[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

[Andreas Kolbe]

Hi Stella,

Thanks for your reply. It is much appreciated that you take the time. Now,
you point out that the UCoC is meant to establish a "minimum" set of
guidelines. "Minimum" means that anything forbidden or demanded in the UCoC
is forbidden or demanded globally, but that individual projects might
forbid or demand more. That what "minimum" means, right?

Now, the phrasing of all these items in section 3.1 is always the same. The
section describes what harassment "*includes*". It begins, "Harassment.
This *includes *..." Then, it introduces the bullet points with the
examples by saying, "Harassment *includes *but is not limited to ..."

So the way it is written, the intro does not qualify the bullet points.
Both the intro and the bullet points merely say what harassment "includes".
They are parallel. The intro, as written, does not say that the examples in
the bullet points only qualify as harassment IF certain conditions are met.

Another thing to think about here are the reputational risks inherent in
formulating authoritarian laws that are then applied selectively – it opens
the movement up to charges of hypocrisy. This is also a staple of
authoritarian states: have laws under which most everyone is guilty of
*something*, and you can find a reason to punish anyone whenever the need
arises.

But let's leave the theory and take some practical examples. They are all
related to this bullet UCoC point, which says harassment includes:


   - *Disclosure of personal data (Doxing):* sharing other contributors'
   private information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email
   address without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or
   elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity
   outside the projects.


Could you please comment on these below?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits
This reveals contributors' employer and address, very likely without their
consent, on a page in Wikipedia. It's in direct contravention of the above
bullet point. Should this page exist?

2.
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/18/5916005/malaysian-crash-mh17-russia-ukraine-wikipedia-edit
This press article states that someone at a Russian TV network edited
Wikipedia to blame the MH17 plane crash on Ukraine. This therefore reveals
a contributor's employer and possibly also their work address. Is this
article harassment? Should any Wikipedians who may have tipped off the
journalist be punished?

3.
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/wikipedia-sockpuppet-investigation-largest-network-history-wiki-pr/
This press article – which was instrumental in triggering a significant
change in the WMF terms of use, well before your time with the WMF of
course – comments on various contributors' employer, again in direct
contravention of the Doxing bullet point. Is this harassment? Should the
Wikipedians who "shared information concerning other contributors'
Wikimedia activity outside the projects", by speaking to the writer of this
article, be sanctioned under UCoC if they did the same today?

4. https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbqjb/is-wikipedia-for-sale
In this article the late Kevin Gorman – who died much too young! – as well
as James Hare and a WMF staffer again "share information concerning other
contributors' Wikimedia activity outside the projects", including
employment details. This is in direct contravention of the Doxing bullet
point, compliance with which you explained is a "minimum" standard that
participants will be held to.

5.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2011/09/hari-rose-wikipedia-admitted
In this article a journalist writes about a Wikipedia editor – a fellow
journalist, as it turned out – who had defamed multiple living people on
Wikipedia. He gives the name of his Wikipedia account and his real name.
(The culprit subsequently publicly apologised.) Is the linked article
harassment?

6. https://archive.ph/NAsft
Here a Wikipedian claimed that a fellow Wikipedian was a government
employee. He "shared information concerning her activity outside the
project". He also claimed she had sysops tortured. The record shows that
the accused was subsequently globally banned from all Wikimedia projects.
How would the Wikipedian who made the report be judged under the UCoC if
they were to make the same report today?

If you could look at these examples and come back to me, that would be much
appreciated.

Best,
Andreas







On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 1:02 AM Stella Ng  wrote:

> Hello Andreas and Todd,
>
> I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this.
>
> First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum
> set of guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior.  However, it does
> not make existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in
> our global movement may have different policies around the disclosure of
> private information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is
> going on on a day-to-day basi

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

[H4CUSEG via Wikimedia-l]

Actually,

In response tp a question asked a6 35:56 in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cd2FxovdXE at

"Some have voiced concerns that the UCoC requires thinking around consent. How 
are communities expected to engage with that?"

Jan Eissfeld said: (35:08)

"The UCoC, this is probably a useful way to think about it, has been designed 
as a minimum standard for expected behaviour as well as to help identify 
unwanted behaviour.

Now, the foundation and the communities have always agreed and the foundation 
has always trusted in the communities being able to exercise a reasonable 
person standard, so community members who adjudicate concerns or bring concerns 
to the attention of the community have always exercised the ability to look at 
the intent and look at the context to the best of their abilities and then find 
reasonable solutions.

I would think about this issue in a comparable manner. And this is also a 
long-established practice, if you think about two examples: For example, 26 
communities already have rules in place, or guidelines, at least, in place 
related to not gaming the system of self governance. That very heavily depends 
on both the intent and the context. And in general, communities have done an 
excellent job enforcing that on their own. Equally, the blocking reason for not 
being here in order to contribute to the encyclopedia is one of the oldest, and 
most widely used blocking reasons on many Wikipedia language versions. Which 
very specifically is a question of intent. So the communities are very, very 
good at handling that.

We certainly do not believe that the community drafting committee for phase 1 
assumed a different standard than the reasonable person standard that has 
always been used across the movement, I think very successfully. So if you 
think about consent in that context, this strikes me a as a reasonable way to 
think about it."

He almost makes it sound as if the communities were doing very, very well 
without the UCoC. Funny that.

Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com/) secure email.

--- Original Message ---
On Monday, April 25th, 2022 at 11:38 AM, Stella Ng  wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> I appreciate the questions and concerns regarding intent - I’m going to 
> reference Jan Eissfeldt here, the Global Head of Trust and Safety, and how he 
> interpreted this concern during the last CAC conversation hour on April 21st 
> (https://youtu.be/3cd2FxovdXE)
>
> As mentioned previously, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set of 
> guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. The policy was written to 
> take into account two main points: intent and context. It trusts people to 
> exercise the reasonable person standard - which indicates that based on a 
> reasonable person’s judgment of the scenario, the personalities behind it, 
> and the context of the individuals involved in, as well as any extrapolating 
> information, could make a call on an enforcement action.
>
> This is not a new way of working for many of our communities. For instance, 
> guidelines against “Gaming the system” exist in 26 projects, most if not all 
> of which refer to deliberate intention or bad faith.
>
> We do not believe that the crafters of the UCoC were looking for people to 
> engage in any form of law interpretation or anything complex, but instead, to 
> exercise their experience using the parameters of what a reasonable person 
> would be expected to tolerate in a global, intercultural environment.
>
> Regards,
>
> Stella
>
> On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 2:14 AM Peter Southwood 
>  wrote:
>
>> This question has been asked before, and so far no workable answer has been 
>> suggested. Cheers, Peter.
>>
>> []
>>
>> From: H4CUSEG via Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org]
>> Sent: 20 April 2022 19:44
>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
>> Cc: H4CUSEG
>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and 
>> UCoC Enforcement Guidelines
>>
>> Stella, how are the community members who review situations supposed to 
>> establish the mens rea of the accused? Intent is one of the hardest things 
>> to prove in criminal cases, and we're going to rely on volunteers to get it 
>> right? We should not look at intent at all, consider only the actual harm 
>> that occurred and focus on remediation, harm reduction and rehabilitation in 
>> stead of punishing people.
>>
>> Vexations
>>
>> Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com/) secure email.
>>
>> --- Original Message ---
>> On Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 at 2:24 PM, Stella Ng  
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Andreas and Todd,
>>
>> I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this.
>>
>> First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set 
>> of guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. However, it does not 
>> make existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in our 
>> global movement may have different policies around the disclosure 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

[Stella Ng]

Hello Everyone,

I appreciate the questions and concerns regarding intent - I’m going to
reference Jan Eissfeldt here, the Global Head of Trust and Safety, and how
he interpreted this concern during the last CAC conversation hour on April
21st (https://youtu.be/3cd2FxovdXE)

As mentioned previously, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set of
guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. The policy was written
to take into account two main points: intent and context. It trusts people
to exercise the reasonable person standard - which indicates that based on
a reasonable person’s judgment of the scenario, the personalities behind
it, and the context of the individuals involved in, as well as any
extrapolating information, could make a call on an enforcement action.

This is not a new way of working for many of our communities. For instance,
guidelines against “Gaming the system” exist in 26 projects, most if not
all of which refer to deliberate intention or bad faith.

We do not believe that the crafters of the UCoC were looking for people to
engage in any form of law interpretation or anything complex, but instead,
to exercise their experience using the parameters of what a reasonable
person would be expected to tolerate in a global, intercultural
environment.

Regards,

Stella


On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 2:14 AM Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> This question has been asked before, and so far no workable answer has
> been suggested. Cheers, Peter.
>
>
>
> *From:* H4CUSEG via Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org]
> *Sent:* 20 April 2022 19:44
> *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List
> *Cc:* H4CUSEG
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC)
> and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines
>
>
>
> Stella, how are the community members who review situations supposed to
> establish the mens rea of the accused? Intent is one of the hardest things
> to prove in criminal cases, and we're going to rely on volunteers to get it
> right? We should not look at intent at all, consider only the actual harm
> that occurred and focus on remediation, harm reduction and rehabilitation
> in stead of punishing people.
>
>
>
> Vexations
>
>
>
> Sent with ProtonMail  secure email.
>
>
>
> --- Original Message ---
> On Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 at 2:24 PM, Stella Ng 
> wrote:
>
>
> Hello Andreas and Todd,
>
>
>
> I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this.
>
>
>
> First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum
> set of guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. However, it does
> not make existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in
> our global movement may have different policies around the disclosure of
> private information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is
> going on on a day-to-day basis, as well as relationship and political
> dynamics (such as the position of power or influence) that the individuals
> involved could have. Depending on the specific context of your examples,
> interpretation and action could differ widely under those doxxing policies.
>
>
>
> What would be contextually consistent across the communities, however, is
> the UCoC. If we look specifically at section 3.1, which is what doxxing is
> nested under, what is important to note is context - specifically that if
> the information is provided or the behavior is “*intended primarily* to
> intimidate, outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would
> reasonably be considered the most likely main outcome” (emphasis added).
> The next sentence expands further that “Behaviour can be considered*
> harassment if it is beyond what a reasonable person would be expected to
> tolerate in a global, intercultural environment*.” (emphasis added) The
> policy as written is pretty clear that both intent and what is often called
> in law the “reasonable person
> ”
> test applies. This is one of the reasons that the Enforcement Guidelines
> are built around human review since application of policy will always
> require judgment. The community members who review situations will
> hopefully read the text in context within the policy and will also have
> experience in understanding the parties involved, their unique dynamics
> within their respective communities, and their own project policies on
> doxxing as COI, as they will have the experience of dealing with the day to
> day.
>
>
>
> However, it is likely the standards could be clarified further in the
> round of Policy review that will be conducted a year after the completion
> of Phase 2.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Stella
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:02 PM Todd Allen  wrote:
>
> Actually, you're technically even breaching it saying it here, since the
> mailing list is "outside the Wikimedi

[Wikimedia-l] WIKIMOVE Episode #2- Share news from your affiliate and ask questions to our guests in our next podcast

[Eva Martin]

Dear all,

The 2nd episode of WIKIMOVE will be published in early May! Our guests will
be *Erica Azzelini *and *Lucas Pianta* from *Wikimovimento Brazil*. We will
be talking about what they are doing to bring movement strategy to life
with the Brazilian and Portuguese speaking communities. We dive into the
key issues: hubs, resource distribution, capacity building, volunteerism
and governance! Plus movement news and some hot takes on what's going on.

Please contribute to making WIKIMOVE become an interactive platform on all
things movement strategy by sharing news
 from your affiliate and
asking questions  to
our guests until April 29, 10:00 UTC.


You can find our first episode “Knowledge as a service” on our meta page
 and our website
.

Looking forward to interacting with you,

Your WIKIMOVE team
-- 
Eva Martin
Project Assistant Movement Strategy and Global Relations

Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de

Keep up to date! Current news and exciting stories about Wikimedia,
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Office Hour. Want to participate in/organize the Wiki Loves Earth photo contest? Let's have a Zoom meeting💛🌍

[Iryna Yehiazarova]

P.S. If this time doesn't suit you, we will have another meeting soon.
Preliminary on May 1, TBD.

Stay tuned. Take pictures. Love Earth!💛🌍

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 10:12 PM Iryna Yehiazarova <
iryna.yehiazar...@wikimedia.org.ua> wrote:

> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> We are pleased to announce the Wiki Loves Earth international photo
> contest starting in less than a week! Our aims are to raise public
> awareness about protected areas and to create the biggest database of free
> photos of nature heritage sites from all over the world.
>
> *This is the 10th edition of the competition. In 2013 we held WLE in
> Ukraine for the first time, and in 2014 it went international. Overall, WLE
> collected 767k free photos, with around 180k being used in the wikiprojects
> — and we are going to make even more impact organizing Wiki Loves Earth
> 2022! The contest runs throughout May 1 – July 31, with different dates for
> each country.*
>
> Want to become a part of our WLE family?
>
> — Join a local team in your country (check this list of participating
> countries https://w.wiki/4pUh), or if there is no one organize a contest
> yourself! Find out more about the process in our detailed guidelines at
> https://w.wiki/4pUP.
>
> — Take part in WLE 2022 and upload your photos: check our rules at
> https://w.wiki/4phW and start preparing your submissions!
>
>
> We will be happy to answer your questions during our *Office Hour on
> April 26 at 14.00 UTC+2*. Read the info [image: 🔼], prepare your
> questions and let's talk!
>
>
>
>
>
> *https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84150679860?pwd=eEF3ZFdyUFM3OGlmMjZEZHBCTkE3QT09
> Meeting
> ID: 841 5067 9860Passcode: wle22*
>
>
> And you are always welcome to contact us at wle-t...@wikimedia.org.ua.
>
> To find out more about WLE, check our:
>
>-
>
>website 
>-
>
>page on Wikimedia Commons
>
>-
>
>social media: Facebook , Instagram
>, and Twitter
>.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Iryna Yehiazarova
>
> Project Manager for Wiki Loves Earth 2022
>
> on behalf of the international organizing team
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Office Hour. Want to participate in/organize the Wiki Loves Earth photo contest? Let's have a Zoom meeting💛🌍

[Iryna Yehiazarova]

Dear Wikimedians,

We are pleased to announce the Wiki Loves Earth international photo contest
starting in less than a week! Our aims are to raise public awareness about
protected areas and to create the biggest database of free photos of nature
heritage sites from all over the world.

*This is the 10th edition of the competition. In 2013 we held WLE in
Ukraine for the first time, and in 2014 it went international. Overall, WLE
collected 767k free photos, with around 180k being used in the wikiprojects
— and we are going to make even more impact organizing Wiki Loves Earth
2022! The contest runs throughout May 1 – July 31, with different dates for
each country.*

Want to become a part of our WLE family?

— Join a local team in your country (check this list of participating
countries https://w.wiki/4pUh), or if there is no one organize a contest
yourself! Find out more about the process in our detailed guidelines at
https://w.wiki/4pUP.

— Take part in WLE 2022 and upload your photos: check our rules at
https://w.wiki/4phW and start preparing your submissions!


We will be happy to answer your questions during our *Office Hour on April
26 at 14.00 UTC+2*. Read the info [image: 🔼], prepare your questions and
let's talk!





*https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84150679860?pwd=eEF3ZFdyUFM3OGlmMjZEZHBCTkE3QT09
Meeting
ID: 841 5067 9860Passcode: wle22*


And you are always welcome to contact us at wle-t...@wikimedia.org.ua.

To find out more about WLE, check our:

   -

   website 
   -

   page on Wikimedia Commons
   
   -

   social media: Facebook , Instagram
   , and Twitter
   .


Best regards,

Iryna Yehiazarova

Project Manager for Wiki Loves Earth 2022

on behalf of the international organizing team
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Call for Candidates is Open!

[Jackie Koerner]

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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

[Peter Southwood]

This question has been asked before, and so far no workable answer has been 
suggested. Cheers, Peter.

 

From: H4CUSEG via Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org] 
Sent: 20 April 2022 19:44
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Cc: H4CUSEG
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and 
UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

 

Stella, how are the community members who review situations supposed to 
establish the mens rea of the accused? Intent is one of the hardest things to 
prove in criminal cases, and we're going to rely on volunteers to get it right? 
We should not look at intent at all, consider only the actual harm that 
occurred and focus on remediation, harm reduction and rehabilitation in stead 
of punishing people. 

 

Vexations

 

Sent with ProtonMail   secure email. 

 

--- Original Message ---
On Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 at 2:24 PM, Stella Ng  wrote:




Hello Andreas and Todd, 

 

I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this. 

 

First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set of 
guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. However, it does not make 
existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in our global 
movement may have different policies around the disclosure of private 
information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is going on on a 
day-to-day basis, as well as relationship and political dynamics (such as the 
position of power or influence) that the individuals involved could have. 
Depending on the specific context of your examples, interpretation and action 
could differ widely under those doxxing policies. 

 

What would be contextually consistent across the communities, however, is the 
UCoC. If we look specifically at section 3.1, which is what doxxing is nested 
under, what is important to note is context - specifically that if the 
information is provided or the behavior is “intended primarily to intimidate, 
outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would reasonably be 
considered the most likely main outcome” (emphasis added). The next sentence 
expands further that “Behaviour can be considered harassment if it is beyond 
what a reasonable person would be expected to tolerate in a global, 
intercultural environment.” (emphasis added) The policy as written is pretty 
clear that both intent and what is often called in law the “reasonable person 

 ” test applies. This is one of the reasons that the Enforcement Guidelines are 
built around human review since application of policy will always require 
judgment. The community members who review situations will hopefully read the 
text in context within the policy and will also have experience in 
understanding the parties involved, their unique dynamics within their 
respective communities, and their own project policies on doxxing as COI, as 
they will have the experience of dealing with the day to day. 

 

However, it is likely the standards could be clarified further in the round of 
Policy review that will be conducted a year after the completion of Phase 2.

 

Regards,

Stella

 

 

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:02 PM Todd Allen  wrote:

Actually, you're technically even breaching it saying it here, since the 
mailing list is "outside the Wikimedia projects".

 

I would agree that this needs substantial clarification, especially regarding 
both spammers and already-public information.

 

Regards,

 

Todd Allen

 

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 12:02 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

Dear Rosie,

 

Could you kindly also look at and clarify the following passage in the 
Universal Code of Conduct:

 

· Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' private 
information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email address 
without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, 
or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects.

 

As written, the first part of this says that contributors must no longer state 
– on Wikipedia or elsewhere – that a particular editor appears to be working 
for a PR firm, is a congressional staffer,[1] etc.

 

The second part forbids any and all discussion of contributors' Wikimedia 
activity outside the projects. (For example, if I were to say on Twitter that 
User:Koavf has made over 2 million edits to Wikipedia, I would already be in 
breach of the code as written.)

 

Thanks,

Andreas

 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits

 

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 5:09 PM Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 
 wrote:

Hello,

 

The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 
would like to thank everyone who participated in the recently concluded 
community vote on the 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Peter Southwood]

“the block message only shows up when I try to save the page”

That is just inexcusable. Symbolic of complete indifference to other people’s 
time wasted. Why would a new editor treated like this ever bother to try again? 
 Block message with explanation and alternatives (with links) should come up 
when the person tries to open to edit, and page should not open to edit.

 

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that “anyone” can edit if:

*very long list of conditions that apply…

*list of hoops that you must jump through to get access…

 

Cheers, Peter

 

From: Bence Damokos [mailto:bdamo...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 20 April 2022 21:59
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

 

Beyond the mentioned countries, this is also affecting those who have opted in 
to Apple’s Private Relay, which I expect will be somewhat popular/default once 
out of beta status. I myself am unable to edit for example - and half the time 
I am not bothered to workaround the issue and just give up the edit. 

 

Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the page 
(at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to unnecessary 
frustration.

 

Best regards,

Bence

On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
 wrote:

Yes, it's getting frequent and not only from people in Africa. 

 

I ended up to trouble-shoot these problems by mails or direct messaging on 
Facebook more and and more frequently, maybe with simple users who just know me 
or have my contact. Sometimes it looks like sharing the duties of a sysop or a 
steward with no power. 

 

It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated exactly, but 
you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot about this policy 
and you just have to deal with the consequences, no matter how time-consuming 
it's getting.

 

A.M.

 

Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni 
 ha scritto: 

 

 

I don't have a solution, but I just wanted to confirm that I agree fully with 
the description of the problem. I hear that this happens to people from 
Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and some other countries almost every day.

 

The first time I heard about it was actually around 2018 or so, but during the 
last year it has become unbearably frequent.

 

A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this several 
times, and they always say something like "we know that this affects certain 
countries badly, and we know that the technology has changed since the 
mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies because it would 
immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis". I'm sure they mean 
well, but this is not sustainable.


--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore

 

 

‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת ‪Florence Devouard‏ <‪ 
 fdevou...@gmail.com‏>:

Hello friends

Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans being 
globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking

 

Long version : 

I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in the 
past couple of weeks/months. 

Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies policy 
[1]
In particular africans.

In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and all 
other Wikimedia projects. 

According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies (including 
paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While this may affect 
legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies 
until those are blocked [...]

Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies 
should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the 
IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the 
open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.

According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of 
an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on local projects 
by administrators and globally by stewards. »

 

I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those are 
blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy with the 
IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an open proxy


Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They do 
not understand well what to do when they are blocked.

In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being blocked 
due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing. 
New editors just as old timers.
Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups, 
organizers of edit-a-thons 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2022

[WereSpielChequers]

I've served on a few boards in my time, and if I wanted to "improve the set
of skills and the diversity contributed by newly selected trustees" this is
not how I'd try to do it.

Yes there are likely to be certain skillsets that you want on a board, but
that's a key reason for having independent members. A few years ago I
served ten years on the board of a charity local to me, we had certain
skillsets that we needed on the board, including a retired Medical Dr and a
couple of people  who understood investments (our endowment was similar in
size to the WMF). We usually got such skills by recruiting independents who
had the skills we missed but thought we needed. Why else would you want
"independent" trustees?

As for diversity, yes I can see a need and a route to do this via the
community places. But there are ways to do that that retain open elections,
for example, if you want to reserve a seat for "someone resident in sub
saharan africa" you can either create a separate geographic or virtual
constituency, or just use STV but modified to include the most popular
candidate who meets the diversity criteria you chose.

WSC


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>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

[Peter Southwood]

This question has been asked before, and I have never seen a reasonably 
practicable proposal for managing the problem. Cheers, Peter

 

From: H4CUSEG via Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org] 
Sent: 20 April 2022 19:44
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Cc: H4CUSEG
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and 
UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

 

Stella, how are the community members who review situations supposed to 
establish the mens rea of the accused? Intent is one of the hardest things to 
prove in criminal cases, and we're going to rely on volunteers to get it right? 
We should not look at intent at all, consider only the actual harm that 
occurred and focus on remediation, harm reduction and rehabilitation in stead 
of punishing people. 

 

Vexations

 

Sent with ProtonMail   secure email. 

 

--- Original Message ---
On Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 at 2:24 PM, Stella Ng  wrote:




Hello Andreas and Todd, 

 

I am not Rosie, but I believe I can field this. 

 

First, as a reminder to all, the UCoC was created to establish a minimum set of 
guidelines for expected and unacceptable behavior. However, it does not make 
existing community policies irrelevant. Currently, communities in our global 
movement may have different policies around the disclosure of private 
information (“doxxing”), specifically taking into context what is going on on a 
day-to-day basis, as well as relationship and political dynamics (such as the 
position of power or influence) that the individuals involved could have. 
Depending on the specific context of your examples, interpretation and action 
could differ widely under those doxxing policies. 

 

What would be contextually consistent across the communities, however, is the 
UCoC. If we look specifically at section 3.1, which is what doxxing is nested 
under, what is important to note is context - specifically that if the 
information is provided or the behavior is “intended primarily to intimidate, 
outrage or upset a person, or any behaviour where this would reasonably be 
considered the most likely main outcome” (emphasis added). The next sentence 
expands further that “Behaviour can be considered harassment if it is beyond 
what a reasonable person would be expected to tolerate in a global, 
intercultural environment.” (emphasis added) The policy as written is pretty 
clear that both intent and what is often called in law the “reasonable person 

 ” test applies. This is one of the reasons that the Enforcement Guidelines are 
built around human review since application of policy will always require 
judgment. The community members who review situations will hopefully read the 
text in context within the policy and will also have experience in 
understanding the parties involved, their unique dynamics within their 
respective communities, and their own project policies on doxxing as COI, as 
they will have the experience of dealing with the day to day. 

 

However, it is likely the standards could be clarified further in the round of 
Policy review that will be conducted a year after the completion of Phase 2.

 

Regards,

Stella

 

 

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:02 PM Todd Allen  wrote:

Actually, you're technically even breaching it saying it here, since the 
mailing list is "outside the Wikimedia projects".

 

I would agree that this needs substantial clarification, especially regarding 
both spammers and already-public information.

 

Regards,

 

Todd Allen

 

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 12:02 PM Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

Dear Rosie,

 

Could you kindly also look at and clarify the following passage in the 
Universal Code of Conduct:

 

· Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' private 
information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email address 
without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, 
or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects.

 

As written, the first part of this says that contributors must no longer state 
– on Wikipedia or elsewhere – that a particular editor appears to be working 
for a PR firm, is a congressional staffer,[1] etc.

 

The second part forbids any and all discussion of contributors' Wikimedia 
activity outside the projects. (For example, if I were to say on Twitter that 
User:Koavf has made over 2 million edits to Wikipedia, I would already be in 
breach of the code as written.)

 

Thanks,

Andreas

 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits

 

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 5:09 PM Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight 
 wrote:

Hello,

 

The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 
would like to thank everyone who participated in the recently concluded 
co