Continuing the discussion from Community discussion about the Revised UCoC Enforcement Guidelines:
The first of the three Conversation Hours sessions is aimed at the Asia-Pacific region. It will be held on Friday, September 16, 2022 10:00 AM.
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Conversation hours allow Wikimedians to get together and discuss important questions. The sessions, lasting between 60 and 120 minutes, will open several key issues related to the recently published Revised UCoC Enforcement Guidelines.
The main objective of each session is to discuss UCoC EG-related questions, exchange views with the community, and collect constructive feedback. Ultimately, this will help the Revisions Committee conclude its work.
Participants will debate the type, purpose, and applicability of the UCoC training, the concept of UCoC affirmation, the delicate balance of the privacy of the accuser and the accused, and how to make the entire document easier to comprehend for non-experts.
Facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance team will moderate the session, while the members of the Trust and Safety policy team will provide expert advice and feedback. Members of the Revisions Committee, who drafted the revised Enforcement Guidelines, may also attend the meeting.
Some of the meeting highlights will be published on this thread after the session.
Movement Strategy Forum allows you to start the debate right now! Feel free to ask questions you’d like to see discussed at the meeting or leave your comments about the Revised UCoC Enforcement Guidelines.
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A summary of notes from the Asia and Pacific Conversation Hour meeting
Following is a summary of the notes captured during the first UCoC Conversation Hour.
- Comments were anonymised and edited for clarity and context.
- Please feel free to continue this discussion in your replies.
Theme 1: Explore the concept of affirmation, including its pros and cons.
Questions:
- Clarification is needed in section 3.3.3 of the modified text: “(…) certain decisions made by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department.”
- Who are the “higher functionaries”? Admins aren’t functionaries.
- Why are the contractors working for WMF being removed from the requirement to sign the affirm to the UCoC? (A reference to a deleted section in the old UCoC EG text; marked red on this page)
Reply: Not all contractors are excluded. It depends on what they do. For example, contractors who represent the foundation and reach out to communities are required to affirm their adherence to the UCoC.
This needs to be clarified more.
Theme 2: To identify the type, purpose, and applicability of the UCoC training;
Questions:
- Local project variability – How will the UCoC training handle different levels of customization withought becoming too big or too complicated? How are we going to prevent it becoming too vague?
- Grants to cover training - oversight and performance review
Comment: EN-Wiki and English-wikinews both have arbcoms but they wouldn’t cope well with the same training!
Comment: Training should be translated to as many languages as possible.
Comment: Ratification can’t agree to a training we haven’t seen yet. Additionally, any ratification is an up/down vote. So a “yes” vote cannot be taken as a mandate for any specific point.
General discussion – Questions and comments:
- It needs to always be remembered that unlike a policy, we can’t amend the UCOC whenever we want. As such, it must be far more flawless.
- We should delay any progress until the Revisions Committee reconvenes. Getting answers is a required component for any iteration.
- Are we guaranteed to get the responses by the UCOC prior to the revision. Is that a response level equivalent to what we get here?
- Are we going to be able to ask anyone to let us know if our current conduct policies would be in compliance before needing to vote on the UCOC? With that interpretation being binding after it is signed.
- Do you have other plans to get more involved with many of the communities that are not actively participating in the UCoC discussions?
- In the section 3.3.1, Fairness of Process, is there an allowance for a translator or advocate to be involved?
Comment for the Revisions Committee: Section 3.3.1 is where translation needs to be specified.
The concern is the inbalance between the parties in their linguistic capacity getting a fair hearing. Even within a specific language community, there are people who speak the language at the academic level, and at a street level. Or the language in question could the person’s third of forth language. Nuances between cultural uses of the language can cause a negative outcome or put one party in an unfair position.
Participants who engaged in a discussion about the Principles for filing and processing of UCoC violations had somewhat different interpretations of what this section means:
- “EXCEPT where such access would risk danger or likely harm to the reporter or others’ safety, or where PII is in play, everyone - all editors - should be able to participate (in the process). Local communities can change that, of course, but the UCOC is not putting any restrictions on it.”
One participant left a comment for the next revision of the UCoC EG:
The following questions in Chinese (ZH) were received and debated during the meeting:
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如果在事件處理之後，有人需要取得相關資料進行深度報導／研究／報案的話，是否只能從當事人那裡取得片面資料，而無法從U4C那邊取得完整資料？
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如果舉報的人想要公開資訊，被舉報的人則用隱私理由不想要公開資訊，在這種情況下要怎麼處理？會變成被舉報者也得要被以違反使用準則處理嗎？
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以中文維基百科上次案例，整個事件可以追溯到2013年，這些小衝突或事件一開始沒有明顯的證據，但最終累積成基金會必須介入的情況。但假如之後發生類似情況的話，這也意味著如果要說明整起情況，會變成需要整理大量資料提供給U4C。目前有辦法降低這樣消耗時間人力成本的方法嗎？)
Due to limited time, the third question was not addressed during the call. It will be followed up in written form.
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