So, it would be clearer if the two nouns in that 5-word phrase were both singular.
My concern is the limitation peroid for violation. I am also concerned wether the learning modules have a real approach or just an overview. The guidelines don't state the characteristics of people responsible for enforcement and their credbility.
Module B - Identification and Reporting (UCoC - Violations) — Line 1: I have no issue here (Identify Violation) — Line 2: I have no issue here (Detail Type) — Line 3: I have an issue here. The full text says "Training will also focus on specific parts of the UCoC, such as harassment and abuses of power (as required)" — It's not clear how the "as required" gets decided and who decides if "as required" applies or not. Clarification might be helpful here, unless further information about those two words will lead to procedure creep or something similar.
The "recommendation" that advanced rights holders should undergo training for the UCoC is incredibly worrying.
- It remains unclear to me who must or should complete the individual modules. - - What mechanism ensures that it remains readable for "normal" m en and does not become a jusritically complex text ? - - Will there be enough volunteers for the important task ?
Generally agree. But why is the verb to conduct training replaced with the verb "recommend" in the revised 2.2? Personally, I think that such training is very important for the relevant personnel to be familiar with the General Code of Conduct and should be mandatory to help them better carry out their activities.
The entire guidelines are too complicated and uneven. For example project communities aren't in charge of their community, but the entire "technical space" is granted over to the "Technical Code of Conduct Committee".
I object to UCoC on general grounds--it is not the place of WMF to dictate the enforcement policies on local sites. As to these Guidelines, on which my support is predicated, while the situation has improved, there are still a number of problems. The U4C, while an elected body, is ill-equipped to resolve personal disputes which are based in the policies and actors of smaller, highly localized projects; and it is against the principles of devolution, the very foundation of Wikipedia, to have U4C being the supreme authority for larger projects which are well able to handle their own affairs. The reporting tool mentioned in section 3.2 is wasteful and needlessly complicating of matters where, as in many cases, such a tool could exist on a per-project basis. The last paragraph of that section does seem to allow for some other methods of communication of violations, but there should be a way for local projects to opt out of the centralized reporting tool, especially because that report should always return back to the enforcement mechanisms of the respective project. The last paragraph of section 3.3.2, specifically in relation to the use of material posted on third-party sites to support a finding of a violation of WMF policy, is absurd. The WMF is already overstepping its bound in creating UCoC; it should not compound this problem by enforcing UCoC in every conceivable interaction of anyone remotely connected with Wikipedia (or another project). The use of such evidence is further objectionable because of the rule, stated elsewhere in UCoC, that proceedings are not wholly public. As has been previously demonstrated, it is reprehensible for WMF to use technical superiority of measures to enforce unelected decisionmakers' will on individual users where no public information is available relative to a complaint. Even where UCoC violations would be prosecuted by local, elected users / boards, how are we, the voters of said users, to know whether their decisions are truthful, when we cannot view the evidence for ourselves? This anti-transparency measure is one of the core failings of UCoC and these Guidelines. The initial paragraph of section 4 relative to U4C claims that it is a "co-equal" body with such other bodies as local arbitration committees. However, this claim is simply incorrect: U4C is the court of last resort, to which appeals may be made from local committees--especially in claims of fundamental unfairness or refusal to enforce UCoC. In "instances of severe systemic issues" U4C retains its authority--but U4C alone declares what meets that undefined criterion. The unbridled authority of U4C to declare "systemic issues" and override the will of local policy implementers at will is unacceptable, and violates the basic tenets which form the structure of WMF--the individual, local projects which make WMF relevant. This blatant power grab on behalf of the undemocratic and unaccountable WMF should not be tolerated. I vote against the revised guidelines.
While I fully understand that the aim of upholding a universal code of conduct is noble, I'm not on board with watching the WMF impose the UCoC over enwiki with actual enforcement. Specifically, though, I don't like the implementation of the U4C (section 4), or this segment from section 3.1.2: "VIOLATION: Systemic failure to follow the UCoC — ENFORCEMENT: Handled by U4C — Some examples of systemic failure include: — Lack of local capacity to enforce the UCoC — Consistent local decisions that conflict with the UCoC — Refusal to enforce the UCoC — Lack of resources or lack of will to address issues" — In this reading, the U4C may be complained to whenever local, consensus-built enforcement bodies do not produce the "desired outcome" - desired either by any user with a complaint, or by the WMF. This is a route by which community consensus can be disregarded and gone above/around. enwiki has many forums by which disputes may be resolved, and behavioral guidelines get upheld. It may not be perfect, but it is CONSENSUS-BUILT and COMMUNITY-RUN. These are the tenets of Wikipedia. — The development and subsequent enforcement of UCoC by the WMF is completely antithetical to BOTH of those aims.
I am concerned about the manner in which this is being implemented. It seems that it is being done without much fanfare, which in the long run is very bad for the wiki community. Also, I don't think the creation of a body of Code Enforcers has been properly thought through in terms of its interaction with other, older bodies on wikipedia (i.e. Admins). I would like to see these concerns addressed before the enforcement plan is implemented.
4.5 U4C Building Committee — "diversity of the movement, such as but not limited to: languages spoken, gender, age, geography, and project type" -- recommend using more comprehensive examples e.g. including disability status, lgbti+ status, even though the list is not a strict limitation, it should include more categories as examples.
English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee is required by policy to publish detailed rationales for decisions unless they are unsuitable for public discussion. The Enforcement Guidelines hold the U4C to the much lower standard of providing documentation on the effectiveness of UCoC enforcement. This is not acceptable for a co-equal committee.
I'm not sure how to answer this. The UCoC cannot be enforced based on these guidelines. — It can only be enforced after the U4C Building Committee which has not yet been formed, determines the procedures, policy, and use of precedent of the U4C, drafts the remainder of the U4C process and designates any other logistics necessary to establish the U4C. — The guidelines delegate to a new global committee called the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). They say it will be a co-equal body with the Arbitration Committee. But what happens if or when these "co-equal bodies" have a disagreement? If someone doesn't get the result they want at ArbCom can they appeal to U4C? Or vice versa? — Will the U4C Building Committee be a co-equal body with the English ArbCom?
It is not entirely clear to me how the criterion of "community members in good standing" is defined in the selection of the building committee.
Can the relationship between U4C and supervisors be clarified, please.
Seems excessively convoluted and will just become a weapon for one side to use in disputes. The supporting letter talking about a "living document" is very worrying as that can imply changing meaning based on whoever happens to be interpreting it.
Hate Speech prohibitions will lead to censorship that follows the biases of the enforcers.
If possible, I would like the policies regarding which news sources that can be used as sources to become more evenhanded, as currently I have seen unsourced gossip and opinion websites remain acceptable if they are deemed to have the right ideological viewpoints, whereas much more reputable newspapers that actually perform a lot of legitimate research have almost categorically removed if they do not have what is deemed an acceptable ideological perspective. — I think that Wikipedia would turn much more trustworthy for more sections of the ideological spectrum again if this is taken into consideration for future revisions. — Thanks in advance for any help.
It is (1) unnecessary, (2) ineffective, (3) exclusive, (4) discriminatory, and (5) harmful. I can't emphasize enough how bad I feel that UCOC enforcement is. — * (1) It is unecessary b/c my Wikipedia (and surely many others) has created its very own set of rules. Hundreds of rules and pages, highly refined by hundreds of users, tailored to its own regional & locally Wikipedian culture. This is highly superior to any centralized, unified, significantly foreign culture based set of rules (language conveys culture to a much greater extend than many might imagine). A unified set of rules as a recommendation to be translated, where needed, into local policy will be welcomed, helpful and completely sufficient for an effective unification as far as it is possible considering the local culture, values and traditions (but not farther). — * (2a) It's ineffective, b/c the job has already been done locally (see (1)). (2b) As a matter of fact, local, generally shared values deviating from the OCOC cannot be negated or denied by a central power, even if this universal code came into force. — * (3a) Its exclusive, b/c it excludes people to some degree that don't speak English or speak it worse than their local WP language, when, at the same time, their local rules of their local WP doesn't exclude them. (3b) Centralization to English language sets new barriers to newcomers for contributing to (e.g. criticizing) those policies and their application in everyday writing. Since there's no need for a centralization, even tiny barriers are inacceptable. «There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers.» (Jimbo Wales) Centralization is hierarchy—hierarchy that is not needed here. (3c) Translations will not help (esp. as they are meant to be non-authoritative). Local communities eventually will want to resort to local authoritative rules, but that won't be possible or the UCOC will be ignored. We all know how difficult & nuanced arguments about rules in WP often are, this alone should make clear how inappropriate centralized, mono-lingual authoritativeness is. This also excludes translation tools as a sufficient remedy for that problem, since local rules will always be superior in common intelligibility. E.g. «harassment» can not be sufficiently translated into German w/o evoking recurring debate about its well-translatedness. As of now, it's translated as «Belästigung», but this only means «annoyance», which includes harmless things, too. The more severe translation «Schikane» («chicanery») is rare and maybe too severe, meaning more discussion about its meaning. (3d) I won't be the only one questioning that translation, but people more inept than me of English will be disadvantaged versus me with no need. (3e) There is some value to unification to int'l contributors to foreign-to-them WPs. But a UCOC on a recommendational basis is completely sufficient for that and it can be established, that foreign contributors may be treated with lenience w.r.t local rules as long as they abide to the UCOC. — * (4) It excludes people just b/c of their language and for no important reason (b/c of (1)). This is culturally & ethnically discriminatory. If anything, the rules should be in the four UNO languages English, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. (This might cure (4), but not (1), (2) or (3).) If it seems too hard for the int'l WP community to provide rules in just those four int'lly & officially accepted languages, it's obvious how unready we are for centralization to one language. — * (5a) US dominance w/i the English WP is already an annoyance to many, it will be even worse when extended to the whole world. Also the long standing, current US dominance via the Wikimedia Foundation is generally tolerated, sometimes resisted, rarely loved. (That could & should be addressed, though.) (5b) The USA is seen by many as a great danger to freedom, human rights, peace and democracy. Many see the English WP as politically influenced, if not corrupted, by the US gov't. To some the UCOC will be seen as the evil, racist attempt of creating a moral world empire of the U.S. Way (or, more inaccurately, American Way). More centralization will grow more distrust in WP as a neutral source and make several people dismiss WP. Neutrality is central to the acceptance of WP. Mistrust in neutrality will end WP: «Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community. This community will continue to live and breathe and grow only so long as those of us who participate in it continue to Do The Right Thing. Doing The Right Thing takes many forms, but perhaps most central is the preservation of our shared vision for the neutral point of view policy and for a culture of thoughtful, diplomatic honesty.» (Jimbo Wales)
I fear the difference in enforcing these laws in local communities. I think cultural differences may cause mistakes in the performance of different wikis. — . — For example, would it be against this principle to use obscene words without swearing at anyone or anything? — I have seen that it is ok to use such words on English and Western wikis, but in the Middle East wikis are accompanied by warnings from administrators and access cutoffs. Whereas now the rules of both groups are similarly written!
Doesn't matter in reality; does not implement penalties against officials.
Too much potential for routine matters to be handled in smoke-filled rooms by an opaque process that should be handled transparently. And the UCoC is a solution in search of a problem.
In contrast to the friendly space policy, which transports the spirit of the movement, the military-inspired jargon of the enforcement policy, in particular, is scary, reduces diversity, and people with non-system complient views. While the intention of the document seems good, I am afraid that distributing and enforcing this document will provide severe damage to the community and exclude non-mainstream thinkers.
I do not support a Code of Conduct that regulates interpersonal behaviour in such a detailed and personal way with so many possible pitfalls. It will make communication more complicated and offer possibilities for abuse, since interpersonal behaviour is often times hard to prove and a highly subjective matter. This e.g. allows for malicious accusations with the intent of removing anyone one might not like from any position.
The amendments do not address the concerns I had regarding the guidelines, ie that they are gameable and will themselves be used as a weapon against opponents.
3.1 - Harassment: - Harassment (unacceptable) should include the use of a significant number of alternative accounts whose titles are themselves such that their main purpose is to outrage or upset colleagues, or suggest any future behaviour that could reasonably be regarded as the most likely main consequence of the harassment. See the massive use of alternative accounts with nerdy names on the Czech Wiktionary. Also the use of usernames that evoke negative feelings, such as Cinik, Tchor...
1.1 Since in the case of any discrepancies between the English version and the translation of the OCP, decisions will be based on the English version, it is necessary to provide a mechanism for applying the appropriate mitigating circumstance in the case of violations of the OCP caused by these discrepancies or lack of translation. Other enforcement of the UDC in this case is discrimination on the basis of language.
Paragraph to be finalised: - 1.1. Translations of the QM Enforcement Manual - The original version of the QM Enforcement Manual is in English. It will be translated into the various languages used in the Wikimedia projects. The Wikimedia Foundation will make every effort to ensure that the translation is accurate. If there is any discrepancy between the English version and the translation, decisions will be made based on the English version. - In the paragraph above, where there are differences of interpretation between the different versions of the Guide, the English version is given preference, which is not quite correct in the current context. - It is necessary to form translations of the Guide into the main languages of the world (such as English, - Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian...), which should be determined by the placement of the main content (articles) in them, and recognize these versions as having the same legal validity.
Casting an empty vote to notify that I have heard of this issue, but just a few days are probably not enough for me to form an informed opinion.
N/A
Still not sure what has changed. Is this to confirm the vote that has already been passed?
No comment, Thank you.
I didn't read the new rules, sorry)
Nothing
Nothing to say
See comments from first round.
In Japan, even those who violate the Three Revert Rule a cumulative total of nine times will be blocked for three days, so those who do it win.
My request is only one. I am interested in publicly exposing an active member who has somehow wrongfully damaged or misused my work. Admittedly, I have only had one experience, and it has been explained.
No comments.
I am not present enough to know whether I agree or not.
No comments
none
i was blocked and a wikipedia article is a violent insult and threat against me. (link redacted) It can't be that administrators on wikipedia are completely insane and don't delete such articles, worse, block reasonable people.(name redacted) and especially (name redacted) don't understand how to behave in a civilized way. on the one hand the two and others have too many obligations, on the other hand the two and others have too many obligations, that means they abuse their position. i hope you know at least now what i mean by aryan. aryan means civilized regardless of origin and so hitler, stalin, pinochet, idi amin as well as some wikipedia admins can never be aryan.
I would like to ask that, in general, the access criteria to be able to participate in this vote be broadened, especially with regard to the need to have made at least 20 editions between July 3, 2022 and January 3, 2023, because the circumstances of people's lives should not have to limit a vote. Thank you very much for your attention.
Verifiability is essential and secondary sources are necessary, but sometimes primary sources are of much better quality than non-neutral secondary sources used by non-neutral contributors and which detract from the good quality of the article.
We need more translator on meta for translating this into Chinese. I have already translated some, but just too many content need to be translated.
If any difference arises in the meaning between the English version and a translation, decisions will be based on the English version. --> For every used language a valid translation has to be provided. A fallback to English disadvantages non-native speakers.
it is a pity that the text is not translated into French
A very complex text, the Foundation's refusal to support other languages (clause 1.1), the Foundation's refusal to simplify the language of the UCoC.
May it be the best for everyone. But I seriously suggest a better revision of the Spanish edition, it really presents frequent errors, incorrect data. That's what we are here for. See you,
In point 6, part 3.1 of the French translation, the wording seems to me ambiguous. It says: "The accused persons shall have access to the details of the alleged violation committed against them [...]. I would have deleted "against them" because it can be understood that the violation is committed against the accused persons and not by these accused persons.
Footers on Wikimedia projects and edit confirmation pages for logged-out users (where appropriate and technically possible); [Slovak] Which are the login pages? Are those login pages part of Wikimedia projects? Is it necessary to have it also on the project pages for wmcloud.org? [English translated] Which are the login pages? Are those login pages part of Wikimedia projects? Is it necessary to have it also on the project pages for wmcloud.org? - "Resources for translation must be provided by the Wikimedia Foundation when reports are provided in languages that designated individuals are not proficient" [Slovak] What is the guarantee for the user? Where can I turn if there is a delay in translation, for example? [English] What is the warranty for the user? Where is it different, if it is e.g. translation delay? - "Meet any other eligibility requirements determined during the election process" [Slovak] Who defines these conditions? Who guarantees them? [English] Who defines these terms? Who guarantees them? - "Members will be selected by the Wikimedia Foundation's Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability. Volunteer committee members should be respected members of the community. " [Slovak] The reference should be to the role and not the person. The future is not 100% certain. And the person named has no defined responsibilities in this commitment (e.g. until when? how many members). [English] The reference should be to the role and not to the person. The future is not 100% certain. And the said person does not have any obligations defined in this commitment (e.g. until when? how many members).
These revisions make the guidelines more readable. I'm voting yes, but I would still like to see the abbreviations "U4C" and "T&S" defined the first time they appear. Defining abbreviations is a requirement of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (success criterion 3.1.4).
The code is not translated in portuguese!
The guidelines should be more strict, as well as take non-affiliated user groups more seriously.
A useful section on unacceptable behaviour would list borderline incidents which could go either way depending on who is elected. The WMF projects which have led most voters here developed their own procedures with more community input long ago. Going through the same typical examples of harassment that they were designed to address shows the redundant nature of this code of conduct.
The creators of this document have not copy-edited and proofread it to ensure that it makes sense (see comments on the document's talk page). Based on this lack of care, I must assume that the document has other fundamental flaws deriving from a failure to review its content carefully for logical consistency and good sense. — Also, these guidelines are not needed at the English Wikipedia and were not approved by the community there, so they clearly should not be enforced there.
Who is the "we" referred to in section 2.1 and some other place/s — # Add Global Council, T&S and legal to the glossary or spell them out at first use — # Grammar issue in 3.1 - proficient in
I have no complaints about UCoC EGs, but I find parts UCoC itself vague and unclear. Just look at its last sentence, it's pretty much untranslatable (this – what this?). I've been to several meetings with WMF legal staff and were told they cannot interpret it for me, it would take a board member to do so. It would be good to have some examples worked out. This is not the only example, I myself have a few more, but don't know whom to reach out ot. See also many unanswered questions at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Policy_text#Anglocentric_text.
I am not even sure what the revisions are. This is a big mess of loathsome management-school bullet-point speak that appears to have been compiled with no reflection of anyone having listened to the community.
The definition of abusement, civility and similar social phenomenons are vague, and can be manipulated by people in power.
In several places, 'should' has been replaced by 'will' — The proper legal terminology is 'shall' to indicate the strongest requirement of compliance; 'will' is an expression of fact, not duty-to-comply.
A good CoC would be small and non-political. This one seems verbose and intrusive. Also the change from "speak" to "are not proficient" introduces a grammatical error.
The revisions do a good job removing most uses of "shall", but I think it should have been much more extensive. The word "shall" is nearly always confusing to readers.
No. The documentation is completely unclear. Where is the summary what has been changed? What are the important changes? Who is willing to sift through a long list of links and text to figure out what this is all about?
The guidelines are too detailed and technical to allow for simple and sufficient engagement from non-experts. A set of over-arching explanations and summaries should be available for the text as a whole and every substantial section. My impression, at least, is furthermore that there is no ultimate scrutiny of the overall guideline-writing process or the results of its implementation (whether intended or not, and whether they relate to sub-optimal (official or unofficial) policies or the lack of a action / superfluous action). — It should also have been made very clear whether this "re-vote", as it were, is in order to decide whether this revised version is better than the original proposal or whether, in a broader sense, each voter is satisfied with it, as if there had been no previous vote and this had been the original version of the guidelines.
Some of the objectives of the UCoC are noble and legitimate, such as civility, respect and the hunting of fake information. However, the proposed process is utterly complex and bureaucratic, and both texts of the UCoC and the REG are unlikely to be assimilated by any editor of any Wikimedia project. This is a stark departure from the original principles of the Foundation's project, such as the Five Pillars of the English Wikipedia, which inspired similar principles on many other projects. A concise set of rules that already covers civility and content quality but also simplicity is already in place, in less than 3000 characters. An obscure mechanism of sanctions with no reference to the principle of simplicity or the absence of firm rules is too far from the spirit of our projects.
Assume Good Faith, and Be Nice. There are existing process in place to address anything more then that. This whole thing seems like a bunch of confusing chatter.
Section 3.3 in part reading "The repeated arbitrary or unmotivated removal of any content without appropriate discussion or providing explanation" is insufficient and vague with the use of the terms "arbitrary or unmotivated." Removal of material frequently leads to heated debate and the requirements thereof need to be clarified.
It is too long.
moving forward, capitation and clarity
Couldn't find a clear summary of the changes, just a lengthy diff where a lot of it seemed trivial, so here's a null vote and a shrug I guess
One sentence of section 3.1 is poorly written. I would suggest changing "that designated individuals are not proficient" to "IN WHICH designated individuals are not proficient", or alternatively to "that designated individuals are not proficient IN". (I have capitalized my suggested changes).
Abbreviations like "UCoC" and "U4C" should be defined in the glossary as well as in the body of the text.
A visual accompaniment that summarizes key principles would be useful.
The proposed wording is too complicated and complex. The Wikimedia Foundation has a tendency to complicate things and make them too complex. The result is that few bother to read the rules and do not know them. I suggest that you establish simple rules with a small number of sections, so that everyone can easily read and understand and know how to act.
I do not really understand what the vote is about. I do not know the old guidelines and I do not understand to what extent the revised guidelines differ from the old ones.
Full of fluff. Committee speak. Too hard to read and understand and find any points of substance.
Very hard to understand the consequences of this guidelines.
The enforcement guidelines (as opposed to the UCoC itself) are too complicated and hard to understand – it is unclear to me what the effect of a "yes" vote would be, and thus I'm voting "no". — Additionally, much of the enforcement guidelines appear to be along the line of "we should develop a plan to do X". This probably isn't what should be being voted on – develop the plan first, and then vote on it.
Meet any other eligibility requirements determined during the election process is an awful sentence. It doesn't specify who might create other eligibility requirements and what process would be used to create those. Having clear rules about candidate selection is important enough to oppose.
In section 3.1 > Reports > last bullet point: — The new language "Resources for translation must be provided by the Wikimedia Foundation when reports are provided in languages that designated individuals are not proficient" is grammatically incorrect. Furthermore, it fails to define the term "designated individuals."
Must be avoidable in any activity subversive against the state or discipline , religious, pornography etc.
The procedure of reporting unacceptable behaviour should be easy to find and explained clearly, preferably in many languages. This is crucial for maintenance of healthy relations within the community
1.1 is not to be accepted, especially not with the partly outlandish things that have been fabricated there. - As long as it is not written in clear, simple and not widely interpretable language, it is simply no good.
The Code of Conduct is peppered with foreign words. too complicated and far too long. And here again, peppered with technical terms and far too long. The title alone, "Ratification of the Revised Enforcement Guidelines of the Universal Code of Conduct," should roll off the tongue. A law next to the law next to the law. Who's going to read all that stuff?
Unreadable text, completely failed attempt to translate English legal language into German, result is confused stuff. Please start again from scratch
The enforcement guidelines are too vague.
Completely incomprehensible gibberish
My sympathy goes entirely to the grammatical rules, but nothing remains for those that intend to dictate conduct and morals with the good conscience of believing themselves to be universal. Peace to wikimedians of good will.
3.1.2 Enforcement by type of violation: - "Rules of conduct and enforcement in crisis outer space" should be "outer space of the wiki". - 4.3 Procedures: - "The Generic Code of Conduct Co-ordinating Committee will determine the frequency of its convenings and other procedures. The GSCC may create or modify its procedures, as long as they are within its scope. I wonder if the original meaning was "may create or modify all of its relevant procedures? - 4.5 Constituent Committee of the Generic Code of Conduct Harmonisation Committee: - "Members should reflect diverse perspectives on the process of campaign implementation", there seems to be a space between the two terms?
The current UCoC should not be enforced because it is too unclear and ambiguous. For example, when I see a disruptive edit, I often check other edits by the same user, and if I find them disruptive as well, I revert them and post warnings on the user's talk page. In other words, I'm following users across the project and repeatedly critique their work mainly with the intent to discourage them from doing what they do. According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct#3.1_%E2%80%93_Harassment, that's "hounding".
To start, it has been unclear at times which Universal Code of Conduct we are voting for. For English, the second link will take you to the outdated Code that we are not voting for, which leads me to believe that this vote will have users who believe that they are voting for that Code by mistake. My understanding is that we already have guidelines on the English Wiki and that it is unclear if this Code will modify or abolish some of those guidelines. The fact that the FAQ makes no mention of this is somewhat concerning. Another thing that concerns me is that the revised Code has modified the Fairness in process section to say that not all parties will be permitted to give their perspective. I feel that if a party is at risk of punishment, then that party must be allowed the opportunity to show their side. I am also disappointed that there are 17 languages where the Universal Code of Conduct page was not fully translated into. I feel that this vote should have been postponed until the Universal Code of Conduct was fully translated to prevent people who do not speak the languages where the Code has been translated into from being disadvantaged. In one case, the Portuguese translation, the page claims to be 21% translated, but only the headers to each section have been translated. The fact that the Code claims "The Wikimedia Foundation will make their best effort to have accurate translations" while there are multiple unfinished translations is disappointing. I don't understand why this vote has to happen now when accurate translations don't exist for multiple languages. — I feel that with these unknowns, concerns, and inability for some to vote, that I cannot justify voting yes to this.
As Wikimedia strives to be for a global audience, acceptable and unacceptable behaviour varies between different users, so something much more concrete and detailed is better.