[Wikimedia-l] Re: Upcoming vote on the revised Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct

[Peter Southwood]

Thanks, Nataliia. That seems a reasonable approach. As one of the people who 
gave feedback on some areas of concern but find the document generally 
acceptable, I am pleased to know that it is being improved, and used as a 
working document.

Regards, Peter

 

From: Nataliia Tymkiv [mailto:ntym...@wikimedia.org] 
Sent: 05 January 2023 19:36
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Upcoming vote on the revised Enforcement Guidelines 
for the Universal Code of Conduct

 

Dear Chico, and Peter, dear all.

Speaking as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, I have a 
few thoughts. First, the UCoC is being enforced now. Not only does it help 
guide the Wikimedia Foundation in its current actions (and has since it was 
adopted by resolution [1]), but multiple communities have referred to it in 
their own actions. The policy is in place already, and its enforcement by 
communities is encouraged, there is no expectation that it be delayed until the 
guidelines for globally approaching the enforcement of the policy are agreed 
upon.

You do raise a valid question about the success of the last round of votes. At 
that point in time, as at this time, staff had recommended that we, the Board, 
review any version that passed a simple majority, but such a situation was 
never a guarantee of ratification. We respected the results of the vote – if 
communities at large could not support the outcome, we would not have evaluated 
it at all – but we were interested not only in support numbers but in causes of 
concern. What we noticed last time was that concerns coalesced around a few 
specific areas, so we felt the guidelines would benefit from deeper discussion 
and exploration of those specific areas. We wanted to make sure the enforcement 
guidelines were as widely understood and supported at their launch as they 
could be and greatly appreciate the work the communities have done together 
with the volunteer-led revisions drafting committee to explore those areas.

With this next round of voting, we hope to find that the further conversations 
have led to alignment in these few challenging areas. Ideally, the guidelines 
will meet with even more support than last time. If not, if the changes have 
actually reduced support, then it might be worth considering whether those 
revisions were actually beneficial to the broader community. If this version of 
the enforcement guidelines do not exceed the level of support of the last, we 
may instead need to consider ratifying the last or some hybrid of the two or 
even further reviewing with the community certain aspects for different 
development.

No matter what happens with the enforcement guidelines vote, the UCoC is 
important to our community health. While global alignment on how to approach 
issues is being sought, we trust local communities are continuing to uphold 
this policy and other requirements of the Terms of Use to the best of their 
abilities.

 

[1] 
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Approval_of_a_Universal_Code_of_Conduct

 

Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv

Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

 

NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working 
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You 
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in 
advance!

 

 

 

On Thu, Jan 5, 2023 at 5:23 PM Peter Southwood  
wrote:

An interesting standoff. I don’t suppose anyone has analysed the potential 
losses and gains associated with each option. If that is even possible, 
considering the number of unknowns. I agree that it is taking an amazingly long 
time, and it is not obvious why.

Cheers,

Peter

 

From: Chico Venancio [mailto:chicocvenan...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 05 January 2023 16:56
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Upcoming vote on the revised Enforcement Guidelines 
for the Universal Code of Conduct

 

The heart of the matter is why are we voting? What is the threshold that will 
enact the UCoC?

> Who it would be respected by.

 

WMF and the board. We've had 3 and a half years of discussion on the UCoC and a 
majority vote to approve enforcement guidelines, and yet no functioning UCoC.

>As volunteers, if a significant part of the community sufficiently dislikes 
>the proposed UCOC, we simply lose them, and some may become vociferous 
>opponents because reasonably fixable issues were ignored. Taking longer and 
>getting it closer to right is to me a better plan. You may not care about some 
>of the issues that needed to be fixed, but some of us do.

As volunteers, if a significant part of the community sufficiently dislikes the 
status quo we simple lose them, and some may become vociferous opponents 
because reasonably fixable issues were ignored. Taking over 3 years to 
implement an Universal Code of Conduct is to me a bad plan. You may not care 
about some of the issues that needed to be fixed, 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Recent press around December Office Action

[Nathan]

It's interesting to see the lack of transparency attributed to the fact
that Wikimedia editing against ToS isn't akin to a crime. That juxtaposes
in a strange way with the news stories claiming that what drove Wikimedia's
action may be two members of the Wikimedia community who have been
sentenced to very long prison sentences for their contributions to
Wikimedia projects.

For those who hadn't seen the press stories, see here for the article in
Ars Technica:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/wikipedia-admin-jailed-for-32-years-after-alleged-saudi-spy-infiltration/

I agree with the criticism in the Ars article of Wikimedia's response - the
objection to use of the phrase "high ranking" to describe admins, and the
claim that Wikimedia can't possibly know where any of these people live. I
don't see the value of including these in Wikimedia's response. These are
the types of distinctions that have some meaning inside our little bubble,
but very little outside.

Lastly, I find the link in WMF's statement to the Board's BLP resolution
inapposite. As all editors will recognize, the resolution and its related
policies are entirely focused on project content and protecting the
subjects of that content from the messy process of editing.

On Fri, Jan 6, 2023 at 1:27 PM Wikimedia Trust and Safety 
wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> Over the last couple of days, there have been several media reports about
> the Foundation’s most recent office action, taken on December 6
> .
> More are certain to follow. These media reports are based on a release from
> SMEX and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) that contains many
> material inaccuracies. Some of the errors will be obvious to our community
> - for perhaps the most obvious, the report states that the 16 users are all
> based in Saudi Arabia . This is unlikely to be the case. While we do not
> know where these volunteers actually reside, the bans of any volunteers who
> may have been Saudi were part of a much broader action globally banning 16
> editors across the MENA region. Indeed, many of them are not active in the
> Arabic language projects. These organizations did not share the statement
> with the Foundation, and “sources of knowledge” as cited in their release
> can get things wrong. In addition, we do not have staff in the country
> named and never have, contrary to a message put out by the same groups on
> social media.
>
> As we noted in December in our statement, we are unable to discuss
> Foundation office actions in detail. The Foundation always lists accounts
> banned as a result of its investigations
> .
> It is our goal to be as transparent as we can be within essential
> protection policies, which is why we do not ban in secret, but instead
> disclose accounts impacted and (when large numbers are involved) have
> disclosed the rationale.
>
> The roots of our December action stretch back over several years. We were
> initially contacted by outside experts who made us aware about concerns
> they had about Farsi Wikipedia. We can’t comment on that report right now,
> but it will be published by that organization soon. This report not only
> contributed to our August 23, 2021 modification of our non-disclosure
> agreement
> 
> to make it harder for rights-holders to be coerced, but led to further
> evaluation of issues across MENA. The December bans were the culmination of
> those evaluations.
>
> Wikimedia is, as mentioned above, an open knowledge platform, and it
> thrives on open participation. Investigations and global bans are not
> things that any of us take lightly, but the Foundation is committed to
> supporting the knowledge-sharing models that have created so many valuable
> information resources in hundreds of languages across the world. Our first
> line of defense of our Terms of Use
> 
> are our volunteers themselves. Where issues present a credible threat of
> harm to our users and to the security of Wikimedia platforms, we will do
> the best we can to protect both.
>
> We trust and hope that our communities understand that misinformation
> about this action has the potential to cause harm to the individuals
> involved. We believe in the incredible value produced by our volunteers
> across the globe, but even so we recognize that being found in
> contravention of a website’s Terms of Use — even in a manner that
> organization finds serious enough to warrant a ban — is not the equivalent
> of being convicted of any crime. Accordingly, we ask you to please be
> conscious of the real people involved, in the spirit 

[Wikimedia-l] Recent press around December Office Action

[Wikimedia Trust and Safety]

Hello everyone,

Over the last couple of days, there have been several media reports about
the Foundation’s most recent office action, taken on December 6
.
More are certain to follow. These media reports are based on a release from
SMEX and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) that contains many
material inaccuracies. Some of the errors will be obvious to our community
- for perhaps the most obvious, the report states that the 16 users are all
based in Saudi Arabia . This is unlikely to be the case. While we do not
know where these volunteers actually reside, the bans of any volunteers who
may have been Saudi were part of a much broader action globally banning 16
editors across the MENA region. Indeed, many of them are not active in the
Arabic language projects. These organizations did not share the statement
with the Foundation, and “sources of knowledge” as cited in their release
can get things wrong. In addition, we do not have staff in the country
named and never have, contrary to a message put out by the same groups on
social media.

As we noted in December in our statement, we are unable to discuss
Foundation office actions in detail. The Foundation always lists accounts
banned as a result of its investigations
.
It is our goal to be as transparent as we can be within essential
protection policies, which is why we do not ban in secret, but instead
disclose accounts impacted and (when large numbers are involved) have
disclosed the rationale.

The roots of our December action stretch back over several years. We were
initially contacted by outside experts who made us aware about concerns
they had about Farsi Wikipedia. We can’t comment on that report right now,
but it will be published by that organization soon. This report not only
contributed to our August 23, 2021 modification of our non-disclosure
agreement

to make it harder for rights-holders to be coerced, but led to further
evaluation of issues across MENA. The December bans were the culmination of
those evaluations.

Wikimedia is, as mentioned above, an open knowledge platform, and it
thrives on open participation. Investigations and global bans are not
things that any of us take lightly, but the Foundation is committed to
supporting the knowledge-sharing models that have created so many valuable
information resources in hundreds of languages across the world. Our first
line of defense of our Terms of Use

are our volunteers themselves. Where issues present a credible threat of
harm to our users and to the security of Wikimedia platforms, we will do
the best we can to protect both.

We trust and hope that our communities understand that misinformation about
this action has the potential to cause harm to the individuals involved. We
believe in the incredible value produced by our volunteers across the
globe, but even so we recognize that being found in contravention of a
website’s Terms of Use — even in a manner that organization finds serious
enough to warrant a ban — is not the equivalent of being convicted of any
crime. Accordingly, we ask you to please be conscious of the real people
involved, in the spirit of our long established respect for living people
on our sites
.
We realize that it is tempting to speculate, but we do ask you all to
recall that people’s employment options, their relationships, and even
their physical safety may be compromised by speculation.

If anyone feels unsafe on Wikimedia projects, please use the local
community processes or contact us. The Foundation and community will work
together or in parallel to enhance the safety of all volunteers. To contact
the Trust & Safety team please email c...@wikimedia.org .

Best regards,
WMF Office/Trust and Safety
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[Wikimedia-l] ?^??: Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff [SIC] in ??bid to control content??

[SCP 2000]

In the statement by SMEX and Democracy for the Arab World Now 
(DAWN),
 they stated that

"Wikimedia should make public the results of its investigation, disclose all of 
the pages the team based in Saudi Arabia edited, and subject them to 
independent review and analysis. It should conduct an internal review of all of 
the pages edited by administrators based in authoritarian regimes and issue 
warning labels that the content may be subject to government infiltration. 
Wikimedia should also review its reliance on administrators in countries where 
freedom of speech is limited and independent writing severely restricted, and 
reexamine the extent to which such administrators are themselves subject to the 
risk of prosecution."

So would WMF publlsh more information about that office 
action?
 Thanks.

Regards,

SCP-2000
https://w.wiki/_zgcU

寄件者: Andy Mabbett 
寄件日期: 2023年1月6日 6:44
收件者: Wikimedia Mailing List 
主旨: [Wikimedia-l] Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff [SIC] in ‘bid to 
control content’

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/saudi-arabia-jails-two-wikipedia-staff-in-bid-to-control-content

"Administrators jailed for 32 years, and eight years, as activists
warn of ploy to infiltrate website... Two high-ranking “admins” –
volunteer administrators with privileged access to Wikipedia,
including the ability to edit fully protected pages – have been
imprisoned since they were arrested on the same day in September
2020..."



--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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