Talk:Code of Conduct/Archive 4

COI
How the committee is formed interests me little, as I don't think we should have a committee (see above). As someone who has shared the responsibility of approving a code of ethics in an organisation way larger than our technical community, I recall that the main concern is generally conflict of interest, which must be avoided at any rate to prevent complete discredit of the policy.

Whoever decides on forceful enforcement (e.g. a block of a contributor) is disposing of movement resources (e.g. volunteer developer time), which also reminds us of Guidelines on potential conflicts of interest. For instance I would be uncomfortable if a WMIT (Wikimedia Italia) employee or contractor happened to "judge" a case involving another WMIT employee or contractor, as any outcome clearly implies (financial) interest: promoting the employer's interest affects renewal of a contract, vacating a job currently taken by an involved party affects employment opportunities in the organisation. --Nemo 07:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Conflicts of interest are usual in community affairs, and there are ways to deal with it. Committee members have the same chances to have COI than stewards, sysops, WMF employees, and just any humans involved. Promoting diversity of affiliations in the committee and allowing committee members to disclose COI and step aside in specific cases should be enough to control this problem reasonably. Nothing new.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a good suggestion. I've added a point about that. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:24, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. "Members of the committee must not participate in a decision if doing so would place them in a conflict of interest." This is quite generic; I'd prefer the example I provided to be explicitly forbidden: «a WMIT (Wikimedia Italia) employee or contractor happened to "judge" a case involving another WMIT employee or contractor». Nemo 16:45, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That seems like a highly specific example to use. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I note that the quoted guideline says "The WMF staff and committees are required to serve the same mission, ultimately report to the WMF Board, and do not have competing interests." Presumably this applies equally to WMIT. Even though in this case they don't report to the same board (the committee would probably not report to any board at all), they still serve the same mission, so their goals are aligned. Derailing a legitimate misconduct claim against a member of a Wikimedia organization would hardly be in the best interest of that organization.
 * That said, I don't think a restrictive COI policy would do any harm, either. Worst case the committee could just defer to the ECT if too many members have recused. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 01:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Nemo: by analogy, would this prevent committee members who work or contract for the WMF from being involved with cases that involve other WMF employees/contractors? If so, I don't think that's practical. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Does anyone think that Committee members with a conflict of interest should be free to act? If not, what is wrong an explicit statement prohibiting it? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:05, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Nothing is wrong with such a prohibition. In fact, there already is an explicit prohibition.  The questions are whether to provide an example (remembering that that example would only cover one of many possible issues), and what exactly constitutes a conflict of interest. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:09, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The strong point of wmf:Resolution:Guidelines on potential conflicts of interest is to "disclose actively" conflicts of interest. The first step is that if any Committee or any Developer Relations member think they have a COI, they should disclose it. Common affiliation doesn't presume automatically a COI, just like different affiliation doesn't presume automatically lack of COI. As a Developer Relations member, I would definitely think to have a COI if a report is made by or against another DevRel member, but the same is not true for the +200 employees of the WMF. Following Nemo's argument, if a WMF specializing on PHP development is fired because of a resolution, I will hardly benefit from that since I'm not a candidate for their position. However, if that PHP developer happens to be a close friend, then I will declare COI because I might be emotionally biased. The same can happen if certain non-WMF people who are close friends end up involved in a report. It is relative, and the first step is to disclose the COI. Once disclosed, the Committee or DevRel (depending on who needs to handle the report) can decide what to do, most probably keep that person out of the process to play safe.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:46, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Reports involving WMF employees
This is a spin-off of the discussion of #Conduct Committee v Legal Counsel related to Wikimedia Foundation employees and the discussed requirement to report to WMF bodies such as the Human Resources or the Legal team (or the managers of the employees affected, let me add).

It is a fact that the Wikimedia Foundation must follow the law of the State of California. If a WMF employee is involved in harassment or other illegal type of conduct, the WMF might start accruing liabilities since the moment such event happens or is reported. Other considerations alien to this CoC and Wikimedia tech such as whether the employee has a management role or not do have clear legal implications. As a WMF employee, being a witness of a harassment case involving another WMF employee and failing to report this to your manager or HR might also have implications that fall beyond this CoC. We need to consider these factors when defining how reporting works and how the committee works. Employees of chapters i.e. Wikimedia Germany might be in similar/different situations based on the similar/different laws they need to follow.

The point being questioned is that private reports are expected to keep their privacy, and reporting to WMF HR or Legal would hamper such privacy. Let's try to dissect the problem: A point of flexibility here is the moment between the report to the committee and the decision of the committee to involve WMF Legal / HR or not. There is a risk for false accusations seeking escalation and trouble for an innocent employee, a form of harassment in itself. The committee could have a buffer to analyze reports before reporting them directly to the WMF. In fact, the process of escalation to the ECT already contemplated in the draft could be the step to follow: committee tells to ECT that this case involves WMF employees or might have legal consequences for the WMF, and ECT proceeds with the escalation.
 * Not all reports will have a strict requirement for privacy. In many cases the potential abuse is logged in URLs publicly available, so there is not much secret around them.
 * Not all private reports will refer to behavior legally classified as harassment or another type of conduct with legal implications.
 * Not all private reports with legal implications will affect WMF employees, although it is unclear whether these cases should still be reported to WMF Legal, because they would be happening in WMF infrastructure or activities...
 * About private reports that might have legal implications, the committee should recommend to the reporter to share this case with WMF Legal (and HR if it involves WMF employees). The reporter wants a solution to this problem, this is why they are reporting, and these bodies have experience and tools to support the committee and deal with the problem beyond it. Needless to say, members of these teams (just like the managers of allegedly offending/offended WMF employees) have signed a work contract and an NDA that ties them to stricter rules about privacy than the own committee members.
 * While theoretically there might be situations where the reporter will want to share a problem with the committee but not with the WMF even if a WMF employee is involved, I believe in most cases reporters will be comforted by the fact that their reports involving WMF employees will be properly reported and escalated to the WMF when needed.

Although this post is very long and the discussion might get a lot longer, when it comes to the draft I think we would only need to add something like


 * Reports involving employees of a Wikimedia organization as well as reports with potential legal implications to the Wikimedia Foundation must be shared with the Engineering Community team, who will consider the escalation to the WMF Legal or Human Resources teams.

--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:36, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Why can't we just ask the victim whether they are OK with it? See Geek Feminism: Responding to reports and 'Why didn't you report it'. If the report is always sent to HR, it is very likely it will dissuade people from responding -- WMF HR is not generally seen as a neutral entity, and many people will assume HR and Legal will act to reduce liabilities for the Foundation rather than trying to solve the issue at hand, which triggers all the fears listed in the 'Why didn't you report it' post. Valhallasw (talk) 14:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Valhallasw, I agree. HR and Legal's jobs are, fundamentally, to protect the interests of the WMF. In many cases this should align with protecting the interests of vulnerable individuals, but I've heard from enough people who've learned the hard way not to trust their own HR departments that it is simply not reasonable to expect that all people who experience unacceptable behavior will be ok with that information being shared. The scenarios likely to be most concerning are when information is shared with HR, and retaliation occurs, or when information is shared with HR, HR acts, and the vulnerable person is blamed for HR's actions ("You got him/me fired!") and is now open to retaliation from that person or their friends/allies. There have been high-profile cases of both of these in tech within the last couple of years and it's not reasonable for people to blindly trust that the WMF will do better.


 * To be clear: I am not saying that I expect these to happen, or that WMF HR is incompetent or malicious. I do not expect coverups of major misconduct. I trust them considerably more than I've trusted HR at other orgs I've worked for. All that said, I still expect that if there is a situation where they have to choose between what's best for the WMF and what's best for me, there's a good chance they won't choose me.


 * At the same time, I see the arguments for having some way to involve HR: legal liability, and the question of what should happen if sanctions on an employee affect their ability to do their job. If a WMF engineer is banned from Phabricator for a week, that will affect their ability to carry out their work. If someone on Community Tech is permanently banned from Labs spaces, they won't be able to work on bots and tools and the scope of work available to them is suddenly much smaller. I think it's reasonable for HR to know about things that affect an employee's ability to do the work they are hired to do. I don't know how to balance that with targets' wishes and risk analyses.


 * I suspect there isn't a good answer here. I'd like to talk with someone from HR and Legal and hear what sorts of things they really need to know about, and see if there are existing confidentiality policies that can perhaps be adapted. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 17:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's already theoretically possible to be banned from Phabricator/Gerrit/Labs/wherever permanently, and therefore lose the ability to do your job. I don't see why we need a policy stating that WMF HR needs to be informed now. Particularly, we should be careful to leave the actual decision to the committee (never their company), with just a notification of the outcome going to the affected person's HR department (whether that be at WMF or WMDE or some random other contributor's company). -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 18:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that HR should not be able to influence the Committee's outcome in any way. But of course HR can take their own additional actions. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * +1. Ironholds (talk) 20:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * So are we happy with the fact that the Code may conflict with the laws of the jurisdiction where the incident complained of took place? For example, in the UK it is a crime to publish the name of the complainant in a serious sexual offence, yet this is arguably mandated by the code.  Whether or not there is a conflict in this specific case -- IANAL -- has WMF Legal explicitly considered what the effect may of conflict of laws and are they explicitly satisfied that their requirements are sound on this point?  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's not true. IASOAL and what you're referring to is Section 5 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. You might note, if you've read that section, that it provides a complete defence of anyone accused of violating it if the complainant has given written permission for the name to be published. Ironholds (talk) 21:50, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, it is true, and Malcolm Blackman was fined £400 for doing so as reported in the London Evening Standard on Thursday 3rd September. As you point out there is a statutory defence to the charge which is not relevant here since the Code does not require the complainant to give written permission for the complaint to be made public, and I doubt that anyone would suggest that was a reasonable requirement.  My question was addressed to the WMF Legal and unless "IASOAL" means "I am answering on behalf of the WMF Legal department" your response is somewhat irrelevant.  The question is, have the actual lawyers in WMF Legal explicitly considered what the implications are for their requirements when incidents take place in other jurisdictions especially when the law of the state of California is in conflict?  What we want here is a Code that encourages victims of harassment to speak up and protects their interests while not exposing the Committee to unncessary legal risks themselves.  That requires careful consideration by Legal. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 07:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Malcolm Blackman was fined for publicly identifying the person who said he raped her. That is not a remotely sensible comparison to make. Anyway, nowhere deos the CoC mandate identifying the complainant; in fact it states in quite clear terms that " All reports will be kept confidential. In some cases we may determine that a public statement will need to be made. If that is the case, the identities of all victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise." This discussion has somehow become completely detached from the reality of the text. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 02:12, 13 September2015 (UTC)
 * My question was addressed to WMF Legal and asked for explicit consideration of the question as to whether their requirements for reporting incidents to them might be in conflict with the legal requirements of the jurisdictions in which events of harassment might take place (bearing in mind that this Code covers in-person as well as on-line harassment). I gave as an example the legal situation in one country for one sort of crime: a serious example to illustrate the possible difficulties in a serious situation.  The Code is already somewhat unsatisfactory in that the statement of strict confidentiality which you cite conflicts with the requirement to report to WMF HR in a range of cases.  Your opinion of one specific case is somewhat irrelevant.  In the absence of an answer from an qualified lawyer who has given careful attention to the implications of this requirement in the situation of conflict of laws, I think that it would be better for non-lawyers to refrain from giving their unqualified opinions on whether this part of the Code is legally sound. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:49, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll take no response in a fortnight as indicating that WMF Legal do not care about this issue. It would have been slightly more courteous to post a message here saying that they did not think it worth addressing, but I suppose their time is too valuable.  More surprisingly, the word they "require" has gone again.  Does this indicate that this requirement is no longer required?  If so, it really would help if they were to say so. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:23, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No, what happened is that we decided to discuss by sections, and the "Report an issue" discussions have been left after solving Committee. I asked WMF Legal to wait until we discuss this section. This discussion will be reopened and eventually resolved when we get back to it.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:30, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You may have thought that this question did not need answering just yet: I was not consulted in the matter. I find that discourteous, and the result has been to waste both your and my time.  The next time you contemplate telling one of your colleagues not to answer a question that I have asked, I would prefer to be consulted beforehand if at all possible and, at the very least, informed afterwards. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 16:29, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Rogol Domedonfors, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. When I proposed the "Next steps" I thought that pausing discussions like this one was implicitly understood. Now, re-reading, I realize that there was no clear relation other than the coincidence in time. Again, I'm sorry. How to handle the requirement for privacy with the requirement to report cases related to WMF employees to WMF HR or Legal needs discussion indeed. The other sections seem to be consolidating progressively, let's resume this discussion.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:40, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that. I am concerned that you seem to regard yourself as authorised to determine which parts of these discussions should be allowed to proceed, and which should not.  From where do you believe you acquired that authority? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No authority. I just proposed Next steps, nobody objected, and I acted in consequence.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 05:35, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Again thanks for clarifying that. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:42, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Remaining catch-all
"Other unethical or unprofessional conduct."

I thought Quim and others had worked to reduce the ambiguity in some of the language from this section. This last bullet seems to be an open-ended catch-all. Should it be included? --MZMcBride (talk) 04:49, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This sentence comes from the original Contributor covenant this CoC is based upon. I think it is fine to keep it. If a report is filed about other unethical or unprofessional conduct, then the committee will evaluate it anyway.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 17:51, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should really care about where it comes from, this needs to reflect exactly what we as a technical community believe is an appropriate rule, not what other people believe is an appropriate rule. I agree that it's too open to interpretation. @Qgil-WMF: Are you suggesting that the committee would deal with complaints outside the scope of the code of conduct? -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 19:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What if it was "other harassing or inappropriate conduct" to link it in more tightly with the narrative around that section as a whole? That way it makes clear that it's designed to cover behaviour in the same vein as what is explicitly laid out, even if the behaviour that occurs isn't - but also makes clear that the intent is not to ban someone from gerrit because they stole all the t-shirts at a hackathon (which would be unprofessional but probably isn't the Conduct Committee's business) I don't particularly think the conduct committee would ever lay claim to that kind of behaviour but I understand why people get apprehensive at catch-alls and this might tighten it up a bit . Ironholds (talk) 20:29, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's better, but I suspect it's already covered by "Examples include but are not limited to". -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 20:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Harassment and other types of inappropriate behavior are unacceptable" plus "Examples include but are not limited to" already cover the scope of the CoC. Removing the reiterative bullet point contributes to give a small percentage of relevance to the remaining bullet points, so I went ahead and did it. I think the result is slightly better, with no loss.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:33, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I read this as imparting some flexibility and space for discretion on the committee's part. Rigid policies invite rules lawyers. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * How is "Examples include but are not limited to" rigid? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 02:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The "inappropriate" and "unwanted" lines are still catch-all phrases that are not really helpful. "Unwanted" is meaningless unless we expect contributors to have the ability to read minds, and anyone willing to engage in conduct they deem to be inappropriate will not be deterred from it by a CoC asking them.

If "unwanted" is meant as doing something after you have been told it's unwanted, we should say so. Something like "Engaging in personal communication, following, physical contact (sexual or otherwise), photography or other recording that the offender has been made aware is not wanted"?

As for inappropriate: --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 02:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * is there appropriate use of sexual language/imagery? All the high-profile cases I can think of involved completely innocent use of sexual imagery, such as showing a girl in a bikini as a transition between slides; but most involved seemed to agree that it was inappropriate. The safe approach is probably to not use such things at all, unless it is necessitated by the subject of the discussion (e.g. when talking about a profanity filter or an explicit content warning feature). So maybe replace it with "unnecessary use of sexual language/imagery"?
 * I have changed "inappropriate" for "gratuitous or off-topic", which is clearer and more precise, borrowed from http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/ --Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I support the change insofar it is more clear, but - Tgr, there is no situation in which using a girl in a bikini as a slide transition is anywhere near innocent. It is inherently and immediately something that creates a hostile environment. If what you mean is that the person who did it didn't realise it's a problem, that's a totally different class of issue. Ironholds (talk) 20:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree (although that blog post is terrible). The point I was trying to make is that in the objective sense of inappropriate = people protest when it happens, any avoidable use of sexual content seems to be inappropriate, so we can as well as drop the attributive (thanks Quim!). --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * A sideswipe at the resourcing isn't really useful or conducive to this conversation. I'm glad we're in agreement. Ironholds (talk) 15:50, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You haven't given anything wrong with that blog post. It seems like a pretty neutral (e.g. it notes "No, that doesn’t mean that Matt Taylor’s shirt specifically tells us he engages in harassing behavior. It doesn’t mean that it tells us bad things are going down at ESA.") and well-researched discussion. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is such a thing as inappropriate but wanted following/phyisical contact/etc. so just saying unwanted should be good enough there.
 * Inappropriate communication is probably already covered by the other points; if not, those points should be expanded instead.
 * I disagree that we need the ability to read minds to know what is unwanted, even before being explicitly told. Social conventions define defaults for wanted/unwanted. These defaults can be definitely fuzzy and different across cultures etc, but they exist and are quite common in many situations related to i.e. sexual contact or stalking. I would also simplify "Inappropriate or unwanted" in simply "Unwanted" to make the point stronger. "Unwanted communication" can be me keeping sending you private emails about personal topics after you have requested me repeatedly to stop doing that. The content of each email might be formally correct and not a violation of the CoC but the act of persevering in an unwanted personal communication becomes harassment.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:16, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Unwanted and inappropriate conduct are surely different things. Certain acts when performed in public may well be inappropriate even if consensual. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 13:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Mmm true. Then it looks like the current wording is correct after all.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, "inappropriate" is needed here. We don't want someone groping a conference attendee and then saying it was OK because they weren't sure it was unwanted. Kaldari (talk) 23:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Quim. In many cases, the social cues and conventions show that something will certainly or most likely be unwanted.  We do not want to allow "they didn't explicitly tell me it was unwanted" as a guaranteed free pass.  It's true there may be good-faith borderline situations caused by genuine culture differences and/or misread social cues.  But that's why the committee can ask all sides and come up with an appropriate penalty, which might only be a private warning in a minor case caused by a genuine misunderstanding. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:26, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The list of unacceptable behaviors begins with "Examples include but are not limited to" which makes it clear that a behavior can be considered unacceptable despite not being explicitly listed there. That is sufficient to prevent rules lawyering. All other points should serve the purpose of preventing misbehavior (or encouraging its reporting) by telling someone who otherwise would not have realized that a certain thing is unacceptable. Handwavy stuff like "do not engage in communication in a way that violates cultural conventions or social cues" does not do that. If someone does not know what said cues and conventions are, the CoC does nothing whatsoever to help them. If someone does know, they don't really need the list of unacceptable things at all; they just need to know that there are consequences for behaving unacceptably.
 * So vague claims do not make the CoC more effective, but they can be actively harmful. Conventions are fuzzy across cultures and also across different levels of social skill. Saying "don't do inappropriate things" implies that you should know what those are, and if you don't know (or don't know what's inappropriate in the US, or at a conference attended by rich industry types you don't normally meet, etc), you are at the wrong place. (Also worth noting that about 1 in 20 adults in the US are estimated to have social anxiety disorder; anecdotally, it is even more frequent in online and technical communities. WebMD describes it as fear that someone "will make mistakes, look bad, and be embarrassed or humiliated in front of others. The fear may be made worse by a lack of social skills or experience in social situations. ... As a result of the fear, the person endures certain social situations in extreme distress or may avoid them altogether." Warnings about horrible consequences of ill-defined bad behavior can easily prevent such persons from joining a community.)
 * Again quoting the Open CoC, "continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease" is an actually useful way of putting what "unwanted communication" was probably intended to mean. The other "unwanted"/"inappropriate" points can probably be rewritten along those lines. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 10:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "Continued one-on-one communication, following, or stalking after requests to cease."? --Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:08, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that would be a clear and helpful warning of what not to do. I would maybe replace "requests" with "a request" just to make it entirely clear that you are supposed to stop bothering others as soon as they first ask you. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:11, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this. I think "Inappropriate or unwanted communication, following, or any form of stalking." is sufficiently clear already.  I think people with social anxiety disorder are likely to find social situations uncomfortable with or without a code of conduct, so I don't really think that should be a driving factor.  Furthermore, we already need "Examples include but are not limited to" as noted by Tgr.  So there is going to be a bit of discretion to fight rules-lawyering either way.  None of the quotes from WebMD support the proposition that written rules like would make someone more stressed than no written rules at all; that seems unlikely.  I think narrowing the line items will however however create greater uncertainty and anxiety for people considering reporting an incident.  If this were adopted, stalking would have to be separated out.  We clearly don't want to allow stalking until someone asks you to stop stalking them. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:13, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This explanation of social anxiety is an excellent explanation of what it feels like from the perspective of people who feel they are at risk of getting things wrong and being in violation of behavioural standards, but it is just that - one-sided. It is not the only way social anxiety can appear and present in this sort of space, much less the world as a whole.
 * Here's another example for you; someone suffers from social anxiety and they witness (or are subject to) the violation of the code of conduct. Now they have to report it. That means talking to a load of total strangers about something that happened to them, or that they saw, with those strangers making a judgment of how important that thing is. It means having to rock the boat, sometimes in front of absolutely everyone. It definitely means rocking the boat in front of the person who was misbehaving. Those are all socially anxious situations, and they are all situations people can run into as the victims of misbehaviour not the potential perpetrators of it.
 * We seem to be doing a lot of work to make sure that everyone is comfortable being subject to this policy, and putting ourselves in that mindset, and I see nowhere near as much prose on the other side - making sure that this is comfortable for the people who might need this policy. That needs to change. Part of it is that people discomforted with a policy includes a subset of people who are worried they violate (or would violate) it, and those people show up, and because by definition people who find the existing space uncomfortable are far less likely to appear in the discussion. But part of it is us being fairly selective with what we spend our time empathising about. Let's please stop doing that. If we're going to start waxing lyrical on the costs to the people this would be enforced against we should be just as empathetic to and spend just as much, if not far more, time, on the people who need this. Ironholds (talk) 20:01, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think an equal-time rule for discussion topics would work well nor that this design process should be presented as a trade-off between making the code of conduct friendly to the people who are harassed or for those who are not harassed - let's try and do both.
 * I think the best way to address reporter anxiety is anonymity - if full anonymity is not viable, than at least for the initial step of asking whether a given incident is something the committee would consider as an issue. Not sure if there is a technical measure for making that easy (if nothing else, a reporter could register a throwaway email address). Plus word the CoC in such a way that it invites reports when in doubt. And make it clear that the identity of the people involved is a private issue and publishing it falls under "Disclosure of a person's identity or other private information without their consent". --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 06:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * per above, maybe change the Confidentiality section of the committee page to include all participants, not just the members? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:09, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * the details about confidentiality of reports should be clear and specific in the Reporting page. I think it is fine to leave the Committee page withing the scope of the Committee.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:12, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That section works too, but I don't think the current section is as clear as it could be. It focuses on the committee treating information confidentially; it gives no guarantee of the (alleged) offender doing so. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I made a change related to this, focusing on internal deliberations. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:23, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with "Plus word the CoC in such a way that it invites reports when in doubt." Slight redundancy, e.g. "Inappropriate or unwanted communication, following, or any form of stalking." can help with that. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:10, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I have received a private comment uncomfortable with the change to "Gratuitous or off-topic use of sexual language or imagery". Since I did that edit based on the Open Code of Conduct, let me explain. "Sexual language or imagery" is a vague topic with multiple (and frequently incompatible) expectations across cultures, social backgrounds, etc. Note that "sexual" and "sexist" are different words, and we are choosing to use the first one here. In Spanish, names of male and female sexual parts of the body can be used frequently by both men and women. If during a presentation in a conference I say "coño" or "joder", this will hardly be considered "inappropriate", although nobody would argue that in the context of a public communication they are definitely "gratuitous or off-topic".

On sexual imagery, different people and cultures have different opinions about how much exposure of the body you need to become sexual, and how much sexually explicit an image needs to be to become "sexual". In Spain any beach is good for top-less by people of any age, while seeing pre-teen boys and girls playing naked is not unfrequent, and nudist beaches are everywhere, frequently constituting just a segment of a regular public beach. With very different temperatures, Scandinavia has a similar concept of freedom to show your own body. In Spain or Scandinavia, if I would start my presentation humorously showing a picture of myself naked at the beach when I was 10 or 30 years, that would be hardly considered inappropriate (as long as the picture is family style and not obscene), but nobody would argue that this is "gratuitous or off-topic".

This is why I think "gratuitous or off-topic" is better than "inappropriate", because the first option actually is more effective on preventing the use of any sexual language and imagery at all, regardless of how "inappropriate" it is considered by the different parties involved. You could say, so why not simply saying "Any use of sexual language or imagery"? My opinion here is that such type of sentences may carry a connotation of 'all sexual language and imagery is intrinsically bad' that I personally disagree with, and I don't even think that is a debate we need to start here. This is a Code of Conduct for technical spaces, where sexual language and imagery will be hardly necessary and on-topic ever. "Gratuitous or off-topic" allows for consensus across a wide range of socially valid sexual perceptions that don't fall in the category of sexist, and is equally effective at catching any sexist language and imagery.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll chip in here mostly due to my background with Wikimedia LGBT and interest in the history of sexuality, though I have materially stepped away from discussing this CoC as a mediawiki volunteer.
 * There should be a distinction between an intent to create a hostile environment or upset a specific contributor, and casually referencing material that some might find offensive or choose to take offence from. This can easily be part of a technical issue under discussion, as for Commons some of the most "noticed" or complained about files are those with nude figures, erotic artwork, or linked with sex education. My uploads this week have several hundred images of nude adults and children, as our book plates project covers 19th century medical and surgical images (including photographs that some may find distressing or not safe for work). Personally, I would take care to avoid inserting images like this into any technical discussion in a surprising way, however a technical issue is actually more likely to be noticed by reusers and reported as examples, rather than more mundane or specialized ones. It may also be the case that some of our projects focus on sexuality or LGBT culture (a couple of mine have), and whatever our policies on individual conduct, we should not make good faith volunteers who are helping with these projects worried about being accidentally being caught up in official complaints, or put at risk of ending up publicly sanctioned (even if in practice I hope we all expect this an unrealistic concern). Anyway, whatever the final wording, I would hope that if there is no intent to cause distress, that this would be quickly identified as a communication or cultural gap issue, rather than one that would ever necessitate formal harassment procedures and sanctions. --Fæ (talk) 13:49, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there anything we could alter about the scope of the policy that would make people feel more comfortable about the projects it covers? By that I mean that if we're applying this policy directly to any content projects, sexuality/LGBT culture or no, we've messed it up somewhere, and that's evidently a concern. I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by "a technical issue is..." - the scenario in which someone from one of these projects notices a bug and the bug report contains potentially offensive materials? Or am I reading it wrong? Ironholds (talk) 15:30, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "gratuitous or off-topic" clearly does not pertain to bug reports, where the sexually explicit content is the topic of the report. As for intent, it is entirely possible to create a hostile environment without any intent; that still shouldn't be acceptable. "Unacceptable" doesn't necessarily mean that it will be sanctioned; the CoC itself recommends "Victims and observers of unacceptable behavior may ask abusers to stop, making them aware of this Code of Conduct." as a first step. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 06:39, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll stand by my statement thanks, and don't see much point in reiterating it or playing a game of logical reduction. As explained previously, the unpaid volunteer viewpoint is getting lost in this style of free-for all debate, where there are so many vigorous proponents of the status quo. If you wish to be seen to value the unpaid volunteer voice, then you need to find a better way to listen, rather than the "volunteer community" reduced to the handful of volunteers who are prepared to argue each case in a strong adversarial style and invest as much time as paid volunteers. --Fæ (talk) 08:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * While "gratuitous or off-topic" is better than the tautological "inappropriate", I agree with the 13:49 comment that there is high potential for such clauses to intimidate volunteers and reduce participation.
 * They are also likely to be abused for the sake of censorship, realpolitik or other purposes inappropriate for our mission, as WMF often showed us. On the other hand, I'm not aware of a systematic problem with sexualised imagery and language (though I tend to be oversensible to it), although we do have some gender-assuming language by mostly clueless people (the same kind of persons who "ingenuously" assume beer/whatever is good for everyone at any event).
 * All in all, with this bullet we are a) defending ourselves from hypothetical intensive harm, b) not defending ourselves from diffuse known harm, c) taking very likely risks of harm on ourselves. It's not quite clear to me what's the benefit. --Nemo 06:58, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I propose to keep that sentence about sexual language or imagery as is. We all are agreeing on the underlying principle, and the wording is precise enough to take action if someone acts in contradiction. I cannot think of a real case where a potential technical contributor will not join us because of this line. If, after the CoC is approved, we end up in a real case where this point is problematic, then we can discuss how to fix it.
 * I think the discussion in this section has provided some improvements to the draft and also more hindsight on the thoughts behind the words used. Please let's move to other topics where we have a higher need to find answers.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * First of all, it's extremely rare that someone in a technical space (people working on Commons or Wikipedia on 19th century medical and surgical images, etc., will not be affected by this CoC) will need to explicitly include sexual imagery or language at all. Even if they do need to do so (e.g. reporting a bug that happens on a specific image), there is an exception that allows it as long as it is neither gratuitous nor off-topic.  Thus, I don't think the idea that there is a "high potential for such clauses to intimidate volunteers and reduce participation" is credible. Your two links relate solely to controversy about policy on content projects, and do not support the idea that necessary sexual content is common in technical spaces.  a) This is not hypothetical, it has happened in several technical spaces, especially but not solely conferences, and alienated people (just one example). b) See above regarding the alleged 'diffuse known harm'. c) Per above, false reports based on this clause are in no way "very likely".  Such clauses are common in CoC's (including the Contributor Covenant, which is one of our main source materials), and I don't know of any case where it was wrongly used to suppress legitimate discussion or technical work.  Nor have you cited any such case.  Finally, there is enforcement discretion, so even if someone does violate it unintentionally, an appropriate response can be taken (maybe no action or just a private warning). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:07, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Own page for the Committee
There have been several mentions about the usefulness to move all the details about functioning and membership of the committee to an own page. I think this is a good idea for several reasons: It is still worth keeping the text in the CoC page while we are drafting in order to keep the discussions in one place at this point. However, that text should be clearly marked to go to its own page. This separation has been seen positive by several people before, so I went ahead proposing the change in the draft.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:17, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * it simplifies the CoC document
 * we will need a page for the committee anyway, to identify its members, post announcements, etc
 * details about the functioning of the committee can be discussed and agreed without having to touch the CoC, which should be a quite stable document.
 * It is fine for the CoC to be composed of multiple pages. However, we should separate what is the CoC policy, and what is adjacent administrative stuff (e.g. list of committee members, procedural details the committee comes up with).  Obviously the list of people and announcements are not part of the CoC.  But also, the procedural details are not; they can clarify details of CoC enforcement, but not be inconsistent with it.  Amending the CoC is different from adding a procedural element.
 * I suggest we compose the whole Code of Conduct (i.e. the policy-level parts) of everything under Code of conduct for technical spaces/Policy. So this main CoC document would be moved to Code of conduct for technical spaces/Policy, and subpages that are still parts of the CoC proper would go to e.g. Code of conduct for technical spaces/Policy/Committee.  The list of committee members and user-friendly non-binding explanation could go to Code of conduct for technical spaces/Committee.  Procedure the committee comes up with itself could go to e.g. Code of conduct for technical spaces/Committee/Meeting procedure. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 14:58, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I got lost. From the current Committee section, what would you keep together with Principles and Unacceptable behavior, and what would you move to own pages? I think we can recreate these pages here using "=" headers, so we have the real division of pages but still everything in one place for better discussion.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 02:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would approach this from a usability point of view. There are going to be a lot of readers who want to learn what they shouldn't do / what they should call out others for doing, and (hopefully) a very few number of readers who need to know how to report violations or otherwise get involved in the enforcement process. So separate the description of what people should not do and the description of what happens when someone does it anyway. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 02:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have started by separating the CoC page from the Committee page. We could have a "Report an issue" section after "Unacceptable behavior" with the minimum information, linking to Code of conduct for technical spaces/Report an issue where the full process of reporting, enforcing, and appealing would be described. This would leaves us with three pages: CoC, Report and Issue, and Committee.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:27, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ... and I have moved the Reporting/Enforcement part to an own page as well. The draft now reflects a structure of three pages that looks usable and solid. What do you think?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:24, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this change (and Tgr's initial rationale that very few people will hopefully need the enforcement mechanisms).
 * Yes, in an ideal universe enforcement is rarely or never needed, but UX design is not just about prioritising the most common use cases, it is about prioritising the most important use cases. Sometimes these are the most common, but sometimes they aren't - for example, removing the "edit" button from Wikipedia would marginally improve the UX for 99% of users but totally cripple site usage for the remaining 1%, and as that site usage is essential to our functioning, we don't do it.
 * This is a code of conduct. It's designed primarily to act as a shield and conduit for people who are badly treated. Yes, one part of that is the presence and enforcement of the policy hopefully encouraging people to behave better, but there is no situation where someone needs enforcement and doesn't really need enforcement. Making finding how to contact the committee and how all of that works easy is of primary importance. Putting it on a sub-page from the actual behavioural guidelines undermines that primacy. It should be on the same page as the rules we expect people to adhere to. Ironholds (talk) 19:54, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I actually would say that stressing the details on reporting and enforcement (as they are stressed when they occupy 2/3 of the whole page) undermines the essence of the code of conduct, which is the definition of expectations and unacceptable behavior. The codes of conduct we got the inspiration from and we are referring to as good examples don't get into the details of reporting and enforcement, they are solid and sound. If the problem is that users of the CoC need to see clearly that they can report the problem, I'm sure we can find a design solution to that. If your concern is that by separating procedures from CoC we make them more fragile or something, all of them will be tagged and treated as policies.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 15:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought I'd been pretty clear, but; my concern is that when people need to know where to go for enforcement they really need to know. Separating out the enforcement mechanism undermines this use case. I'm not saying all the enforcement process needs listing on the main page, but it needs a clear and prominent reference to who to contact if there is a problem. Ironholds (talk) 15:57, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Now we have a section "Report a problem" describing the expected escalation process (contact the person or contact the admins or report to the committee), offering a link to "report a problem", and the email address. If someone who really need to know landed in the CoC page, sending an email right away to techconduct@ should be enough, otherwise the rest is just one click away. If we are considering really urgent cases here, then we should add the note about emergency@, which is entirely a different thing.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This seems like a good idea to me. We should definitely have some information, even if it is minimal, for people who come to the CoC because they are experiencing a problem and need help. Kaldari (talk) 23:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My concern is to separate policy-level pages and other pages (as an analogy, Wikipedia:Verifiability is a policy, while w:Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth is just a wiki page). It's takes more consensus to change a policy-level page than an ordinary page (even one summarizing a policy).  I don't think we need essays about the CoC (but people could put them in userspace), but we do need supplementary pages (e.g. list of committee members at Code of conduct for technical spaces/Committee, meeting procedure devised by each committee at Code of conduct for technical spaces/Committee/Meeting procedure) that are not policy-level.  I've shown my proposal using the system you've made on the main page (= sections).  The separation already there made sense, so I just changed the titles.  Only the policy-level ones need to be decided now. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:13, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that we need to identify policy pages as such and we need to follow a more careful process to update those. However, I think naming the pages with "/Policy" is superfluous and adds an unnecessary bureaucratic flair to the CoC. A Template:Policy should be enough to achieve that. This doesn't stop the Committee creating the non-policy pages they need.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 05:44, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I don't feel strongly about it, so I've undid my edit. Template:Development policy (that's what Template:Policy redirects to) is not suitable, though, since it is meant for a different type of policy with a different approval and update process.  That can be addressed with a new template, e.g. Template:Conduct policy or Template:Community policy. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:39, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Consensus discussion on intro, "Principles", and "Unacceptable behavior" sections
Do we have consensus that the current text of the intro (lead section before "Principles"), "Principles", and "Unacceptable behavior" should be considered done?

This does not mean these sections would yet become binding. There will be separate procedure later to decide whether to approve the Code of Conduct.

This is just about whether we can mark these sections as done, and move on to the remaining sections. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 15:18, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Reminder. The consensus discussion is solely about the linked version, not changes made after that.  I am thinking if this version has consensus, we could look at the changes made after that and maybe have a brief discussion (1 week) about whether to approve further changes that happened during the first discussion. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Consensus reached. There is a lot of support for this text.  There's a couple neutrals and only a few opposes, most of whom object to (or describe themselves as dubious regarding) having a CoC at all (there will be a separate discussion about whether to adopt the CoC when it is done).  See Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft for a follow-up discussion about whether we should switch to new text for these sections (there have been some changes during the first consensus discussion). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's utterly ridiculous that the proposer is the same person who declares there is a consensus. Do we expect a policy created in disrespect of basic decision-making Wikimedia practices to be taken seriously by anyone? FWIW, there clearly isn't consensus: only a dozen persons supported the proposal, out of ~58 who participated in the discussion. At best you could say a relative majority, which is not consensus. --Nemo 06:34, 6 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I think we've done a good job addressing issues and coming up with consensus text for this. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 15:18, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I still think that, in the "Principles" section, the "we" sentences -- "we pledge", "we are committed" -- should be rewritten. As currently stated, I would think these are meaningless at best, false claims at worst. Yaron Koren (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * discussion: "We pledge"
 * . Looks pretty good to me. I understand Yaron's concerns but I don't have a problem with aspirational prologues, as it were. Ironholds (talk) 15:50, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No. The intro is incorrect (claims "we" have control of things "we" don't control, contains undefined phrases such as "representing the project"); principles are either empty babble or dubious (freedom of religion is mentioned, but not freedom of opinion, thought or expression?!); "Unacceptable behavior" is either redundant (compared to the terms of use) or tautological ("prohibited things are prohibited"). --Nemo 16:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC) P.s.: This comment is not an endorsement of the validity of this section as tool to determine consensus on this matter.
 * discussion: 
 * Given the 21:01, 16 September 2015 comment above, I confirm that the same problems are present in the current version. --Nemo 11:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This is solid, and has been modified to address most of the points that have been raised in the discussion. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 16:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks pretty solid to me and discussion on those sections seems to have died down. Kaldari (talk) 23:35, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think these sections are simple and clear, the result of a very fruitful discussion. There might be still little details to polish while we draft the rest of the CoC, but I think the draft is already very good as it is now.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:49, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * These sections look pretty solid and I agree with everything said in them. I wonder if it would make sense to name 'prolonged staring' as an example of "inappropriate or unwanted attention" to avoid potential "well how was I supposed to know that's what it meant too" issues? --MPopov (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would still like to see the changes as discussed here. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 23:38, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * , persons employed discussing something applicable to developers, a nogo. besides this, there is no agreement beforehand to "do we need a code of conduct". additionally, there is no cultural awareness here, only anglo-saxon persons or persons employed there discuss for the world. there is no consideration of alternative models which might have a much higher impact, as eg "positive code of conduct" / "exemplary" / "living principled behaviour". the goal is not defined: is it to get more devs to write software? then the proposal is a miss. is it because the space is unfriendly? then the example cases are missing. for how many persons is this? if it is only for 10 persons, than it is overkill. should the code be short and easy? then it is a miss as alone the introduction is longer as other examples. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 07:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * discussion: Paid vs. unpaid; complexity
 * . I'm not WMF, nor anglosaxon, nor employed in an anglo-saxon country, yet I fully support having a code of conduct to set an absolute minimum on how people act in our community. I feel these sections clearly set this minimum. Valhallasw (talk) 10:48, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As a person who is still dubious about the effectiveness of a CoC, I nevertheless feel the need to bring some concerns here. As in the Contributor Covenant, terms such as "project administrators" and "maintainers" are not clearly defined; the definition of "unacceptable" as "inappropriate" is indeed tautological; and there is no reason why resolutions lasting less than 3 months may not be appealed. -- Ricordi  samoa  14:19, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * discussion: Definition of maintainers
 * I've seen harassment on-wiki and off-wiki for a very long time and it made me thick-skinned but I hope this CoC helps creating a foster place for newbies. It seems these sections can set the minimum of a foster environment. Ladsgroup (talk) 18:39, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It is regrettable that this discussion has been very largely conducted by WMF staff and that the support gained comes very largely from that group. Until there is a significant level of support from the volunteer community, the code will lack legitimacy.  Indeed, at present it bears an uncomfortable resemblance to an imposition on the community by the WMF, in tht the code has been largely drafted by WMF staff, is angled at the specific constraints of WMF staff, and assigns the ultimate enforcement authority to WMF staff.  This is not a comfortable position.  Why is there so little input at this stage from the wider community?  In the matter of legitimisation, the widest possible degree of involvement is desirable. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * discussion: 
 * I approve of the language and organization of content in this draft. Code of Conducts are not for me. Or you. They are for the underrepresented people who don't have the privilege we have. Those who don't feel comfortable attending our events - or if they do attend, speaking up when someone acts against members of the community. It's telling the the opposers to this are mainly made up of young men - not the group of individuals that would most benefit from a Code of Conduct.


 * We can't speak to the experiences of individuals that would most benefit a Code of Conduct. But we can use our position of privilege to give them a larger voice. I think it's important to publicly state that events are dedicated to providing a inviting and supportive environment that does not tolerate discrimination or harassment. Equally important is having a strong process for event organizers on what to do if something does happen. They should be empowered to act if an unfortunate event occurs without hesitation. Far smarter individuals have said it better than I. I encourage you to learn more.


 * https://medium.com/@bmanning/the-code-of-conduct-conundrum-ceb3693af7d3
 * http://republicofquality.com/lessons-from-a-code-of-conduct/
 * http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/

Ckoerner (talk) 15:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * All of my concerns with these sections have been resolved. John Vandenberg (talk) 21:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Redundance and freedom of opinion
No. The intro is incorrect (claims "we" have control of things "we" don't control, contains undefined phrases such as "representing the project"); principles are either empty babble or dubious (freedom of religion is mentioned, but not freedom of opinion, thought or expression?!); "Unacceptable behavior" is either redundant (compared to the terms of use) or tautological ("prohibited things are prohibited"). --Nemo 16:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC) P.s.: This comment is not an endorsement of the validity of this section as tool to determine consensus on this matter.
 * Nothing wrong with being redundant. Would you seriously inflict reading the 40.000 character terms of use on everyone who wishes to learn about etiquette? :)
 * Freedom of religion is actually not mentioned. What is mentioned is "making participation respectful and harassment-free for everyone regardless of religion". People certainly should not be harassed for holding unpopular opinions, whether religious or not; do you have any specific suggestion on how to amend the text? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The Terms of Use apply to everyone who uses the sites, so the answer to your question has to be "Yes". Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It applies to everyone, but no one actually reads it. WMF Legal made epic efforts to make that document readable and it's better than most ToUs; even so, it's a dozen pages, most of which is legalese. With the CoC we should be aiming at a document that we can refer people to and they will actually read it.
 * In any case, there is a single sentence in the ToU about unacceptable behavior that overlaps with the CoC ("Engaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism"); Nemo is exaggerating there a bit. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Laughable. WMF Legal made epic efforts to replace long-standing terms of use with a document three times as long. Now, you are making epic efforts to impose additional walls of text in front of new contributors: the current draft is longer than the entire terms of use were. Maybe this is https://xkcd.com/927/ striking again. --Nemo 10:41, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The full page is now 13K; without the reporting and committee parts (which would be on separate pages and uninteresting to the average contributor) it is 4K. In contrast, the terms of use is 40K; the old version was 7K. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 10:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for confirming. Note that, if this becomes a policy, then per the terms of use everyone is forced to agree to it (and hence having read it, of course). It doesn't matter on how many pages you scatter it. --Nemo 11:10, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If it becomes a board policy, yes, which isn't something I've seen the people driving this discussion pushing or asking for (although individual contributors, all volunteers iirc, have). Ironholds (talk) 11:29, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * By way of comparison, the English Wikipedia has (per Wikipedia:List of policies) 58 policies with a combined source length of 1.1M, which is about 250 times longer. Not meant as a positive example, but new contributors are apparently not crushed by the sheer weight of policies even there. If we are doing 250x better than English Wikipedia, we are doing okay, in my opinion. (Only 80x if you insist that all subdocuments need to be read by everyone... even that I could live with.)
 * Legal fictions of how people interact with site policies aside, what's actually going to happen is that the handful of people who actually read policies for fun will find a nice, short text that will hopefully inspire them to be at their best when communicating with others (or maybe not, in which case they will have wasted about three minutes of their time). And when someone is actually behaving in an abusive way, those who suffer from it (which can include the target, bystanders, and maintainers in whose territory it happens) can easily find this document, and know that they are empowered to act against the misbehavior and in really severe cases have clear escalation steps. (And the wast majority of the users can happily ignore it, just like they ignore the terms of use or the text of the GPL.)
 * I'm straining my imagination to see what kind of negative outcome you expect from that, but I can't come up with anything. I can understand being skeptical about the effectiveness of a code of conduct, but I can't grasp why someone would actively oppose it as harmful. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "If it becomes a board policy, yes". No. I reiterate: "if this becomes a policy, then per the terms of use everyone is forced to agree to it". Please check the terms of use again if you still disagree, thanks. Nemo 07:03, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you create a new section to discuss this specifically? What the Terms of Use say and what "everybody is forced to agree to it" means. We need to get the attention of Community Advocacy and WMF Legal on this point, to assure that whatever we do to approve and enforce this CoC is correct.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:02, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, when this is approved, the policy will apply to everyone in the technical community (with the scope given in the first paragraph). This is a feature.
 * The ToU states, "The Wikimedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by the community or Foundation policies applicable to the specific Project edition [...]". We have discussed this elsewhere already, e.g. Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft/Archive_1.  Community Advocacy and WMF Legal are both well aware of this draft, and no additional special notification is necessary. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:13, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This CoC is not "yet another policy" for any new or old contributor who behaves normally. Contributors don't need to read it or even be aware of it to be good community members. It is a tool to be used when someone consciously or not is allegedly crossing the line. Therefore, I think that the argument of this CoC contributing to a burden for newcomers or creeping bureaucracy doesn't stand in reality.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:03, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Apart from the general principle that anyone engaging in discussion in a physical or virtual forum has both a right and a duty to know the norms and expectations of the community they are joining, there are also some very cogent specific arguments against this point towards the end of the section . Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, respecting the WMF overly long terms of use is not necessary to be good community members, yet it's a legal obligation the WMF imposed over us. Nemo 07:03, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Lack of volunteer involvement
It is regrettable that this discussion has been very largely conducted by WMF staff and that the support gained comes very largely from that group. Until there is a significant level of support from the volunteer community, the code will lack legitimacy. Indeed, at present it bears an uncomfortable resemblance to an imposition on the community by the WMF, in tht the code has been largely drafted by WMF staff, is angled at the specific constraints of WMF staff, and assigns the ultimate enforcement authority to WMF staff. This is not a comfortable position. Why is there so little input at this stage from the wider community? In the matter of legitimisation, the widest possible degree of involvement is desirable. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the widest amount of involvement is desireable, but I disagree that it looks like any form of imposition. The discussion has been advertised on wikitech-l (the mailing list used by the entire tech community, not just WMF developers) and publicly listed on phabricator (the bugtracker used by the entire tech community) and started off in a discussion at a conference (which overwhelmingly had non-WMF attendees). I'm not sure what more there is to do to advertise it to MediaWiki developers once it's been repeatedly advertised on the venues they use. If you have ideas, I would really appreciate hearing them.
 * I don't agree that it needs a vast amount of volunteer support to gain legitimacy, for the same reason I'd also hypothesise is why we're seeing many WMF comments; the MediaWiki development space is the one space where it's fair to say that WMF staff make up a significant percentage of the community, and a significant space of the most active community members. In that regard the process is actually a success - it's succeeded in attracting a lot of very active members of the developer community - and while I would love for more volunteers to participate (if you are thinking of participating, and are reading this, please do) the fact that support includes a lot of staff is not shocking given the demographics of the developer community.
 * I don't see where this is "angled at the specific constraints of WMF staff" (can you point to examples where that is the case?) and while ultimate enforcement rests with the WMF, absent appeals it is (according to discussion on this very talkpage) the Committee's decision whether to refer cases over. Ultimately resting with WMF staff is probably where we want to be on this too, in the sense that (as you yourself has noted) there can be fairly serious legal implications around some of the stuff people could report. Ironholds (talk) 20:08, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The "specific constraints" point you ask about is this. As to the legitimacy issue, we clearly disagree, perhaps unsurprisingly. Rogol Domedonfors (talk)
 * Well, "it's a constraint on WMF staff" is not why I personally do not agree with including your request in the Code of Conduct, for what it's worth; I do not agree because it is totally cross-wise with the sort of behaviour the code of conduct is designed to prohibit. It doesn't fit in with any of the examples or explicitly called out forms of behaviour. And (aside from that) I wouldn't describe it as "a constraint on WMF staff" I would describe it as "impossible to do without a vast increase in WMF resources". If you want to go argue for an increase in that resourcing I invite you to do so but this is not the place for that, and absent those resources, not including something that is literally impossible (respond to all community comments, however they scale, promptly and in a way satisfactory to the person commenting, with a ratio of 1:400 between respondents and commenters) isn't really a deficiency. We should stick to the possible and practical. Ironholds (talk) 22:46, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you have an example of a discussion with high volunteer involvement that can be used as a baseline for comparison? It would help avoid unrealistic expectations on what fraction of people participate in discussions in general. (English Wikipedia, for example, has tens of thousands of editors but an RfC with a hundred commenters counts as decent turnout.) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * One word: Superprotect. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 13:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me reword: do you have an example of a discussion with high volunteer involvement that can be used as a baseline for a meaningful comparison? :) Thus, a discussion concerning the MediaWiki technical community and not something that involved all of the Wikimedia movement which is about two orders of magnitude larger? (Also, preferably something that's not basically outrage porn; negative discussions tend to have very different dynamics from constructive ones.)
 * The best comparison I can think of is Requests for comment/Phabricator (which affected the average contributor *way* more than a CoC) which had 91 users involved. (The SVN + CodeReview -> Git + Gerrit migration was the other change with huge impact, but I couldn't find a similar discussion for that.) With half the user count for a way more modest change, I think we are doing OK. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell there are 6 volunteer and 7 staff votes here: it's a bit confusing as some staff have chosen to vote under their non-staff handles. The 6 volunteers are opposed 4:2 and the 7 staff are supporting 7:0.  This does not look like a mandate from the volunteer community. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The average volunteer doesn't have the time or motivation to follow lengthy and dense discussions like this one, regardless of the topic and their agreement. In every round of feedback we are getting interesting new ideas from previous and new contributors, supportive or reticent about the CoC, and we are improving the draft almost on a daily basis. I'm sure we will get a higher number of participants and a more balanced ratio of WMF/non-WMF as we move forward.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Just for clarity, I disengaged away from this discussion after repeatedly seeing every point I raised for change being beaten back by WMF employees and concluding that as I do not enjoy long and petty wikilawyering arguments with the same old names, I would be better off using my time elsewhere. The WMF employee point of view dominates this discussion. The outcome will be a policy that employees approve of, but there is no consensus here from unpaid volunteers, nor in reality does it seem needed or wanted. You are in control, it's your call. --Fæ (talk) 09:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have re-read all your comments here and in the Archive page. You had a lot of feedback on vagueness and wording in the draft that (as far as I can see) has been addressed. You have complained about the appeal process, and we haven't agreed anything there yet because we have decided to go step by step. You have made references to the existence of a bunch of policies that potentially overlap with this CoC, to which we promoters of this CoC say that this CoC offers a simple, compatible, and enforceable gateway to all of them -- we can discuss further in an own section. You have been questioning ECT as appealing / delegation body, which is being discussed and I'm asking for better alternatives. You also say this CoC has a potential to become a censorship tool for the WMF, allowing the WMF to global ban someone for minor faults in conduct not constituting harassment (the wording is mine), but I wonder how a potentially evil WMF could do that bypassing admins, maintainers, and the Committee. I think these arguments are reasonable from a volunteer point of view, not WMF specific. Discussing is taking a lot of time indeed, but because the questions raised are good and valid, and deserve attention. A community without a Foundation could be discussing a CoC in very similar terms.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for summarising my thoughts on long and difficult governance issues so quickly. I feel I have burnt my fingers taking part and I'm just not welcome around here regardless of the printed word. I'll go focus on more rewarding stuff with my unpaid free time. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:12, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "every point I raised for change being beaten back by WMF employees" This is not accurate.  For example, you wrote "As "technical spaces" could be almost anything, for example bug requests are discussed on email lists, main noticeboards on Wikipedia and Commons, etc. this is a potential bear trap."  In response, I made sure "included but not limited to" was removed from the "virtual" part, and made sure it stayed that way (I had to change it back again at one point).  The part referencing global bans was removed partly due to your feedback. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:52, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The average volunteer doesn't have the time or motivation to follow lengthy and dense discussions and outrage porn -- these suggest an unhealthy attitude on the part of paid staff towards volunteers. Why not just come right out and say that volunteers' comments are not worth considering? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * could you point to a single comment in this entire CoC discussion not considered by myself or any of the promoters of this proposal? If you think we have more than a few dozens of volunteers that can afford investing the time you and me have been investing in this CoC draft, I beg to disagree. Please don't distort my words.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Both phrases are direct quotations, one from you, one from a colleague. Each suggests that the author, you and your colleague, feels that comments by people who are not WMF staff members are of lower value than those of staff members.  If that is not your view, it would be good to hear it. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the opinions of people who are not WMF staff are highly valuable, because most of them are volunteers that contribute their time altruistically, because their opinions can cover a wide range of diversity, and because it is my responsibility to listen to them and provide them what they need. I also care about the volunteers that are not participating here for various reasons, trying to cover their needs as well. I also care about WMF employees, and I'm aware of those that have a long experience as volunteers themselves (like the majority of the WMF employees you see around). My track is fully public and it extends to almost three years serving volunteers at the WMF, plus some more before. If I keep replying to your comments as diligently as I can is because I'm treating you as a volunteer.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:07, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Stereotype threat is not going to make this conversation more inclusive :( I'm sure more meaningful discussions can be had without constantly attributing single people's perceived attitudes to "the staff" or "the volunteer community" (which are not disjoint anyway, as Quim points out).
 * What I meant (and I didn't even mention staff or volunteers; I don't know how you arrived to your interpretation) was that discussions that are framed to be about fighting an enemy tend to draw a significantly wider audience than those about collaborating for a shared goal. That doesn't necessarily mean they are more successful (at least for values of success which are aligned with the Wikimedia mission); a demonstration might be more popular than a barn raising, but barns last longer. So if you are looking for a comparison to decide whether the people drafting a document are diverse enough, you should pick a constructive discussion, not a controversy. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 11:40, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The average volunteer doesn't have the time or motivation to follow lengthy and dense discussions. (Isarra said it better: «Imagine if you were doing all of this in your spare time, would you rather be using your limited time making things, or talking about some ephemeral proposed thing that may not ever even affect you even if it does become real?».) So why impose on them some 15 kB of additional text beyond the terms of use, which nobody reads as Tgr kindly noted? Presumably, this additional text will not be read either. So are all your bets on the power of forceful enforcement? --Nemo 10:53, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The actual code of conduct - the preamble and the classes of activity you are not permitted to engage in - is 421 words. Ironholds (talk) 11:22, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Because I agree with you that "how to contact the committee and how all of that works easy is of primary importance" (comment of 19 September), I disagree with you that the "actual code of conduct" is something less than that. Please resolve your contradictions. Nemo 07:09, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Nemo, just like any other policy and guideline, I expect this CoC to be read at least when users link to it when communicating with other users that need to be aware of it. Terms_of_Use actually say "The community has the primary role in creating and enforcing policies applying to the different Project editions. At the Wikimedia Foundation, we rarely intervene in community decisions about policy and its enforcement." The Terms of Use don't offer a community process to report and handle inappropriate behavior. Therefore, what we are doing here is consistent with the Terms of Use and is not redundant.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:42, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As Quim noted, the ToU specifically says it's mainly each community's job to do this kind of enforcement. Also, the ToU literally just has the words 'harass' or 'harassment' four times (only two of which are binding).  There are no examples of what that might actually be, and Legal would probably only be able to enforce that clause in the most egregious cases.  In contrast, if there's a minor incident that goes against the CoC, someone can point to the CoC's list, and informally say, e.g. "That could be considered trolling" or "That sexual image really doesn't belong in your hackathon slide deck; you should take it out before showing it publicly", etc., both of which are specifically called out.  That may be enough.  So I completely disagree with the idea that "forceful enforcement" is the only option here.  Formally reporting it would remain an option, but no one expects that option to be used in all cases. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:16, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * WMF being the ultimate enforcement authority seems natural to me as it is the WMF that physically owns most of the architecture, an physical access is usually the ultimate means of enforcement. (Or sanctions by the employer or event organizer, which is also the WMF in most cases.) That said, the actual, everyday enforcement would be done by project administrators and maintainers and would not involve the WMF at all. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Technical enforcement on their servers is certainly going to be implemented by WMF. The fact that the WMF paid staff have been largely responsible for designing a code of conduct that applies to disputes that might involve them and non-staff, and that the suggestion that WMF Engineering Community team act as final arbiters of disputes that might be between members of their own community and others, do not send out a good message about independence. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 13:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Without CoC or Committee, Developer Relations (was Engineering Community) is dealing with conduct problems in the Wikimedia tech community already today, and for a long time. The introduction of a CoC and a Committee is an improvement in "independence from WMF", if that concerns you. ECT members have also heard opinions of people that thought we were partial toward volunteers in detriment of WMF employees. I guess this shows that we are trying hard to be impartial, and a CoC will make this work easier for everybody. If the community wants to have a backup for the Committee and they find another group that can do better this job, we will support that.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:23, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would say that the whole technical community is responsible for designing a CoC (as, ultimately, we all are responsible for making sure we are an open and welcoming community), and it has been largely WMF staff that has picked up that work. (Not all that surprising since WMF staff have, on average, way more time to spend on Wikimedia activities in general.) That is maybe unfortunate but it's necessary work that someone had to pick up, and no one is excluded, so I don't think WMF has any extra authority here apart from the usual doocratic authority in which WMF tends to be overrepresented as it does most of the work.
 * It also seems unfair to characterize a situation where the committee is allowed to hand over cases to ECT as ECT having the ultimate authority. Presumably the committee will only exercise that right when they feel they are unable to deal with something, in which case it is not a question of independence but one of necessity. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The ECT/DR team is the appeal body, and hence the final authority. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Once the project administrators and committee have passed over it, who would you have the appeal body be? Ironholds (talk) 16:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point, but like Ironholds, I can't think of any good alternative. Maybe some sort of ombudsman system similar to the one checkusers have would make sense? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course, the ombudsmen are appointed by the WMF in a very similar fashion to how we're proposing the Committee be appointed here, so if the goal is "absolutely no WMF involvement ever at the top level" it's still very easy to criticise that. As I think I've made clear I have no problem with the existing way of doing things but *shrugs*. Ironholds (talk) 00:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Putting "absolutely no WMF involvement ever at the top level" in quotes suggests that you think that someone, probably me, actually said it. Could you either provide a diff, or, better, strike it and return to the topic under discussion, which is, whether having the EC/DR team as ultimate appeal authority in a putative consensus primarily of WMF staff might suffer from a lack of legitimacy? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We are still drafting the Committee section and we haven't called for wider consensus about it yet. I keep asking if you or someone else has any alternative proposal to the Developer Relations team. If there is an alternative proposal, then we can discuss which one to choose. While there is no alternative proposal, what exactly are we discussing?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 20:36, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My proposition is that the current draft lacks independence and community acceptance and that it represents an imposition on the community by a small group of staff who would also be assigned the authority to enforce it. That is what I would hope to discuss.  For some reason, discussion seems to have diverted towards other, possibly less uncomfortable, topics, such as the make up of the Committee and the Appeal body which, as you so rightly point out, is not precisely within the scope of this section. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Of the formal !votes here, I see one from someone "assigned the authority to enforce it". What would make this an "independent" draft to you? Community comment has been solicited (and incorporated in many cases). It started off in a public meeting at a movement-wide conference. It continued in a phabricator thread open to the general public. It was announced for discussion on the public mailing lists.
 * I've heard very little from you about problems with the draft itself, so I'll ask explicitly; what problems do you see in the draft portions we are discussing in this thread, other than the mandate to respond you'd like to see incorporated? Ironholds (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My proposition is that there is not sufficient participation for this "Consensus discussion" to represent a consensus of the whole community; that the preponderance of !votes from staff represents a lack of independence; and that in the absence of a wider discussion and consensus the Code will lack legitimacy. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In other words, you don't have an issue with the proposed text, merely the system in which it is being proposed. I agree that it needs wide-ranging support behind it, but I absolutely disagree that the "preponderance of !votes from staff" represents a lack of independence; I think it represents, well, representation.
 * In August 2015 (the last complete month of data), the technical community dashboards show that WMF employees submitted 3,493 patches; volunteers submitted 615. Those 3.4k patches were submitted by 79 people; the 615, 12. Now, I see 9 supports here in this discussion, 7 WMF and 2 non-WMF, making for 77% WMF overall. When you look at the committer numbers, WMF employees made up 86% of committers. The "preponderance of WMF votes" does not represent some imminent risk to the independence of the technical community, because when it comes to the MediaWiki community that technical community is already mostly staff. Heck, one of the things this code of conduct is attempting to do is create a nicer environment explicitly to broaden the community out and allow for far more people to participate because they genuinely want to.
 * Now, I want to see more community members - I want to see more people - but what we're talking about here is a community of, according to gerrit, around 100 people, 86% staff. And what we're seeing in support is a 10th of that, 77% staff. 10% participation isn't terrible (and it's more than that when you factor in people who haven't expressed an opinion either way, or who have opposed). If you have active suggestions for how we can get more people involved I would love to hear them (and my apologies if you posted them above and I missed them). Ironholds (talk) 22:02, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's the second time this week that you have presumed to ascribe to me an opinion with no basis in anything I have written -- please don't do that again. You seem to be saying that 7 WMF staff and 2 volunteers are sufficient to speak for the entire community within physical spaces such as Wikimedia events and Wikimedia-related presentations in other developer events, and virtual (MediaWiki.org, wikitech.wikimedia.org, Phabricator, Gerrit, technical mailing lists, technical IRC channels, and Etherpad).  I don't think that numbers equivalent to 8.9% of the highly active staff and 17% of the highly active volunteers here at this site (taking "highly active" to mean, "submitted a patch in August 2015") constitutes a sufficiently broad set of supporters to give this code legitimacy and for you to claim community acceptance.  If you are indeed concerned about bringing more and wider community activity to this process, then instead of asking me for suggestions now in mid-September, you should already have been calling on the resources of the teams of experienced paid staff of the WMF as soon as the process started in mid-July.  To leave it for two months and then toss it in as a rhetorical question suggests you see it more as a debating tactic rather than an urgent desire for community involvement.  As a thought experiment, I suggest you read over your comment from the point of view of a volunteer contributor anxious about becoming a second-class citizen in this process.  Do you think their concerns will be alleviated by your response that the view of 7 WMF staff and 2 volunteers is representative? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I said it was demographically representative in response to a concern that the WMF involvement was overwhelming; that doesn't mean I don't think we'd do better with more participation full stop. In fact, if you read my comment again you'll see that's explicitly what I stated, and what I have stated several times before in previous threads on this page. As for why I didn't call on "the resources of the teams of experienced paid staff" - well, first, they're already here, and second, as you can see from my account choice I'm participating in this as a volunteer, not as part of my job (which is research and data analysis). You haven't actually answered my question, though; what would you do to involve more of the technical community? Off the top of my head if we're concerned about the number of voices we could do a sitenotice on Wikitech. Ironholds (talk) 11:28, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not propose to accept the diversion onto what I would have done, which is rather tangential to this thread, nor do I propose to engage in a squabble about who has answered whose questions. If you feel that wider participation is necessary, or desirable, by all means start a separate thread where suggestions can be made by all and sundry and a constructive discussion can be held, possibly even leading to action.  This thread is about whether or not the Code can be said to have community-wide support or legitimacy when only a rather small proportion of contributors at only one of the many loci to which it applies have participated, and that set of participants are largely drawn from the WMF staff, and the consensus among those participants is to leave the WMF staff in charge.  I think that it does not yet have that wider support.  Your views on that specific point would be of value here. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:26, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I shall do so, and look forward to seeing suggestions from you. Ironholds (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "This thread is about whether or not the Code can be said to have community-wide support or legitimacy" Actually, it is about finalizing the draft on a specific part of the CoC.  There will be a separate procedure to approve the CoC. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:19, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This thread starts with a posting by me on precisely the subject I stated in the sentence you quote, and that is what has been the subject of discussion here in this thread for the past fortnight: I do not see why you would want to dispute that at this stage. The issue of how to broaden the community involvement has been, quite rightly, taken to another section, where there has been a fruitful discussion. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * While there is not enough quantitative participation and not enough diversity of participation, I find the quality of the participation is very high, and it is helping ironing this CoC draft. Once the usual contributors and whoever else wants to join have finished ironing it, then we can go back to wikitech-l and beyond and present the draft asking for Accept / Neutral / Oppose positionings with optional comments. If at that point we the usual contributors step back and let others speak, there are high chances that we will get more opinions from a more diverse pool of contributors. Meanwhile, I will keep discussing about whatever topics are being brought here, but I will keep focusing on ironing the draft section by section.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think quantitatively the participation rate is bad (although of course we should always strive for more). In the discussion about the Wikimedia-wide terms of use there were about 200 different users (including the anonymous ones). Per korma, we have somewhere between 2000 and 10000 active contributors a month (depending on how much overlap there is between the various channels). English Wikipedia alone has 120K active users. Scaling down the numbers from the ToU discussion, the par for the course would be around 10 participants here. It is easy to set unrealistic expectations about how everyone should get involved in a discussion, but in reality most people just don't care. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:44, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "English Wikipedia alone has 120K active users": that's not consistent with standard metrics definitions. I thought we two already had this discussion. :) --Nemo 07:13, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I said active users, not active editors, so it sort of is (admittedly only accidentally)... I'll try to quit doing that. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Appeals details are not part of this particular consensus discussion because it's not in one of the discussed sections (they will be part of a later one after more drafting work on those sections). However, it's important to note that the linked version of the draft only allows appeals by the alleged offender, and only if there is a resolution of more than three months.  That may change after later discussions, but with the current draft you're overstating DR's authority. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The technical space is one of the only Wikimedia communities where a large fraction of contributors (if not the majority in some kinds of technical work) work for the WMF. Thus it is not surprising to see a significant amount of staff here.  You ask "Why is there so little input at this stage from the wider community?"  I think the main reason is that most people in the WMF technical community are not interested in this kind of discussion.  At lot of people will be happy with any reasonable Code of Conduct (and may show up for later discussions), but would rather do their normal work then help draft it.  If you notice, even among WMF, only a fraction of WMF staff and contractors have chosen to participate; many of them are busy doing other things too, just like volunteers.  However, this code of conduct will help us all better welcome volunteers if adopted and followed.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:48, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Nobody is claiming that this CoC has wide community support today. We are drafting it, and once the draft is solid then we will seek wide explicit support. Thank you for starting Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft, let's discus how to involve more people there.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:08, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Representing the community in public spaces
Re: this edit, I think it changes the meaning drastically. Think of someone opening an a Twitter account with the name "MediaWiki developer" and then using it abusively. That is not a technical space, but it still represents the project in some way. (This was occasionally a problem for some non-tech projects where unofficial Facebook groups and such were used by people who where banned from the official places as a soapbox.) Also consider the case of a MediaWiki developer participating at a non-technical event where they were invited for being a MediaWiki developer.

I have a weak preference for the old version, but in any case, it's not an insignificant change. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 02:56, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * An unauthorized "MediaWiki developer" Twitter account would infringe the trademark policy in the first place, and in your case would be someone anonymous in any case, so this CoC would be of little practical use. A MediaWiki developer participating in an event out of the scope of "Wikimedia technical spaces" and harassing or disrespecting someone there would be subject to the code of conduct or similar of that event in the first place. If that person would a WMF employee then Code of conduct policy could apply regardless. Probably the most likely scenarios are covered by these cases? If not, someone could still submit a report arguing that such developer was representing the MediaWiki project, and the discussion would be interesting regardless of the sentence I removed being present in the CoC or not. The core mission of this CoC is to assure "making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone", and I think it is better to keep a CoC with clear and concise principles. Trying to cover all scenarios possible with a longer and more complex text does not necessarily accomplish better the mission of the CoC.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 03:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I also disagree with this change, and the assertion in the edit summary, "Simplifying sentence without changing meaning (?)". This section is also part of the active consensus discussion.  As to the actual point, the Twitter case would indeed be hard to enforce.  However, say a MediaWiki developer participates in a Foolang conference as a speaker (representing MediaWiki, e.g. because "Senior MediaWiki VP of Advanced Technology" or whatever was next to their name on the conference program).  (This example is not referring in any way to actual people).  They then put something offensive on their presentation slides.  In this example, the MW code of conduct committee should have its own jurisdiction, regardless of whether the Foolang conference has a code of conduct.  Put more simply, we don't want people going out, speaking in public spaces, saying they're "from MediaWiki" and putting us in a bad light through conduct the CoC does not allow. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:46, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright, back to the original scope. Still my main problem with this sentence is that (being the first sentence and providing the first impression) sounds unclear and repetitive. I have to read it twice to deduce what it means. I have proposed an alternative wording. Please revert if you think it needs further discussion.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 05:59, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Not going to revert for right now, because there's a ton of other stuff bundled up in that edit, but I think "developer event" is too narrow. Presumably we're not down with say, me making an ass of myself representing the community and my technical contributions at a statistical conference, either. How about "Technical, Wikimedia-related presentations at other events"? Ironholds (talk) 19:47, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I will note that such a statement is probably in contradiction with contracts the WMF has. WMF cannot legislate over the handling of a MediaWiki presentation by Wikimedia Italia in Italy. --Nemo 07:15, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This Code of Conduct doesn't aim to become WMF legislation, but a code of conduct agreed by the Wikimedia tech community, which wouldn't affect Wikimedia Italia but the technical contributor speaking as a MediaWiki developer.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hypothetically, assume a MediaWiki developer gave an offensive technical presentation containing personal attacks and very gratuitous and off-topic sexual imagery in a conference in Italy. This document would not allow removing them from the event (the conference could have their own CoC, though).  However, under this CoC, actions could be taken affecting their standing in the Wikimedia technical community.  If there were such a contract contradicting this, I assume you would have cited it. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:23, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Your assumptions are wrong. The contract I didn't name explicitly is the chapter agreement. The "standing in the Wikimedia technical community" of chapter members, i.e. their ability to use the MediaWiki logo etc., can only be decided by the chapter. Nemo 06:38, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Start with positive guidelines on behavior
One thing I like about the Open Code of Conduct is that it tries to balance the long list of things not to do with a positive and upbeat list of ideals. (It's also highly scannable, in case someone is in a rush.) Our list of donts is considerably shorter, but I would still welcome having a similar list of behaviors to strive for. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:52, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think this is a good idea. The selection of positive points is good, but I would avoid the long explanations, just like we are avoiding getting into lengthy details in general.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:55, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Proposal of a paragraph to be added in Principles between "... or religion." and "Technical skills..."

Our community strives to: --Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:43, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Be friendly and patient.
 * Be welcoming to people of all backgrounds and identities.
 * Be considerate with those affected by decisions and changes.
 * Be aware that English is not everybody's primary language.
 * Be respectful regardless of disagreement.
 * Be kind and careful in the words we choose.
 * Try to understand why we disagree.
 * Focus on being productive, resolving issues and learning from mistakes.


 * I have copied this list at Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft. If you like it, let's keep it. If you want to fine tune it, let's edit the list in the Draft, and let's discuss here if needed.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I feel that the prior Principles section already addressed many of these things. Tone-wise, I also think that version of the principles section is also pretty good (especially "in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people" kicking it off).  Adding a large block of text this late in the process is also somewhat problematic, since people commenting on the consensus section (which covers this section) may incorrectly think this text is part of what they are weighing in on.  I tried to clarify this with the link, but some people might not use it.  In some cases, we have to make late-breaking changes, but I'm not sure this is such a case, so I've reverted it.  The TODO code of conduct was first referenced on August 9, so there were earlier opportunities to suggest this text. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:06, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Tgr (WMF) that the overall impression is that the CoC focuses on the negatives and would benefit from a description of the expected positives. "We pledge to respect" and "a respectful and harassment-free experience" just cover the minimum in terms of positive message and guidelines. In contrast, we offer a full list of negatives. Tgr's proposal of offering a list of positive guidelines is excellent, and the list is specific enough to be used as a reference when someone is starting to cross the line, well before reporting anything formally.
 * "This late in the process" is relative. Although I understand that we were making a call for consensus on these sections, I also don't see why we shouldn't incorporate a very good idea when it is suggested by someone resonding to that call for consensus. There is only a chance to write a first version of a CoC in this community, let's use it to define the best CoC we are capable to write, even if it takes some extra hops in our approval process.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:32, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a good idea to have a deadline for changes that's only announced once it's past. There is going to be a wider discussion of this document (even if announcements are going to be limited to wikitech-l, "here is the proposed CoC" is probably going to result in significantly wider involvement than "come help us write the CoC" did), at which point changes will be made; I don't see what purpose a "feature freeze" between now and then would serve. Especially when it is merely on procedural grounds and no one actually opposes the change.(?) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 11:47, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Feature freezes are necessary to get things released. There is no limit to the number of possible tweaks we could make.  I think it's completely reasonable to have a soft deadline on these sections when the consensus discussion starts.  There was plenty of discussion before that, and plenty of announcements.  There is no need for "here is the proposed CoC" to be an excuse to take it from the top.  It's hard to imagine any efficient project that would work like that.  No one would expect final approval to be the beginning of the real discussion for software or a building.  However, I am going to open a separate follow-up period (just for that part, not the whole thing) after the initial discussion on the first sections is closed. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There is the adage about how trumpeting your first amendment rights is kind of admitting that the most compelling thing you can say about your position is that it is not literally illegal. The same way, I would prefer to avoid a CoC in which the most compelling thing said about the way our community behaves is that it is not literally harassment. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:43, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

More opinions are welcome. This is the last significant bit of the CoC that needs an agreement.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:11, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The last? there isn't even a consensus on the first line. :) --Nemo 11:06, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Nemo, this is off-topic on this section, but it looks like the only way to get your agreement is to delete the CoC entirely... The question here is whether you think the addition of these positive guidelines improves the CoC or not.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:07, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's not true. Anything that decreases the amount of logical fallacies and text in the proposal is welcome for me. The proposal in this section is about adding more text if I understand correctly, so it doesn't comply with my idea of improvement. I hope my answer is more on-topic now. :) --Nemo 07:17, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * One problem with this framing of positive expectations is that it can create a situation where we ignore the wider historic and social context within which people engage our community. What I'm specifically worried about is a situation where someone acts in an inappropriate fashion, someone from a marginalised background comes back at them and points this out and expresses their frustration in a sharp manner - and both are then sanctioned, one for acting inappropriately and the other for not following these positive expectations (someone reacting to blatant sexism or racism, having undoubtedly experienced an entire life of such incidents and being assured that this was a good place to be, is unlikely to be overflowing with joy and "friendly and patient" to the person responsible, and no reasonable person would expect them to be).
 * One way of handling this is to have more broad positive principles that also explicitly factor in the need to handle incidents when they occur and have more nuance of language in the expected behaviour - the Stumptown Syndicate's CoC does this pretty well in Section 3. Alternately (or even better, as well!) we could also explicitly build in protection against these kinds of scenarios, The TODO group's open code of conduct does this very well; it explicitly states "Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort" and lists out some very reasonable and plausible situations in which it will not consider complaints or behaviour, including someone complaining about a firm communication of boundaries or request to disengage, or complaining about community members taking issue with sexist/racist/cissexist/so on behaviour. Ironholds (talk) 22:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Personally, I don't think the list of positives adds much of substance to the CoC, and would prefer to concentrate on reaching consensus for the existing version. I would be open to modifying other sections though, especially in line with Ironhold's suggestions. Kaldari (talk) 23:00, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I do think it adds substance, not only because it sets expectations, but also because it can be used when someone is misbehaving, to remind them how this community wants to operate, and to present a community document instead of what could be considered "personal opinions" of a reporter or the other contributors trying to help. Then again, if there is no consensus about incorporating a list like this to the CoC, we could always have such list in a regular wiki page connected with the welcoming and onboarding of new contributors. Inside or outside the CoC, I want to keep working on that list. But first the CoC and its approval.
 * The idea behind "Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort" and the list of situations where complaints on behavior will not be considered is interesting, and I think we should add something about in the draft. It also shows that one thing is a first aggression, and another thing is counter-aggression as defense. It's a tricky path, but very likely to happen when there is an ugly escalation.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:20, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Awesome; want to propose some wording? Ironholds (talk) 17:25, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Per Ironholds above, I've put in "Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort" and its associated text from TODO. Let's decide whether to adopt that as part of the overtime review (second consensus discussion on the same sections) . Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The newly-added statements about "reverse racism" and "reverse sexism" seem to imply that derogatory comments about, say, white people and men are fair game; which would seem to directly contradict the stated promise that anyone who shows up is entitled to "a respectful and harassment-free experience". Am I missing something? Yaron Koren (talk) 01:36, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Something like "I don't want any stinkin' men committing to this repo." is not reverse sexism (not that I ever see any comments remotely like that). It's just sexism.  I think this text (from TODO) is more intended for things like "Outreach Program for Women should be banned, since it's reverse sexism.".  Note the "Efforts to assist minorities to achieve parity" part at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Reverse_sexism .Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 07:05, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that added paragraph is likely to create confusion as it is. The problem it aims to solve is when someone is being harassed/offended and responds in a way that might be considered harassing/offending, a fact used by the first offender or someone else to bring turbulence to the case. What we want to stress is that both positions are not equal, one was first, the other one would have not happened if the former wouldn't have started. This gets a bit confusing with the mention of "marginalized" vs "privileged", as it frequently happens that the "privileged" are the first ones harassing/offending the "marginalized". However, note that if a person "marginalized" angry for a situation out of our community would land here and harass/offend someone "privileged" that had done nothing to them in the first place, we would deal with that incident indeed. There also cases where someones might be privileged and marginalized at the same time in different aspects, using that to excuse questionable behavior. A can of worms. Therefore, I think the sentence as currently written is flawed even if it sounds appropriate.
 * What about "When inappropriate behavior is contested with behavior that could be also considered inappropriate, we look at who started, who is benefiting from a position of privilege, and who is being marginalized." I don't think we can say "We will not act" confident that this will be always the case. I would leave the examples out, prone to cause more confusion than clarification.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:14, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That sounds better. Personally, I think anyone using that section of the "TODO" code of conduct as written should be embarrassed; it feels like it was written by an angry 16-year-old. What about removing all the unexplained "privilege" stuff, and just saying, "When inappropriate behavior comes in response to other inappropriate behavior, it will be treated more leniently"? Yaron Koren (talk) 12:55, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 'angry 16-year-old' doesn't really seem very helpful, Yaron, nor does it contribute to the discussion. Let's continue to keep that kind of unhelpful language out of this discussion? YuviPanda (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I added the text, so obviously I feel it is a reasonable complement to the positive guidelines.  More importantly, though, ad hominem attacks like "angry 16-year-old" and "anyone using that section [...] should be embarrassed" are superficial, offensive, and do nothing to help us complete the draft. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:18, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I just want to point out that these were not ad hominem attacks, since I was describing the text, not the author(s). Anyway, it wasn't written by anyone Wikimedia-related, as far as I know. Yaron Koren (talk) 12:45, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * When you're this unnecessarily rude the specific classification of your rudeness is irrelevant, as is whether you're rude in front of people or immediately behind their backs. People are watching these discussions trying to gauge if it's safe for them to engage. Commentary like yours makes that less probable. Please avoid comments like this in the future - I really don't want us to end up with a conversation chilled of anyone who finds it inappropriate, or a warning sign, because it's likely those people are the very marginalised people we're trying to create a safe space for. If we can't do that in the conversation about creating it, that's a bad sign. Ironholds (talk) 15:26, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I stated my opinion about a piece of text, and now three people I don't know from the WMF have attacked me for it, all in the service of proving to outsiders what a friendly and welcoming place this is. Well, you've certainly proven something. Yaron Koren (talk) 16:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't say anything about you. I said that an argument was ad hominem and unconstructive in nature. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:16, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the examples are meant to address at least a few things:
 * Tone policing is not allowed ("Exercise consideration and respect in your speech and actions" is not meant to allow this). Objecting to someone's tone as they respond to an initial incident is one such scenario, but not the only one.
 * You can't file a complaint against something like OPW calling it reverse sexism (well, you can, but it won't be addressed).
 * Describing an imbalance (e.g. Few minorities are contributing to Xyz project or discussion) will not be acted on as reverse racism.
 * I think most of this is conveyed by the initial sentence, though ("open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people's comfort."). It's important to note that under the current draft, it never says that it won't act on complaints by privileged people against marginalized people.  It just lists very specific complaints that won't be acted on.  "When inappropriate behavior comes in response to other inappropriate behavior, it will be treated more leniently" is too strong, and we shouldn't commit to that in all cases. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:55, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Surely a complaint against OPW, or against an imbalance, or against anything that's not a human being, wouldn't fall under the code of conduct anyway? Hopefully someone can clarify why that line is in there. As for being too strong, how about "it may be treated more leniently" instead? Yaron Koren (talk) 23:34, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Any action, e.g. WMF applying for OPW, listing requirements for OPW, posting to a mailing list about an imbalance, is going to be taken by a person, so it's just making clear that certain things are not valid complaints. Re "it may be treated more leniently", I think that it partly addressed by the current draft ("When evaluating situations that involve heated conflict, we consider persistent patterns of interaction, whose boundaries have been crossed") (with a general explanation of approach, rather than 'may'). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:17, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I see now that the text has been reworded, including removal of the "reverse racism"/"reverse sexism" bit. Still, I think it would be interesting if you (or anyone else) could provide some hypothetical scenario where the code of conduct committee would normally mete out punishment, but would be prevented from doing so by this text - with the exception of line #3 (the "leave me alone" line). Yaron Koren (talk) 12:45, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the text has been tightened, partly in response to your feedback. However, I think my example from before about OPW still stands (and the text "Efforts to include or improve the experience of members of underrepresented groups in our technical communities" more squarely addresses it). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I still think it would be great to hear about some specific scenario where these guidelines would come in handy. I just can't imagine a situation where talking about something like OPW (it's called Outreachy now, but same thing) would get someone in hot water in the first place. Yaron Koren (talk) 12:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Say WMF makes their own program (similar to Outreachy but run in-house). Someone applies, and is told they don't qualify due to being a cisgender man, so they file a complaint against the person running the program.  Would someone file such a complaint?  I don't know, but I think it's worth clarifying (particularly since it simultaneously explains why we participate in Outreachy to begin with). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:03, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, they could file a complaint, but is there any chance that their complaint would be taken up by the code of conduct committee (or whatever it's called), and the organizer reprimanded as a result? That seems nonsensical. That's my point - I'm looking for a case where these guidelines would actually have an impact. Yaron Koren (talk) 21:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yaron, I'm getting the impression that there isn't anything that's going to convince you on this. That said, I'm not sure how many discussions about this sort of initiative in tech spaces you've been part of, but this type of objection is quite common in the ones that I've observed. This point both allows us as a community to state our standards and gives the committee an easy way to reject this type of report as out of scope. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I hope I'm not coming off as intractable. Actually, I think it would be very easy to convince me: just come up with any case at all where someone would get punished according to the code of conduct, but any of those four points (#1, 2, 4 and 5) would prevent that punishment from happening. That's the point of them being there, right? If a report of bad behavior is out of scope, I don't see why there needs to be an easier, or different, way to reject it than just saying "this is out of scope". Yaron Koren (talk) 23:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think that section is intended solely as a set of rules for the committee to follow. It's also explaining the guidelines to the general audience of people who are expected to live by them. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. I'm saying these particular guidelines seem to be unnecessary, no matter who is reading them. Yaron Koren (talk) 23:42, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree, I think they're helpful. Do you think it's actively harmful to have those bullet points on the page? DannyH (WMF) (talk) 23:52, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would think most people would agree that something that does not contribute should be removed from the page - if I added a recipe for lentil soup, it would presumably get deleted quickly, no matter how good the recipe is. In what way are these guidelines helpful? Note that they're billed specifically as being exceptions to the overall rules - but they don't appear to be any such thing. Yaron Koren (talk) 00:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * At this point, you are coming off as intractable. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I figured your next response would be trying to explain why you think the guidelines are helpful, but... I guess not. Yaron Koren (talk) 00:58, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Regardless, Yaron, the discussion has moved on to deciding whether there is consensus on the wording of the second draft. I will note that the balance of consensus in this discussion so far supports the inclusion of the lines you object to, including the opinion of at least one person who does not support the current draft as a whole. As I mentioned in the previous consensus discussion, I certainly do not agree with all of the changes or included language but I can live with them in the interest of working together to draft an effective policy. Please feel free to comment in support or opposition of this draft as a whole in the second consensus section below. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 02:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright. Yaron Koren (talk) 13:17, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * There isn't any consensus and certainly no consensus about that specific sentence. I find it extremely embarrassing how a dozen WMF employees above have convened to assault Yaron for his opinions (e.g. on language register of a sentence) and to slight his very simple question instead of answering it. --Nemo 06:46, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't assault anyone, and I did answer his question. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:42, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've merged the language from the Citizen Code of Conduct and the TODO (as simplified by Qgil-WMF above) and have added a new "Expected behavior" section to the draft. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 05:51, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I have retouched it a bit. I think it fits very well there.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:51, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * And now I have reworked the language on the second section to improve specificity and convey more of the rationale. Does that get at your concerns, Qgil-WMF? --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

"Diverse affiliations" at the Committee
I think we can remove the sentence "It is required that at all times, at least one member of the committee is neither a WMF staff member nor a WMF contractor." The first paragraph of the Committee page already says "a team of five trusted individuals with diverse affiliations", which implies that it is not possible not having all of them affiliated to the WMF. The sentence actually brings involuntarily a change of expectation (at least for me): I'm thinking about the Committee as mainly formed by volunteers, maybe with one or two WMF/WMDE professional developers with a strong community background. That sentence brings the image of a Committee with 3-4 WMF members as ok, maybe expected. In practice I think it is better to stress the aspect of "diverse affiliations" and hope that self-nominations and Committee selections will provide that diversity.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 21:17, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we should keep it. I am fine with rephrasing (as long as the requirement is still noted), or adding something to express that there is no minimum number of WMF members (zero WMF is permitted, though it would not be very representative of the technical community). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What about "Independence and diversity of affiliation among Committee members is encouraged. The Committee cannot have all members affiliated to the same organization." This would set an expectation toward a committee nurtured primarily with independent volunteers and avoids mentioning an exception for the WMF (an hypothetical Committee of five members affiliated to certain chapter or certain company would be equally undesirable).--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That sounds really good. To emphasize that people do not have to be an employee or formal member of an organization, how about, "Independence and diversity of affiliation among Committee members is encouraged. Members need not be formally part of any organization, and the Committee cannot have all members affiliated to the same organization." Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ Even better, thank you! I have edited the draft accordingly.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:42, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "Same organisation" could refer to the Catholic Church, the Democratic Party, the Freemasons, the Royal Society, San Francisco Film Society,  ... .  I presume you do not really intend to ask for a complete list of the political, religious and spare-time affiliations of potential committee members? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Would "employer" be better?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:01, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I like the phrasing for diverse affiliations, but that's not the only form of diversity the committee needs if it wants to gain and maintain trust from all parts of our community, not just the most heavily represented ones. Diverse backgrounds and experiences are as or more important. I don't have specific language for this yet, but I'd like to see this given the same weight as diverse affiliations in the policy. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 06:00, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have renamed the section "Diversity" because that is the strong concept in relation to conduct, and in itself is better guarantee of neutrality and independence (while independence per se is not guarantee of diversity). I have added an encouragement to have committee members strong in different technical spaces as another factor contributing to diversity, neutrality, independence. Better?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:25, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Krenair changed "cannot have all members affiliated to the same employer" to "cannot have a majority of members affiliated to the same employer". That would mean at most two members could be WMF, which (although it certainly might be true sometimes) I don't think is justified as a hard rule considering the breakdown of people active in our technical community. I prefer we stick to "cannot have all members affiliated to the same employer". I'm going to undo for now. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Wider participation
A user has mentioned above that they would like to see wider participation in this thread from the technical community, and I think that's definitely something we'll want when it comes to full approval rather than just drafting. So, who has ideas for what we could to do involve people who are part of the technical community, or interested in becoming part of it? Off the top of my head we could do a sitenotice or similar notice on Wikitech (the wiki rather than the mailing list). Ironholds (talk) 19:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Since there are whole teams at WMF charged with Communications, Community Engagement, Community Advocacy and Community Tech, I suggest that you may be better placed than I for suggestions. However, I note that there is a list of physical and virtual spaces in the opening paragraph of the code.  For maximal support, th community in each of those spaces should be specifically engaged.  As far as physical spaces are concerned, consider an invitation to past event organisers to share, as far as they are able, their experiences and lessons learned from their events, for example from their feedback and their own internal review discussions.  For events in the near future, consider asking the organisers to schedule a panel, round-table, debate or similar in-person session, and a section in he feedback addressing the question of whether the code in force at the event was adequate and whether this code would have been an improvement.  All this takes time and effort of course, which is why the WMF community engagement teams, broadly considered, should already have been involved from the start. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:46, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We have etherpad (no technical community), mediawiki.org, wikitech, phabricator (the work started there), gerrit, the IRC channels, and the mailing lists (where there has been an extensive thread). So that leaves mediawiki.org, wikitech, gerrit and the IRC channels. We could do something like a sitenotice on wikitech and mediawiki, a /NOTICE on the prominent IRC channels, and for gerrit..I'm not sure short of emailing recent committers, which might lead to flashback (mass-mailing often does).
 * I'm not sure if there are any upcoming events centred around or including a tech component; there's WikiConference USA, of course, but there's no real tech element to it. As I already mentioned, the WMF community engagement teams, broadly considered, have been engaged from the start - we have a community engagement team just for the Engineering community, and Quim leads it. Ironholds (talk) 19:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If there is no technical community associated with Etherpad then perhaps it should not be mentioned at all? As far as events are concerned, I believe there's a Wikimedia Developer Summit 2016 planned, for example.  Whether the members of Community Engagement are engaged here in the discussion is beside the point -- it is whether they are engaged out in other places spreading the message effectively. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:10, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * And as the ticks on the list above indicate, they are - but there's only one Quim ;). Etherpad has users and so should be subject to this but doesn't have a community in the sense of identifiable "etherpad people"; it's a largely anonymous note-taking thing. the Developer Summit is an excellent point. Ironholds (talk) 21:19, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There is not a community in each space. There is one technical community where many (probably most) people participate in more than one space.  No one considers themselves solely an Etherpad user.  They use Etherpad to participate in our community's work.  That said, I think it's fine to use site notices where possible to make more people aware.  The WMFs community engagement teams have been aware of this work (and involved where appropriate) from the start. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Etherpad is IMO uninteresting because the people who use etherpad are heavily involved and there are easier ways to reach them. But there are a lot of people who only use Phabricator or only use Gerrit (or neither because they are the maintainers of a MediaWiki extension hosted on GitHub). The possible channels, roughly in descending order by impact (stats are from korma and Special:Statistics): The wikis and mailing lists are easy to notify, Gerrit does not seem worth the effort, a sitenotice-like thing on Phabricator would be worthwhile if at all possible. Also if we are not overly concerned about WMF overrepresentation, a notice to the engineering or wmfall list might be worth it. Also maybe ping the MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group if they have any other idea? The wikidata and labs lists also come to mind as mailing lists that are mainly technical but have a very different audience than the usual gerrit-phabricator-wikitech crowd.
 * mediawiki.org - 1000 active users (I will take a wild guess and say that for every active editor there are 5 passive readers so total reach is about 5K)
 * Phabricator (and no, having a task there is not outreach) - 2K users a month
 * wikitech-l - 100-150 posters a month (again with a wild guess of 5 lurkers per poster total reach is 0.5-1K users)
 * wikitech.wikimedia.org - 100 active users (so ~500 reach?)
 * mediawiki-l (50 posters a month)
 * IRC (200-300 users at a time on a large channel like #wikimedia-dev; 500-1000 users a month altogether, but it's synchronous so hard to reach everyone without being very spammy)
 * Gerrit (~200 submitters a month)

On another tangent, do we want to invite participation from people who are not members of the MediaWiki or Wikimedia technical community but knowledgeable about codes of conduct? Say, leave a message on Geek Feminism Wiki? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * If places such as Etherpad or Phabricator have no convenient mechanism for publicising this discussion to their user directly, then those users could be approached indirectly, in other words, at places where those users are likely to be. Pages on Meta related to Community Engagement, Community Tech and Community Advocacy might be a start, as would English Wikipedia Village Pump (technical) and the corresponding pages at the oher projects and languages.  There are numerous teams that should be involved in numerous venues, pointing to what one member of one team has done on this page is beside the point.  Oh, and Wikiconference USA 2015 has a track for technology, it's on their website.
 * In the interests of saving time and effort in this belated discussion, could the owner of the stakeholder list and the communications plans for those stakeholders post links to them, preferably with their current analysis of progress against the plans, please? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 08:11, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This task suggests there is a broadcast mechanism for Phabricator but Quim probably knows more about that. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:21, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I support posting to spaces that are covered by the CoC. I disagree with posting to Village pump (technical) unless those spaces are changed to be covered by the CoC.  People who are covered when in another space (e.g. Phabricator) will likely hear about it already (especially if we take some of the suggestions above). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no need to directly notify WikiConference USA. It is not subject to the CoC, except for the "Wikimedia technical presentations in other events" point.  People making those presentations will hear about it in one of the spaces here; it's not reasonable to ask WCUSA to notify them for us. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:49, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * While we need to bring more people to the drafting, we also need to be careful not to make big calls too soon. This is like software testing, some people enjoy trying alphas and betas, some other will be frustrated about so many bumps in the road and stop being interested. I think the current tactics drafting here and pinging wikitech-l is good enough until we have a version of the draft we are happy about. Then we can make the big call, knowing that more ideas will come, more criticism will come, and more edits are likely to come.
 * The big call can be a two-week site notice in mediawiki.org and wikitech-wikimedia.org, a mention in the topic of all IRC tech channels during two weeks, and an email to all the technical mailing lists. As far as I know, Phabricator and Gerrit don't have broadcast mechanism built-in. We can organize an IRC office hour, a Tech Talk... We can go as wide as you think it is useful to go. Socializing the CoC in events is also a good idea. I'm proposing a session at WikiDev16 -- see T90908.
 * An important aspect related to participation is the landing surface here for the new people we want to welcome. We should keep support/neutral/oppose positioning separate from lengthy discussions in order to keep encouraging new participants to leave their positioning in one minute of less, without having to read through lengthy discussions embedded with votes. We (the regular participants here) should make an effort avoiding to capitalize the discussion (yet again), leaving space for other people with other opinions, and we should avoid the confrontational language that sometimes we use. Most contributors won't enjoy entering a room with some veterans arguing. If we want to welcome more people and opinions, we need to be consciously welcoming ourselves.
 * And an FAQ summarizing the main points discussed will be useful as well, since most newcomers to this debate might have very similar questions and thoughts that we have processed already.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 13:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. I think we all need to bear in mind that the initial !vote is just a "are we comfortable moving to discussing the next chunk" not a "okay, the bit we have approved is now in full effect". There will be a wider opportunity to approve the entire thing and that's a good place to expect more people. Ironholds (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * A quick look at Tech links to the Tech/News which currently mentions three relevant meetings whose participants might be interested, as well as giving method for disseminating cross-project, and also links to the Tech/Ambassadors. There seems to me no shortage of mechanisms for engaging broadly with those likely to particpate in technical spaces.  But sight of the communications plan would be really helpful at this stage before spending too much time on what might be duplication of effort. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:22, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, good point. Tech-ambassadors would be covered by the communication to all mailing lists, but Tech News needs to be included as well.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:27, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think tech-ambassadors is relevant, but I don't think Tech News is. The purpose of Tech News is to communicate to non-techy people about things happening in the tech world that are likely to impact them. The audience is people who do not participate in tech things, but are affected by their outcomes. Since this code of conduct specifically applies to people who participate in our technical community, it wouldn't apply to the people who Tech News is meant for, so I don't see much use in posting about it there. It will advertise a discussion to a large audience of unaffected people. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 22:01, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Since there was consensus to "slice the drafting in modules" I think there should be two final big calls.
 * Final work period (with an announced end date) to make adjustments to address major problems with the draft. We will need to communicate that these sections have already been completed, so "wouldn't it be nice" changes will not be accepted that late, only changes that address a significant problem.
 * After that, a call for consensus. During this consensus discussion, no further changes will be considered.  There would either be consensus, or there wouldn't be, on the exact version from the end of the final work period.
 * Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:07, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Broad participation is achieved by picking issues and solutions which are broadly perceived as such; see the Isarra quotation above. --Nemo 07:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So your hypothesis is we don't have more participation because people don't think this is useful? That would run counter to literally every discussion I've seen in my decade on this project. Policies and approaches people feel irrelevant get stamped down based on exactly the arguments you've been making (it's unnecessary bureaucracy!) and that isn't happening here, so it seems weird to conclude that there's this big silent mass of people who are Wikipedians, and therefore largely loathe new things without justification, see a new thing they don't think is justified, and then...leave it alone. Ironholds (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I think we can learn how to get more and more diverse participation by looking at things we can improve as promoters of this process. Let's think of a direct beneficiary of this CoC, i.e. someone with less experience, familiarity with our processes, time, self-confidence and inclination to speak out then the current participants. How can we help them leaving their comment?

Some ideas reflecting on the last days (and some mistakes I made again):


 * Brief and clear instructions, ready to allow an absolute newcomer to the CoC to take action -- the details can be posted somewhere else and linked.
 * More time to express opinions, for instance two weeks.
 * A subpage for positionings only, inviting participants to discuss in the usual Discussion page.
 * Regular participants willing to be welcoming to new participants should reply less, not so often, with more brevity.

Our friend the direct beneficiary of this CoC found instructions geared toward insiders, a pressing deadline, a noisy space for opinions with growing walls of discussions between insiders. Without willing to, we are replicating here the problems of our community for more and more diverse participation.

From now on I will reply less or not at all to others' positionings and I will focus on keeping improving the draft. I have also been thinking that a FAQ will be useful to increase participation, and for the final call for feedback on the entire CoC, so I will start writing one if nobody beats me at it.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 15:41, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * FAQ started. I will try to keep up with new comments here, and I will try to add topics from previous discussions. Contributions welcomed.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:52, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Appeals
The wording on appeals seems unduly restrictive. Firstly, the phrase "the reported offender" should probably read "any person sanctioned". Secondly, there is no specific right of appeal against non-action or leniency of sanction, although this is arguably covered by the final sentence. Is that omission deliberate? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:32, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * These are excellent points, particularly the second one. I'm definitely open to changing "the reported offender" (I guess there could be situations in which someone is reported and an investigation finds other people were participating in the activity). Ironholds (talk) 19:37, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (((Your feedback on is welcomed; I'm reluctant to get deep into "Report an issue" before settling at least on the CoC main page.)))--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems extremely unlikely that other work will lead to a change in the consensus to the effect that there should not be an appeal process, and so there is very little risk that this discussion will prove nugatory. If you do not wish to discuss this point at present, then we look forward to hearing from you at a suitable time. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "In addition, any member of the community may raise concerns about the committee or a case." does not allow a different kind of appeals. It is purely for informative purposes. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:25, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you mean that you think there should not be a possibility of appeal by an aggrieved party if the Committee takes no action, or is, in the view of the aggrieved party, unduly lenient? In other words that appeals should only be possible against sanctions? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:43, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I was just describing what the draft then said. Multiple people have expressed that victims should be able to appeal, so I've changed the draft to allow that. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:08, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Now there is a defined section for Appealing a resolution.

I propose to remove "Only resolutions (such as bans) that last 3 months or longer may be appealed by the reported offender." Instead, it could say "Resolutions can be appealed by the reported offenders while they are being enforced." The concern here is that someone obstructs the enforcement with legalese in bad faith, and this is a way to prevent that temptation.
 * I disagree with removing this. Your proposed change allows enforcement during the appeal period, which is good.  I've added a note to clarify this.  However, that does not solve the issue of time-wasting frivolous appeals.  If I am given a private warning or banned for one day from an IRC channel to cool off, I can still appeal.  The original sanction remains in effect during the appeal process, but eventually DR must spend time reviewing the evidence and making a judgement. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As member of the DevRel team, I believe that processing "frivolous appeals" will take significantly less resources than dealing with the potential problem of people unhappy with the rule that doesn't allow them to appeal. If there is a process, unhappy people can follow it. If there is no process, unhappy people will manifest their frustration in other ways, and they are likely to get more community sympathy because they were not given other option than complaining elsewhere. So if your concern is saving DevRel resources, please allow anyone to submit a recall to us. :) --Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:35, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The restriction seems unnecessary; the committee can always agree that a complaint is frivolous and should be rejected - that does not seem like something that would take up a significant amount of time. Also, I disagree that appealing a two-month ban is necessarily frivolous. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:59, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

About "any member of the community may raise concerns"... what does that mean in practice for the Committee or Developer Relations? Are we saying that others may appeal on behalf of the reported offender? The statement is true regardless, since freedom of expression is granted in our channels, so if "raise concerns" doesn't mean an action that Commitee or DevRel must take, I would remove it.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:24, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It does not grant an appeal right. Under the current draft, observers can not appeal.  It is just noting that people can communicate with them.  I don't object to removing this. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Committee procedure
There is little specified about the Committee's procedure. I would suggest additional wording The Committee will determine its own procedures, which may vary from case to case, having regard to the principles of Natural Justice. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:36, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with the idea of explicitly saying that the committee can determine its own procedures within the framework of the code of conduct and associated Committee-establishing policy; I disagree with "having regard to the principles of Natural Justice" which is frankly too legalistic and vague. We are trying to build a system here on specificity; if what you mean is "avoiding bias", let's just say that. We don't need to bring in English procedural rights. Ironholds (talk) 19:40, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If you prefer something more explicit, I suggest ...subject to the requirement to avoid bias and the appearance of bias, and to allow fair participation to each party. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:14, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thank you, I hope the current version captures the meaning. Natural justice is a very specialized term indeed. Instead of "avoid bias" (a negative statement) I opted to go for the positive statement mentioned in en.wiki: "duty to act fairly", which is descriptive and clear.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Committee page and new email to wikitech-l
Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft looks good enough for a call for feedback at wikitech-l, don't you think? If you think there are still open ends in that page, let's polish them in the existing or new sections in this Talk page. Seeing how the previous called caused a bit of confusion, this time I would make clear that this is a call for wider feedback, not a vote for consensus and actual approval.

In that email, we could also mention that after the previous call for feedback we have polished many details in Intro + Principles + Unacceptable behavior, and we are proposing a structure of three different pages for simplicity. I would also mention that we welcome more opinion on, since that is the only big addition still open that is visibly stuck.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As I said at Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft/Archive_1, we should focus on finalizing text for Intro, Principles, Unacceptable behavior ASAP. After that is complete, I suggest this for future sections (Committee in this case, but it would be the same procedure for later ones):
 * We send out an email to wikitech-l asking for people to spend one additional week editing and discussing the section, with an announced end date for textual changes.
 * On that date, we freeze changes for that section, and open up a one-week consensus discussion. Unlike the current consensus discussion, no textual changes would be permitted during the discussion.
 * If there is consensus, the section will be approved, and later changes to approved section would face a high bar ("is this text change absolutely necessary to solve a serious problem?", not "is there a way to make this read a little better or handle an obscure edge case?").
 * Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:19, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I support this idea. A handful of people on this page have mentioned difficulty keeping up with many verbose and multi-threaded discussions. As Wikimedians, we can always find something to improve, but at some point we need to draw the line at "good enough to get started with", or else we'll still be discussing bits of the first section next year. We can always revisit this policy after it's been in force for awhile. That happened for the Grants Friendly Space Expectations and seems to have worked well. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 06:08, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It is a good plan.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:03, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Legal standing of the Committee
What is the intended standing of the Committee? I presume that it is to be an entirely informal group whose only standing and authority derives from the community? As opposed, say, to a committee of the WMF Board? I preferred the latter solution but consensus seems to be the former. Assuming so it should be made clear. Does the WMF back the Committee in any way, for example, by way of indemnity or advice if there are legal repercussions to its decisions? Or is it intended that Committee members stand completely exposed personally in the event of legal action? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 18:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's an active and open question, and will require consultation with WMF legal. IANAL and neither are most (all?) of us here. I am not sure whether it can be plausibly argued that its "only standing and authority derives from the community" given the connections to Developer Relations and the fact that the committee's decisions can have a significant impact on the ability of WMF employees to do their jobs, but a lawyer would have a better sense of whether that is possible. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My question is, what do we want it to be? Do we want it to be free-standing, so that its standing and authority derives only from the community?  Do we want it to be indemnified by WMF?  Do we want WMF to be able to give it instructions or not?  I agree that Legal will need to advise on how to achieve what we want, but what is it that we want? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:25, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Honestly, what I primarily want is for us to focus on getting the code up and running, and then work on the committee. If we're working on the committee already, I don't see a problem with it operating by community standards albeit with WMF backing, in the same way the Arbitration Committee works. Ironholds (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In the current wording, per wmf:Resolution:Wikimedia Committees, this would look like a WMF staff committee. This doesn't mean much (certainly it doesn't have legal personality; no Wikimedia committee has) but it does have disadvantages. Nemo 07:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My vision of the Code of Conduct committee fits with the definition of "an entirely informal group whose only standing and authority derives from the community". I see this committee as a community-wide committee which doesn't require any WMF member. When that committee decides that an issue goes over themselves, they can transfer the responsibility to handle that situation to the Wikimedia Foundation, who would have the Developer Relations team as point of contact. Note that in our draft the WMF/DevRel have no authority over the Committee.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:30, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This is not a Staff Committee because the CoC (and thus the Committee which is part of the same package) will be created by community consensus, not by staff acting alone. Furthermore, it will not be led by WMF staff, nor is there any requirement that WMF staff ever be on the committee (though it is allowed). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It could be temporarily led by a WMF staff member if the committee elects them as chair. But that's not what the document means. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 07:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In addition to what I said below, WMF staff will not be giving it instructions. The authority derives from the Terms of Use and Code of Conduct (CoC), and the CoC itself provides the policy which must instruct the Committee's actions. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:39, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The whole code is being created by fiat by a group of WMF employees and gives ultimate authority to a WMF employees team, hence I maintain the thing is led by WMF employees and definitely looks like a WMF staff committee. --Nemo 06:50, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the Committee's authority will derive from the Code of Conduct itself (as a policy of the technical community) and also the ToU, which says, "The Wikimedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by the community or Foundation policies applicable to the specific Project edition, including but not limited to warning, investigating, blocking, or banning users who violate those policies." Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:10, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

neuro(a)typicality
I had to read this three times just to parse the word, and I seriously doubt anyone is going to know how to translate this. Isn't it already covered by "disability"? If disability doesn't cover it, isn't there some more widely understood term or phrase we could use? At the very least, we don't need the parentheses since no one is going to be harassed for being neurotypical. Kaldari (talk) 23:36, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Probably depends on whom you ask (see Neurodiversity). Removed the quotes (FWIW the phrasing was from the Open CoC). --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:17, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * "Disability" is a charged term with legal and political consequences. Nemo 07:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The lack of social awareness on neuroatipicality is a problem in itself, and by mentioning it in this CoC we make our small contribution to the solution. I agree that it should not be assimilated under "disability". Note that in terms of social awareness most people would have a hard time defining the differences between "gender, gender identity and expression, sex, sexual orientation" (and even more just ten years ago), yet we are adding these terms as well. Maybe in ten years we will all be more aware about neuroatipicality and its implications in our surroundings and our own behavior with others.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:39, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely. We can link to a definition if that would be useful. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 06:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Bad wording. "Regardless of neuroatypicality" sounds like "regardless of hermaphroditism" -- Ricordi  samoa  04:52, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It uses the same structure as "Regardless of [...] disability" which is right next to it. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Adding instructions to report to the CoC page
The discussion about this topic is scattered, hence this new section. Some comments here and the feedback in a private email we have received indicate an opinion to add the information about reporting an issue in the same page as the CoC. I was against, prioritizing the idea of keeping the CoC itself focusing on principles, but I appreciate that the other opinion might respond better to the comfort of the people who may need this CoC to report a violation. My opinion is not that strong, so I'm happy to change it, still aiming to keep those instructions clear and simple (which should be a good thing in any case).--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:57, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's a list of features of an effective code of conduct. One of the central features is "Reporting instructions with contact information". I see that the instructions have been moved back to the central policy, and I believe that aligns us better with current best practices for these policies. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 06:24, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We should ensure the main page at least has a clear link to follow for reporting details. So there are three possibilities I would be fine with:
 * Very brief mention on the main document (e.g. "To report a violation, follow these instructions"), with clear instructions and details after you click that link.
 * Short summary on the main document (e.g. "You can report a violation at techconduct@ . Please include details of the incidents and any relevant information that would help the investigation.  See further details." with further details upon clicking the link.
 * Full reporting section in the main document, but only actual reporting information (what is currently at Code of conduct for technical spaces/Draft). None of the information that was at Code of conduct for technical spaces/Draft is really about reporting.  Given that, I went ahead and renamed it to /Cases.
 * --Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:44, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

"a single committee member can..."
The draft says "a single committee member can..." I don't think a single committee member should be able to do anything on their own, no matter how simple and obvious a report seems to be. We are talking about five active members committing to respond immediately to reports. Finding at least three (majority) for a quick clear action should not be difficult.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:45, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * : Can you say more about why you want a majority to check in first in all cases? I'm thinking of cases where a quick word can de-escalate and where the situation can then be analyzed at more length by more people, or where you have someone who's continuing to make racist comments or unwanted sexual remarks in an IRC channel, and requesting a temporary ban will make the channel usable for other people in the meantime while the committee members get in contact and decide how to handle a report. I don't think that situations like those that are playing out in real time for the participants necessarily call for a majority before anything can be done. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 06:37, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Where does it say self-nominees "commit[...] to respond immediately to reports"? I agree that committee members should actively be participating in committee business (with a reasonable definition of active).  But that does not guarantee that three committee members are in front of their computer at all times.  I do not share your optimism that at least three people will always be online and pingable (bearing in mind the committee will probably include volunteers, time zones, obviously other activities...).
 * Given that, I think we should keep the current idea (limited actions can be taken immediately by a single member, the full Committee can always override a single member). It's important to clarify which actions can be taken by a single member.  This edit removes that distinction, so I will be undo-ing at least that part. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:29, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I read "a single committee member can take quick action" as a single Committee member can make a resolution on behalf of the Committee, and I still think a resolution requires the participation of the Committee. If what it means is that a single committee member can request a quick action (i.e. to stop a crisis before it grows) to the administrators or maintainers of the spaces/projects affected, then yes, ok. We can assume that Committee members will not have always the permissions to take action themselves, therefore the wording can go in the direction of "a single committee member can require the related administrators or maintainers to take action..." Being "a simple case", that quick temporary action should be enough to pause the problem while the committee discusses the resolution and agrees on it by majority.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:02, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, what you're saying is in line with the specific actions listed before ("Defer to the space itself", "Issue a reprimand directly", "Decide not to take action"). I think these are pretty clear and would like to put them back. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 17:26, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Notifications and resolutions
The draft is unclear here: "After being notified of the outcome, the reporter or alleged offender may raise objections to the resolution. These will be considered by the committee, which may alter the outcome." A notification is not a resolution. An objection is not an appeal. What about this sequence: --Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:52, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Committee notifies their decision to reporter, alleged offender, and eventually other person consulted, keeping the privacy levels agreed for that case, giving them a chance to provide feedback.
 * 2) That feedback may alter the resolution of the Committee.
 * 3) When the Committee decides, a resolution is made and enforced.
 * 4) From the moment the resolution is being enforced, the reported offender may appeal to Developer Relations.
 * I think this is fine, except I would change "other person" to "other people", and "decides" to "decides to finalize", and the current draft allows the victim to appeal. Wherever we end up with "who can appeal" should be reflected here. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:42, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Logging actions of the Committee
The draft mentions that the Committee must log their actions. The Committee members can define the details themselves when they are formed, but maybe it would be good to set some framework in the draft itself. What actions are absolutely required to be logged (each report and its resolution, anything else?). Also, is this log public, private, both (in which case, what needs to be private/public)? This is probably closely related to the tool the Committee should use to handle reports and discuss them. See T112859 Code of Conduct reports to be handled via OTRS?. Same for Developer Relations and the cases transferred to them.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:01, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Following up on Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft, probably the following should be logged:
 * Each report and its initial outcome (initial outcome is before notifying affected people)
 * Altered outcome (if it gets altered after notifications)
 * Decides to finalize (this could be combined with another log entry if it happens at the same time; see Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft.
 * The log should be private. The report itself and internal case deliberations will always be private.  Certain outcomes, e.g. "Taking no further action" and "private reprimand" are also private. Given that, and because the log must be somehow (directly or indirectly) be linked to the reports and case deliberations, that means the log must also be private. There will need to be a separate place for certain public actions (e.g. public reprimands), but the Committee can handle that part. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:49, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

"At least one member must be reelected"
This appears (since it says 'Same meaning') to be a possible misunderstanding of the prior text, which said, "Up to four committee members can be re-elected." The goal of that is to prevent burnout (since it encourages people to rotate off and on), and ensure the committee gets new blood.

I don't have that strong an objection to "At least one member must be reelected", but what if no one wants to be re-elected? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:33, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Follow-up consensus discussion on intro, "Principles", "Expected behavior" and "Unacceptable behavior" sections
Since we started the prior discussion, we have made several changes to the document. In the future, we will do the announcements so "last call for work" and "consensus discussion" are clearly separated. However, since that wasn't done here, this is a final discussion on these sections.

Please express your views on whether we should switch to this new text for the intro, "Principles", "Expected behavior", and "Unacceptable behavior" sections. The reason that "Expected behavior" has appeared is that Qgil-WMF added positive guidelines during the prior discussion (based on feedback). A later version of that (with different text) ended up back in the CoC, but it was split into a new section.

Please comment only on these sections in this version. Let's try to finish up these sections at the end of this discussion, either with this new version or with the old version that previously reached consensus. Let's not make further changes to these sections.

Concluding this will allow us to move on to other sections.

Here is a diff for convenience. Please disregard changes to other sections, as those will be discussed later. The biggest changes I know of are:


 * Slight change to the scope paragraph in intro
 * Rephrasing of the principles
 * Addition of neuroatypicality
 * Addition of positive expected behavior
 * Flexibility about how project maintainers can respond
 * Slight change to "Unacceptable behavior"
 * Addition of explanatory section that explains things the Committee will not consider violations, and how they will take the context of incidents into account.

I expect to close this discussion Tuesday October 6th. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Although I wouldn't have made some of these changes (e.g. dropping the examples of work), I like other parts (e.g. giving project administrators discretion about how to handle situations while still noting they have a responsibility, and prohibiting the publication of non-harassing private communications) and support the change over all. I also note that several people supported having positive guidelines, so I'm glad these are now in. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Looking at the provided diff, it seems like the text now goes out of its way to not claim who it's speaking for. For example, you can see this in the removal of the "contributors and maintainers" language, I think. Phrases such as "we consider persistent patterns of interaction" and "we also assert that no marginalized status" now have no clear owner. Who's we exactly? In general, I continue to think that Wikimedians already have about a half-dozen similar pages, all of which are now conveniently included in the "See also" section. I really struggle to see how this page&mdash;as it grows in complexity and bureaucracy, toward the creation of essentially a "Wikimedia technical spaces" ArbCom&mdash;is a good idea. It would also be nice to link unfamiliar terms such as cissexist. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's speaking for the members of the community, who are also the people that will be bound by the code of conduct. Using "we" in a code of conduct (usually without prefixes like "As contributors and maintainers") is very common.  Since the committee takes the lead on enforcement, when discussing enforcement it specifically refers to them (but they're doing their job on behalf of the community anyway).  See https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/, https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html , http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct , https://www.rust-lang.org/conduct.html  , etc. for examples of how "we" is used.  Someone objected to "we pledge", which that change also got rid of.  I don't think this aspect makes a big difference either way. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:53, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The fact that it's common doesn't mean it's right for us. Someone earlier even mentioned the USA constitution, revealing this discussion is polluted by an inappropriate "founding father" hybris. Nemo 06:59, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you don't want us to critique specific parts of the text, but rather just say "support" or "oppose" to all of these changes. In that case, on the whole, I'd rather go back to the previous version, although I do like some of the changes, particularly the first three items under "We do not consider the following to be violations of this policy".
 * In case that's not what you mean, I do have some specific thoughts, including:


 * 1) What does "participate in an authentic and active way" mean? I really have no clue, and in a document like this, any part that doesn't communicate a clear, specific expectation of behavior waters down the parts that do.
 * discussion: 
 * 1) "Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts." This seem like it falls neatly under "reasonable communication of boundaries" to me. Is there a good reason to single out social justice concepts?—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 05:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * discussion: 

I strongly support this version. On the balance, this is a solid set of changes. Some particularly useful ones:
 * Neuroatypicality has been added to the list of characteristics--a concern of a number of members of our communities, and one worth mentioning explicitly
 * There is now a positive list of behaviors to strive for in our community interactions. As Tgr (WMF) said, "The same way, I would prefer to avoid a CoC in which the most compelling thing said about the way our community behaves is that it is not literally harassment." It is difficult to balance the need for generality and specificity, especially considering different cultural contexts, but having the list is better than not.
 * The list of unacceptable behaviors now includes "publication of nonharassing private communication". It is not fair to break the implicit promise of privacy in a private communication unless there is no other good way for harassment to be addressed. This also brings this policy closer to the existing Grants Friendly Space Expectations. It's not necessary to echo other policies (if it was, this would be a shorter discussion!), but it's useful to keep them somewhat aligned.
 * A strong statement of principles and a clear statement of which classes of reports this policy is intended to allow. These points--complaints against actions taken to welcome people from underrepresented groups, demands to repeatedly explain fundamental principles, complaints of people clearly expressing their boundaries, and complaints about the criticism of actions which appear racist, sexist, etc.-- have arisen in response to most discussions about ways to improve the experience of people from underrepresented groups in open source communities that I've watched or been part of.


 * There are a few changes I'm not a fan of--I wouldn't have removed the list of ways that our various community members contribute to our technical spaces, and I would have kept the list of tools that administrators and maintainers can use to address various forms of violations.


 * Even so, the improvements are substantial enough that I support this version over the previous one. I expect that any weaknesses or lack of clarity can be addressed when this policy is revisited in the future. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 01:57, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I like the current version and am especially happy with the Expected Behavior and Unexpected Behavior sections. I think it would be good to release a list of which IRC channels and mailing lists are counted as "technical" as soon as possible. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 04:15, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

On the whole, I think those are positive changes, and resolved most of my problems with the text. I still wouldn't mind if the unacceptable behavior section was less vaguely phrased but meh. (Thanks for adding a deadline for the discussion BTW. I still feel it's needlessly rushed but now it's rushed in a transparent and predictable way which is an improvement.) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

(removed an anonymous comment that was derogatory and had no constructive content. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:33, 1 October 2015 (UTC))

"Publication of non-harassing private communication" entry as an example of "harassing" behaviour. I have no intention of abiding by such a rule where not covered by a real NDA. This is supposed to be a code of conduct, not an NDA. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 10:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * discussion: 

I think we have made a good progress in this version, and I think it is time to move forward and focus on other parts of the CoC. Details can be always polished based on lessons learned when putting the CoC in practice.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Most of these changes look fine, but a few of them seem very troublesome (or "problematic", as the kids like to say these days). Here are the issues I see, in order:
 * Community members are expected to "Participate in an authentic and active way" - as someone else noted, this doesn't seem to make any sense. A literal reading of it would indicate that people are going to get in trouble for not devoting enough of their time to Wikimedia projects - which may be a good solution, given the large backlog of projects that exists, but is probably not the intended meaning. The word "authentic" in there is similarly inscrutable.
 * discussion: 
 * The community "prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people's comfort" - from the viewpoint of this document, isn't one person's safety always more important than another person's comfort, regardless of their privilege? Including this sentence makes it seem like the answer is no - which is highly provocative. Actually, there may even be some legal drawbacks to this phrasing (if, say, a person "of privilege" gets injured at an event), but I'm not a lawyer.
 * ''discussion:
 * Of the "We do not consider the following to be violations of this policy" list, #1, 2, 4 and 5 (all the "social justice" ones, basically) don't seem to have any purpose here. I have yet to hear of any hypothetical case where the inclusion of these four guidelines would make a difference in the punishment meted out (or not meted out) to individuals. I suppose four hypothetical cases would be ideal, one for each guideline, but even one would go a long way toward proving that they have a place here. Until I hear one, I'll have to assume that no such case exists. Yaron Koren (talk) 13:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ''discussion:

I like this version, and I think it's better than the previous one. There are a few small things I would have liked to tweak, like adding "without permission" to the "publishing private communication" clause, but it's my fault for not bringing that up earlier. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

This code of conduct makes sense to me overall. I would also add "without permission" to "publishing private communication", since it's clear from this discussion that that's the intended purpose of the rule. But my support does not hinge on that change being implemented. Jmorgan (WMF) (talk) 23:19, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I especially like the additions of positive expected behavior. In practical terms, the code of conduct is as much about setting a tone for the space as it is about defining transgressions and punishments. Having some positive examples at the top makes it sound less like you're walking into a warzone. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

both because I support this version and, more importantly, because people from backgrounds we have traditionally under-served and let down support this version. Ironholds (talk) 02:08, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Based on the "people from backgrounds we have traditionally under-served and let down support this version" comment above. Unambiguously demonstrating a lack of understanding of the underpinning criticism by unpaid volunteers (i.e. the minority taking part that are not under contract to the WMF). These volunteers were mostly from these backgrounds referenced, and have nevertheless remained critical of the predetermined outcome driven process followed. This has guaranteed that this CoC must exist and become a formal requirement on volunteers, backed from the outset with threats of WMF implemented global bans if not complied with; as judged by a committee that is now certain to have a controlling majority of WMF employees. --Fæ (talk) 11:57, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * "a committee that is now certain to have a controlling majority of WMF employees" -- what?? According to the current draft, the committee will be formed by self-nominated candidates selected by Developer Relations. This team wants a scenario opposite to the one you describe. We want to help forming a first committee with as much diversity of affiliation, abilities, gender, origin, etc, as possible -- and if we need to encourage more contributors to nominate themselves, we will. About the rest, I disagree, it has no base, and we have discussed it at length. I would be interested in you providing a plausible example of a violation of this CoC as currently written, that could end up with an undeserved ban to an alleged offender.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:46, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a reductionist argument that whittles away at any position counter to the majority view on this holistic issue, rather than, say, pragmatically building on what has been seen to work or fail for past harassment cases on Wikimedia projects. However, I will give an example as requested in the form of a statement.
 * The result of the process as described will be a committee where the controlling majority of votes on any decision will be by those under agreements with the WMF, including non-disclosure agreements. Over the last few of days we have seen edits to address this weakness rebuffed and deferred.
 * Should a complaint be raised where any of the parties were current or past WMF employees, trustees, or connected with major donors, WMF legal may choose to step in using their obligation to counter what they may percieve as threats/risks for the WMF, including potential reputation damage. After a legal intervention, no outcome would be credibly transparent or accountable, as their first action would obviously be to ensure there was no further official public discussion or minutes that would later be obliged to be published. There is no assurance that there would be any outcome that would address the concerns of any parties involved, either as a complainant or alleged harasser. Having directly experienced the blunt and unforgiving end of WMF legal's typically American style negotiation tactics, as well as my experience when attempting to ask for assistance with current harassment, I find the rush to create a WMF sanctioned and initially appointed committee that may put itself in this position disturbing, and appears unlikely to ever address or learn from past serious governance failures or actual issues that have arisen from handling cases of harassment against individual Wikimedians badly. --Fæ (talk) 13:39, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any mention of global bans in the policy any more, and as Frances says, the proposal as a whole is not what this discussion is about. The first part of your comment comes off as you opposing the changes because I like them, which I hope is not what you mean - and on the marginalised backgrounds yes, some of the volunteers are from marginalised backgrounds, but not all volunteers oppose the policy (I see quite a few supportive comments in the previous discussion section) and I know of quite a few WMF employees who come from similar backgrounds or entirely different ones, also marginalised, and underrepresented by the oppose votes.
 * I really don't understand the extension of WMF Legal to cover 'current or past WMF employees, trustees, or connected with major donors'. One could just as easily argue that volunteers, as people who commonly have prominent roles within Wikimedia projects, should be protected. I also don't see anything in the proposal about WMF legal stepping in at all - WMF legal isn't mentioned that I can see. We (this talk page) haven't even decided the basis under which this policy would be formed (board resolution, WMF decision, or community consensus) but a lot of the discussions have absolutely prioritised community consensus as the best approach there). So this feels like a pretty big stretch from a discussion about whether specific changes are an improvement or not - which is what this section is about. Ironholds (talk) 18:57, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Ironholds, "you opposing the changes because I like them": you are clearly taking this personally. Please don't and stop your personal attacks. Nemo 07:09, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, the current discussion is about the intro, "Principles", "Expected behavior" and "Unacceptable behavior". You apparently support the proposal (see bottom of that talk section) to forbid the Committee from having a majority of WMF staff/contractors.  That is not in these sections, so the outcome of this discussion has no bearing on that proposal (which might or might not be adopted later).  But regardless of whether the committee ever has a majority of WMF staff/contractors, you have not given any possible basis in the text that would allow WMF Legal to step in and demand the Committee adopt certain case outcomes.  Nor have you explained how this implausible intervention would go unnoticed by the public, when there are guaranteed (by the text) to be non-WMF people on the Committee.  You say, "There is no assurance that there would be any outcome that would address the concerns of any parties involved", but right now it is almost assured there will not be such an outcome, because there is generally no realistic procedure (the ToU alone is only even maybe suitable for the most serious cases, and doesn't even give specifics or a procedure for those) to address those concerns at all now.  That's exactly why we're working on the CoC.  I don't agree that there has been a "rush", considering I first asked Wikitech for input in early August (though there was public work even before that), it's now early October, and we're still finalizing changes to the first few sections. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:57, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding learning from past harassment cases, there is still time to do so, especially in the sections about reporting, processing, and responding to cases. Specific feedback about that would help (preferably in a new talk section if it's not about one of the sections being finalized). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:06, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Fæ: I understand that you object to this document in general. This portion of the discussion is on whether or not we support these specific changes to the document. Do you have an opinion on those? --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 17:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Rather than address one of the two drafts being discussed (old or new), you've chosen to reference language that is included in neither of those drafts, nor in the current text. That long-removed language never even granted any new authority for global bans, nor did it expand it.  There is no language making the Committee "certain to have a controlling majority of WMF employees", and Qgil-WMF has said he would avoid that (this section is not even discussing how the Committee will be formed, though).  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:27, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

please stop to steamroller volunteers. two or so supporting this is not enough. even if it is five, it is not enough. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for introducing "steamroller". It nicely describes what it feels like to see over 700 words in just a few hours, all from those under contract to the WMF, slapping back my viewpoint in a style of legal cross-examination. This non-agreed process, and faux urgency for delivery, is disappointingly a long way from being consensus building or welcoming for unpaid volunteers. --Fæ (talk) 23:27, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Faux-urgency, meaning 'it's urgent but I don't agree with it' or what? Because from my point of view, I believe this would be of tremendous assistance in improving the quality of dialogue within Wikimedia's technical spaces, and that is always urgent - these spaces are toxic. As for the WMF point - I'm here as a volunteer. Matter of fact, I'm in Chicago on holiday right now. If the people responding to you I see an entire one person who works for the WMF, is at work when they reply here, and is tasked with working on this explicitly as part of their job. You find the process disappointing, which I am sorry for; what I find disappointing is the insistence of describing the divide on this issue as community/WMF. I see community members in opposition; I see community members in support. The fact that so many WMF people are in support is probably mostly representative of how they constitute the majority of the technical community, at least in places like Gerrit. This is not community-versus-WMF. Ironholds (talk) 14:58, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You are dogging me. I am uninterested in engaging with you, and can be seen to have avoided direct dialogue with you. Please stop. Refer to my 2014 comment on Commons. You are perfectly aware I find your behaviour worrying on diversity related topics, or when discussions are about me, and have done for a period of several years. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:11, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a great version to have as a CoC that we can expand on in the future as cases happen. I, too, think that adding "without permission" to the section of "private communication" would have made it slightly clearer, but seeing as private conversations that have a permission to be published are no longer private by definition, I don't really think it changes anything much. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 20:35, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the text did not get better. In parts it also got worse, see for instance the verbose paragraph on "systemic inequity and oppression", 5 lines of which out of 6 could be replaced by the sentence "This document's premise is that affirmative action is needed". There is no need to summarise constitutional debates on discrimination as part of this document. Nemo 07:15, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Generally, I think this document is in good shape, but I've read through the concerns that were raised and I find some of them to be legitimate -- yet side-stepped or misunderstood. I think that this processes of large changes with blocking consensus discussions encourages people who support the CoC generally (myself included) to disregard legitimate concerns about wording (the point of this discussion).  All the incentives are placed on getting something passed even if it is flawed.  I'm not sure what alternative process I'd propose, but I think that a good alternative would allow for iterations on specific wording based on feedback within the consensus-building discussion.  Even in the case where the person raising negative feedback is seen to be Wrong(TM)/uninformed/whatever, such feedback can at least also be seen as an opportunity to clarify and make explicit the intent of the text for similar Wrong(TM)/uninformed/whatever readers.  I suspect that a substantial portion of the concerns raised in opposition could be dealt with this way.  (BTW, I'm also User:Halfak (WMF)) --EpochFail (talk) 12:23, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Things that are obviously not violations
(Repeating some points made above to break them out from the above discussion before it becomes complete indent hell.) These points do not seem to have any significance in the strict sense; they claim to be exceptions from the unacceptable behavior guidelines, but as such they are completely unnecessary: no one in their right mind would assume that I am behaving unacceptably just because I am discussing imbalances in representation, or refuse to explain what privilege is. So I can only assume that their actual significance is not what they say but that they are there, as a somewhat roundabout way of saying that we like these things. That feels awkward at best and dishonest at worst.
 * Efforts to include or improve the experience of members of underrepresented groups in our technical communities
 * Discussing imbalances in different groups' representation or trends in whose voices are listened to in a given discussion, project, or leadership team
 * Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts

I don't think there is much disagreement that these are good things (or, in the case of the third bullet point, reasonable behavior). I personally don't feel the need to mention them in the CoC but don't object to them if other people feel they are important. Can we find a straight way of saying them, though, instead of hiding behind a weird double negative? "We welcome efforts to include..." etc. etc. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So, first, "no one in their right mind" - I would suggest picking better language there. And actually, no, I have seen a lot of people in conversations about the marginalisation of different groups of people react defensively, and a lot of that defensiveness take the form of "wait wait wait I don't understand what went wrong, you are obliged to explain it to me if someone calls me on it". So yes, this actually happens - and including it makes it explicit to people who are defensive in response to being called out that merely being defensive is not a response. Ironholds (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2015 (UTC)


 * If someone says "your are obligated to explain it to me", you can always just say, "no I'm not", and stop talking to them, whether the subject is racism, anti-racism, or Gerrit. Like Tgr, I don't see what that has to do with the code of conduct. Surely the repercussions, whatever they are, to both sides of that discussion/argument should not be based on the subject matter? Yaron Koren (talk) 20:04, 2 October 2015 (UTC)


 * A question for both of you--how many discussions around these issues in open source have you been part of or have you watched closely? I've been involved in efforts like this and have watched how many of these discussions go for the last several years, and there are a number of predictable patterns that show up. Yaron, when someone tries your suggestion of saying "no, I'm not" the usual next step from the person who's acting entitled to an explanation is to insinuate that the person can't support their point of view, complain about how rude the other person is being, and argue with whatever answers they are given, usually changing the criteria for what they will consider an "acceptable" answer along the way. It's reasonable to explicitly set the community standard that avoiding getting sucked in to that dynamic is acceptable. Tgr, I assure you--the first two points are frequently controversial in discussions on topics like these, and there are usually at least a handful of people ready to argue that suggesting that imbalanced representation is a problem is racist/sexist/etc. against whatever group is overrepresented. This often comes with sea lawyering and suggesting that, for instance, actions that might be effective at addressing these imbalances violate antidiscrimination laws and policies (and consistently, when checked with an actual lawyer, there is no issue). I'm glad that you haven't seen much disagreement on these points in spaces you've been in, but when these conversations get a wider audience or when the conversation starts to challenge a community's deeply held beliefs about itself (see: "meritocracy") these dynamics do happen and setting an explicit standard can be very useful. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 21:13, 2 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Fhocutt - none of what you're saying contradicts what I said. People can be jerks about anything; even if the thing that they're jerks about is the same thing 95% of the time, doesn't explain why the rules need to be different the other 5% of the time. Yaron Koren (talk) 22:35, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, we disagree. I've explained, based on my experience with these dynamics, and I don't think that continuing to discuss this is likely to be useful. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I took a step back and thought about why we seem to be talking at cross-purposes. Then I realized that part of the answer lies in one sentence of your previous response: "It's reasonable to explicitly set the community standard that avoiding getting sucked in to that dynamic is acceptable." It looks like you (and apparently a lot of other people, maybe especially within the WMF) view this page as more than just a list of "don'ts" - that it's really an expression of the general sentiments of the community. Taken literally, it's not, of course - that list of guidelines doesn't say, "it's acceptable to do A, B, C"; it just says, "you will not be officially punished for doing A, B, C". I think there's a certain amount of "reading between the lines" that many people are assuming. Perhaps what's needed is to split up this document into two: one that just covers the things not allowed, and the other a more general expression of encouraged behavior. That would hopefully also take care of that "active and authentic" phrase that seems very strange in a legal-type document. Yaron Koren (talk) 23:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with what Fhocutt is saying about the dynamics of such conversations as I've seen plenty of such interactions myself. However, I don't think the current wording actually does anything to address that problem. The current wording says that refusing to debate social justice issues isn't harassment (which no one would ever claim anyway). If we want to say that demanding that other people explain social justice issues isn't acceptable, we need to actually say that. As it is worded right now, someone could endlessly demand that another person explain sexism and there would be no recourse. The list that "refusing to explain" is in isn't "list of behaviors that are protected", it's "list of behaviors that aren't harassment". Maybe that just needs to be moved to a different section or we need to add an item under harassing behaviors about badgering people for explanations. Kaldari (talk) 23:34, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * "Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication" is already listed as "Harassment and other types of inappropriate behavior" ("public or private" is not in the prior version, but it doesn't really change the meaning). I think that covers badgering someone persistently after they decide to end a conversation. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:45, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * In that case, it sounds like we don't need the "Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts" item as it doesn't really change the equation any. What do you think? Kaldari (talk) 23:52, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The "Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication" means you can complain if someone badgers you. The "Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts" means you can't complain if someone refuses to explain or debate this.  As you said, they're different.  It's mainly a question of emphasis, though. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:46, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it'll work without it, although I do think that the specificity can be useful. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 00:51, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your thoughtful response. When we started drafting this, I was actually more interested in having separate "we'd like to see these behaviors" and "these behaviors are unacceptable within our community" pages, but the balance of the discussion was towards all one page, so there it is. Fwiw I agree that some of it's clunky and the style doesn't match, and there seems to be enough confusion on the "authentic and active" bit that I'd definitely be open to seeing that rephrased (ideally after we have a good enough--not perfect--policy in place, as I'd prefer this conversation not last till next year).
 * Regarding reading between the lines--I see this as about the larger context our community works in, and this is why I was asking how much experience you have in discussions that touch on issues of social justice in open source. There are open source communities where asking that action be taken to avoid, say, an all-male panel is interpreted as an implication that the men on the panel don't deserve to be there because they are men, and that interpretation leads to accusations that the one raising the issue of representation is being a "reverse sexist". Given this larger context, someone considering joining our community has no real reason to expect that there aren't members in our community who would do the same. I hope, of course, for a knowledgeable committee that would refuse to consider complaints like this, but someone who's new or not well connected won't know to expect that, and might be worried that by speaking up they expose themselves to someone who can use the code of conduct to shut them up. (This is also an unfortunately realistic fear.) This is what I'm hoping to convey--that at least the committee is aware of dynamics like these, and so people can worry less about the effects of speaking up or refusing to engage on themselves. I suppose that's another point of disconnect--you are asking for a situation where the committee would take action on some of these points, and I want to avoid the perception that they might. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Fhocutt - okay, now it all makes a lot more sense. The real issue is making sure that people don't fear - rightly or wrongly - that discussing diversity will get them in trouble for discriminating against the group they think is over-represented. Which is an admirable goal - discussions like this should not be policed unless they veer into something actually derogatory. But I think the current wording is a very awkward way of getting at that. A big part of the problem is, again, the fact that the code of conduct now holds a bunch of guidelines that really should be in a separate "recommendations" page; I'm glad you agree about that. Saying "you will not get in trouble for not responding to someone" - a fairly obvious statement - is really no substitute for what is actually meant to be conveyed, which is more like "please avoid flame wars".
 * The guidelines that cover the "sea lawyering" thing - I suppose that's #1 and 2 - could be phrased more clearly and more succintly, I think. I read through them before a bunch of times without understanding why they were there, and I don't think I'm the only one. And the fact that they talk about inequity and oppression and so forth means that they seem to be taking sides on the whole diversity debate, when they don't need to. (If someone argues that an all-female panel at Wikimania should have had some male representation, should they not enjoy the same protection from "lawyering"?) I would argue for replacing all five of those guidelines with something like "Any discussion or action involving adding representation from different groups for the sake of diversity will not be considered a violation of this policy." Maybe there's a better way to say it than that, but that would be the idea. Yaron Koren (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Of the "We do not consider the following to be violations of this policy" list, #1, 2, 4 and 5 (all the "social justice" ones, basically) don't seem to have any purpose here. I have yet to hear of any hypothetical case where the inclusion of these four guidelines would make a difference in the punishment meted out (or not meted out) to individuals. I suppose four hypothetical cases would be ideal, one for each guideline, but even one would go a long way toward proving that they have a place here. Until I hear one, I'll have to assume that no such case exists. Yaron Koren (talk) 13:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The implied meaning there IMO is that the same thing can often be an issue of comfort for privileged people but an issue of safety for marginalized people and in that case we care more about safety. E.g. for a male game developer asking for consent before publishing an email is a nuisance; for a female one it might be the difference between a heated private discussion and a coordinated harassment campaign on GamerGate. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The global Non discrimination policy seems relevant here. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 18:33, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a good example, and shows how it's not balancing the safety of two people, but the safety of one vs. an inconvenience for another. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Tgr - sorry, I don't follow. Could you phrase your example in the context of someone being found not to violate policy as a result of these guidelines? Yaron Koren (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * He seems to be referring to the line itself, "Our open source community acknowledges the presence of systemic inequity and oppression and prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people's comfort.", along with "Publication of non-harassing private communication", not necessarily one of the five items below the "comfort" line. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:29, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh - wrong section, then, I guess. Yaron Koren (talk) 23:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, sorry, I was referring to your second bullet point. I wrote that before your comment was broken up. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:38, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I gave several examples, and elaborated on one of them (see Talk:Code of conduct for technical spaces/Draft. You may not to be satisfied, but I still think it's a good example.  There is no way anyone can guarantee what would happen in the future in the absence of a particular clause.  But I've already made my case that this clause helps clarity. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You think someone implementing a program for the WMF might, in the absence of these guidelines, be found guilty of harassment for implementing that program? That was the gist of your example, if I understood it correctly. Yaron Koren (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

''This is not a very neutral section title, but I'm putting things here to avoid even more redundancy. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:31, 3 October 2015 (UTC)''

"Criticism of racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions"
Challenging behavior that's oppressive to marginalized groups is important. Calling people racist or sexist is the worst possible way of doing that, and should not be implicitly encouraged, and should not be automatically excluded from being a code of conduct violation. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * People who further oppress marginalised people should not be uniformly protected from being called on their behaviour. Whether you or I consider it an effective way of handling that behaviour effectiveness is not a valid governor on the behaviour of marginalised people - particularly when what is and is not effective is defined by members of non-marginalised groups. Ironholds (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The wording here is very specific: criticizing "behavior or assumptions". None of these say anything about whether someone is "racist or sexist". When someone is very invested in an idea of themselves as a person who treats other people fairly, it can be very hard for them to hear that their behavior isn't having the effect of upholding their values, or that some of the assumptions they're making as they plan or discuss are neither useful nor accurate and have the effect of perpetuating these oppressive assumptions. They may hear criticism of their behavior as a statement of which kind of person they are. It's a common and understandable response, and these conversations are difficult all around. I do think the wording here is specific enough. Is there something that you think would make the distinction more clear? --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is needed. Also, I don't think the current wording protects calling someone a racist. Criticizing behavior is different than calling someone names. Kaldari (talk) 23:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

"Participate in an authentic and active way"
What does "participate in an authentic and active way" mean? I really have no clue, and in a document like this, any part that doesn't communicate a clear, specific expectation of behavior waters down the parts that do. —Neil P. Quinn (talk) 05:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it basically means approximately "Do your best to use your strengths to move the technical work forward", as opposed to things like bikeshedding. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, pretty much. Don't drop out because people don't want to do it precisely your way. Don't use the project to play out power struggles. Don't play games about what you really think is the best way because someone you don't like suggested it before you did. None of these are what I would consider "authentic and active", but all of them happen in open source. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That could use some rephrasing; those words mean nothing to me. Be honest? Be open? (FWIW I still think the TODO CoC does a much better job of positives and we could just use that.) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems more like a desired behavior than an "expected behavior". I'm neutral on including it. Kaldari (talk) 23:50, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Community members are expected to "Participate in an authentic and active way" - as someone else noted, this doesn't seem to make any sense. A literal reading of it would indicate that people are going to get in trouble for not devoting enough of their time to Wikimedia projects - which may be a good solution, given the large backlog of projects that exists, but is probably not the intended meaning. The word "authentic" in there is similarly inscrutable. Yaron Koren (talk) 13:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This was explained above in response to Neil's comment. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw the explanation, but (a) it didn't seem to have any connection to the "authentic and active" wording, and (b) the thing that would become official policy is the code of conduct, not code of conduct + talk page explanations. Yaron Koren (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation, but it still doesn't mean much to me other than "be good to each other"—which (1) goes without saying and (2) is unfortunately not sufficient to build, or even very helpful in building, an inclusive community. I think the fact that it's open to about a hundred different interpretations (for an example of the subjectivity of "authenticity", I suggest "Hillary Clinton's authenticity problem, and ours") and that it has to be explained at all suggests that it's just going to confuse people and make the document sound fluffy and aspirational when in fact it's meant to be specific and binding.—Neil P. Quinn-WMF (talk) 18:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Neil and Yaron that this point is not helpful. It's also contrary to our global assume good faith principle, as it encourages processo alle intenzioni. --Nemo 07:26, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

"Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts"
"Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts." This seem like it falls neatly under "reasonable communication of boundaries" to me. Is there a good reason to single out social justice concepts?—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 05:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I read the "reasonable communication" as about someone coming up to you and saying "but X, let's talk about it" and you not wanting to. Refusal-to-explain, on the other hand, covers scenarios where someone is sanctioned or cautioned or warns and chooses to turn the discussion into a debate over the validity of the underlying premise ("Prove to me privilege is even a thing!"). This is common and very derailing, and as you note, explicitly calling things out > implicitly calling things out. Ironholds (talk) 11:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Neil, I think the "refusal to debate" is a way to avoid "sealioning" -- hitting someone with an unceasing barrage of very politely-phrased questions, in order to wear the other person down and get them to stop participating. (If you're not familiar with the term, it comes from this Wondermark comic.)
 * I've experienced that before -- not in a Wikimedia space, but in other forums, mostly when I was in college. There's two different ways it's come up for me. In one case, somebody says something derogatory about gay people. I say, dude, I'm gay and you're being a jerk. Or it just comes up in conversation, not connected to a derogatory statement.
 * What happens is there's a long conversation about sexual orientation and privilege and why do people have to come out and tell people, etc., which goes on way longer than I have any patience for. I didn't want to lead a seminar on the topic; I just wanted to say something about it and then move on with my life. At the end of the day, what everybody learns is that if you're gay, you shouldn't bring it up.
 * Like I said, this hasn't happened to me personally in a Wikimedia space, but it's an annoying way to harass somebody and I think it's worth calling out in the code of conduct. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We are not really calling it out though; we are saying that people won't be sanctioned for not participating in it, and even if that wouldn't declared it would be completely unreasonable to assume otherwise. So that statement feels a bit dishonest to me, a kind of coatrack statement for implying that "if you come here, you are expected to be familiar with social justice concepts" or "challanging the validity of SJ concepts won't be tolerated". Which is probably not a message we want to give and I wouldn't mind omitting that bullet point. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't mean either of those things. It means, "No one here has an obligation to educate you about these concepts, so don't badger them into doing so, or complain (formally or informally) if they don't.  If you want to learn about these things, you're welcome to do so in other places.". Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:53, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your assessment of this as a "coatrack statement", and agree with Mattflaschen-WMF above. As a separate matter, I also am perfectly fine with giving the messages you object to. If I'd expected this community to be familiar with social justice concepts, I wouldn't have needed nearly as much reassurance before applying for the internship that really brought me into the tech community here. As it was, I only applied because I had met and trusted my mentor. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 23:02, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I think this is a dangerous road opening here, as this clause can be easily subverted to brand a dissenting voice as abuser and then refuse to even explain what the alleged violation consists of. I, for instance, genuinely have no idea what "social justice concepts" even are, maybe because my cultural background is not US-based. So for me it looks like a clause that allows to shut down any discussion by just pronouncing "it's social justice concept and we don't discuss those so I'm not telling you why, but I won". I would prefer something more clear here. --Smalyshev (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say this statement is dangerous but I do agree with Tgr that it seems to imply "if you come here, you are expected to be familiar with social justice concepts", which I think is opaque and unrealistic. I can totally understand and support people saying, "no, I'm not writing a ten-page dissertation about why word X is offensive", but I don't think that's how the sentence will be read.
 * If what we are trying to say is: "people don't have the obligation to explain at length why they find certain things offensive. If you're asked to stop, stop" (which I think is what you were getting at, Ironholds and DannyH), I'd support saying so.—Neil P. Quinn-WMF (talk) 19:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Neil: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I don't think it would hurt to make some of these phrases more accessible to people who aren't familiar with the "social justice" vocabulary. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:30, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

"Publication of non-harassing private communication"
"Publication of non-harassing private communication" entry as an example of "harassing" behaviour. I have no intention of abiding by such a rule where not covered by a real NDA. This is supposed to be a code of conduct, not an NDA. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 10:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you are mixing private communication with confidential information. Private communication is when we are having a conversation, an email exchange, etc, and then one day I publish somewhere something private you had shared with me. This CoC allows you to report my inappropriate behavior. Confidential information is what NDAs handle. If I as a WMF employee have access to some confidential information about WMF plans or data and I leak it to the public, you can report me to HR for breaching my NDA, but the CoC will have nothing to do with it.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think the distinction matters, but private communications can theoretically include confidential information which you wouldn't be able to publish. It remains that this CoC would prevent you from publishing your own private communications with someone, which is entirely unacceptable. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 12:54, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What this CoC does is to enable people to report an incident when they feel they have been offended or disrespected by someone else publishing non-harassing private communication. Then a committee would evaluate whether that action was offending / disrespectful indeed, and would take action only if that was the case. The point is still whether the intention is to harass, offend or disrespect someone.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 13:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it does much more than that: "Project administrators and maintainers have the right and responsibility to take action on any communication or contribution that violates this code of conduct." -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 16:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, note how this is effectively a list of things that are always considered harassment. I think you're expecting more of the committee than is actually in the document we're discussing here. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 16:11, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It is not true that these things are "always considered harassment". It specifically says, "Harassment and other types of inappropriate behavior" [emphasis added].  It's quite clear from the text in the second version that project maintainers have broad discretion in how to respond.  In a borderline case, this might just be privately saying "In the future, it would be best not to re-publish private emails without someone's approval".  Similarly, the text is also explicit that an individual member can "Decide not to take action", and this will stand unless the full committee decides to override.  All of this is in the actual document (although the "Handling reports" sections is not being finalized yet). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This rule can be interpreted to consider any publishing of private communication as harassment/inappropriate. It is not inherently either of those things. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 14:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think this one line turns the CoC into an NDA. However, "NDA" is just a label.  Let's look at the actual provision.  You've said, "I have no intention of abiding by such a rule" and "It remains that this CoC would prevent you from publishing your own private communications with someone, which is entirely unacceptable".  Obviously, if you got someone's approval, you could then publish private messages they sent you.  But let's assume you didn't.  Why would it be an appropriate thing to go ahead and publish it anyway when it was private and they wanted it to remain such? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It may or may not be appropriate to publish it, but this rule considers any sort of publishing of private communications to be inappropriate. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 14:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * To paraphrase a point User:Tgr (WMF) made below: if there's something that you don't want to be publicly known because you fear you may be harassed over it, you might talk about it in private (e.g. IRC PMs) with a few people. If one of those people then turns around and publishes such a conversation, that opens you up to harassment (not just from within the community, but outside of it as well: our wikis and mailing lists are public). This is one reason why publishing/sharing private conversations without permission is not appropriate. In this particular example I'd probably consider it harassment, but even if it's not something obviously harassing like "OMG LOOK SO-AND-SO IS A [slur about their personal life]", publishing private conversations without asking for permission first is still inappropriate. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The publishing itself should not be considered harassment/inappropriate. I should not have to - and will not, regardless of the outcome of this discussion - seek permission to quote trivial things people say to me. I am seriously disappointed in, and have lost an awful lot of respect for, a lot of people who have been supporting this, especially you. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 14:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What you define as trivial things, other people may not - that's why it's good and frankly basic politeness to ask first before republishing. That's what that seeking of permission is attempting to guarantee. Ironholds (talk) 15:02, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Krenair, do you think publishing a private email against the sender's wish is fine (at least in some cases)? Or do you think that's a bad thing to do but not something that should be regulated in a code of conduct? Or do you not oppose discouraging it via the code of conduct in general but think that the way we phrased it is wrong? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:25, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Generally, I agree with Krenair that this line is problematic. It's not that publishing private communication is always OK or that we shouldn't be careful about using good judgement and asking permission.  It's that the category of "publish a private communication" is too broad.  It's too common of human behavior to re-tell stories told by others or to recall some good advice and provide attribution.  While I agree with Qgil that this would likely work itself out through the good judgement of "project maintainers" and committee members, but when we're relying on judgement, we should be vague rather than specific.  The "Publication of non-harassing private communication" is listed without qualification under the heading "Unacceptable behavior".  I don't think that does a good job of conveying the concern (opening someone to harassment inadvertently or purposefully) and it seems clear from this discussion that some people interpreted the wording differently than others.  --EpochFail (talk) 04:13, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Useful link: Secrecy of correspondence. In general, it's always unhelpful when the documents try to affirm (or protect itself from) constitutional concepts. We're not writing a constitution, thanks. Nemo 07:30, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * First, I completely disagree with the idea that we can not mention anything that is mentioned in some constitution, somewhere. For example, some constitutions say that you may not discriminate against someone on the basis of their religion.  Does that mean we should not have a "regardless of [...] religion" line?  No, it is still quite appropriate policy for our community.  In addition, you are distorting the meaning of "secrecy of correspondence" as implemented in constitutions.  It actually means that no one can (in theory, in certain jurisdictions) intercept communications before they reach the recipient.
 * The draft line disallowing, "Publication of non-harassing private communication" addresses something entirely different. It is saying that in our community (we are setting policy for our community, not implementing a constitution), you must respect the confidentiality (with one given exception) of private communications received by you.  This has nothing to do with "a fundamental legal principle enshrined in the constitutions of several European countries" Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:41, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

"Our open source community acknowledges the presence of systemic inequity and oppression and prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people's comfort."
The community "prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people's comfort" - from the viewpoint of this document, isn't one person's safety always more important than another person's comfort, regardless of their privilege? Including this sentence makes it seem like the answer is no - which is highly provocative. Actually, there may even be some legal drawbacks to this phrasing (if, say, a person "of privilege" gets injured at an event), but I'm not a lawyer. Yaron Koren (talk) 13:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree everyone's safety is important (more important than "comfort" as reasonably interpreted), and I don't think this would affect any liability judgement. This line is used in many CoC's, including the TODO CoC template. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I know the TODO people came up with it - that does nothing to strengthen my confidence in it. :) If you agree that safety is more important than comfort, why only enforce a subset of that? Yaron Koren (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I never said TODO came up with it. It's not only enforcing a subset.  There are additional clear provisions to protect everyone's safety in the CoC.  This is just one explanatory line. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:29, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it really explains anything - it's obviously trying to make a point about dealing with disparities, but (in my opinion) in a ham-handed way that actually says nothing. Yaron Koren (talk) 23:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I am quite uneasy with this clause and its implication that there are two classes of people - "privileged" and "marginalized", both never defined but seemingly having different rights with regard to this policy. I think that removing those ill-defined classifiers and just saying that comfort does not override safety, would be more in alignment with what we are trying to achieve here (which is presumably a welcoming environment for all good faith participants and not trying to split them into two groups and foster a divide between the two). --Smalyshev (WMF) (talk) 17:05, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

3 months
"Only resolutions (such as bans) that last 3 months or longer may be appealed by the reported offender. Reported victims can always appeal." -- Ricordi  samoa  04:56, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * you've opened quite several sections here with individual phrases and 'oppose'. We're not currently voting on individual chunks like that (although we are voting on some alterations). If you've got problems with elements I'd suggest opening up a section for discussion, rather than going right to voting, assuming that there aren't pre-existing discussion sections (which there may be in some cases). Ironholds (talk) 14:52, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * this is being discussed at . Please comment there, and remove this duplicated section in order to keep the discussion in one place.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It may look like obstructionism, but that was the only way I could let my voice be heard — it hasn't been so far. -- Ricordi  samoa  05:24, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * In I'm agreeing with you on removing the less-than-3-months exception. Maybe your voice is heard indeed.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:59, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

"Inappropriate" is "Unacceptable"
tautology. -- Ricordi  samoa  04:57, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * this wording has been discussed at length at . There is no need to open a new section about the same.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:08, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

"Project administrators and maintainers"
No clear definition and excessive responsibility placed on volunteers. -- Ricordi  samoa  04:59, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * you already opened a section about this topic. I replied, and you didn't follow up. I have added this definition in the new FAQ.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:11, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for not catching your reply. You wrote "you can report the problem to the committee, and they will find out who is responsible in that context": that could have meant some people would have had a responsibility without knowing. Now the meaning is clearer, and I'm even more deeply opposed to placing such a burden upon volunteers who have accepted greater responsibility as 'maintainers' on a purely technical basis. -- Ricordi  samoa  05:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Commitment to a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone implies responsibilities, yes. What is the alternative? A community where it is fine if maintainers witnessing acts of harassment or disrespect in their projects don't do anything about them, not even reporting them privately?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It would be good if the document explicitly said whether admins and maintainers would actually get in trouble for not reporting violations. As I've said elsewhere, this document, especially with its most recent changes, specifies a lot of "recommended" behavior that isn't going to get enforced - the "Participate in an authentic and active way" sentence is probably the most egregious example. So it would be good to know which of the two this is. (And it would also be good if all the non-enforced stuff were moved into a separate document, but that's another story.) Yaron Koren (talk) 14:31, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Yaron and Ricordisamoa that this passage is problematic. I don't know what a "project administrator" is, but volunteer maintainers don't have any special access to information etc. about possible violations of the code, hence shouldn't have any special burden. Such a clause will certainly be abused: when A hates B for thing X, it's common that A stirs C into doing something about totally unrelated thing Y which B would be in obligation to do something about, so that A gains a chance to objurgate B for failing said obligation, and achieve a "free field" in original camp X. Nemo 07:43, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This might be different for WMF employees, who have access to dozens private wikis, mailing lists and documents and hence may find themselves in a position where if they don't report a violation nobody else will be able to. Nemo 07:43, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * note that the text says "responsibility" to take action, not "obligation". Violations can be complex, and their reporting can be complex as well. The reasons for someone not to report a violation may be so diverse that I would not attempt to define a rule for them all. The person might be an indirect victim, not reporting fearing retaliation. The person might be an accomplice, allowing an act of harassment on purpose. These might be the type of complex cases requiring investigation from the Committee, mentioned in the draft.
 * WMF private spaces are out of scope of the CoC, and the Wikimedia technical spaces within scope are basically public. The point of this sentence is that violations of the CoC should be addressed when witnessed, which is better behavior than letting a victim to help themselves. Administrators and maintainers are in a very good position to help someone being harassed or offended. They are supposed to have experience, permissions, and community contacts including the Committee. This line entitles them to take action (as the CoC recommends even before reporting a violation to the Committee), and also states their responsibility to react to a violation instead of looking away.
 * Even if I see why you might be reticent to "charge these volunteers with more responsibilities", from an ethical point of view I believe that administrators and maintainers have such responsibility already, before any written CoC, as persons who have received an extra dose of trust from their communities. If you join the logic of a Code of Conduct in an open source project, this line is quite obvious.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:43, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * "So it would be good to know which of the two this is." The "Project administrators and maintainers" sentence is definitely meant to be binding. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:25, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Qgil disagrees with you... Yaron Koren (talk) 13:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You seem to assume that above-average knowledge of some code implies actual ownership of a project and the duty of keeping an eye on every activity within its scope. +2 doesn't. -- Ricordi  samoa  13:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Fine tuning the next steps
After the last week of feedback, we don't seem to be fully happy about the current version, but we probably wouldn't be happy reinstating the previous version either. There were new elements to the discussion and new participants. There was progress... but not consensus.

Here is an idea to keep moving forward, with more flexibility to allow more progress, but without running in circles or reopening parts of the CoC that are not contested. Let's select the parts of these first sections that are still open for discussion, and let's give us another week to reach a consensus on them. We would send an email to wikitech-l with the details, and we would encourage more people to manifest their opinion on these open ends.

Proposed texts open for discussion:
 * "Participate in an authentic and active way"...
 * "Project administrators and maintainers have the right and responsibility..."
 * "Publication of non-harassing private communication"
 * The entire paragraph from "Our open source community acknowledges the presence of systemic inequity and oppression..." until the end of the section. We have several related open discussions.

The rest of the text of these sections would be considered frozen in this drafting stage.

We could use this mechanism of the extra week if in future calls for feedback we also end up with portions of text clearly disputed. What do you think?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I'd also like the "unappropriate"/"unwanted" items to become more precise, but if everyone else thinks they are fine, I'll drop the stick... --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:35, 7 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I was originally hoping to either get consensus on this one, or move back to the old one. But instead, it looks like several of the opposers/neutrals support most of the draft, but have problems with these specific lines or sections.  Even some of the people who supported the followup round have a problem with one or two lines (though, largely just wanting to add "without permission" to the publication line).  I think this is a good plan.  We should discuss these parts and freeze the rest.  I also think we should move out the "Expected behavior" section to a separate guidelines page.  That resolves one of the issues you mentioned above. I've started a discussion about this. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:09, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Move "Expected behavior" out to a separate guidelines page?
I think we should move "Expected behavior" out to a separate guidelines page (Positive behavior guidelines?). This page would not be part of the CoC, and would make clear these guidelines are recommended, but not binding at a policy level, and not enforced by the Committee. It already says "expected and requested" (thus, not required) and I think this section has become a diversion from the parts of the CoC that absolutely can and need to be enforced. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:06, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

There's a lot of common-sense advice, like avoiding flame wars and avoiding "bikeshedding", that becomes difficult to understand and needlessly inflammatory when phrased in the context of enforced rules. Though hopefully there's a friendlier title than "Positive behavior guidelines"... Yaron Koren (talk) 13:23, 7 October 2015 (UTC)