Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-03-28/Arbitration report

Arbitration report

Open letter to the Board of Trustees

By Staff

An open letter

The following open letter was published on meta on Friday, March 26. it was signed by members of 9 Arbitration Committees, including the Czech (3 signatories), German (7), English (12), French (4), Polish (6), Russian (2), and Ukrainian (3) ArbComs

Dear Board of Trustees,

This is an open letter from arbitrators and arbitration committees from across the Wikimedia movement.

We have followed closely the process of the creation of the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). We know that many small communities do not have a basic set of rules, so it's hard for new editors to have a good sense of what is allowed and what not. Additionally, we encourage the creation of basic rules of conduct for all wikis to ensure that nobody gets treated poorly. Editors in our communities wish to have an environment conducive to creating high quality content. We do not want to see editors discriminated against based on opinion, culture, sexuality, etc. Editors should be judged by their editing. In our experience, the global community and our projects will generally endorse rules that ensure no individual is a victim of discrimination or hounding.

However, we are concerned about the enforcement of the UCoC and concerned about how that enforcement will be viewed on our projects. The lack of formal consultation with projects before the board approved the UCoC means it risks being seen as imposed by the Wikimedia Foundation from above, rather than being seen as a legitimate community endeavor. Several of our projects have seen major damage and harm done when the communities have come into conflict with the Wikimedia Foundation (for instance dewiki with SUPERPROTECT and enwiki with FRAMGATE). We do not want that to happen with the Universal Code of Conduct as that could undermine the benefits it has to offer for projects without well-developed policies, systems, and experience for dealing with editor behavior. Recent changes to the timeline to allow for more consultation and discussion are a positive step.

It is therefore vital that projects with more sophisticated governing systems, like ours, be formally involved in the next step of the UCoC process. We note the recent call for a new committee to draft the second phase. At least one person with experience as an arbitrator, or similar experience dealing with complex and difficult behavior issues, should be added as a member of the drafting committee, and at least one additional person with this experience, or experience as a Steward, should be added as an advisor.

We understand that individual projects cannot be given a veto over the implementation of the UCoC. However, we hope that you understand that individual projects must feel committed to whatever enforcement mechanisms arise. Without this sense of investment and partnership the UCoC will ultimately fail. Mere consultation is insufficient. A formal process for ratifying the UCoC enforcement system is necessary.

The UCoC must also be a living document. The community is changing and evolving and so has universal behavior. We know that this is a different document than if it had been created 10 years ago, and we feel that universal norms will be different in 10 years. A way to amend the Universal Code of Conduct must be added, and this amendment process should build on lessons learned to date to ensure that communities and individuals have a chance for meaningful input before any amendment is adopted.

Wikipedia and other projects are only possible because of the hard work of editors at communities to create and maintain the incredible store of knowledge available. This path is longer, but hasty decisions and decisions that lack legitimacy in the eyes of the volunteers they effect could cause real damage to our communities and the work we do. In the words of the Wikimedia Foundation values, "Collaboration is not always easy. Sometimes we struggle. Working together is hard, but it’s worth it. We do it because it makes us stronger." We ask you to be stronger together with us.

2021 discretionary sanctions review

Community consultation on the 2021 discretionary sanctions review is invited through April 25. As announced, The consultation provides an opportunity for editors to both answer general questions about their experiences of discretionary sanctions in everyday editing and provide feedback on specific sections of the discretionary sanctions procedure. Both types of feedback are highly valuable and will be considered by the Committee in the revision process. As of Signpost's deadline, the Arbitration Committee's comments are few. One is a request by L235 to discuss the first-mover advantage potentially conferred by discretionary sanctions. – B

RexxS desysopped

As a result of the recently closed case, administrator privileges were removed from RexxS on March 26. Although there is no formal retirement announcement at the userpage, the account has been inactive since February 25.

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Big support for both the general concepts and specifics in here. Ratification by Community is critical, most logically by half of communities (or, perhaps, half of communities that formally consider ratification) and half of all editors (either by editors participating in that ratification or by active editors represented by that community) Nosebagbear (talk) 22:37, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is not Fandom, and community takes care of this just fine. No need for the WMF to be nosy. Firestar464 (talk) 01:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bri: Regarding DS consultation comments, we arbs are trying not to say too much because the consultation is intended to be an opportunity for the community to speak, not us. I personally am going to refrain from sharing my perspectives too much unless it seems like doing so will prompt further discussion or feedback from the community. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The lack of formal consultation with projects before the board approved the UCoC means it risks being seen as imposed by the Wikimedia Foundation from above, rather than being seen as a legitimate community endeavor. The UCOC's creation was mandated by a mostly unelected board of trustees to be eventually placed upon the community, though editors had mooted such concepts before. The editing community can suggest changes all it wants, and the WMF can incorporate some of even most of those, but it's quite clear that if the community opposed the whole idea of UCOC that wouldn't stop the WMF from establishing it, short of perhaps a FRAMBAN-like global crisis. The UCOC is not at risk of "being seen as imposed"; it is being imposed. -Indy beetle (talk) 05:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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