Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Feedback: Community Board seats and February 2 office hours

[Chris Keating]

I have to say the more I look at the 'options' we are asked to feed back
on, the more confused I get.

So far as I can see there are options relating to:
1) whether there should be elections a) to the Board itself, b) to a
"selection committee" that will nominate Board members, or c) not at all
2) if there is a 'selection committee', should it review candidates a)
before an election or b) after an election;  c) should the selection itself
be c) appointed or d) elected
3) if there is an election, what voting system should it use and should
seats be reserved for particular groups (using quotas).

For what it's worth, my personal view is that anything other than having
community-selected Board members elected by the community is going to be a
disaster. But I'm not entirely sure which one of the many talk pages that
feedback should go on.

Thanks,

Chris

On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 8:01 PM Jackie Koerner 
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I am reaching out because the Call for Feedback for the
> community-and-affiliate board seats officially began today and runs through
> March 14. [1] We are offering multiple channels for questions and feedback.
> With the help of a team of community facilitators, we are organizing
> multiple conversations with multiple groups in multiple languages.
>
> On February 2 we have three options for office hours. [2]
>
> 2021-02-02 at 12:00 UTC
> 2021-02-02 at 18:00 UTC
> 2021-02-02 at 23:00 UTC
>
> Access links will be available 15 minutes before each session.
>
> Please let me know if you would like to schedule another time for your
> community or group to provide feedback.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Best,
>
> Jackie
>
> --
> *Jackie Koerner*
>
> *she/her*
> Communication Facilitator, Board Governance
> *English language communities and Meta*
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call_for_feedback:_Community_Board_seats
> [2]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call_for_feedback:_Community_Board_seats/Conversations/2021-02-02_-_First_Office_Hour
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Ratification of Universal Code of Conduct

[William Chan]

Perhaps it is the buoyancy and resilience at large wikis (in terms of
participants' nationality and political tenancy) that seem to shade the
importance of UCoC.

The problem at other languages of Wikipedia where the language is used
primarily at only one or free country, the need quickly surfaces as
nationalism and other of extremism, such as denial of mass concentration
camps (cough, some Chinese), or historical revisionism (cough, some
Croatian) quickly implies the need of UCoC.

Some may argue that UCoC is not something needed, but the fact that CoC
doesn't exist on all language projects created the need for one to be made,
both for legal and moral reasons.




On Wed, 3 Feb 2021, 19:21 Fæ,  wrote:

> Thanks for sharing for the WMF board María,
>
> Though I have been highly critical of aspects of the Universal Code of
> Conduct, the consultation process has been widely cast and approached
> using reasonable, logical, methods. Those WMF employees running those
> consultations have tried to keep an open mind and tried not to censor
> or mute critical feedback. It's not an easy task.
>
> Most, maybe over 90% of folxs that subscribe to this email list have
> in mind the English, French, Spanish, German Wikipedias when making
> comments, but from the perspective of the WMLGBT+ user group, our
> members frequently raise abuse and harassment cases in minority
> language projects where the admin 'corps' may be a small club and
> where members of minority groups are genuinely scared of hostile
> repercussions from editing on controversial topics such as local
> politics and rights for minority groups. It may feel especially unsafe
> for those who have been targeted and previously outed themselves
> during edit-a-thons or similar. Our user group is an important
> supportive resource so that some of those affected can discuss their
> experience on our off-wiki groups, without having to publicly
> "victimize" themselves and without needing to litigate an Arbcom case
> or painfully compile evidence for WMF T Sometimes those cases turn
> in to on-wiki action, more often nothing happens on-wiki but the
> contributor feels better by having a safe space to talk and are
> welcome to stay anonymous.
>
> Even on the bigger projects, we see user pages with alt-right and
> anti-LGBT+ opinions being expressed with hostile userboxes, extremist
> icons and statements to the effect that "this user opposes XXX rights
> for XXX minority groups" and these users happen to be well
> established, with many years within that Wikimedia project, or having
> functionary roles like sysop rights, or access to OTRS. A significant
> step forward to making our projects more open and accessible for all
> good-faith contributors is the UCoC section on "Abuse of power,
> privilege, or influence". Those of us that have been around the
> projects for a few years are aware of cases of sysops that routinely
> abused their authority, bullied their way in disagreements and they
> were eventually de-sysopped after the pattern of abuse became too
> blatant and extreme for anyone to ignore any longer. In very rare
> cases on minority projects, the local community and/or processes were
> not up to the task of holding those with tools to account, and we saw
> T take necessary and entirely justifiable action. We hope to see the
> UCoC firmly set the a basic minimal standard to ensure these cases of
> abuse are identified and acted on locally and promptly, without
> forcing extreme measures. We know that for each extreme case that gets
> dealt with, there are several more that remain unsatisfactory and
> those abusers and harassers are never held to account, but continue as
> "life long" authority holders.
>
> The UCoC publication is welcome. Its existence is not a threat to the
> autonomy and authority of Wikimedia projects, because there's nothing
> in the UCoC that any project should resist having policies and
> procedures to address. If your sysops, check users, stewards,
> bureaucrats, Arbcom members or Founder don't want to comply with the
> very basic good governance and good behaviours spelt out in the UCoC,
> hurry up and show them the door, they never were competent.
>
> The implementation discussions to follow may become complex and
> heated, but I'm sure that most of us now suspect that on our better
> run projects it means no changes to policies at all, just do for real
> what those policies say, rather than making excuses for bad behaviour
> from those with big hats or a self-perpetuating mobile peanut gallery
> of jokey lads.
>
> Thanks
> Fae
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
> On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 11:58, María Sefidari  wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I’m pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has unanimously
> approved a Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia projects and
> movement.[1]  A Universal Code of Conduct was one of the final
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Ratification of Universal Code of Conduct

[Fæ]

Thanks for sharing for the WMF board María,

Though I have been highly critical of aspects of the Universal Code of
Conduct, the consultation process has been widely cast and approached
using reasonable, logical, methods. Those WMF employees running those
consultations have tried to keep an open mind and tried not to censor
or mute critical feedback. It's not an easy task.

Most, maybe over 90% of folxs that subscribe to this email list have
in mind the English, French, Spanish, German Wikipedias when making
comments, but from the perspective of the WMLGBT+ user group, our
members frequently raise abuse and harassment cases in minority
language projects where the admin 'corps' may be a small club and
where members of minority groups are genuinely scared of hostile
repercussions from editing on controversial topics such as local
politics and rights for minority groups. It may feel especially unsafe
for those who have been targeted and previously outed themselves
during edit-a-thons or similar. Our user group is an important
supportive resource so that some of those affected can discuss their
experience on our off-wiki groups, without having to publicly
"victimize" themselves and without needing to litigate an Arbcom case
or painfully compile evidence for WMF T Sometimes those cases turn
in to on-wiki action, more often nothing happens on-wiki but the
contributor feels better by having a safe space to talk and are
welcome to stay anonymous.

Even on the bigger projects, we see user pages with alt-right and
anti-LGBT+ opinions being expressed with hostile userboxes, extremist
icons and statements to the effect that "this user opposes XXX rights
for XXX minority groups" and these users happen to be well
established, with many years within that Wikimedia project, or having
functionary roles like sysop rights, or access to OTRS. A significant
step forward to making our projects more open and accessible for all
good-faith contributors is the UCoC section on "Abuse of power,
privilege, or influence". Those of us that have been around the
projects for a few years are aware of cases of sysops that routinely
abused their authority, bullied their way in disagreements and they
were eventually de-sysopped after the pattern of abuse became too
blatant and extreme for anyone to ignore any longer. In very rare
cases on minority projects, the local community and/or processes were
not up to the task of holding those with tools to account, and we saw
T take necessary and entirely justifiable action. We hope to see the
UCoC firmly set the a basic minimal standard to ensure these cases of
abuse are identified and acted on locally and promptly, without
forcing extreme measures. We know that for each extreme case that gets
dealt with, there are several more that remain unsatisfactory and
those abusers and harassers are never held to account, but continue as
"life long" authority holders.

The UCoC publication is welcome. Its existence is not a threat to the
autonomy and authority of Wikimedia projects, because there's nothing
in the UCoC that any project should resist having policies and
procedures to address. If your sysops, check users, stewards,
bureaucrats, Arbcom members or Founder don't want to comply with the
very basic good governance and good behaviours spelt out in the UCoC,
hurry up and show them the door, they never were competent.

The implementation discussions to follow may become complex and
heated, but I'm sure that most of us now suspect that on our better
run projects it means no changes to policies at all, just do for real
what those policies say, rather than making excuses for bad behaviour
from those with big hats or a self-perpetuating mobile peanut gallery
of jokey lads.

Thanks
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT+
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 11:58, María Sefidari  wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I’m pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has unanimously approved a 
> Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia projects and movement.[1]  A 
> Universal Code of Conduct was one of the final recommendations of the 
> Movement Strategy 2030 process - a multi-year, participatory community effort 
> to define the future of our movement. The final Universal Code of Conduct 
> seeks to address disparities in conduct policies across our hundreds of 
> projects and communities, by creating a binding minimum set of standards for 
> conduct on the Wikimedia projects that directly address many of the 
> challenges that contributors face.
>
> The Board is deeply grateful to the communities who have grappled with these 
> challenging topics. Over the past six months, communities around the world 
> have participated in conversations and consultations to help build this code 
> collectively, including local discussions in 19 languages, surveys, 
> discussions on Meta, and policy drafting by a committee of volunteers and 
> staff. The document 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Ratification of Universal Code of Conduct

[Anders Wennersten]

The servers are owned by WMF. And they can then state basic rules that 
all must apply to. And especially for hatred and threats they must by 
law enforce a proper policy


We have seen Facebook and Twitter be more proactive and the law in EU  
goes further with demanding  basic acceptable language and behaviour for 
what is being done on a service providers platform.


The community can not override law or what the platform provider deem to 
be necessary. We cab discuss how they came to this decision, but the 
UCoC have been discussed in length and the communities have influence in 
the appointments of a majority of the members in the Board


Anders

So have facebook and Teittwer done
Den 2021-02-03 kl. 10:37, skrev Yair Rand:
@Risker: The Global sysop policy was created through a sequence of 
proposals, considerable debate and editing, and a vote in which over 
1800 contributors participated. The Global ban policy had an RFC on 
Meta. Afaik, the Board also had no involvement in the Steward policy, 
the global checkuser and oversight policies, or the policies for 
Global Rollback, Abuse Filter helpers, or New wiki importers global 
user groups.


The Terms of Use were drafted with a lengthy community editing 
process, although the Board did the final approval. The 2014 amendment 
to the ToU also had a long community discussion, with over 1000 
supporters of the change, with the Board implementing the 
community-supported amendment. The community's decisions were critical 
to these, and the Board did not unilaterally impose anything on the 
community.


I do not see any reason for the community to listen to the Board on 
the UCoC. I doubt anyone thinks that the Board or WMF has a better 
idea of how to put together conduct policies than the community. 
Certainly the complete failure to notice basic flaws in the document 
attest to that. Maybe at some point in the future the community can 
put together a clear set of basic global conduct rules, but the WMF's 
UCoC is not it.


(And a fun fact: The Board approved the UCoC on December 9, the same 
day as the bylaws change, and yet again violated the Board's rules 
about publishing resolutions within a week, for the at least 19th time 
in the past year, out of 24 known resolutions.)


(Also, contrary to the recent WMF blog post on the UCoC, the WMF also 
does not "administer Wikipedia", a mistake they have made for the 
second time now.)


-- Yair Rand




‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-21:34 מאת ‪Risker‬‏ 
<‪risker...@gmail.com ‬‏>:‬


While I often agree with you, Yair Rand, in this case I think
you're mistaken.  Aside from the long-ago "community vote" on
licensing (which was pretty much required based on the prior
licensing scheme), every Wikimedia-wide policy has been authorized
by the WMF Board of Trustees.  That includes the terms of use and
the privacy policy.  As the technical owners of the
infrastructure, the WMF Board does have the right (if not the
responsibility) to identify the manner in which the websites it
supports and hosts can be used, and I think this principle is
actually pretty widely held, at least in the abstract (i.e.,
hosting organizations can and should apply standards on the
services they host). In every policy-related case that I have
reviewed going back to the very earliest days, there has been at
least some level of community discussion, and there have always
been detractors of every policy the Board has approved; that has
not made the policies either invalid or unworkable.

I've never been convinced that including a mixture of required,
forbidden, and aspirational standards all in one document is a
good idea, and I personally struggle to see how including
essentially unenforceable aspects of the UCoC will do anything
other than weaken the effectiveness of rest of the document.  For
example, I cannot imagine anyone being sanctioned in any way for
"failure to thank" or "failure to mentor", although both of these
are considered expectations in the "Civility" section; and one
thing that a Uniform Code of Conduct would logically have is a
uniform enforcement scheme.

Nonetheless, I do believe that it is within the Board's scope and
responsibility to approve this and other global policies designed
to protect the WMF, the projects, the users of the websites, and
the content managers/editors/etc (what we often call "the
community").

Risker/Anne



On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 17:28, Yair Rand mailto:yyairr...@gmail.com>> wrote:

The community has not approved the WMF's UCoC. It is not a
Wikimedia policy, it is not binding, it has no authority. The
WMF does not control the Wikimedia projects, and has no
jurisdiction in this area.

The community rejected this over and over again. It is harmful
that the Board is pretending they can do this 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Ratification of Universal Code of Conduct

[Gnangarra]

>
> the WMF also does not "administer Wikipedia", a mistake they have made for
> the second time now.


a very risky mistake too, hope legal is taking note as it also demonstrates
why its necessary to have a practical and public difference in naming
between Wikimedia and Wikipedia

On Wed, 3 Feb 2021 at 17:38, Yair Rand  wrote:

> @Risker: The Global sysop policy was created through a sequence of
> proposals, considerable debate and editing, and a vote in which over 1800
> contributors participated. The Global ban policy had an RFC on Meta. Afaik,
> the Board also had no involvement in the Steward policy, the global
> checkuser and oversight policies, or the policies for Global Rollback,
> Abuse Filter helpers, or New wiki importers global user groups.
>
> The Terms of Use were drafted with a lengthy community editing process,
> although the Board did the final approval. The 2014 amendment to the ToU
> also had a long community discussion, with over 1000 supporters of the
> change, with the Board implementing the community-supported amendment. The
> community's decisions were critical to these, and the Board did not
> unilaterally impose anything on the community.
>
> I do not see any reason for the community to listen to the Board on the
> UCoC. I doubt anyone thinks that the Board or WMF has a better idea of how
> to put together conduct policies than the community. Certainly the complete
> failure to notice basic flaws in the document attest to that. Maybe at some
> point in the future the community can put together a clear set of basic
> global conduct rules, but the WMF's UCoC is not it.
>
> (And a fun fact: The Board approved the UCoC on December 9, the same day
> as the bylaws change, and yet again violated the Board's rules about
> publishing resolutions within a week, for the at least 19th time in the
> past year, out of 24 known resolutions.)
>
> (Also, contrary to the recent WMF blog post on the UCoC, the WMF also does
> not "administer Wikipedia", a mistake they have made for the second time
> now.)
>
> -- Yair Rand
>
>
>
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-21:34 מאת ‪Risker‬‏ <‪risker...@gmail.com
> ‬‏>:‬
>
>> While I often agree with you, Yair Rand, in this case I think you're
>> mistaken.  Aside from the long-ago "community vote" on licensing (which was
>> pretty much required based on the prior licensing scheme), every
>> Wikimedia-wide policy has been authorized by the WMF Board of Trustees.
>> That includes the terms of use and the privacy policy.  As the technical
>> owners of the infrastructure, the WMF Board does have the right (if not the
>> responsibility) to identify the manner in which the websites it supports
>> and hosts can be used, and I think this principle is actually pretty widely
>> held, at least in the abstract (i.e., hosting organizations can and should
>> apply standards on the services they host). In every policy-related case
>> that I have reviewed going back to the very earliest days, there has been
>> at least some level of community discussion, and there have always been
>> detractors of every policy the Board has approved; that has not made the
>> policies either invalid or unworkable.
>>
>> I've never been convinced that including a mixture of required,
>> forbidden, and aspirational standards all in one document is a good idea,
>> and I personally struggle to see how including essentially unenforceable
>> aspects of the UCoC will do anything other than weaken the effectiveness of
>> rest of the document.  For example, I cannot imagine anyone being
>> sanctioned in any way for "failure to thank" or "failure to mentor",
>> although both of these are considered expectations in the "Civility"
>> section; and one thing that a Uniform Code of Conduct would logically have
>> is a uniform enforcement scheme.
>>
>> Nonetheless, I do believe that it is within the Board's scope and
>> responsibility to approve this and other global policies designed to
>> protect the WMF, the projects, the users of the websites, and the content
>> managers/editors/etc (what we often call "the community").
>>
>> Risker/Anne
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 17:28, Yair Rand  wrote:
>>
>>> The community has not approved the WMF's UCoC. It is not a Wikimedia
>>> policy, it is not binding, it has no authority. The WMF does not control
>>> the Wikimedia projects, and has no jurisdiction in this area.
>>>
>>> The community rejected this over and over again. It is harmful that the
>>> Board is pretending they can do this unilaterally.
>>>
>>> -- Yair Rand
>>>
>>> ‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-6:59 מאת ‪María Sefidari‬‏ <‪
>>> ma...@wikimedia.org‬‏>:‬
>>>
 Hi everyone,

 I’m pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has unanimously
 approved a Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia projects and
 movement.[1]  A Universal Code of Conduct was one of the final
 recommendations of the Movement Strategy 2030 process - a multi-year,
 participatory community effort 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Ratification of Universal Code of Conduct

[Yair Rand]

@Risker: The Global sysop policy was created through a sequence of
proposals, considerable debate and editing, and a vote in which over 1800
contributors participated. The Global ban policy had an RFC on Meta. Afaik,
the Board also had no involvement in the Steward policy, the global
checkuser and oversight policies, or the policies for Global Rollback,
Abuse Filter helpers, or New wiki importers global user groups.

The Terms of Use were drafted with a lengthy community editing process,
although the Board did the final approval. The 2014 amendment to the ToU
also had a long community discussion, with over 1000 supporters of the
change, with the Board implementing the community-supported amendment. The
community's decisions were critical to these, and the Board did not
unilaterally impose anything on the community.

I do not see any reason for the community to listen to the Board on the
UCoC. I doubt anyone thinks that the Board or WMF has a better idea of how
to put together conduct policies than the community. Certainly the complete
failure to notice basic flaws in the document attest to that. Maybe at some
point in the future the community can put together a clear set of basic
global conduct rules, but the WMF's UCoC is not it.

(And a fun fact: The Board approved the UCoC on December 9, the same day as
the bylaws change, and yet again violated the Board's rules about
publishing resolutions within a week, for the at least 19th time in the
past year, out of 24 known resolutions.)

(Also, contrary to the recent WMF blog post on the UCoC, the WMF also does
not "administer Wikipedia", a mistake they have made for the second time
now.)

-- Yair Rand




‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-21:34 מאת ‪Risker‬‏ <‪risker...@gmail.com
‬‏>:‬

> While I often agree with you, Yair Rand, in this case I think you're
> mistaken.  Aside from the long-ago "community vote" on licensing (which was
> pretty much required based on the prior licensing scheme), every
> Wikimedia-wide policy has been authorized by the WMF Board of Trustees.
> That includes the terms of use and the privacy policy.  As the technical
> owners of the infrastructure, the WMF Board does have the right (if not the
> responsibility) to identify the manner in which the websites it supports
> and hosts can be used, and I think this principle is actually pretty widely
> held, at least in the abstract (i.e., hosting organizations can and should
> apply standards on the services they host). In every policy-related case
> that I have reviewed going back to the very earliest days, there has been
> at least some level of community discussion, and there have always been
> detractors of every policy the Board has approved; that has not made the
> policies either invalid or unworkable.
>
> I've never been convinced that including a mixture of required, forbidden,
> and aspirational standards all in one document is a good idea, and I
> personally struggle to see how including essentially unenforceable aspects
> of the UCoC will do anything other than weaken the effectiveness of rest of
> the document.  For example, I cannot imagine anyone being sanctioned in any
> way for "failure to thank" or "failure to mentor", although both of these
> are considered expectations in the "Civility" section; and one thing that a
> Uniform Code of Conduct would logically have is a uniform enforcement
> scheme.
>
> Nonetheless, I do believe that it is within the Board's scope and
> responsibility to approve this and other global policies designed to
> protect the WMF, the projects, the users of the websites, and the content
> managers/editors/etc (what we often call "the community").
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
>
> On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 17:28, Yair Rand  wrote:
>
>> The community has not approved the WMF's UCoC. It is not a Wikimedia
>> policy, it is not binding, it has no authority. The WMF does not control
>> the Wikimedia projects, and has no jurisdiction in this area.
>>
>> The community rejected this over and over again. It is harmful that the
>> Board is pretending they can do this unilaterally.
>>
>> -- Yair Rand
>>
>> ‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-6:59 מאת ‪María Sefidari‬‏ <‪
>> ma...@wikimedia.org‬‏>:‬
>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> I’m pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has unanimously
>>> approved a Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia projects and
>>> movement.[1]  A Universal Code of Conduct was one of the final
>>> recommendations of the Movement Strategy 2030 process - a multi-year,
>>> participatory community effort to define the future of our movement. The
>>> final Universal Code of Conduct seeks to address disparities in conduct
>>> policies across our hundreds of projects and communities, by creating a
>>> binding minimum set of standards for conduct on the Wikimedia projects that
>>> directly address many of the challenges that contributors face.
>>>
>>> The Board is deeply grateful to the communities who have grappled with
>>> these challenging topics. 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board Ratification of Universal Code of Conduct

[Ziko van Dijk]

Anne/Risker:
> I've never been convinced that including a mixture of required, forbidden, 
> and aspirational standards all in one document is a good idea, and I 
> personally struggle to see how including essentially unenforceable aspects of 
> the UCoC will do anything other than weaken the effectiveness of rest of the 
> document.


Dear Risker,

This is exactly my concern about the UCoC. Thank you for your words,
which, as usually, point to the essence of the subject.

Someone who tries to achieve too much, will finally achieve nothing.
In parts, the document reads like the job description for a paid
social media manager, not like a basic guideline for volunteers who
decide themselves how much time they want or can to invest in their
hobby.

On the other hand, I do agree that the owner of a wiki has a
responsibility to provide basic rules, and I do regret that the global
community did not create such a code itself. It did not happen in ...
20 years!

We will see how this all will turn out in practice. Even if you can,
theoretically, get banned for not helping a (problematic) newbie, we
hope that the enforcers will know how to wisely use the new
instrument. The acceptance within the community will depend more on
that than on the exact content or wording.

Kind regards
Ziko




Am Mi., 3. Feb. 2021 um 03:34 Uhr schrieb Risker :
>
> While I often agree with you, Yair Rand, in this case I think you're 
> mistaken.  Aside from the long-ago "community vote" on licensing (which was 
> pretty much required based on the prior licensing scheme), every 
> Wikimedia-wide policy has been authorized by the WMF Board of Trustees.  That 
> includes the terms of use and the privacy policy.  As the technical owners of 
> the infrastructure, the WMF Board does have the right (if not the 
> responsibility) to identify the manner in which the websites it supports and 
> hosts can be used, and I think this principle is actually pretty widely held, 
> at least in the abstract (i.e., hosting organizations can and should apply 
> standards on the services they host). In every policy-related case that I 
> have reviewed going back to the very earliest days, there has been at least 
> some level of community discussion, and there have always been detractors of 
> every policy the Board has approved; that has not made the policies either 
> invalid or unworkable.
>
> I've never been convinced that including a mixture of required, forbidden, 
> and aspirational standards all in one document is a good idea, and I 
> personally struggle to see how including essentially unenforceable aspects of 
> the UCoC will do anything other than weaken the effectiveness of rest of the 
> document.  For example, I cannot imagine anyone being sanctioned in any way 
> for "failure to thank" or "failure to mentor", although both of these are 
> considered expectations in the "Civility" section; and one thing that a 
> Uniform Code of Conduct would logically have is a uniform enforcement scheme.
>
> Nonetheless, I do believe that it is within the Board's scope and 
> responsibility to approve this and other global policies designed to protect 
> the WMF, the projects, the users of the websites, and the content 
> managers/editors/etc (what we often call "the community").
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
>
> On Tue, 2 Feb 2021 at 17:28, Yair Rand  wrote:
>>
>> The community has not approved the WMF's UCoC. It is not a Wikimedia policy, 
>> it is not binding, it has no authority. The WMF does not control the 
>> Wikimedia projects, and has no jurisdiction in this area.
>>
>> The community rejected this over and over again. It is harmful that the 
>> Board is pretending they can do this unilaterally.
>>
>> -- Yair Rand
>>
>> ‫בתאריך יום ג׳, 2 בפבר׳ 2021 ב-6:59 מאת ‪María Sefidari‬‏ 
>> <‪ma...@wikimedia.org‬‏>:‬
>>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> I’m pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has unanimously approved 
>>> a Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia projects and movement.[1]  A 
>>> Universal Code of Conduct was one of the final recommendations of the 
>>> Movement Strategy 2030 process - a multi-year, participatory community 
>>> effort to define the future of our movement. The final Universal Code of 
>>> Conduct seeks to address disparities in conduct policies across our 
>>> hundreds of projects and communities, by creating a binding minimum set of 
>>> standards for conduct on the Wikimedia projects that directly address many 
>>> of the challenges that contributors face.
>>>
>>> The Board is deeply grateful to the communities who have grappled with 
>>> these challenging topics. Over the past six months, communities around the 
>>> world have participated in conversations and consultations to help build 
>>> this code collectively, including local discussions in 19 languages, 
>>> surveys, discussions on Meta, and policy drafting by a committee of 
>>> volunteers and staff. The document presented to us reflects a significant 
>>> investment of