Hi Stella,
Thanks for your reply. It is much appreciated that you take the time. Now,
you point out that the UCoC is meant to establish a "minimum" set of
guidelines. "Minimum" means that anything forbidden or demanded in the UCoC
is forbidden or demanded globally, but that individual projects might
forbid or demand more. That what "minimum" means, right?
Now, the phrasing of all these items in section 3.1 is always the same. The
section describes what harassment "*includes*". It begins, "Harassment.
This *includes *..." Then, it introduces the bullet points with the
examples by saying, "Harassment *includes *but is not limited to ..."
So the way it is written, the intro does not qualify the bullet points.
Both the intro and the bullet points merely say what harassment "includes".
They are parallel. The intro, as written, does not say that the examples in
the bullet points only qualify as harassment IF certain conditions are met.
Another thing to think about here are the reputational risks inherent in
formulating authoritarian laws that are then applied selectively – it opens
the movement up to charges of hypocrisy. This is also a staple of
authoritarian states: have laws under which most everyone is guilty of
*something*, and you can find a reason to punish anyone whenever the need
arises.
But let's leave the theory and take some practical examples. They are all
related to this bullet UCoC point, which says harassment includes:
- *Disclosure of personal data (Doxing):* sharing other contributors'
private information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email
address without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or
elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity
outside the projects.
Could you please comment on these below?
1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits
This reveals contributors' employer and address, very likely without their
consent, on a page in Wikipedia. It's in direct contravention of the above
bullet point. Should this page exist?
2.
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/18/5916005/malaysian-crash-mh17-russia-ukraine-w…
This press article states that someone at a Russian TV network edited
Wikipedia to blame the MH17 plane crash on Ukraine. This therefore reveals
a contributor's employer and possibly also their work address. Is this
article harassment? Should any Wikipedians who may have tipped off the
journalist be punished?
3.
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/wikipedia-sockpuppet-investigation-largest-net…
This press article – which was instrumental in triggering a significant
change in the WMF terms of use, well before your time with the WMF of
course – comments on various contributors' employer, again in direct
contravention of the Doxing bullet point. Is this harassment? Should the
Wikipedians who "shared information concerning other contributors'
Wikimedia activity outside the projects", by speaking to the writer of this
article, be sanctioned under UCoC if they did the same today?
4.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbqjb/is-wikipedia-for-sale
In this article the late Kevin Gorman – who died much too young! – as well
as James Hare and a WMF staffer again "share information concerning other
contributors' Wikimedia activity outside the projects", including
employment details. This is in direct contravention of the Doxing bullet
point, compliance with which you explained is a "minimum" standard that
participants will be held to.
5.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2011/09/hari-rose-wikipedia-admitted
In this article a journalist writes about a Wikipedia editor – a fellow
journalist, as it turned out – who had defamed multiple living people on
Wikipedia. He gives the name of his Wikipedia account and his real name.
(The culprit subsequently publicly apologised.) Is the linked article
harassment?
6.
https://archive.ph/NAsft
Here a Wikipedian claimed that a fellow Wikipedian was a government
employee. He "shared information concerning her activity outside the
project". He also claimed she had sysops tortured. The record shows that
the accused was subsequently globally banned from all Wikimedia projects.
How would the Wikipedian who made the report be judged under the UCoC if
they were to make the same report today?
If you could look at these examples and come back to me, that would be much
appreciated.
Best,
Andreas
On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 1:02 AM Stella Ng <sng(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello Andreas and Todd,
I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this.
First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum
set of guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. However, it does
not make existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in
our global movement may have different policies around the disclosure of
private information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is
going on on a day-to-day basis, as well as relationship and political
dynamics (such as the position of power or influence) that the individuals
involved could have. Depending on the specific context of your examples,
interpretation and action could differ widely under those doxxing
policies.
What would be contextually consistent across the communities, however, is
the UCoC. If we look specifically at section 3.1, which is what doxxing is
nested under, what is important to note is context - specifically that if
the information is provided or the behavior is “intended primarily to
intimidate, outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would
reasonably be considered the most likely main outcome” (emphasis added).
The next sentence expands further that “Behaviour can be considered
harassment if it is beyond what a reasonable person would be expected to
tolerate in a global, intercultural environment.” (emphasis added) The
policy as written is pretty clear that both intent and what is often called
in law the “reasonable person
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reasonable_person#:~:text=Noun&text=(law)%20A%20fictional%20person%20used,due%20care%20in%20like%20circumstances.%22>”
test applies. This is one of the reasons that the Enforcement Guidelines
are built around human review since application of policy will always
require judgment. The community members who review situations will
hopefully read the text in context within the policy and will also have
experience in understanding the parties involved, their unique dynamics
within their respective communities, and their own project policies on
doxxing as COI, as they will have the experience of dealing with the day to
day.
However, it is likely the standards could be clarified further in the
round of Policy review that will be conducted a year after the completion
of Phase 2.
Regards,
Stella
On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:02 PM Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Actually, you're technically even breaching
it saying it here, since the
mailing list is "outside the Wikimedia projects".
I would agree that this needs substantial clarification, especially
regarding both spammers and already-public information.
Regards,
Todd Allen
On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 12:02 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Dear Rosie,
Could you kindly also look at and clarify the following passage in the
Universal Code of Conduct:
- *Disclosure of personal data (Doxing):* sharing other
contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment,
physical or email address without their explicit consent either on the
Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their
Wikimedia activity outside the projects.
As written, the first part of this says that contributors must no longer
state – on Wikipedia or elsewhere – that a particular editor appears to be
working for a PR firm, is a congressional staffer,[1] etc.
The second part forbids any and all discussion of contributors'
Wikimedia activity outside the projects. (For example, if I were to say on
Twitter that User:Koavf has made over 2 million edits to Wikipedia, I would
already be in breach of the code as written.)
Thanks,
Andreas
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits
On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 5:09 PM Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight <
rstephenson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello,
The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
Trustees would like to thank everyone who participated in the recently
concluded community vote on the Enforcement Guidelines for the
Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Enforcement_guidelines>
.
The volunteer scrutinizing group has completed the review of the
accuracy of the vote and has reported the total number of votes received as
2,283. Out of the 2,283 votes received, 1,338 (58.6%) community members
voted for the enforcement guidelines, and a total of 945 (41.4%) community
members voted against it. In addition, 658 participants left comments, with
77% of the comments written in English.
We recognize and appreciate the passion and commitment that community
members have demonstrated in creating a safe and welcoming culture.
Wikimedia community culture stops hostile and toxic behavior, supports
people targeted by such behavior, and encourages good faith people to be
productive on the Wikimedia projects.
Even at this incomplete stage, this is evident in the comments
received. The Enforcement Guidelines did reach a threshold of support
necessary for the Board to review. However, we encouraged voters,
regardless of how they were voting, to provide feedback on the elements of
the enforcement guidelines. We asked the voters to inform us what changes
were needed and in case it was prudent to launch a further round of edits
that would address community concerns.
Foundation staff who have been reviewing comments have advised us of the
emerging themes. As a result, as Community Affairs Committee, we have
decided to ask the Foundation to reconvene the Drafting Committee. The
Drafting Committee will undertake another community engagement to refine
the enforcement guidelines based on the community feedback received from
the recently concluded vote.
For clarity, this feedback has been clustered into four sections as
follows:
1.
To identify the type, purpose, and applicability of the UCoC
training;
2.
To simplify the language for more accessible translation and
comprehension by non-experts;
3.
To explore the concept of affirmation, including its pros and cons;
4.
To review the conflicting roles of privacy/victim protection and
the right to be heard.
Other issues may emerge during conversations, particularly as the draft
Enforcement Guidelines evolve, but we see these as the primary areas of
concern for voters. Therefore, we are asking staff to facilitate a review
of these issues. Then, after the further engagement, the Foundation should
re-run the community vote to evaluate the redrafted Enforcement Outline to
see if the new document is ready for its official ratification.
Further, we are aware of the concerns with note 3.1 in the Universal
Code of Conduct Policy. Therefore, we are directing the Foundation to
review this part of the Code to ensure that the Policy meets its intended
purposes of supporting a safe and inclusive community without waiting for
the planned review of the entire Policy at the end of the year.
Again, we thank all who participated in the vote and discussion,
thinking about these complex challenges and contributing to better
approaches to working together well across the movement.
Best,
Rosie
*Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight *(she/her)
Acting Chair, Community Affairs Committee
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> Board of
Trustees
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org,
guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org