Policy talk:Universal Code of Conduct
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First a ToU for the WMF
Here was a wonderful suggestion for a ToU, that the WMF should give itself in regard of their relationship to the communities. Unless they stop trying to rule from above and start listening to the communities and behave as the facilitator they are, not the leader, nbody will have any trust in them any longer. The WMF ist one of the problems in terms of conduct, they should Change quickly. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 15:00, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
- The WMF does not have ToU for staff that are different from those that apply to everyone else, but there is a Code of Conduct that applies especially to staff and board members. You can read it here. All staff members are bound by their contracts to adhere to this Code of Conduct. --CSteigenberger (WMF) (talk) 09:38, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
- ? So? It seems to me the Policy of WMF and the suggested ToU have nothing in common!? I doubt that the intention is that "WMF signs something". Its the content that matters, right? ...Sicherlich Post 18:25, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
- That was a non-answer. We want a ToU for the organisation WMF, the service organisation of the Wikiverse, that gets all legitimacy from the authors of the different projects and has absolutely no legitimacy on its own. They have botched quite a lot in last years, they have acted mote then once in the last years against the communities, and they don't seem to have learned that much from their grave mistakes. They should eat a lot of humble pie and have a lot to apologise for to the communities. That ToU as binding guidelines would be a nice start. There is absolutely nothing in it, that cannot be subscribed by the WMF.
- Das war jetzt nur eine völlig unzureichende Nichtantwort. Wir wollen ToU für die Organisation WMF, für die Serviceorganisatuion des Wikiversums, die ihre gesamte Legitimation von den AutorInnen der verschiedenen Projekte bekommt und keinerlei selbständige Legitimation besitzt. Die WMF hat in den letzten Jahren viel Porzellan zerschlagen, sie haben mehrfach gegen die Community gearbeitet, und sie scheinen nichts aus ihren groben und bösen Fehlern gelernt zu haben. Sie sollten ordentlich Kreide fressen und sich endlich glaubhaft bei den Communities entschuldigen. Diese ToU als bindende Richtlinie wäre ein netter Anfang. Es gibt absolut nicht da drin, was nicht von der WMF unterschrieben werden könnte. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 15:28, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
- Hallo User:Sänger. Anmerkung: ToU, also "Terms of Use", sind eine vertragliche Vereinbarung zwischen Personen ("Customer") und einem Dienstleister ("Service Provider"). Theoretisch könnte man die Community als Anbieter des Dienstes 'Schreiben einer Enzyklopädie' betrachten. Das knirscht aber an allen Ecken und Enden. Es fängt damit an, dass die (globale) Community rein praktisch nicht wie eine kohärente Entität handeln kann. Auch auf der anderen Seite gibt es begriffliche Reibungen. Die WMF ist eben keine Person sondern eine Organisation. Deswegen halte ich auch für den Vorschlag von Tinz die Bezeichnung "Code of Conduct", also "Verhaltenskodex" für passender. Viele Grüße, -<(kmk)>- (talk) 08:56, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
- Du hast im Prinzip recht, ich habe schlicht die Terminologie von Tinz übernommen. Wichtig ist vor allem, dass die endlich aufhören so zu tun, als seien sie der Boss sondern anfangen mit den tatsächlichen Bossen, den Communities zusammenzuarbeiten. Bisher haben sie schon des öfteren aus reiner Machgier riesige Konflikte vom Zaun gebrochen, und irgendwie kommt es einem angesichts von FRAMBAN nicht so vor, als würden sie ihr Verhalten jemals reflektieren. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 15:45, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
- Die WMF ist in der realen Welt verhaftet und somit nicht logischerweise Teil einer digitalen „Kumbaya-Wolke“ oder einer „Community“ die jedes Mitglied der „Community“ anders definiert. Eine ToU muss für alle gelten daraus ergibt sich dann ein ToC der auch für alle gilt. Die Frage eines ToC adressiert aber ein Problem welches gelöst werden muss, wenn nicht, ist der Käs gegessen und Wikipedia über kurz oder lang Geschichte und ein Eintrag in einer anderen Enzyklopädie.--Catflap08 (talk) 21:58, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
- Du hast im Prinzip recht, ich habe schlicht die Terminologie von Tinz übernommen. Wichtig ist vor allem, dass die endlich aufhören so zu tun, als seien sie der Boss sondern anfangen mit den tatsächlichen Bossen, den Communities zusammenzuarbeiten. Bisher haben sie schon des öfteren aus reiner Machgier riesige Konflikte vom Zaun gebrochen, und irgendwie kommt es einem angesichts von FRAMBAN nicht so vor, als würden sie ihr Verhalten jemals reflektieren. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 15:45, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
What about this? The WMF showed their disregard for the community just yesterday with their rebranding proposals, that all completely ignored community consensus just to push their private point of view. As long as this mindset of ignorance towards the community is not satisfactorily dealt with, i.e. completely banned from any (WMF)er, there should be no UCoC by those uncivilized employees towards the community, that's like letting the fox look after the hen house. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 14:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
- Ping. Just to not let all discussions vannish into the void of the archive. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 04:15, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
- It seems like WMF is getting increasingly out of touch with editors, i.e. people who actually create the Wikipedia. --Nomad (talk) 05:00, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
I think this is really a great step to the right direction, particularly for editors like myself who comes from small language wikipedia's. I think the Universal code of conduct will enable us to edit on big wikipedia's like the English wikipedia without the fear of harrassment from other editors. Wikipedia belongs to all who edit it, old hands and newbies Bobbyshabangu (talk) 12:06, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Aggressive Höflichkeit vs. hart dargestellte Fakten
Ich bekomme des Öfteren mit, dass das primäre Anliegen des UCoC augenscheinlich oberflächliche Höflichkeit ist, egal was mit den pro forma höflichen Texten dem Gegenüber gesagt wird. Wenn also mit ausgesucht höflichen Worten klar und deutlich gesagt wird: Du Ars***gesicht, verp*** Dich, Deiner Argumente interessieren mich nicht, ich mache nur das, was ich will!, dann würde das völlig in Ordnung sein, wenn jemand mit nur schlechten Kenntnissen in Englisch sich sehr direkt ausdrückt, und selbiges genau so schreibt, dann würde er gesperrt. Das erinnert mich an so, einen selten dämlichen Aggressionsdetektor, der hier mal lief, bis er als rassistisch und homophob entlarvt wurde, und dann auch ein paar Monate später tatsächlich abgestellt wurde (ich finde den Link gerade nicht, aber die von T&S müssen wissen, worum es ging). Wenn also jemand, wie aktuell bei dem Umbenennungsprojekt, eine komplett unbrauchbare Befragung startet, die wegen dem eingebauten Bias und der extrem tendenziösen Fragestellung beyond repair ist, und dies mit verschwiemelter Marketinglingo darstellt als sei es was brauchbares, dann wäre das, trotz dem aggressiven Pushen des persönlichen Vorhabens gegen die Neutralität, vermutlich aufgrund der verwendeten Sprache in Ordnung, während die aufgebrachten BenutzerInnen, die diesen Betrugsversuch anprangern, und dabei deutliche Worte verlieren, wegen Meta:Civility angemacht werden. Während die Leute, die mit SuperProtect die größtmögliche Incivility angerichtet haben, haben sich afaik noch nicht mal für diese extreme Aggression entschuldigt, wurde Fram wegen seines Auftretens gegen die WMF geschasst.
Mit anderen Worten: Solange Du Queens English benutzt, kannst Du ein aggressives und egoistisches Arschloch sein, wenn Du Cockney sprichst, fliegst Du achtkantig raus. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 13:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
- Ich habe das misogyne, homophobe, unbrauchbare Tool gerade gefunden: Research:Detox. Es ist ein wunderbares Beispiel dafür, wie so etwas definitiv nicht gemacht werden soll. Es ging allein um irgendwelche als böse definierten Worte oder Wortbestandteile, unabhängig vom Kontext. Mit oberflächlicher Höflichkeit getarnte Aggression wurde nicht erkannt, harmloses benutzen von in manchen kulturellen Umgebungen als unfein geltenden Worten hingegen aufgeblasen. Beispiele gibt es z.B. hier in der enWP. Dieses imho inakzeptable Vorgehen darf nicht die Norm werden, d.h. aufgesetzte Höflichkeit ist nicht etwas erstrebenswertes. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 14:19, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
- It is extremely difficult to figure out what is foul language. In Norway you are in general prosecuted for using foul language against the police, still if you come from northern parts of Norway you are allowed to call a police man a “h-æ-s-t-k-u-k” (“d-i-c-k of a horse”). What's more, in those parts of Norway profanity can be constructed in a lot different ways, and it is completely accepted to use such profanity.
- Some years back I tried to build a simple profanity-detector. It had a few hundred terms (about 7–800 terms). I was really proud and about to try it out when I found that someone had created a list of profanity from norther part of Norway. The list was incomplete, yet contained nearly 7000 entries. So much for my neat little idea. From time to time I have tried to resurrect the idea, and now I have an idea how it might be handled, but it is far from easy. (For those interested; profanity is a type of generative clause over limited sets of words, but are both dependent on context and geographic area.)
- Still this only work for blunt hostility. If someone tells you that you are an “h-æ-s-t-k-u-k” in very civil terms, then a profanity-detector would not be able to detect it.
- In short: The assumption that there exist a universal code of conduct is not correct, at least when it comes to profanity. 46.230.140.201 21:56, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Drafting committee
According to the timeline the drafting committee should have been selected by July 17, however there is nothing on the committee page yet. Has the committee been selected? If so why is there no public announcement? If not how does that affect the timeline? --Count Count (talk) 09:52, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
- It's here: Universal Code of Conduct/Drafting committee, since yesterday. A wee bit after schedule, but there you are. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 21:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
Why I oppose this idea
This whole idea smells of colonialism. What happens when one has a worldwide set of rules is that the policing of those rules will, inevitably, be dictated by the larger players. I have seen on English Wikipedia talk pages how the English, Spanish and French users' gang together to oppress and abuse indigenous minorities whenever questions of Welsh, Catalan, Breton etc identity arise. Their abuse and derision of the minorities is always cloaked with Wiki policy legalese. A Universal Code of Conduct will be used as another stick that our abusers use to beat us with. AlwynapHuw (talk) 14:26, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
- Or perhaps it could be used to prevent smaller projects from being themselves abusers, which is not an uncommon occurrence. It all depends on how it’s written. Vermont (talk) 15:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for making my point Vermont, when a 100,000 article Wiki disagrees with a 5 million article Wiki it's always the 100,000 that is seen as the bad guy AlwynapHuw (talk) 03:08, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with Alwyn, and would prefer decentralising power in a positive and organic way. When we question the conduct of editors on a wiki project, we should nurture and educate and help them to regulate themselves, not silence debates or unwelcomed opinions (User:Pine's suggested Code of Conduct). As User:Pine says elsewhere: local administrators and functionaries who have good knowledge of a project's policies, guidelines, and language(s) are best placed to address these disputes.
- Alwyn's right. I don't know of a single smaller language wiki with a Steward, and according to the draft UCoC mentioned, the Committee would have 7 Stewards empowered to dictate what's 'anarchic' and what's not, or whether an editor has violated the Terms of use or not! Most reasonable people would agree that holding an election to decide the destiny of a nation or people falls within the human right of true democracy. Spain, on the other hand jails those people. What is seen as democracatic right on the one hand is seen as anarchy by Spain. If governments can not agree, how can the 'universal' 'we'? The easy option is to centralise the power of WMF; the best option is to nurture, educate and respect the rich diversity of all our individual, unique projects. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 06:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
- I think you're confusing a personal proposal with the official one. Pine's proposal was their personal non-binding proposal. It mentioned 7 users (not 7 stewards) whose homewikis could be any and that would be elected by community vote. However and as announced in Universal Code of Conduct/Drafting committee the Foundation has decided that the text of the Code will be instead based on the Contributor Covenant. The drafting committee is comprised of 6 volunteers and 3 staff members of different backgrounds. We'll see what text they come with, and we'll see if there'll be any Committee charged with enforcing it or not and how that liaises with local project autonomy and dispute resolution. I'd say to wait for the final draft and comment on it. I am pesimistic but I've always been the pesimistic type. What I am not sure about is how bringing politics or nationalism is relevant to this discussion. In fact many disfunctional projects or "projects in crisis" are or were so because of politics, nationalism or religion, and recent examples can be seen here or here out of many others, and I suspect the Code would, rightly, need to address these conducts as problematic. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
- This objection is understandable and a goal of an organic decentralized means of interpreting or legislating the UCOC is one worth pursuing. Minority points of view should not be accidentally suppressed by project communities through the unthinking enforcement of the UCOC, even when there may be substantial complaints about "bad behaviour", or even allegations of harassment from those with minority or "anarchic" views.
- However, getting the balance right seems impossibly difficult if we do want the UCOC to be sufficiently well and robustly enforced to stop the effective reverse happening (as we have seen in past abuse cases that resulted in de-sysops on small-ish projects) where minority groups such as contributors wanting to create or improve LGBT+ topic areas get abused or even blocked from contributing, on made-up charges because the topics are unwelcome by the dominant community voices on those projects.
- The diafol will be in the details, and I seriously doubt this can be right first time. --Fæ (talk) 12:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
- I do see why small and minority language communities might feel threatened by such a proposal. In other areas of the Wiki-verse there have been issues around the one size fits all approach to notability, language and terminology which does often seem to work against smaller language, social or ethnic groups. However this is about everyone agreeing to a clear code of conduct - about standing by a set of shared values. It is about behavior and not policy, and certainly not politics. In some ways smaller communities need this more than larger ones. A couple of prominent and opinionated admin on a very small project could easily unfairly target a user, or treat them unfairly without any clear mechanism for flagging and resolving the dispute. IF this code of conduct is written and implemented properly then it can and should act as a safety net for those who feel marginalized and unfairly treated in communities of all sizes. Jason.nlw (talk) 09:40, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
- Mae'n ddrwg geni Jason.nlw ond ail bobiad o'r ddadl bod Cymru yn rhy fach, rhy, dlawd, rhy dwp i wneud penderfyniadau heb oruchwyliaeth yr ymerodraeth yw'r uchod. Os nad oes gennym ffydd bod Wicipedia yn gallu bod yn annibynnol a theg heb angen goruchwyliaeth allanol iddi, gwaeth inni rhoi'r gorau i'r prosiect. AlwynapHuw (talk) 03:20, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
- The opposite could also happen, Jason, whereby the (hypothetical) admin is using recognised, unique and acceptable local guidelines and good practice. However, the new prominent and opinionated incomer only knows global wiki guidelines and thinks he can do what he likes, without understanding or respecting local practices. As he has the right connections he targets and flags up the hard-working Admin to the the global UCC committee, who can only see things through global rose-tinted eyes, and bans the Admin. The question here is really who is the best judge of an editor or admin within a local language wiki? This isn't a political question, it shouldn't be a political issue, but in the hands of bullies, can become a tool to push your own pov. My answer is to empower the local community to sort it out rather than imposed an outside one-size-fits-all, "solution", which usually does more harm than good. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 05:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
- If anything this just reinforces my point. The risk in smaller communities, as i see it, is that prominent or influential editors, admin or not, could potentially make life very difficult for other editors leaving them feeling isolated and defenseless. And with no mechanism for monitoring or investigating such behavior outside of that very small community, it is very difficult to ensure fairness, transparency and equality for all. Having one agreed code of conduct simply reinforces what behavior is acceptable and what is not and gives all editors the confidence to call out poor conduct. A code of conduct should avoid the need for anyone to be judged on anything other than the way the conduct themselves in a public forum. The sad fact is, we all see things through our rose tinted spectacles from times to time, which is exactly why we need a standard code of conduct which applies equally to all. Of course this would still be open to interpretation and i'm sure implementation wouldn't be without its challenges however on balance i think it would be the right thing to do. Remember this is only about conduct and nothing to do with editorial guidelines, which should rightly be decided by individual Wiki communities.Jason.nlw (talk) 15:21, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
- The opposite could also happen, Jason, whereby the (hypothetical) admin is using recognised, unique and acceptable local guidelines and good practice. However, the new prominent and opinionated incomer only knows global wiki guidelines and thinks he can do what he likes, without understanding or respecting local practices. As he has the right connections he targets and flags up the hard-working Admin to the the global UCC committee, who can only see things through global rose-tinted eyes, and bans the Admin. The question here is really who is the best judge of an editor or admin within a local language wiki? This isn't a political question, it shouldn't be a political issue, but in the hands of bullies, can become a tool to push your own pov. My answer is to empower the local community to sort it out rather than imposed an outside one-size-fits-all, "solution", which usually does more harm than good. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 05:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with having a UCoC as long as it's not interpreted and implemented by a foreign, global group of quasi judges and prosecutors. This to me is the not right thing to do. I have complete faith in minorities, so let's agree to differ. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 04:29, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
- Even worse would be a UCoC interpreted and enforced by a California based group of quasi judges and prosecutors, though there are also much worse options. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:28, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Legibility of images
There are graphs which have text too small to read and cannot be expanded as the highest resolution is illegible. Please fix. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, thank you for your feedback. Are you referring to the image showing policies distribution? If yes, have you tried clicking on the image to see it in the original resolution? Please let me know if this image is still not clear enough to read. Mehran (WMF) (talk) 07:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
The problem of the "untouchable" 'jester'
It is to be hoped that the Universal Code of Conduct also somehow provides the possibility to tackle the problem of the "untouchable" 'jester' – editors who know how not to cross the guidelines, yet are annoying to many up to the point of being a serial harasser, but who are nonetheless praised for their humor by many others (an example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#EEng_at_ANI). Greeting, Eissink (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2020 (UTC).
- +1 This is frequently used on our projects to gaslight targets as self-victimizers who have no sense of humour. It's never funny to take the piss out of anyone's identity, or go out of your way to cause offence, for being genderqueer, homosexual, Jewish or Black, even if you claim the same thing. Let's not leave "jokers" an easy way to harass people they don't like. --Fæ (talk) 12:04, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
- On the other hand, there are some editors (including the OP) who do cross the guidelines [1] and then come over to Meta to forum-shop when they don't get their way. The term 'gaslighting' can be more accurately applied to this latter example. Lepricavark (talk) 23:23, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
- -1 I don't understand the OP's beef with EEng, and this isn't the place to discuss it, but I believe it is massively inappropriate for an editor to describe another editor as being "annoying... ...to the point of being a serial harasser", on this or any other project, without some very clearcut evidence to back it up. To me, the above statement looks more like harassment than anything I saw reported at the linked ANI thread. I have a great deal of regard for Fæ as an editor, and have been the recipient of their assistance in the past for which I remain grateful, but I am concerned about the way they have framed their comment - it seems like an accusation that EEng intends to harass people based on their identity, which is a very long way from the truth, as I understand it to be. GirthSummit (blether) 00:45, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- +1 I agree with the general notion of this concern. No one on the wikimedia projects should feel untouchable. No matter how many people find them humorous. Wikipedia's universal code of conduct needs to provide a more conducive editing environment. Also it helps to show to the world that Wikipedia is serious about correcting some clearly documented systemic problems. Fortunately, or unfortunately, everything we do is recorded and timestamped for all the world to see. --Guest2625 (talk) 03:09, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- We can all agree in general terms that no one should feel untouchable; the OP has made this about a specific person though, who has feelings of their own, and who, I am certain, does not feel untouchable. Wikipedia's universal code of conduct should not be used as a stick to beat someone with; indeed, it should be written in such as way as to prevent people from using it in such a manner. GirthSummit (blether) 08:30, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- Fae, all due respect, that's some pretty serious stuff you're implying. Valereee (talk) 11:07, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
- You may be inferring, rather than me implying. The words I used are correct and realistic, nor are they about any specific person. As I have zero idea about the OP's recent activities, I have nothing to say about them, if that's the inferrence.
- "Jokes" and "jokers" should never be a rationale for a free pass for abuse, or even making our fellow contributors feel unwelcome on our projects. As an en.wp admin, it's likely that you are aware of these tactics being used which turn our projects into hostile environments for volunteers and new contributors who may otherwise have fresh voices to add to our evolved accidental gestalt of values or norms. --Fæ (talk) 12:35, 24 August 2020 (UTC)