Hi there, A bit of context is needed in this discussion about the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct/Draft>.
On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 6:45 AM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > A substantial proportion of the comments on the talk page (and the > archives) are from WMF employees, not community members. The dichotomy WMF employees vs community members is false in Wikimedia technical spaces (and probably beyond, but I'll keep the scope in Wikimedia tech here). Even the roles of WMF employee / volunteer are quite mixed, since the WMF has been hiring prolific technical volunteers during years. While having WMF usernames administrating or simply editing articles in i.e. English Wikipedia would be basically unthinkable, in Wikimedia technical spaces is sometimes a norm, sometimes a requirement. Look at the admin groups of MediaWiki.org, wikitech.wikimedia.org, Phabricator, Gerrit, many technical mailing lists and IRC channels. Look also at the maintainers of many software projects and Phabricator projects. look as well in the list of people who contribute code, bug reports, and other types of technical contributions. > I realize, Matt, > that you have been attempting to recruit broader participation, but it > looks like the results have been less than one would have hoped. > The discussion of the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft> (which happens in MediaWiki.org, not Phabricator) is probably the process that has been more widely and continuously advertised in Wikimedia technical spaces. It is a good example of a tough and quite exhausting long-term discussion that is likely to drive away many people. The saddest paradox is that such discussion dynamics work against the main beneficiaries of the CoC: newcomers, minority groups, and other people with weaker defenses against harassment and disrespect. If you look at the participants regularly active in the discussion, you will find that the big majority (regardless affiliation, myself included) fit in a quite narrow and homogeneous profile in terms of gender, academic level, English proficiency, discussion style, color and thickness of skin, stubbornness... Given WMF's history of clashing with the community about subjects such as > Superprotect, VisualEditor, and ACTRIAL Can you provide examples of such WMF vs volunteers clashes in Wikimedia technical spaces? The toughest and most polarized discussions that I recall had WMF and volunteers in both sides. In fact, it is not uncommon to see opposition to "a WMF move" coming from WMF members, in their volunteer or professional roles. The discussion about this CoC is no exception, and we have seen WMF employees with different opinions and votes at almost every point. it seems to me that while WMF > participation in discussions such as this is good, the high proportion of > WMF representation on the talk page makes the resulting document more > likely to reflect the view of WMF and its employees rather than the larger > community. Can you specify where in the draft do you see "the view of WMF and its employees rather than the larger community"? We have been discussing this draft for more than a year now, and almost every sentence has been reviewed and discussed. My main concern (inspired by other promoters of this Code) has been to reflect the view and the interests of the potential beneficiaries of the CoC. In fact, many of the toughest and longest discussions were not centered around the interests of these existing and potential community members at all. A bit more context to address other replies to this thread: Action against harassment and disrespect is already taken in Wikimedia technical spaces, partly thanks to a social pressure that (I dare to say) is less tolerant to such disruptions than many Wikimedia communities, partly thanks to the many admins/maintainers in many different spaces, each of them with different tools to address harassment. A subset of the Technical Communication team <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Technical_Collaboration/Community_health> handles the reports that we receive, and recently we started publishing a metric of cases handled in the Community Engagement quarterly reviews <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement#Quarterly_review_documentation> . All this is happening thanks to the initiative of many individuals with different affiliations (for instance, those who participated in the writing of the Bugzilla (now Phabricator) etiquette <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bug_management/Phabricator_etiquette>). However, it is happening in a quite ad hoc way (i.e. nobody decided that the Technical Collaboration team would handle harassment reports, we just kept receiving them and decided to do something about them). The Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces should provide a common framework for all the different venues shared by the technical community, and a mechanism to handle reports and enforce the Code (a committee open to all affiliations). -- Quim Gil Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
