The following statement is Wikimedia Taiwan(WMTW)'s response to the
announcement "Board of Trustees on Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct
(UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Apri…>".
The below statement has also been approved in the WMTW board meeting on May
1, 2022. We sincerely invite the Wikimedia Foundation and all Wikimedians
to review and comment.
We urge the Foundation board to consider the official ratification and
enforcement of the current version of the Enforcement Guidelines, and
continue the conversation and refinement based on the community feedback
and concerns during the implementation. As an affiliate in the Wikimedia
Movement, we (the WMTW) understand that the Wikimedia movement places more
emphasis on consensus-building rather than a pro forma democracy of
majority vote. However, the vote was nearly 60%(58.6% versus 41.4%), not an
extremely small difference of 50.1% versus 49.9%. From the experience of
Chinese Wikipedia, it is detrimental to our movement in a situation like
this; a situation of overemphasizing the strong opposition in order to gain
more consensus, and ignoring the opinions of the ones in favor.
The Chinese Wikipedia has long faced the problem of strong opponents
occupying discussions on guidelines or the content of articles. When facing
controversial issues, it is easy to overrule the majority as long as a
small number of users support each other and form strong opinions to
express oppositions. They often invoke guidelines such as "Wikipedia is not
a testing ground for democracy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:DEM>" and "Voting is
not a substitute for discussion
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:PNSD>", claiming that
the majority of opponents still need to reach a consensus with the
minority; but when others try to communicate with them, they often refuse
to open the conversation by giving lengthy debates, until the volunteers
give up on the discussion due to fatigue. In Chinese Wikipedia, such
long-term so-called GAME behavior has led to a failure of internal
community management mechanisms. It is not easy to push for changes
regarding policy and guidelines, it is difficult to stop the vandalism, and
these even led to well-intentioned editors leaving the movement. All of
which contributed to the Foundation's action on Chinese Wikipedia last year
indirectly.
If UCoC's enforcement of the guidelines has to be postponed because of
receiving objections, it raises doubts about the Foundation's credibility
with the communities. In the re-run of the community vote, will it be
delayed again due to strong opposition, regardless of the outcome? Does
this case also encourage potential spoilers whose behavior will be affected
by the UCoC to continue to find reasonable excuses to freeze the
enforcement process, making the UCoC become a mere formality? Does it imply
that in the re-run of the community vote, it does not matter if the
communities participate actively or not, because the supporting opinions
won't be given equal respect anyway?
If the current version of the enforcement guideline can be ratified and
implemented first, and take a conservative approach towards the strongly
challenged content temporarily, as well as shorten the time frame for the
first iteration reviews, this should be able to show respect to the voting
result, and also give those reasonable opinions a chance to be
incorporated. This is in line with the consensus spirit of the Wikimedia
movement.
---------
This open letter was written in Mandarin by WMTW Secretary General Reke
Wang (User:Reke) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Reke>, approved
by the WMTW Board, and translated by Joyce (User:Joycewikiwiki)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Joycewikiwiki>, our
International Coordinator
Hello all,
The Movement Strategy and Governance team is looking for community members
to serve as election volunteers in the upcoming Board of Trustees election.
The idea of the Election Volunteer Program came up during the 2021
Wikimedia Board of Trustees Election. This program turned out to be
successful. With the help of Election Volunteers, we were able to increase
outreach and participation in the election by 1,753 voters over 2017.
Overall turnout was 10.13%, 1.1 percentage points more, and 214 wikis were
represented in the election.
But a total of 74 wikis that did not participate in 2017 produced voters in
the 2021 election. Can you help change the participation?
Election volunteers will help in the following areas:
- Translate short messages and announce the ongoing election process in
community channels
- Optional: Monitor community channels for community comments and
questions
Volunteers should:
- Maintain the friendly space policy during conversations and events
- Present the guidelines and voting information to the community in a
neutral manner
Do you want to be an election volunteer and ensure your community is
represented in the vote? Sign up here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Movement_Strategy_and_Go…>
to
receive updates. You can use the talk page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Talk:Movement_Strategy_a…>
for
questions about translation.
Thank you,
Mahuton (WMF)
Facilitator, Movement Strategy & Governance
--
*Mahuton POSSOUPE (He/Him)*
Movement Strategy & Board Governance facilitator
French-speaking communities
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi,
As far as I can see, the Collection extension, which provides the
Special:Book page, is deployed on nearly all Wikimedia wikis.
Is there data that shows how often do people actually use it?
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Dear Wikimedians,
The 10th edition of the biggest international photo contest devoted to
nature heritage has started! Wiki Loves Earth 2022 aims at creating the
biggest database of free images of protected sites and raising public
awareness about unique natural areas around our beautiful planet.
This year, we have 28 countries/regions participating with 11 of them
starting their local contests today 🌎 https://w.wiki/4pUh
Do you want to know more details about WLE 2022? Are you interested in
taking part or organizing your own local contest? Find out more about this
year's competition in our blog post
<https://wikilovesearth.org/join-wiki-loves-earth-2022/>, and join us
during our Office Hour today at 16.00 UTC
☎️* https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89745867994?pwd=b0NNSjY1Q1FKVTYwa2hJUWVQRi9VZz09
<https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89745867994?pwd=b0NNSjY1Q1FKVTYwa2hJUWVQRi9VZz09>*
*Zoom meeting ID: 897 4586 7994Passcode: wle22*
Best wishes,
Iryna Yehiazarova
Project Manager for International Wiki Loves Earth 2022
on behalf of the international organizing team