In line with this discussion, I have currently created a global RfC for the community to discuss this topic on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Global_ban_requirements Best, Rae ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ User:Vermont <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vermont> on Wikimedia projects they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter <https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why>) On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 2:03 PM Maggie Dennis <mden...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hello all, > > My name is Maggie Dennis, and I am the Vice President of the Community > Resilience and Sustainability group at the Wikimedia Foundation. Among the > teams I oversee is the Trust & Safety > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trust_and_Safety> unit. This team > ensures that our projects are compliant with applicable law and also explores > ways of keeping the Wikimedia community safe and works to minimize > exposure to harm for volunteer and reader communities. > > I’m reaching out today to discuss a potential gap in volunteer community > policy that my teams observed while evaluating and acting on a Trust & > Safety investigation. We wanted to bring this up in case volunteer > community members would like to consider if this is indeed a concern that > you wish to address. Before getting to that, let me give you a little > context on the case. > > As many of you know, we are not usually able to talk about office actions > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_actions> due to legal > limitations. However, I am able to speak a little more to this situation > since the majority of the information around this case is already public. > Today, the Foundation issued four global bans and three conduct warnings > following an investigation into the activities of individuals found to be > linked to the “WikiZédia” network. Based on our investigation, we concluded > that this network attempted to use Wikimedia platforms for a targeted > disinformation campaign engineered to influence the outcome of a national > election. The banned users’ actions, which took place over an eight-month > period until their community-backed blocks in February 2022, violated > several of our Terms of Use, which resulted in the Foundation’s office > action. > > Many of our projects have excellent policies and systems in place to > handle such situations. Certainly French Wikipedia was on top of this. We > greatly admire and appreciate the leadership of community members in > identifying and confronting this situation locally. Wikimedians who work > directly with content are often the first to see evidence of such > campaigns, and there are many volunteers with much experience in > identifying problem behaviours and stopping them. By the time Trust & > Safety was asked to investigate by some of those volunteers, much of the > work on the local level had already been done. > > However, one of the questions Trust & Safety asks itself in any case > investigation (disinformation or behavioral) is whether appropriate > community options exist that meet the needs of the movement and community > members across it. In this case, we wondered if the current community > processes support cases where individuals are behaving in ways that suggest > they will never be good faith contributors on any project. > > To go more into depth on what I mean: It is not uncommon for users who > create problems on one project to move to another, and for some communities > it is even regarded as a potential path to rehabilitation. Community > applied global bans are, under the existing policy > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_bans>, “exclusively applied where > multiple independent communities have previously elected to ban a user for > a pattern of abuse.” (emphasis in original) If an individual is here as > part of a concerted group effort to undermine our very mission, should it > be easier for community members to assess global banning before they carry > that behavior from one project to another? > > Foundation policies do permit banning individuals for behavior on one > project and sometimes require it, especially where Terms of Use violations > are egregious and threats of or acts of violence are involved. This is a > gap where we can step in. Our goal is to support communities where we are > needed and where we can. > > However, we wanted to call out the question of whether community global > bans should be allowed in cases where the behavior is severe but limited to > one project, in case volunteer community members thought it worth > discussing the existing community ban policy. Especially in cases of > disinformation , these are not always the kinds of situations governed by > our Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC), which speaks to the way users treat > each other but not the content. > > If there is a desire for the Foundation to support a conversation about > making such a change to community global ban policy, I hope we would be > able to do so in the near future, as our Trust & Safety Policy team is > dedicated to supporting the evolution of community policy as well as > Foundation policy. However, I’m not suggesting that the Foundation needs to > be involved at all. Trust & Safety Policy is a small team, currently very > busy with the UCoC, and if they are not needed, there is no reason that > this conversation can’t happen spontaneously. We will support if needed, > but really just wanted to bring this question up for your consideration. > > In this case, again, we do want to thank the French Wikipedia contributors > who protected their communities and our collective readers by identifying > and addressing the issue first as well as bringing the matter to us. > > We encourage those who feel unsafe on Wikimedia projects to use local > community processes or, absent such, to contact the Wikimedia Foundation > for assistance. The Foundation and the community will work, together or in > parallel, to enhance the safety of all users whenever necessary with > whatever means we can. To contact the Trust & Safety team about a safety > issue, you can write to c...@wikimedia.org. To contact the Trust & Safety > Disinformation team about a specific disinformation issue, you can write to > d...@wikimedia.org. > > Best regards, > > Maggie > > > -- > Maggie Dennis > She/her/hers > Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/KFZ3SOPCIX3KLK37NSQHI5Y42GMYNLIT/ > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
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