Universal Code of Conduct/Newsletter/3

Welcome to the third issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code, and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC. Feedback or ideas for the next issue can be left on the UCoC News talk page. You can also help us by translating the newsletter issues in your languages and sharing the newsletter in your community portals and platforms.

Please remember to subscribe here if you would like to be notified about future editions of the newsletter, and also leave your username here if you’d like to be contacted to help with translations in the future.

Thank you for reading and participating!

The Enforcement Draft Guidelines

The Enforcement Draft Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct has just been published on meta in different languages. Thanks to the drafting committee, which met over several months to produce the enforcement draft guidelines, by reviewing the input collected from the Wikimedia communities throughout the UCoC project.

The enforcement draft guidelines include some definitions of newly introduced terms, such as Code Enforcement Officer and Code Enforcement Committee, and so on. It also defined the goals of Proactive Work and Responsive Work. The guidelines provided recommendations for the reporting and processing tool, recommendations for local enforcement structures and recommendations for how to process appeals, amongst other important highlights.

It’s worth mentioning that the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines are iterative, and will continuously be evaluated and will evolve with community feedback, along with the Universal Code of Conduct.

Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review

Before the enforcement guidelines are finalized, they must be reviewed and discussed by the community. The facilitation team has scheduled conversation hours and roundtable discussions during the review period which is planned for 17 August 2021 through 17 October 2021. Comments are invited at the draft review talk page in any language, talk pages of translations, local discussions, in addition to the round-table discussions and conversation hours.

You can also share your feedback, comments and/or concerns by sending an email to ucocprojectwikimedia.org. The feedback from the community will be gathered, reviewed and evaluated by the Drafting Committee and may be reflected on the guidelines as necessary.

Conversation Hours & Roundtables

Overview of July 17 roundtable

The roundtable session from July 17 was another success with about 20 people participating. The English, French, and Spanish community members joined the global session, while a separate German session was hosted. In addition to discussing the UCoC, we also talked about movement strategy and the board elections. The topics discussed included application of the code, concerns about off-wiki harassment, and how private reporting could conflict with our ideals/goals about resolving disputes.

Conversation Hours & Roundtable during EDGR period

To listen to community opinions and exchange ideas regarding enforcement draft guidelines proposed by the drafting committee, the Universal Code of conduct facilitation team will also host weekly conversation hours on August 24, 31, and September 7 on 03:00 UTC, and 14:00 UTC. Members of the facilitation team will be available to discuss and answer questions about the enforcement draft guidelines review and collect feedback during each session. The next roundtable session is scheduled on September 18th, at 03:00 UTC and 15:00 UTC, in the middle of the Enforcement draft guidelines review period. We are planning to facilitate this session in as many languages as possible. More information about this will be announced soon.

Wikimania Wrap-up

The facilitation team hosted a Universal Code of Conduct Roundtable at Wikimania 2021 on Monday, August 16, 2021. The session featured Wikimedia Foundation trustees Shani Evenstein Sigalov and Dariusz Jemelniak, joined by members of the UCoC Drafting Committees Sandra Rientjes, Taylor 49, Barkeep49, and Nahid Sultan alongside WMF Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability Maggie Dennis. It ran for 45 minutes and was attended by almost 80 participants.

The Roundtable offered some insights on how the Enforcement Draft Guidelines was formulated by the Drafting Committee, and what next steps are being imagined. Participants asked various relevant questions regarding the reporting tools and enforcement pathways of the UCoC, as well as how the whole process is being aligned with the Wikimedia Strategy 2030. After the session, several Wikimedians that are interested in this topic headed over to our table at the community village to further share their thoughts and insights with the team.

The Roundtable was recorded and is available to watch on YouTube and its notes are on a public Etherpad.

Translation

Due to the fact that a considerable number of Wikimedians all over the world are not English speakers, and that Universal Code of Conduct applies to all members, projects and entities related to the Wikimedia movement, it’s of a great importance to provide the policy, guidelines and all related documentation in as many languages as possible, in a clear format that makes it easy for everyone to understand the UCoC. The translation process is really a challenge, as providing translated material that meets the quality requirements is not always easy.

What guarantees better quality in translation is having it done by someone who not only understands the language, but also understands the context. This is why the MSG facilitators are now handling translations to better serve all communities. This includes, but not limited to, Arabic, Deutsch, Bahasa Indonesia, Español, Français, Italiano, Polski, Russian, Yoruba, among others. Not only that, but also they coordinate with other wikimedians and volunteers to help with the translation, as far as possible. This cooperation didn’t only enhance the quality of translation, but also helped provide the translation on-time.

Diff Blogs

Here are some publications on Diff about the Universal Code of Conduct which you may find interesting, please check them out:

Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees 2021 election

The Universal Code of Conduct team would like to remind all readers that Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees 2021 elections are currently underway and will conclude on 31 August. Please take a minute to: