Talk:Code of Conduct/Archive 3

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Ladsgroup in topic Anonymous statistics

Finalize "Amendments" section? edit

Should the "Amendments" section be considered done? This is the last section under consideration, so after it is approved, the Code of Conduct will become policy. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

This is just a reminder, since there is related discussion below. This is a draft policy of the Wikimedia technical spaces, and decisions about the draft are made by participants in these spaces. This is the same as all the other sections, and normal procedure on MediaWiki.org and the other Wikimedia wikis. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:06, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Consensus reached. Thank you for participating. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Some of the opposes offered suggestions that could be offered for future amendments, e.g. clarifying when the veto power is intended to be used. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Bad ideas edit

  • Offensive comments are, will be and should be allowed. Almost everything is offensive to someone, for example your stupidity is offensive to me. Offensiveness is incredibly subjective. The words "fuck nazi scum" are probably offensive to nazi scum. Does anyone (who is not nazi scum) really think I should not be allowed to say "fuck nazi scum"? BTW, many good jokes are offensive, and we should all be allowed to make jokes (within certain limits of course). Whiners who complain about stuff they consider offensive should not be given carte blanche to block/ban everyone they dislike.
If I had a large amount of money I should certainly found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases and yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily about our ears.
—Stephen Fry
It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?
—Stephen Fry
  • Quote: "Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling)". -- This will be abused as an excuse to block people who disagree with other people. We do not need a sentence in a CoC about trolls, everyone agrees that they should be blocked (and no one cares when they are).
  • Quote: "Discrimination (unless required by law), particularly against marginalized and otherwise underrepresented groups." -- No, people are equal and should be treated equally. People like myself ("white" heterosexual male born in a rich country) deserve the same protection against discrimination as those who actually experience discrimination on a regular basis. We won't need/use it anyway. I cannot recall ever being discriminated against, but if I would be then I deserve the same protection as everyone else, not more and not less. Treat me and others like me the same way as you would treat for example LGBTQ+ people and other minorities. And treat them the same way you would treat me. That is the entire point.

It is kinda bizarre that you guys seem to want to take the opinion of one person and make it into policy without gaining any form of consensus. I would recommend getting input from all the communities, because important decisions like this one should not be taken by an tiny group of likeminded people. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 17:25, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Sänger: See [1] and the text above. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 17:49, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

I reverted most of your edits as inappropriate. If you disagree with the concept of a CoC, I would suggest you follow the lead by other people who agree with you by participating in discussions as they are. Legoktm (talk) 19:56, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Same here. If you disagree with my improvements then you can use the talkpage to discuss them. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 21:20, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Those sections have already been approved, after extensive discussion. Thus, I am not going to (re-)debate your specific points now, and changes to the draft, on already-approved sections (ignoring consensus) will be reverted. I don't think the above is at all a constructive proposal, but if someone had a constructive proposal for these sections, they could propose an amendment after the CoC is in place. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
None of the sections of this draft have been approved by the community. None of the discussions have been extensive. If you are not willing to debate the draft then others will. But it will not be policy until it gets community consensus, and you are being counterproductive. If you want this draft to become policy then I would recommend that you step back and let someone who is more experienced take over. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
We should ask the people who are affected by this draft if they support it. That means a widespread discussion that can take weeks. That way we can perhaps turn this into something useful. But having a handful of people make decisions like this and pretend that there is consensus is not going to work. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Mattflaschen-WMF: Please look at some RfC's about controversial topics on en.wiki. For example the recent Daily Mail RfC. For this COC we need a discussion (or perhaps multiple, splitting it up by section) that is larger than that one. I have tried to help you by fixing some of the worst problems, but the draft is still far from perfect. Please ask User:Fæ to help you, User:Fæ has experience setting up RfC's. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Mattflaschen-WMF: Have you read the RfC I linked to above? We need a discussion that involves many people. A handful of people are simply not enough. Do you have experience creating RfCs and WP:CONSENSUS on a large scale? If not then I recommend asking someone for help. You are not able to decide when we should stop asking for people's opinions. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Mattflaschen-WMF: We are on a talkpage, please use it to discuss. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 23:25, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Mattflaschen-WMF's actions edit

Mattflaschen-WMF does not seem to understand how consensus (and communities in general) work(s). Mattflaschen-WMF has sabotaged this COC by closing discussions way too early without inviting the affected communities to provide input and has struck through many opinions Mattflaschen-WMF disagreed with. Therefore it would be best if Mattflaschen-WMF would voluntarily stop editing this page, and that someone who is more neutral and experienced can start this process again. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 18:30, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

These personal remarks are out of place and more importantly grossly misinformed as many have pointed below. NRuiz (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 24 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Typically RfCs and proposals are driven by someone who is in support of them and have an interest in seeing them succeed - I don't think there's any need for Matt to step back. Legoktm (talk) 19:58, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Then I can safely assume you haven't read this talkpage. Please do. Typically RfCs on for example en.wiki are driven by someone who is an experienced member of the community, and people demand that it is done fairly. Matt has handled this incredibly badly (for example read the section about striking votes above (a diff before I started editing)-- and check which votes he struck and why). We need someone who is experienced who can start over. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 21:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Looking at user contributions on mediawiki.org, Matt is clearly an experienced member of the community. --Malyacko (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Then he should know better. I haven't found any evidence of him having experience with consensus building. This page indicates he is not an experienced member of any community other than maybe mediawiki.org (1500 edits), and of course this draft affects many communities, not just mediawiki.org. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:27, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
This page might look a little better. ;-) --Vogone talk 01:37, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Malyacko: Please use the talkpage instead of simply reverting with an editsummary. It is unclear to me what your edisummary means; I have not made any incorrect assumptions as far as I am aware. Collapsing misleading and incorrect comments like I did is generally considered a good idea. Would you prefer it if I struck through them? If not, then how do you propose dealing with those comments? Simply removing them? Thank you, The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
This policy will only affect the technical spaces. I have been a member of the technical community since at least 2012 (probably earlier depending how you define it), and the broader Wikimedia community years before that. I have carefully built consensus every step of the way. Everyone affected has been invited (by email, banner, Phabricator notice, and more), and awareness in the technical community about this process is extremely high. You came from outside the community to unilaterally disrupt things by edit-warring to call things "silly", re-wrote much of the CoC (including the parts where consensus was carefully established after long discussion), and tried to take control of a process you had no involvement in (claiming "the process of getting consensus hasnt even started yet" when it has been going for a year and a half).
It's very telling that you repeatedly cited enwiki, even pushing to start an RFC on enwiki, despite this being completely outside of enwiki's scope (per their own policy, "Some matters that may seem subject to the consensus of the community at the English-language Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) are, in fact, in a separate domain. In particular, the community of MediaWiki software developers, including both paid Wikimedia Foundation staff and volunteers [...] These independent, co-equal communities operate however they deem necessary or appropriate [..] This does not constitute an exhaustive list as much as a reminder that the decisions taken under this project apply only to the workings of the self-governing community of English Wikipedia." [emphasis added]. That is because the community here has reached consensus on the resolved sections. You were not happy with the result, so you tried to override it with the opinion of a different community this policy does not govern. That is blatant attempted disruption.
That is also not how consensus-building works, and is unacceptable, particularly when combined with blatant and disruptive edit-warring.
I didn't strike anything, except positions posted after the discussion was resolved (sometimes months after). I never considered the viewpoint in doing so. Period. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

[moved from header to here] There is currently no consensus for any part of this draft. One WMF member seems to be unaware of how WP:CONSENSUS works and has tried to create policy that affects many people from many communities by asking a tiny group of people for their opinion (and striking through opinions that he disagreed with). It would be best if Mattflaschen-WMF would voluntarily stop editing this page, and that someone who is more neutral and experienced can start this process again. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 18:40, 18 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

  • Being forthcoming and aggressive with your idea is good but to strike votes to achieve your desired, so-called unanimous result is absolutely toxic and I do not find why people are condoning the act. It's only my 2 cents and I very much doubt it'll matter at all to WMF. --QEDK (talk) 17:46, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • I don't understand why striking any comments is necessary. This entire thing is obviously still under discussion - let discussion happen. If people have objections that didn't raise them before, let them. And finally, I'm not concerned with Matt being involved here, but I do have issues with him deciding which comments are allowed and which aren't in this manner. Ajraddatz (Talk) 08:03, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

improvements are not disruptive, none of the sections have community consensus (although they may have been approved by a handful of WMF staffers) edit

If the WMF keeps editwarring then I am not going to help you anymore. We need a discussion that involves many people. A handful of people are simply not enough. Do you have experience creating RfCs and WP:CONSENSUS on a large scale? If not then I recommend asking someone for help.

WP:CONSENSUS has widespread support. I do not understand why the WMF keeps antagonizing the various communities by ensuring that they do not get a say. Maybe you have a tiny group of people (most of whom work for the WMF) who think that that draft is awesome. But I can introduce you to the enwiki community, which has many members that will disagree with the draft as I found it and will be displeased about the way the WMF treated members of the community.

A tiny group of people has been talking about this draft for a very long time. The result was very bad (I made many improvements and it is still quite bad). You should've asked the communities for input.

WMF staffers should stop reverting, and if you do not want those misleading and incorrect comments to be put in collapse templates then you can remove them or strike through them. Do you have a better suggestion?

You guys don't mind striking through someone else's posts, but when misleading and incorrect posts made by someone who works for the WMF get collapsed then it is a big problem? The Quixotic Potato (talk) 00:40, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Mattflaschen-WMF: @MSchottlender-WMF: How do you think the enwiki community (for example) is going to react when they hear how non-WMF users get treated on this page? The Quixotic Potato (talk) 00:42, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

This discussion has been widely communicated to the technical spaces (email, Phabricator, banner, etc.). See my post in Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Mattflaschen-WMF.27s_actions, particularly regarding openly seeking disruption from enwiki, which would be in violation of enwiki's own policy. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:23, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

More opinions are better edit

I haven't seen anyone point out any problems with the improvements I made, and I do not understand why having more opinions would not be better. The discussion has fragmented, some of it is here, some of it is on my talkpage, some of it is over at User talk:MSchottlender-WMF and User talk:Mattflaschen-WMF. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 01:22, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

We have constantly sought more opinions. This discussion has been widely communicated to the technical spaces (email, Phabricator, banner, etc.). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
This has not been publicized very well on en-wiki where most of your audience is. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:57, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
How is enwiki most of the audience? I see the audience as developers and sysadmins. Chico Venancio (talk) 18:25, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
All bug reporters & Co. will have to submit to the Code of Conduct as well, and with enwiki accounting for 50 % of the traffic, this is at least a major chunk of the audience. --Tim Landscheidt 18:41, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
That does not make much sense. If a bug reporter participates in the technical spaces enough to be affected by the CoC then he will know about mediawiki, mailing lists and Phabricator. I fail to see how enwiki is the main audience. Chico Venancio (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
There is no requirement on participating "enough" to be affected by this; if you encounter a bug or want to propose a new feature, you'll have to abide by these rules if you want to share your observation or suggestion. If you have someone else to do that for you at his own risk, then this will not affect you, I agree. --Tim Landscheidt 19:09, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
That is also true for policies on commons, and we don't expect the commons community to consult enwiki for every policy they enact. Valhallasw (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
You don't have to use Commons. You can always enable local uploads as a community. But if Commons would do something major like this, yes. Local communities like en-wiki and de-wiki should be informed. Natuur12 (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I agree that major wikis like en-wiki and de-wiki should be informed. The few votings here (including a lot of votings by staffers) can't be considered community consensus imho. --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:35, 22 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Any participant in the technical spaces can participate in the decision here. The question of whether they are staff or volunteer is not even relevant. As for other wikis, the participants on those wikis decide those wikis' policies. But they do not decide the policies of the Wikimedia technical community, unless they are also participants here. Visitors to a city do not vote for mayor. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:01, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Being publicly critical of the WMF or its employees ensures you stay an outsider to the WMF political inner circle, to think otherwise would be to ignore the last 400 years of corporate history. For anyone under contract, doing so would be career limitingly stupid. So yes, how many people voting here who are under contract, or want future WMF employment, is highly relevant to understanding why the votes of unaffiliated volunteers are diametrically opposed to those who are under contract and still choose to express a public opinion. -- (talk) 10:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
If you had actually taken a look at previous votes you could have spotted some "Oppose" votes by community members who are also WMF employees or contractors. --Malyacko (talk) 10:51, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Unfortunately it's almost impossible to check as so many WMF employees are using sock accounts which are hard to verify connections for without doing lots of hunting around. For example "Malyacko" bears no obvious resemblance to "AKlapper (WMF)" even though you own both accounts. Even more confusingly you are actively contributing to these discussions using both accounts, giving the impression to most casual readers that you are two people with your opinions. Please stop doing that, it undermines confidence in any process with a vote, and on other projects such as the English Wikipedia is specifically against policy as it would be considered misuse of sock accounts. -- (talk) 12:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
As you mention English Wikipedia policies, you may want to refresh your knowledge about what you call "sock accounts" by checking the "Designated roles" item of w:Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Legitimate_uses before spreading further misleading information. --Malyacko (talk) 13:10, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Perfectly aware, thanks. Using multiple accounts during any consensus process is against policy as it is misleading and not legitimate use of socks. Stop doing it. -- (talk) 13:33, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Feel free to link to the policy for mediawiki.org you're referring to and I'll happily refrain from putting efforts into separating my personal and my professional activities during a "consensus process". Thanks in advance! --Malyacko (talk) 14:43, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Fæ first claimed, falsely, that "For anyone under contract, doing so would be career limitingly stupid." and "the votes of unaffiliated volunteers are diametrically opposed to those who are under contract". After it was noted that staff members have voted oppose (and I would add, many volunteers have supported), he then suddenly changed the subject to distract attention. There is no way anyone could miss that a user voting {{Oppose}} with a username ending in "(WMF)" (as there have been) is a WMF employee. Hence, Fæ's sudden change in subject. I will bring it back to the actual subject: It is completely unacceptable to try to exclude some members of the technical community because they are employed (regardless of employer). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 07:24, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
What I wrote started with "Being publicly critical of the WMF or its employees ensures you stay an outsider to the WMF political inner circle". Don't twist my words into something I never said. There are millions of ways to twist my words, please stick to what others actually write rather than creating false reasons to polarize views. -- (talk) 08:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

WMF employees confusingly using personal and staff accounts in the same consensus building discussion edit

To close out this tangent, Project:Sock puppetry applies on Mediawiki. This states that "editors to any Wikimedia Foundation wiki, including this one, should each use only one account". While WMF employees should use their WMF accounts for WMF business, it is against this policy to use both personal and WMF accounts in the same discussion in a way that would confuse other contributors. The Mediawiki policy points to en:Wikipedia:Sock puppetry for further information.

Should anyone persistently use their sock accounts on Mediawiki in a confusing way, it would be a reasonable step to ask for administrator action to ensure the misuse stops, regardless of whether the sock accounts include WMF employee accounts. Thanks -- (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the link and for confirming that splitting personal and professional activity is in compliance, as that page says "Wikimedia Foundation staff may operate official staff accounts and non-official accounts for normal editing" (which you unfortunately omitted from your quote above for unknown reasons). I do not share your personal policy interpretation, so I'm afraid there's nothing to add here. Cheers! :) --Malyacko (talk) 14:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Just to clarify, because I have difficulty matching your actions to your words, you are using your WMF employee account to engage with discussion on this page and vote in proposals. You have then swapped, apparently arbitrarily to using another account which does not comply with WMF naming policy for staff accounts and casual participants here would presume is not the same person. Are you saying that you were fulfilling your necessary contracted role within the WMF, as required by your WMF manager, for every edit you have made on this discussion page under the account User:AKlapper (WMF)? Please reply using your WMF employee account, or ask your manager to do so, as this is a question for you as a WMF employee, not an unpaid volunteer speaking for themselves alone. Thanks -- (talk) 14:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
People can have personal views as community members, and also professional views in their work role. I'd not call that "arbitrary". --Malyacko (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Arbitrarily swapping between personal accounts and official WMF employee accounts is by definition arbitrary and in this case misleading for other contributors during a consensus building process. You are in breach of the sockpuppet policy for this project.
Please provide a direct official answer to the above question using your WMF employee account, or ask your manager to do so. Thanks -- (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Currently I personally do not plan to spend time on this discussion thread as part of my professional role, sorry. --Malyacko (talk) 15:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Summary of criticisms edit

In the most cynical outlook, this is a Wikimedia Foundation-imposed policy. The revision history of the page and activity on the related Phabricator tasks make this pretty clear: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P4985> and <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90908>.

All of the statements in the original post are false.
First, your attempt to exclude members of the community because they are employed (regardless of employer) is unacceptable. You have been around long enough to know that staff of various organizations are part of this community. The query you show is not for the right pages, but only for the draft. You excluded the talk page, where many people have proposed and commented on draft text (with many suggestions making it into the approved text). If people are interested in the real query, it's at https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/16863 and shows hundreds of edits by volunteers. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think your reply pretty much perfectly illustrates one of the issues I have with your refusal to discuss what types of behavior you find acceptable or expected. You're characterizing my comment here as unacceptable, and yet I think it's completely appropriate to correctly point out that a significant number of edits to the subject-space page have come from Wikimedia Foundation staff. Nobody, including me, is suggesting that members of the Wikimedia community such as yourself should be excluded. I am suggesting that you and your colleagues from the Wikimedia Foundation have had an outsized influence in both the drafting and attempted implementation of this code of conduct. Your suggestion that your modified query, which shows you and Quim Gil with almost 400 edits each ahead of the next non-staffer, is somehow "better" is pretty laughable. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

The draft text regarding initial committee membership reads: "The first Committee will be chosen by the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration team."

Yep, and this text has been approved by clear community consensus. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

As I pointed out to Pine, there's been a decent amount of discussion regarding whether this proposed committee or this entire document can even apply to Wikimedia Foundation staff. The Wikimedia Foundation Human Resources and Legal teams have weighed in and seem to have attempted to carve out an exemption for employees, since they're (probably rightfully) concerned that this proposed policy and its committee will create HR and Legal headaches.

This is an outrageous and false statement. The policy is clear that it applies to everyone ("Technical skills and community status make no difference to the right to be respected and the obligation to respect others."). Perhaps you are confusing this with the unrelated Confidentiality text. Legal has made it crystal clear that the Committee has absolute freedom ("For this point, regardless of whether the committee makes any disclosures to the WMF, it would be able to act freely. The CoC committee gets to determine how it wants to respond to issues that come to it in technical spaces and will not be consulting with WMF Legal or HR about what to do."), and this is backed by the policy. The committee is not restrained in any way from imposing consequences on staff. I believe you know this already, because you posted in that talk page section. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

When asked about specific examples that this code of conduct is attempting to address, there has been extreme evasiveness. Problematic behavior in technical spaces (for example, spammers in IRC channels, Phabricator, and Gerrit) are typically quickly resolved. What is this committee intending to work on, exactly? Getting a simple answer to that question has been nearly impossible.

This is again completely false. On multiple occasions, you have transparently attempted to divert a policy discussion into a debate about past incidents. There have been past incidents, and this is not the place to drag people's names in by discussing specific incidents. For other people that are interested, statistics are available. Categories that have been a problem are quite clearly listed. It is not true that problems "are typically quickly resolved". In some cases, problems are never resolved, and in others offenders repeat their misbehavior over and over again. That is why there is such strong support for this policy. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Should I be apologizing for being so transparent about wanting clear examples of what you find to be problematic behavior? I thought we valued transparency. :-) I think it's pretty reasonable to have clear use-cases ("user stories," if you must) before attempting to solve a problem. Isarra explains this in a mailing list post. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

And the previous explicit agreements to have a final vote on the document have now been changed by one side. Instead of having a final vote, Matthew and the rest of the people pushing this document forward are trying to claim the ability to use per-section consensus as a basis for overall consensus, even though they specifically told people there would be a final vote and people supported specific sections with this understanding.

You quoted an extremely old (the first in fact) consensus discussion, and even in that, I did not say there would be a final vote. I said there would be a "separate procedure to approve the CoC", because already by that time, I didn't know what that procedure would be. It became clear that a good (and consistent with precedent, e.g. Wikipedia:Civility) procedure was to do it by section. And I publicly announced that almost a year ago (and on this talk page too). Your attempt to characterize this as unfair or a last-minute change is completely false. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I suppose readers of this page can decide what to make of this discussion, started in August 2016 by Valhallasw, in which he calls you out for unilaterally changing the final approval process. As I explain in that section, I don't necessarily have an issue with one party wanting to change the previous agreement, but it would then mean needing to re-open and re-discuss those past sections, since people participating in the past per-section discussions clearly did so with the understanding that there would be a final vote. I had this understanding, Valhallasw had this understanding, Ironholds apparently had this understanding.
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that the discussion that Valhallasw started was the same day as it became clear, from edits to this talk page, that you were attempting to change the final approval process. There was a short discussion, you were specifically pinged, and then you waited five months to reply. People noticed and objected to your change and were met with months of silence. (It's true that nobody seems to have read your March 31, 2016 e-mails.) After you finally replied, in February 2017, Valhallasw replied again on the same day. Volunteer response time looks a lot better than staff response time in that section. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:10, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it is a cynical outlook to be sure, but if you examine what's happening here, this a proposed policy from Wikimedia Foundation staffers that puts the Wikimedia Foundation in charge of creating a code of conduct committee. That's already a huge red flag. Add to it that the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to exempt itself from its own creation, can't cite what specific problems this new policy/committee is intended to solve, and has now reneged on previous agreements to hold a final vote, presumably because there's a concern that a final vote would result in rejection of this policy. Bleh. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

You don't have to like how the Committee is formed, but you do have to accept that this text was approved by clear community consensus, with support from multiple volunteers and non-WMF (among others). It's not a "proposed policy from Wikimedia Foundation staffers". The remaining are repeats of false statements covered above. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Matt, your persistent arguing, badgering and overruling volunteers throughout this process serves to highlight how strangely poor the WMF itself is at leading any consensus that relies on volunteers. A walled garden majority vote is not a consensus, and the way that you have personally forced and policed this series of 2-week votes to piecemeal drive through this document while on the way upsetting volunteers, guaranteeing entrenched opposing views and ignoring critical questions as if all those that disagree with you are trolls, just shows how lacking in credibility the outcome will be.
The WMF has a large reserve of skilled and experienced volunteers, it's a pity that we are "managed" as a threat rather than a supporting resource. -- (talk) 11:59, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Mattflaschen-WMF: do you have any idea how intimidating your behaviour is? Natuur12 (talk) 13:48, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Natuur12: What's your proposal to make pointing out facts less intimidating for you? --Malyacko (talk) 14:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Obviously I need to hear Mattflaschen-WMF's response before I can give some pointers. (Ignoring your attempt to incriminate my question.) Natuur12 (talk) 14:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
It is not arguing, badgering, or overruling to reply to a false statement. The people reading this page need accurate information. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Mattflaschen was never elected to rule Mediawiki. Even if his paid job is to ensure this document gets delivered, that is not a reason to beat critics into submission rather than embracing critical views with an actual consensus process. I fully agree with MZMcBride's summary of "Bleh". -- (talk) 12:08, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

No person "rules" MediaWiki and no one was ever elected to rule MediaWiki - that's exactly why there have been votes on each section. IMHO critical views have been discussed and addressed among community members in the threads above; the difference here might be that I would not use the term "critical views" to categorize opinions based on false information. --Malyacko (talk) 14:22, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
All we have left is "bleh", because the discussion has degenerated to twisting the words of those with critical views so that they are repeatedly called liars. Please stop sockpuppeting these discussions, your actions in using both your employee account and your non-employee account to argue your viewpoint on the same discussion page is misleading, and a breach of the sockpuppeting policy for this project. -- (talk) 14:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have a different proposal: Could you please check the content of the pages that you linked above and then stop repeating incorrect accusations? :) --Malyacko (talk) 14:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
No "incorrect accusations" have been made. Please stop manipulating discussion using misleading sockpuppet accounts. If you are editing to comply with the terms of your contract, just continue to use your WMF account, as you were previously on this page. Thanks -- (talk) 14:59, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
The links which you posted explain that sockpuppet accounts are unrelated to separating personal and professional activity... --Malyacko (talk) 10:14, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

"unless a majority of the regular Committee members oppose it." edit

I've tried reading this page, but it's somewhat long, dense and hard to follow. I couldn't see an answer to my question:

Can someone please give some examples of situations where "the majority of the regular committee" may oppose an amendment when the community has reached a consensus.

(And can anyone who is not answering that direct question please refrain from responding.)

--HappyDog (talk) 23:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yep, glad to help explain that. If 3 or more (a majority, since the Committee is 5) agree, they can veto an amendment. This is a safety valve in case of harmful or poison pill amendments that could "reduce its effectiveness". A example might be, "No consequences will be imposed on a Gerrit +2 user for a first offense." (hurts the effectiveness and goes against the key principle, "Technical skills and community status make no difference to the right to be respected and the obligation to respect others.").
But really it's hard to predict what the amendments might be and vetos are up the Committee, but expected to be used cautiously and judiciously. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:06, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Other factors taken into consideration when that section was drafted:
  • In practice, "when the community reaches consensus" might mean a majority of votes from any users in a section of a wiki page. As a consensus process, that is not a perfect system. Low and biased participation in complex, dense, or divisive topics is a real risk. Influx from opinions external to the Wikimedia technical community (or even Wikimedia) is another risk. In those situations, "consensus" might or might not reflect the actual sentiment of the Wikimedia technical community at large.
  • Even when a discussion might really reflect the opinion of a majority, it cannot be taken for granted that the changes proposed contribute to the effectiveness of the CoC. A majority voting changes that directly or indirectly affect minorities and marginalized people is a real risk, and the CoC needs to be especially effective protecting these groups.
  • There are many examples in human communities where a majority of votes brought changes that went directly or indirectly against the principles of "an open and welcoming community (...) respectful and harassment-free". There are also many examples of those dysfunctional processes happening in places where people would say "no worries, *this* would never happen here", but then...--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:15, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Removing 'draft' status edit

Since discussion has mostly wound down and the votes on the final amendments section are done, I'm declaring the draft period over and will move the page out of the 'Draft' state.

This will trigger bootstrapping of the CoC committee per Code of Conduct/Draft#Creation and renewal of the Committee. I am not 100% certain if the email address for candidatures is active yet, so leaving the marker about it being inactive. (Checking with Quim.)

Thanks to everyone for all your participation in the discussion over these last many months. --Brion Vibber (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much, Brion Vibber (WMF)! This email address is functional now, yes. I will announce a call for candidates to join the first Committee, explaining the next steps as described in the Code of Conduct.
The CoC content is frozen until the Committee starts exercising as such and the amendments process kicks off. Small edits to i.e. fix red links, improve navigation to subpages and similar technical improvements are possible, as long as the content remains untouched.
I also want to thank all contributors, also those who have been watching the process from a distance (this morning I was checking the page view statistics, quite impressive for a community of this size). Special thanks to Matt and Moriel , who have contributed so much, all along, since the beginning, every week.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 21:23, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
I also want to thank everyone who's helped lead and participate in this process. It means a lot. You've made this result possible. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:26, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

This code of conduct has never been approved and any step for its enforcement is null and invalid. Nemo 13:11, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I respect where you're coming from, and the process could have been cleaner, but it seems valid enough to me. Not everything needs a maximally pure RfC process. In this case, a large contingent of the most active users of MW are on board; including those who already respond to and try to handle conduct complaints — and who are already technically empowered to carry out such enforcement. That's enough to justify ad-hocracy in my book, including ignoring some rules. Sj (talk) 18:22, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm not going to make this a hill to die on, since I'm not politically well-positioned for it - but a general RfC was promised at the start, true or false? Then it was decided by proponents simply to not keep to that, with only some fairly obscure notices regarding such a dramatic process change. To me, that's not right. It adds to my pessimistic view of how these CoC's tend to work out in practice, whatever the assumed good intentions of proposers -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 13:31, 13 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
What do you mean by "the most active users of MW"? Yaron Koren (talk) 21:43, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
I meant active users of MW technical spaces. I shouldn't have said "most", this doesn't depend on the metric you use. Just: it was a thoughful proposal by people who are active here, care about the issue, and already deal with some of it. In the wikiverse that should always trump rules-lawyering; try it, see what happens. Sj (talk) 18:14, 10 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
The process wasn't by any means valid. Everyone who disagreed with the main proposers (a very vocal minority, as pointed out in #Drafting phase data) was either ignored or bullied. Naturally, most people gave up with the pointless discussion, waiting instead for the final approval !vote. The approval has never happened, so we don't know what the community thinks. Nemo 06:47, 6 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
The process is valid and ongoing. A list of candidates is close to be announced for community review, after several and extensive calls in multiple Wikimedia technical spaces. Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:50, 6 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
My question above - "... a general RfC was promised at the start, true or false? ..." - remains unanswered. Again, overall, this is not my fight. But essentially reneging as was done, does not augur well for any sort of fairness in future -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:47, 9 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Bootstrapping the Code of Conduct Committee edit

The review of the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces has been completed and now it is time to  bootstrap its first committee. The process is defined in Code_of_Conduct/Committee#Selection_of_new_members.

Actions:

  •  Enable techconductcandidates@wikimedia.org
  •  Technical Collaboration team to start the search of 10 candidates (5 committee members, 5 auxiliary members).
  •  A public announcement inviting interested parties to nominate themselves or recommend others.
  •  Publication of a list of candidates. 2 week private feedback phase starts.
  •  If needed, update the list of candidates and start another review phase.
  •  Identification of members to the Wikimedia Foundation and signature of confidentiality agreement.
  •  Training period for newly proposed members.
  •  6 weeks after the final list of candidates was published, the new committee is constituted.

Phab:T159923 is being used to track the details of this work. Announcements and major updates will be posted here as well. Your questions and feedback are welcome.Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:46, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

The Call for candidates to form the first Code of Conduct Committee has been sent to wikitech-l, mediawiki-l, engineering, labs-l, analytics, wiki-research-l, and design. I welcome help to cover other spaces.Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:34, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I am posting a web version of the call below, in order to have a URL to link to from short announcements. Better than linking to a post in a mailing list archive.Qgil-WMF (talk) 20:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Call for candidates to form the first Code of Conduct Committee edit

Dear Wikimedia technical community members,

Code of Conduct

The review of the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces has been completed and now it is time to bootstrap its first committee. The Technical Collaboration team is looking for five candidates to form the Committee plus five additional auxiliary members. One of them could be you or someone you know!

You can propose yourself as a candidate and you can recommend others *privately* at techconductcandidates AT wikimedia DOT org

We want to form a very diverse list of candidates reflecting the variety of people, activities, and spaces in the Wikimedia technical community. We are also open to other candidates with experience in the field. Diversity in the Committee is also a way to promote fairness and independence in their decisions. This means that no matter who you are, where you come from, what you work on, or for how long, you are a potential good member of this Committee. The main requirements to join the Committee are a will to foster an open and welcoming community and a commitment to making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone. The committee will handle reports of unacceptable behavior, will analyze the cases, and will resolve on them according to the Code of Conduct. The Committee will also handle proposals to amend the Code of Conduct for the purpose of increasing its efficiency. The term of this first Committee will be one year.

Once we have a list of 5 + 5 candidates, we will announce it here for review. You can learn more about the Committee and its selection process at Code of Conduct/Committee and you can ask questions in the related Talk page (preferred) or here.

You can also track the progress of this bootstrapping process at Talk:Code of Conduct#Bootstrapping the Code of Conduct Committee

PS: We have many technical spaces and reaching to all people potentially interested is hard! Please help spreading this call.

Selection process for CoC Committee candidates edit

The call for CoC Committee candidates was announced one week ago. Here goes a status update.

We have received some self-nominations and some recommendations, and we have shared next steps with all the candidates involved. We have also received some questions, which we are documenting at Code of Conduct/FAQ#Committee.

We are starting our own search for additional candidates to be invited. Our current objective is to complete a list of potential candidates. Once we have a good list, we will start the selection process.

Diversity is the key factor in the Committee that we envision. One way to search for diverse candidates is to look into different areas in our technical community, and try to look well in each of these areas (as opposed to relying on generic lists only, like code review contributors, participants in hackathons, and so on). The list of areas we have so far (which welcomes suggestions) is:

  • Bots
  • CoC Talk page
  • Code contributors / reviewers
  • Gadgets
  • GSoC / Outreachy / GCi
  • MediaWiki Stakeholders
  • Researchers
  • Tech ambassadors / Bug reporters
  • Templates / Lua modules
  • Tools
  • Translators
  • Wikidata
  • Wikimedia Foundation

The important points about the selection process are:

  • We will have a conversation with each candidate selected before the announcement; we will not announce any candidate before their confirmation and review.
  • Only the candidates selected will be announced publicly; the full list of candidates will remain private.

Questions or feedback? Please comment here or privately at techconductcandidates AT wikimedia.org. Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Status update: 37 people have been contacted so far, from which 32 are currently potential candidates. 6 people are self-nominated, 18 have been recommended, and 13 have been invited by us. We are still reaching out to new candidates and we welcome more self-nominations and recommendations. We have started to discuss selection criteria. With our focus on diversity in mind, we are trying to cover fairly well aspects like gender, age, location, languages, affiliation, developer experience, Wikimedia experience, and areas of specialization. Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:23, 23 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Status update: 76 people have been contacted, from which 17 are currently potential candidates. We are still accepting self-nominations and recommendations until the end of Monday, April 3rd. We consider our own outreach completed, and we have started to evaluate potential candidates.Qgil-WMF (talk) 16:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Presentation of candidates and community review edit

Following the process described in the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Technical Collaboration team has selected five candidates to form the first Code of Conduct Committee and five candidates to become auxiliary members.

Here you have their names in alphabetical order. For details about each candidate, please check Code of Conduct/Committee members.

Committee member candidates:

  • Amir Sarabadani (Ladsgroup)
  • Lucie-Aimée Kaffee (Frimelle)
  • Nuria Ruiz (NRuiz-WMF)
  • Sébastien Santoro (Dereckson)
  • Tony Thomas (01tonythomas)

Auxiliary member candidates:

  • Ariel Glenn (ArielGlenn)
  • Caroline Becker (Léna)
  • Florian Schmidt (Florianschmidtwelzow)
  • Huji
  • Matanya

This list of candidates is subject to a community review period of two weeks starting today. If no major objections are presented about any candidate, they will be appointed in six weeks.

You can provide feedback on these candidates, via private email to techconductcandidates wikimedia.org. This feedback will be received by the Community Health group handling this process, and will be treated with confidentiality. Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Just a reminder: the community review of the proposed list of candidates ends this weekend. Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:14, 19 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Community review period completed without any feedback challenging the current list. Code of Conduct/Committee members updated. Yay! Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:00, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Suggested Amendment: Add tool labs edit

While wikitech.wikimedia.org is listed in the scope of the CoC, and tool-labs (https://tools.wmflabs.org/) is technically a part of its operations, I think it would make sense to literally add it in to scope. This also makes sense, since tool-labs (and the new platform for 'cloud' services in general) is a technical environment, holding/hosting tools and code for our projects. It makes sense to add it in explicitly, even if it is already included implicitly (by including wikitech) Moriel Schottlender (talk) 00:41, 3 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm not against the addition, but something like "Wikimedia Cloud Services products" might be better wording. Tool Labs is about to be renamed Toolforge and other products will be renamed as well. Attempting to explicitly enumerate each technical space also opens the door for arguments about "space X was not explicitly named in the policy so behavior there does not apply". --BDavis (WMF) (talk) 01:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I support the proposed "Wikimedia Cloud Services products" (which would include Tool Labs) addition. Further expansion is also worth discussing as another amendment. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Maybe something more general, like replacing wikitech with "and other development-oriented spaces operated by the Wikimedia Foundation"? We probably don't want to make a new amendment every time something new is created. --Tgr 05:46, 5 September 2017 (UTC)Reply


  Done Added "and other development-oriented spaces operated by the Wikimedia Foundation" Ladsgroup (talk) 11:31, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Suggested Amendment: Remove “unless required by law” edit

I propose to remove " (unless required by law)" from "Unacceptable behavior". This was meant to acknowledge certain real-world legal issues (ages and contract law).

However, it is confusing and unnecessary.

It's especially confusing since this is a prominent section, intended to be read by reporters and everyone in the community (as opposed to a section about internal mechanisms, like Cases).

Reading the clause out of context and without knowing the talk page rationale also makes it sound unwelcoming to newcomers.

It’s also unnecessary, since clearly the policy does not override any law.

We should remove this clause. Applicable law will still be applicable. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:13, 24 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

So... There will be an unwritten qualifying point in direct contradiction to the written code, that will have full force regarding how the policy is implemented?
The code of conduct already has several points which are already bordering on dangerous, including listing "Attempting to circumvent a decision of the Committee or appeals body" as a violation (without even listing any place to find out what those decisions are), and several extremely vaguely worded points which are not (afaict) clarified anywhere. Making the Code of Conduct to be partly composed of points that are not written down yet still have full force sets an extremely dangerous precedent.
I'm going to assume that there aren't already unwritten rules in the code of conduct that I'm violating with this comment. --Yair rand (talk) 19:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

+1 If we can make it shorter, we should. And it should indeed go without saying that we will deviate from the policy when required by law. --Tgr 05:48, 5 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

  Done Removed Ladsgroup (talk) 11:33, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Anonymous statistics edit

I think it would be good for the Committee to publish periodic anonymous statistics like Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Archive_2#Summary_of_conduct_reports_handled_in_April-June_2016. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:35, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

I would also like to see this. I would also be interested to know very roughly the breakdown of sanctaions enforced by the committee are. (i.e. What percentage of complaints were resolved with no action taken by the comittee, What percentage resulted in a minor disciplenary action (e.g. Giving someone a warning. Blocking someone for < a day, etc), and what percentage resulted in a major disciplenary action (for some definition of major). The action itself wouldn't need to be disclosed, just rough stats on how many actions of each category in the designated time period). Bawolff (talk) 06:45, 28 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
+1 from me. How do we make this an official suggested amendment? Legoktm (talk) 14:19, 30 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
+1. Maybe add "The Committee publishes anonymous quarterly statistics about the outcomes of cases." to the end of Code_of_Conduct/Cases#Responses_and_resolutions? --Tgr 06:38, 5 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

  Done Added to Code_of_Conduct/Cases#Responses_and_resolutions Ladsgroup (talk) 11:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Return to "Code of Conduct/Archive 3" page.