Talk:Code of Conduct/Archive 4

Creeping bureaucracy
Stop it, just stop it. Everyone has been complaining for years of the ever-expanding bureaucracy and mass of rules in Wikipedia(s), which frighten new contributors. Yet new policies and side-processes keep being proposed everywhere, as in this example. I don't see any benefit in this document and I hope the proposal will be withdrawn as soon as possible to save us the burden of discussing it. --Nemo 16:17, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no intention of withdrawing the policy. The Wikimedia technical community is not part of Wikipedia.  It's true that English Wikipedia has Wikipedia:Civility and No personal attacks, but we don't.  There is no binding policy in this area for any online Wikimedia technical space.  So far from having a "mass of rules" in this area, we have essentially none. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:09, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree. This policy guarantees WMF control of volunteer discussion spaces (including spaces that are not operated by the WMF). This gives arbitrary control and is a potential censorship tool for employees or contractors to the WMF. There is no protection for a volunteer who might have fair cause to be raising critical or "non-positive" issues in a "technical space", there is no protection for whistle-blowers, there is no appropriate system of appeal, natural justice or governance for arbitrary actions taken under this code of conduct which may well be taken for debatable reasons of tone, misjudged jokes or confusion about who happens to be an employee using a non-employee account and is being mistaken for an unpaid volunteer (which happens all the time).

My reading of this policy is that it makes it possible for a WMF employee to choose to ban me forever from all the projects I am committed to as an unpaid volunteer, overruling community created project policies, for unknown reasons that may not even be provided to me so that I can correct any error, challenge them as a Joe Job attack, or ask for fair independent review. That makes it completely set against our values of putting the volunteer at the center of our projects. The idea that all Wikimedians should start officially reporting anyone "not being productive" I honestly find scary.

There is a need to do more about real harassment, this CoC confuses arbitrary allegations of "disruption" or being "non-positive" with harassment, and seems to make no attempt to ensure volunteers can appeal to elected volunteer peers for fair assessment of complex allegations of being thought by some to be disruptive, but not a criminal case that should be taken to the police if there is evidence to present, rather than unprovable allegations. --Fæ (talk) 19:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * My reading of this policy is that it makes it possible for a WMF employee to choose to ban me forever from all the projects I am committed to as an unpaid volunteer - If we're talking about you personally, I'm not sure I see what you mean. Most of your activity is on commons, which unless I misunderstand severely, is quite out of scope of this policy. Maybe this policy applies to tool labs (Does it? Its not entirely clear on that point), which would probably affect you more significantly. It would apply to in-person events, but people could already be banned without much appeal from such events anyways, so this is not much new on that front. (On the more general point though, I agree, fairness in enforcement is an important issue that is being hand-waved). Bawolff (talk) 21:31, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * And I just re-read the policy. Since my last reading the line "The Community Advocacy team also has the authority to investigate behavioral issues and recommend WMF global bans for individuals." has been added. So I guess I see where your coming from more. Bawolff (talk) 21:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You may need to read the policy again. The CA team has always had that power - this policy does nothing about that. What it does is set out behavioural guidelines for technical spaces. Your objection to the policy around it chilling volunteers ignores an important line from the actual policy; "a healthy amount of constructive criticism and vibrant debate helps to improve our software and is encouraged". This is nothing to do with critiquing software changes in the sense of the community giving feedback on new extensions or features; this is to do with how people behave on phabricator, on gerrit, on wikitech-l, and making sure we have a welcoming community. I agree, for what it's worth, that "not being productive" is a bit vague, and probably needs fixing up. Ironholds (talk) 17:15, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The CA team does not have the power to ban users from #mediawiki, #pywikibot, etc. Legoktm (talk) 23:40, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Wctaiwan} has removed "not being productive". I think they're right we don't need it.  It is from Bug management/Phabricator etiquette and I think the intention was/is to refer to cases where interpersonal problems or edit-warring were negatively affecting productivity, but it's true there are a lot of other causes of non-productivity, so it doesn't fit the policy as well as I would like. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:40, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * There is no protection for a volunteer who might have fair cause to be raising critical or "non-positive" issues in a "technical space", there is no protection for whistle-blowers. The policy doesn't do anything to threaten these forms of contribution.  If you have ideas about an explicit appeal process, please make suggestions.  Ultimately, though, any WMF employee is responsible to their manager and eventually the board.  I doubt managers and the board would allow the kind of abuse by employees you're hypothesizing.  The part about "seek to make our technical spaces a respectful and positive" is a preamble.  As Bawolff noted, this policy does not apply to Commons (except maybe software development there, e.g. Common.js and gadget development). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:09, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hang on, so this Code does apply to Commons then as you have listed examples? Specifically as I have published some of my bot code on Commons, and I use commons to discuss technical issues of batch uploads, then those discussions are now retrospectively controlled by this Code. If this is the case then there needs to be a Commons policy proposal. --Fæ (talk) 06:15, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I said 'maybe'. This is still just a draft, and the draft does not mention Commons.  I'll let other people weigh in on whether they would like to explicitly cover on-wiki code workspaces (like gadgets, etc.) (outside of MediaWiki.org)  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I hope the scope of the Code can be made completely unambiguous. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am strongly opposed to this applying to individual wiki Common.js. I don't think we legitimately have the authority to make policy for non-tech wikis or any of their pages. If someone from a content wiki comes to mw.org asking for help, or a channel like #wikimedia-dev, then this policy should apply, but pages on individual wikis should be the province of that wiki (Or something agreed upon at meta). Bawolff (talk) 08:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Consensus seems to be against it, and the current document already reflects that the virtual list is complete (there is no 'including but not limited' in the list of virtual spaces), so Common.js on other wikis (and similar things) is not included. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:31, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's utterly ridiculous that its inclusion was ever considered even remotely possible by anyone. --Nemo 07:32, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * i agree with nemo on the first sentence: stop it. why? the terms of use require clearly: "civility" elaborating it, including measures "We reserve the right to exercise our enforcement discretion with respect to the above terms." the discussion above shows imo only one thing: we have so many rules that even employees of the WMF have difficulties to know and understand them. the best is, the rules are nowadays written using so complicated language that we need a "human readable summary". if not humans, i am asking myself who else it could apply to and who else would read then the "real text". monkeys? computers? trees? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 01:55, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This draft is far more specific than just saying "Be civil" or "Don't harass". There are many reasons we still need a Code of Conduct for technical spaces despite the Terms of Use, including:
 * The TOU do not define 'harassment' at all (even as a 'including but not limited to'), which means people may be unclear what constitutes harassment.
 * The TOU only addresses very specific kinds of disruption, while allowing other kinds.
 * The TOU is missing several specific provisions applicable to in-person events (of which there are now a fair number in the technical space), for instance regarding unwanted photography and unwanted attention.
 * The TOU does not address issues like offensive comments and personal attacks. It actually doesn't even require you to be civil.  Both the summary and the in-text part about civility ("We encourage you to be civil") are not binding.
 * It has only narrow provisions about privacy (only forbidding violating the law, or soliciting information). There is nothing forbidding doxxing people in unethical but legal ways.


 * But perhaps most importantly, the TOU can only be enforced by the WMF, and only in very limited ways (mostly limited to bans and legal action). The Code of Conduct can address cases where action needs to be taken, but it either doesn't violate the TOU, doesn't require a ban, or doesn't rise to the level where the TOU would be enforced in practice.
 * This is actually explicitly what the TOU intends to happen: "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." You'll note the TOU also makes clear that warning/reprimanding (an important way of dealing with misconduct that doesn't require a ban) is primarily meant to be handled by local communities. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:11, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Other examples from industry
There's a nice code of conduct from the Electron project here that has a prominent link in the project's readme. Niedzielski (talk) 04:24, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * FYI, The TODO code of conduct actively puts marginalized people in harm’s way. (...) This Code of Conduct is essentially legalese to protect the corporations and their cis straight white men contributors from accusations of sexual discrimination, racial discrimination, and with the recent EEOC ruling, homophobic and transphobic discrimination. - https://modelviewculture.com/news/todo-group-and-open-source-codes-of-conduct Valhallasw (talk) 07:35, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That blog post falls very far from the standards of constructive and respectful communication it supposedly promotes, and is full of falsehoods (for example, check the pull request it links to and compare the actual discussion with the way it's characterized in the post). I don't think it should be taken seriously. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:47, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Another resource which helps explain why codes of conduct can help, is https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/ . Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:40, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Role of the document
I feel like this code of conduct is trying to be a set of guidelines for best social practices (no off-topic comments, discuss things in the open) and a set of binding rules (no harassment) simultaneously, with no clear delineation. This should be addressed either by structuring things differently and making it clear which things would lead to consequences, or just splitting it into a binding policy and a non-binding set of guidelines. The binding parts would also need to be concrete (in defining unacceptable behaviour) to be enforceable.

In what's been defined so far, I think the part about rejecting patches should just be removed—given the precedent of some developers being very determined to push through features against consensus, people really shouldn't be punished for rejecting patches, provided they do so without personal attacks and such. (Also, please don't use words like "catalytic".) wctaiwan (talk) 04:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:16, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * All of it is meant to be binding with the possible exception of the first sentence, which is kind of a preamble laying the groundwork. I feel like "Communicate about technology in public where possible" is relevant to the document, even though it's kind of non-actionable due to "where possible", because this is an important part of the MediaWiki ethos.  "Comments should be made with the intention of constructively contributing to our technologies." is actionable; it means e.g. comments that are purely unconstructive attacks are not appropriate.  I would expect this would not be enforced for one-off insignificant off-topic comments, but only to deal with major disruption.  It doesn't say patches can't be rejected; a lot of patches need to be rejected, for valid reasons (product, technical, or both).  It just says "consistent and unwarranted rejection of patches" (emphasis added) is not appropriate. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't think it should be a policy that communication happens in the open (the foundation may wish to mandate that for WMF developers, but this shouldn't be binding on volunteer developers). Unconstructive attacks may be actionable, but as written it's too vague and too broad (e.g. foundation PMs may argue that debating whether a feature is wanted at all is "unconstructive"). "Unwarranted" also leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
 * I'm not fundamentally opposed to covering both best practices and actionable misconduct on the same page (e.g. first list the goals of a CoC and document best practices, and then list what is considered actionable), but I think the latter needs to be concrete and separate for it to be enforceable at all. wctaiwan (talk) 07:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Not to mention the fact that banning someone from one or more MediaWiki forums (the only real enforcement available for these rules) would presumably make them more likely to communicate with others privately. Yaron Koren (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is not the only enforcement mechanism given. It explicitly makes clear that in some cases, just talking to them is the best way to go, and in other cases, issuing a formal warning may help.  Even in the case of bans, there are different types given. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:03, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't consider a warning to be enforcement, but that might just be a semantic issue. Yaron Koren (talk) 02:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't mandate solely public communication for anyone, WMF or otherwise. It just expresses that you should default to make it public (then consider the alternative, where appropriate), rather than go the other way. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:03, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Anyway, as I said above, while I think the "Communicate about technology in public where possible" line is relevant, it's not really actionable due to 'where possible'. I don't have my heart set on keeping it. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:19, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

(outdent) My concern is less about the specifics and more about the enforceability of a code of conduct that is deliberately designed not to be specific. You mention the role of discretion below. I'm fine with, say, discretion as to whether to give someone another chance, or whether something constitutes a pattern of disruptive behaviour, but as it is there isn't enough clarity when it comes to the line between best practices and actual rules. wctaiwan (talk) 04:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Krenair put back "We also pledge to communicate about MediaWiki/Wikimedia technology in public where possible" and made it even stronger. I don't have a strong preference on the first part (though I respect the fact that it was removed before, and understand why), but I think "All written non-security-related discussion about changes to MediaWiki core and extensions and skins which are deployed to Wikimedia sites or included in the MediaWiki tarball releases must be public." is way too strong and I've removed it.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what a "pledge" means in the context of a code of conduct. Actually, I have no idea what "we pledge" means here at all - most people aren't pledging anything, so it just sounds like false information. Yaron Koren (talk) 02:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


 * As much as I agree with the importance of public communication, I'd rather keep the CoC within the core goal of "making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone". Someone not communicating publicly will not automatically incur in disrespect or harassment. I would leave it out.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Quim. We should keep this document tightly focused on identifying prohibited forms of harassment, rather than general good practices. I added a part about the Wikimedia mission because I think it strengthens the case that prohibiting harassment is core to our values, but on the other hand I think communicating in public is a different principle and should be discussed elsewhere.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 22:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * +1. I think that a separate document on positive ways that we communicate respect for each other and for the movement (somewhat like the positive portions of the Phabricator etiquette) is a very good idea and that this would fit well in there, but I agree that it would be better to focus this on our core goal. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 00:55, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, in that case I'll go ahead and remove it.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Enforcement in new draft
The enforcement and reporting are now way more detailed, which is both a good and a bad thing. It's good because there's less ambiguity, but that much text may distract from the rest of the document. Also, since it comes from multiple sources, there are consistency and redundancy issues to work out. We may want to separate it out to a subpage (both as a break-out page if the overall Code of Conduct is approved, and for discussion now). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:28, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (((Comments have been moved to "Right to appeal"))).--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The current section Enforcement contains two lists of "possible responses: that, well, look too similar. Wouldn't it be better to consolidate a single list, and then have a new section "Appeal" with the details of the appeal process?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:49, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Which two lists are you referring to? The "For a simple case" is for actions a single member can take on their own.  The "Possible responses to a reported breach of the Code of Conduct may include" is a list of things the full committee can do.  I've tried to clarify this. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Right to appeal
The right to appeal has been mentioned in several places. As a general principle, of course anybody being accused of breaching the CoC must have the right to appeal. The first ones having to excel at Conduct are the ones using it to file a complaint and the ones using it to enforce it on someone. The exact implementation of the appeal process can be defined only after the processes for starting and handling a complaint has been defined, though. For instance, complaints filed privately probably will have an appeal process that is equally private, unless one of the parts wants to bring the issue to the public. Let's agree first on how to file a complaint and how to handle it?

Let me add that the root of the questions about an appeal process seem to be based on the assumption or fear that this CoC and its enforcement will be authoritative and unfair by nature. If this is the concern, then let's focus on this concern in the first place. This CoC and its application in the Wikimedia technical spaces can only become a reality if the Wikimedia technical community embraces it and maintains it. If there is anything suspicious and unfair in this CoC, it will not be approved, it will not become a policy.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (((moved from "Enforcement in new draft"))) Also, "Only permanent resolutions (such as bans) may be appealed" (proposal in the current draft) should be clarified. Is it intended that only permanent actions (e.g. lifetime ban) can be appealed, or any ban (possibly temporary)?  This should also clarify how the reporter's appeal rights are (un)affected. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's intended that only permanent actions can be appealed, but that the reporter's appeal/feedback rights are unaffected. I'm not terribly attached to this; I'd also be ok with something like "actions with effects that last for longer than three months" as well. The things I'd like to see balanced are not wasting the committee's time with specious appeals (such that the second step to any given action taken becomes "deal with the inevitable appeal") and allowing the flexibility to deal with genuine mistakes, particularly cases where the violator is using the CoC enforcement mechanisms as a way to further harassment of their target and the committee does not initially recognize that. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I think three months is a good compromise. I've added that. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I still think this sounds odd: "Only resolutions (such as bans) that last 3 months or longer may be appealed by the reported offender." I think everybody should have the right to appeal, and the Committee should have the tools to avoid that this right is being abused in bad faith. For instance: "Resolutions may be appealed. For simple cases, the committee may decide to start the enforcement during the appealing process to avoid an artificial obstruction to the process. In more complex cases implying a ban of three months or more, the enforcement must wait until the appeal has been resolved."--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:24, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It feels like something is missing in the current draft -- notifying or talking to the reported offender. If I'm reading this correctly, it looks like the Code of Conduct Committee reviews the report and makes a decision, and the only time the reported offender is mentioned is the line about being able to appeal a 3+ month long ban. Sometimes the evidence is entirely public and easy to corroborate, and sometimes it's not. When it's not, you probably want to talk to the person and see what they have to say about it. Maybe that's obvious and doesn't need to be in the policy? DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. However, it has to be done carefully.  You don't want a scenario like:
 * Someone feels they are being harassed, and reports it.
 * The Committee contacts the alleged offender to get their side of the story, naming the reporter (who did not expect to be named).
 * The Committee ends up taking only minor action (or none at all).
 * The offender retaliates against the reporter for the report.


 * The jQuery CoC is ambiguous on this front. The Reporting page says, "All reports will be kept confidential. In some cases we may determine that a public statement will need to be made. If that's the case, the identities of all victims and reporters will remain confidential unless those individuals instruct us otherwise.", but the Enforcement Manual says, "The committee is empowered to act on the jQuery Foundation's behalf in contacting any individuals involved to get a more complete account of events."  Contacting those individuals could itself be a breach of confidentiality.  I added a sentence that tries to balance these concerns (needing the facts and avoiding revealing information against the reporter's wishes). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Even if enforcement begins during the appeal process, your proposal does not do anything to deter people from appealing every single case (no matter how minor the penalty). We have to consider ECT's time. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * ECT's time is a factor I'm considering, trust me. I worry more about people complaining for having no right to appeal than about people trying to game the process. It is likely that the latter will put themselves in evidence with little community support. As for the former... they have a chance to drag more time and energy from all of us and, who knows, maybe even for a good reason because everybody can make mistakes, a committee too. (Note: I'd rather leave this discussion about appealing later, as proposed at ).--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Matt -- I agree with the need to strike a balance between involving the reported offender and not violating the reporter's confidentiality. That's a good point, and I think your changes to that section make a lot of sense. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:10, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The wording is unclear as to who has the right to appeal -- who is the "you" in "if you have concerns"? Possibilities include anyone sanctioned in the case, any party to the case, anyone involved in any way at any stage, or anyone at all.  Which is it to be? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:52, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it's "anyone at all". But this should not be used as a back-door appeal (by either offender or reporter).  It should only be to notify them of opinions, e.g. "I think the committee has developed a pattern of being too lax; this case is an example".  Also note that under the current draft, either offender or reporter can ask for reconsideration ("After being notified of the outcome, the reporter or alleged offender may raise objections to the resolution. These will be considered by the committee."), but only offender can appeal to the separate level, and only under restricted circumstances. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:25, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Then "you" is the wrong term, and should be in a separate sentence, reading "In addition, any member of the community may raise concerns about a case ...". The wording will still not explicitly forbid it being used as a second appeal. I also note that it is at least implicit, and perhaps needs to be explicit, that only a party sanctioned may appeal.  Is it clear that we do not wish an aggrieved party to appeal on the grounds that their complaint has been dismissed or that sanctions are too light? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:59, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've attempted to clarify this, partly based on this feedback. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:09, 28 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Is a reprimand in a permanent form a penalty that lasts more than three months? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:52, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * My interpretation was that reprimands are not appealable (but you could still ask the committee for re-consideration). I can see how this is a relevant question for public reprimands. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:25, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that there needs to be the possibility of an appeal against a reprimand which is public and delivered in a way which forms part of a permanent record. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:51, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The grounds of appeal are not limited in any way. That may be right, but it is a choice.  Is there any appetite for restricting grounds of appeal, and if not,, itmight be helpful to spell out that an appeal may be made on any of the grounds that procedure was not correctly followed, that the decision was wrong on the factgs or that the penalty was disproportionate.  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 07:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any need to restrict the grounds, but if someone does, they can suggest which grounds should not be allowed. I would guess pretty much everyone eligible to appeal will do so, but the 3-month minimum means minor penalties won't go through a time-wasting appeal process. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

First line of enforcement
I would like to float an alternative proposal for first line enforcement. I suggest that there should be a small group (probably either 3 or 5) of people from our technical community (both volunteers and staff, based on their involvement in the tech community). There would be an OTRS or mailing list address pointing to that group. I think the steps would be something like that:


 * 1) Someone emails e.g. techcoc@wikimedia.org, or contacts one of the members on IRC.  If it's OTRS, I think the email could auto-create a ticket, and maybe for IRC it could be created manually from the web interface?
 * 2) For a simple case (e.g. first offense, minor harassment in a single space), a single member could:
 * 3) * Defer to the space itself (e.g. MediaWiki.org admins in the case of an incident on MediaWiki.org, or event organizers for a hackathon), if they seem best-equipped to handle it.
 * 4) * Issue a public or private warning directly.
 * 5) * Decide to take no action (logging why and notifying the reporter)
 * 6) For a more complicated case (e.g. repeat offense, when a ban looks like like it will be required, or where there is cross-space harassment), the initial responder could ask other members of the group for feedback, and can also bring in people from the spaces involved (e.g. if it happens on both MediaWiki.org and IRC, bring in involved admins and IRC contacts).
 * 7) In case of even more complicated or urgent matters, or if the group is unable to reach a decision (e.g. the minority in the group objects to the decision), it can be escalated.
 * 8) After the initial outcome (which would always be logged, even if it's just 'deferred to XYZ' or 'no action taken'), the reporter should be notified.
 * 9) The reporter always will be notified of the initial outcome, and has the right to appeal (see separate discussion).
 * 10) If public action is taken on the basis of the CoC (whether by the group or by local maintainers of the space), the alleged offender also has the right to appeal.
 * 11) Appeals would be taken to the same group that the committee could choose to escalate to (which group is under discussion).

Part of the goal here is the person who feels harassed does not need to look up different policies and points of contact depending which space it happened in. They can always contact the same email (or IRC). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I suggest that all participants in the first-level group be required to be identified to the WMF. Exactly how the group is formed could be determined if people otherwise support this proposal. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:36, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think this is a good start. I think that the Engineering Community Team is a logical group for the second level response. I'd like to see this group made up of WMF staff, technical volunteers, and one representative from ECT, since ECT has considerable knowledge about community structures and dynamics. I think that an email ought to be a sufficient place to report to--IRC is likely to be more complicated to monitor, and I don't think it's necessary as long as emailed reports get a prompt response. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 02:38, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't have a strong preference to keep an IRC point of contact. People might still informally report stuff there, but the email can be the definitive way. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Some notes and suggestions:
 * Anonymizing reports are terribly important here. Specially when it comes to sexual harassment. we need more explicit statements on this to ensure people to feel more comfortable. I think CA can help us.
 * Yes, this should be addressed in the draft. Maybe, in case of private harassment, not allowing release of the victim/reporter's name (even in the course of a public apology) without the reporter's consent.  In the case of public harassment (at least where it is not/can not be oversighted), the victim/reporter is already known, and since it happened publicly it can sometimes be important to speak out. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In lots of cases people already made contact with local maintainer of space (e.g. someone harassed me in mediawiki.org and initially I will contact admins of mediawiki.org but in some cases they don't handle it well. Lack of experience from admins, influential friends, being "too" valuable, etc.) So we need to determine a way to handle such cases.
 * Yes, this is a good argument for having a central point of contact (techcoc), plus an appeal process in case even that fails. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Punishment vs. protecting the system: Imagine I offended someone in pywikibot code review. What is the best action? Do you think I should be banned for a while or I should be stripped off from my owner rights or both? this states "Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct may be permanently removed from the project team." Should we have something like this?
 * We have language about this from Contributor Covenant now. Not sure how much we'll tweak this; we will probably need a Wikimedia-specific enforcement section at any rate. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Removal of comments: you didn't define anything about this. e.g. the CoC says: "Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct. By adopting this Code of Conduct, project maintainers commit themselves to fairly and consistently applying these principles to every aspect of managing this project." Ladsgroup (talk) 08:22, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Body size
We don't have anything related to body size, or this falls under physical appearance? It is important to me since I was born with a medical condition that makes me super skinny and I was called names a lot in school and people told me horrible things that continues today, It never happened in mediawiki space but I can imagine the possibility Ladsgroup (talk) 08:22, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There are only examples in this CoC. Harassment may be alleged for whatever someone believes is harassment which easily includes appearance, medical conditions or the perception of these (this is how the police explained their approach to me in the UK, i.e. it's not their job to interpret what is or is not harassment, they take seriously any complaint and document it for further action). --Fæ (talk) 11:06, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, there's a reason it says, "Examples of harassment include but are not limited to"; it's meant to cover the most common issues, but it recognizes it might miss something. Let's go ahead and add body size, though, just for clarity. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I changed "personal appearance, body size" to "physical appearance" as this seemed less awkward. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

this edit removed the explicit mention of body size, instead amalgamating it into "physical appearance".

While I understand the tendency towards brevity and efficiency, I think this is worth calling out. Body size makes a regular appearance in both tropes about engineers and harassment of people within technical spaces, with a frequency that most forms of "physical appearance"-based harassment do not. One of the things we are trying to do with this document is recognise that vagueness and catch-all terms in codes of conduct or behavioural guidelines tend to serve to provide wiggle-room when there is a violation, and that specificity is key to ensuring both that users are aware of what they are not permitted to do, and that community groups have a clear guideline to enforce that they can move on with confidence. With that in mind, and given the prominence of physical size as a trope and tool for harassment, calling it out seems perfectly sensible to me. Ironholds (talk) 19:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, especially given that Ladsgroup brought this up as well. I've put it back. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:29, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess this makes at least the third case of attempting to address an unproven problem. Ladsgroup specifically stated that body size-related harassment had never happened in Wikimedia technical spaces to him. Similarly, there's no evidence of people encouraging other people to harass (Kaldari's suggestion above) or unwarranted rejection of patches (also discussed above). There seems to be a worrying amount of tilting at windmills here. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If it didn't happen before that doesn't mean it won't happen and it doesn't mean it is not worth addressing in the CoC Ladsgroup (talk) 19:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Would you tell a country where there had never been a bank robbery that there shouldn't be a law against it, since it's an "unproven problem"? Of course not, since everyone knows it happens in other places.  Similarly, we know these problems happen in other similar places. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:43, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Are you able to name such a country? --Nemo 06:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure. Any new country, like South Sudan, on day 1.  Sane countries don't wait for a well-known crime to occur, then pass a law against it.  That would be silly. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:47, 23 August 2015 (UTC)


 * As a general principle, I think it is better to be more explicit than implicit describing the types of harassment we want to address in this CoC. The first goal of this document is to prevent problems, and a good measure to prevent problems is to spell them out. Let's not get stuck in these details, a good enough list is a good enough list. If these lists need one item more or one item less, having this discussion will be a lot simpler when the CoC is approved rather than now that we have many fronts open.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:54, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "body size" is mentioned in the original Contributor Covenant. Someone's body size can be hardly a relevant factor in any discussion at Wikimedia tech, and therefore it is reasonable to think that if it ever comes across, it will be off-topic. I see no strong reasons to remove it, and I would recommend it to keep it for now, and see whether it is strongly contested when we ask for wider community feedback.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:34, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

From the perspective of a maintainer
In other sections, others have already clarified why a code of conduct is a good idea from the perspective of potential contributors and victims, but I'd also like to share the perspective of a maintainer. On the Pywikibot mailing list, we have had our fair share of behavior that is not OK, but I've always been reluctant to actually put the users on moderate, or to ban them from the mailing list altogether. Why? I wasn't sure whether that was the right thing to do, and I was afraid of the backlash that would probably follow.

Having an explicit policy makes policing behavior also much easier. From one side, it's much easier to say 'hey, you are violating the code of conduct', and from the other side, having the policy means we //have to// intervene. It's much easier to act on a previously agreed policy than acting off the cuff. Let's make clear rules, and let's use them to make this environment more fun to work in. Valhallasw (talk) 21:31, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Mailing list etiquettes already exist. --Nemo 07:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to Mailing lists/Guidelines? I added this link to See also.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Unacceptable behavior
In the beginning of the "unacceptable behavior" section, the phrase "unacceptable behavior" (which I just changed to "Behavior that is unacceptable") linked to the Terms of Use. What exactly are we trying to communicate with the link? That we consider all the behavior mentioned to be harassment and therefore prohibited by the terms? If so, we should make that statement explicit (and check that it's legally okay too, although I'm not sure the WMF legal team could give us an opinion).—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 22:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That was taken from meta:Grants:Friendly Space Expectations. My reading was that it is a reminder that harassment is already legally prohibited for Wikimedia-hosted projects, rather than a statement on the specific behavior listed here. If it's confusing, I'm fine with removing it. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The link is inappropriate, in my opinion. I already removed it once. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I moved the link to the "See also" section as that seemed reasonable. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that's a good place for it, especially as this applies to spaces outside of WMF resources. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Clarify "outside of WMF resources"? --Nemo 07:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The technical IRC channels, for example; the WMF doesn't "own" those. Ironholds (talk) 14:36, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Harassment
In the "Unacceptable behavior" section, we start of by saying that unacceptable behavior includes a variety of things, one of which is harassment. We then continue by saying harassment includes a whole list of things, which includes all the other unacceptable behaviors we listed in the first place. How about we simplify this by saying the following?

All forms of harassment are unacceptable in Wikimedia technical spaces, both online and in person. This includes but is not limited to the following behaviors: —Neil P. Quinn (talk) 22:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Inappropriate or unwanted communication, including on-wiki messages, private or public IRC messages, email, texts, and chats.
 * Sustained disruption of discussion, talks or work, for example by personal attacks, constant interruption, trolling or consistent and unwarranted rejection of patches.


 * I see what you mean. I think it's important to state that we do not want our technical spaces to include "sexual language or imagery, derogatory comments or personal attacks, trolling, public or private harassment, insults", regardless of whether they rise to the level of harassment or not--even if these things are drive-by one-off comments, they make technical spaces less welcoming for many people. How about mentioning that harassment can include any of the above and removing them from the list of potentially harassing behaviors instead? --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 00:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Take a look now--I think this version is clearer. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that looks good. I'm going to rearrange it to put the section about non-harassment unacceptable behavior below the list of examples of harassment.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 17:54, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, wait. Someone else already did that.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 17:55, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The edit summary re-adding "rejection of patches" seems to go out of its way to point out that it's happening elsewhere. I don't know of this ever being a problem in Gerrit or Phabricator or Special:CodeReview. Why should this be included? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Because it's a good thing to build processes around problems we have seen in similar spaces with similar dynamics and similar base populations so that we have a way of handling them if and when they happen. This question or something very likes it comes up a lot, particularly in regards to codes of conduct; "why do we need to protect X? I've never seen X happen". And the answer is that if X does happen in communities similar to ours it's hubris to believe it couldn't happen here, and we should protect against that - and that the lack of the appearance of X, when there is no process for X, can also be indicative that the lack of process caused an absence of any ability to productively surface it. Or to put it another way, a problem without reporting looks the same as no problem at all. Ironholds (talk) 19:20, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This sounds very much like you're trying to prove a negative. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not really. Again, this happens very commonly in communities very like ours; I'm not trying to prove a negative, I'm trying to avoid the hubris of assuming we should not ward against things we have seen appear in similar spaces. If it was entirely a thought experiment it would be potentially problematic because then we're just adding stuff in an unfounded way, but by definition worrying about things identified in near-identical entities is not unfounded, it is very well founded. Ironholds (talk) 14:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit lost in this discussion. Are you proposing a specific change in the "Unacceptable behavior" section?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:03, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Strings attached
I removed this text about trying to coerce users into apologizing through threats and intimidation. Ironholds seemed to want a discussion about it. Perhaps it's a cultural difference, but it seems/seemed pretty obvious to me that this type of behavior is inappropriate and I don't think we should be encouraging it. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:54, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That isn't what it says. What it says is "The group may, if it chooses, attach "strings" to this request: for example, the group may ask a violator to apologize in order to retain their membership on a mailing list or their Phabricator privileges." That's not "threats or intimidation"; it's saying that in order for you to retain the privileges that you have after violating the behavioural standards that the group has, you must demonstrate that you understand that you violated these standards and that doing so was wrong. This is pretty fair, to me (I'm not sure what cultural difference there is here; yes, I'm a European, but I've also been living in the United States for quite a while now) - such a demonstration serves as evidence that misbehaviour will not occur again. It's also pretty standard; looking just at enwiki, almost every discussion around unblocks and unbans requires some assurance that the person who was sanctioned understands what they did wrong. Requiring that understanding to continue is...precisely what we do, we're just shuffling the order here. Ironholds (talk) 19:18, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is from the jQuery enforcement manual. I think realistically this is something that is already done in certain situations informally (and not just in tech communities); they just chose to spell it out. Without this, either it could still happen informally, or the only option is to directly ban them in a case where the string option would be considered. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I also don't see any problem with requiring users to apologize as a condition of their remaining part of the community. The whole point of this code is to provide a mechanism for coercing toxic users to either change their behavior or leave the community. We can certainly argue about what makes a user toxic or how the mechanism should work, but it seems pretty obvious to me that a reasonable degree of coercion is the whole point.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 22:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't really like the strings language. I kind of feel like it reduces the value of an apology when it is so forced. Apologies should be free admissions of wrong doing. I feel like a forced apology doesn't shows that the user understands s/he violated standards, it shows the person understands that they are being required to apologize in order to continue to participate. However I think its fine for the committee to take the presence of an apology (Or any other action the offender takes to make amends/demonstrate regret) into account when deciding appropriate reprimands or to strongly suggest that somebody apologize. Bawolff (talk) 07:16, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Demanding apology is an old antipattern. Apologies are valuable because they signal a change of beliefs (as opposed to a mere change of behavior). By making them obligatory most of that value is lost. Besides, giving a group the power to force belief changes is kind of creepy.
 * Asking the violator to promise that they will honor the code in the future (possibly as a condition of lifting the ban), which is the enwiki practice Ironholds was referring to, is a very different thing and entirely reasonable. Although I am not sure if there is any benefit in doing it in public. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:32, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that a required apology is not a 100% sincere apology. As I said above though, I think these kinds of required apologies are common in other areas of life.  That said, I don't object to removing the strings part, and changing it to something like "The committee may recommend that someone apologize, and take into account whether they do so.  They also may require that someone explicitly agrees to comply with the code of conduct before unbanning them." Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:30, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is actually not currently in the draft, but it's worth discussing whether to put something else back in (see my last suggestion). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:08, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Trolling
I removed trolling as it seems to be problematic to define. I wouldn't want to see rickrolling to be considered a violation of this document, for example. I've also heard some people reclaim and embrace the term trolling as a positive behavior/attribute/skill. If someone wants to re-insert this, I think it first warrants discussion and perhaps a clearer definition. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[3]". I think that firmly falls within the set of behavior we don't want to see. In addition, it is noted explicitly in the Contributor Convenant, so I think it makes more sense to place it back while the subject is being discussed. As for Rick Rolling: I think that generally is also counterproductive, and thus something we don't want in our technical spaces either. Valhallasw (talk) 08:02, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Trolling is defined in Wikimedia terms at Manual:Glossary and What is a troll?, and in case of doubt Internet troll is also an interesting read. I think in most cases it is a behavior simple to recognize. "consistent and unwarranted rejection of patches" is not an equivalent of trolling but a much more narrower case, therefore I think that we should bring "trolling" back instead.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed, and let me say that people reclaiming trolling as "a positive behavior/attribute/skill" have no place here. Ironholds (talk) 19:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Valhallasw. There was unanimous consent to start from the Contributor Covenant.  While we have made changes from there, 'trolling' is one of the few things the concise Contributor Covenant addresses, which shows they view it as important.  I agree it is important to forbid, and I see no reason to remove it from our versions.  Rick-rolling is a prank, not trolling.  While pranks can waste time (which is why I try to restrict mine to April Fool's), pranking is not the same thing as trolling. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:59, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for re-adding it, Matt. Ironholds (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Trolling is not defined anywhere and has never proved useful as an explicit charge to make to anyone, hence I support the removal of its mention. What is a troll? is a mere essay for a reason. --Nemo 06:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The question is, are the behaviors identified as "trolling" already mentioned in clear terms (making the addition of "trolling" redundant) or is "trolling" covering other behaviors that are still not mentioned? I would be fine removing that single word, but only if the behaviors we want to address are well covered in the CoC. Currently we have:
 * Inappropriate or unwanted communication
 * Sustained disruption
 * Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments
 * deliberate intimidation
 * derogatory comments
 * personal attacks
 * Anything missing?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:21, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Qgil-WMF: If we remove "trolling," as I think we should, we would be left with:

The following behaviors are also unacceptable, regardless of whether they rise to the level of harassment and whether online or in person: inappropriate use of sexual language or imagery, insults, and other unprofessional conduct.

I think "unprofessional conduct" is similarly problematic as it's incredibly vague. And is "insults" needed? Are insults different from "personal attacks" or "offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments"? I'd be inclined to remove these three pieces (maybe moving "insults" up into a bullet, though it seems unnecessary). That would leave us with:

The following behaviors are also unacceptable, regardless of whether they rise to the level of harassment and whether online or in person: inappropriate use of sexual language or imagery.

This seems pretty awkward/weird to be in its own separate paragraph. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:45, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Trolling used to have somewhat positive connotations back in the newsgroup era, but has that changed pretty definitively since then. Partly because its meaning changed to encompass any kind of deliberate manipulation, and to imply malicious intent; and partly because most newsgroups weren't communities in the sense the MediaWiki tech community strives to be one (they weren't about building things), so different behaviors were problematic there. Trolling, as used today, fits well into the list of non-acceptable conducts. If there are non-hypothetical persons in our community who are trying to reclaim it, that might be worth a discussion; otherwise, I wouldn't worry much about it.

Qgil: something like hostile tone maybe? A code of conduct might not be the best place to address that, though. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 09:06, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "Tone" was specifically raised under . It could be a rationale to block anyone for writing almost anything "non-positive". There are no community agreed policies which rely on bad "tone" in order to justify blocks or other sanctions; it would be worrying if there were. --Fæ (talk) 14:31, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I thoroughly disagree with the assertion that it is not possible to write about a negative thing in non-hostile tone. I also don't think it differs fundamentally from WP:CIV (how much the latter gets followed is another matter). --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. I don't think we need a point specifically about tone. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:41, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * People have defined 'trolling' above. I completely disagree with removing it.  There is a reason it's in Contributor Covenant.  In both their and my experience, it's a serious problem in communities like ours (and I have seen examples of it in our community). If people really think a definition needs to be incorporated into the CoC, I'm fine with quoting the definition from Wikipedia (which Valhallasw quoted above).  I think it's clear that while there may be some overlap, not all the items from that definition (e.g. "provoking readers into an emotional response") is in the list Quim quoted.  I think "unprofessional conduct" should be kept; it basically means the kind of disruptive behavior that is incompatible with getting things done in a respectful way.  I'm okay with removing "insults", as I think "personal attacks" is a superset of "insults". Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:15, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * +1. Ironholds (talk) 14:45, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate or unwanted communication
"Inappropriate" was mentioned above; I agree that it does not seem very useful - it includes everything but explains nothing. There are generally three functions for the list of unacceptable behaviors: they inform the enforcers; help a concerned community member decide whether something they are about to decide or something someone just posted is acceptable or not; and tell a potential newcomer whether they can trust that the community is a safe space. "Inappropriate X" doesn't seem terribly useful for either goal. And I am not sure what unwanted even means. If it means that once someone tells you to stop communicating with them you must do comply, that is fine, but should be spelled out more explicitly. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 09:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think there are some kinds of inappropriate messages that most reasonable people would agree are inappropriate and should not be sent. As far as "unwanted communication", I've clarified that similarly to how we did for unwanted photography. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:35, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think simplicity is more effective. Somehow we have grown an own list that is far more dense and extensive than the original Contributor Covenant, and I'm not seeing a good, practical justification for that. We already have several instances of inappropriate / unwanted communication. That first point could be removed without creating any new gap for actual harassment.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Specificity, as has been covered repeatedly in this discussion, is a pretty good way of ensuring there isn't wiggle room or ambiguity. I don't feel we should be treating the Contributor Covenant as the baseline here except in the sense of 'the minimum acceptable`. It's widely used because it's not objectionable. That makes it a good template; it doesn't mean we should pin ourselves to the belief that it is ineffable. Ironholds (talk) 16:41, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's too long (especially if we just consider the length of the sections prior to Reporting and Enforcement). There are advantages to being specific.  It helps avoid gamesmanship and wikilawyering.  One thing "Inappropriate or unwanted [...] communication" may address that the other points don't as well is written harassment.  This might be written sexual harassment, or just some other form of persistent communication you don't want to receive (and ask not be sent to you). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:28, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, gamesmanship and wikilawyering might be helped by lengthy policies inviting to have lengthy discussions driving most people away (an actual problem in Wikimedia). If the principles are clear and the committee is trusted, then this process will be accessible and strong. Now the text of the Principles proposed is shorter, but I bet we are offering the same actual coverage as before. "Inappropriate or unwanted communication" has been connected to "following, or any form of stalking", and in that context I think its function is clearer.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:39, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Much of the added list comes from policies that have been working in WMF spaces so far: the Grants Friendly Space Expectations and the Friendly Space Policy. Also, what Ironholds said. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * One thing is being specific, another thing is having overlapping concepts spread in different points, making the whole list more dense and confusing than needed. I have just posted, a simpler proposal that doesn't lose specificity, that may address the problem exposed here and in the discussion about trolling.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Substantive v Procedural
The draft is a confusing mix of Substantive law and Procedural law.


 * Substantive law declares which types of conduct lead to which types of penalty;
 * Procedural law defines how cases are handled.

Please place the procedural law into a separate paragraph. That paragraph should define:


 * the judicial body (e.g. committee membership and powers);
 * how cases are to be filed (e.g. identify the parties, state the facts, state which substantive law was breached, request remedy);
 * the rules of evidence (e.g. original documents and testimony is admissible; hear-say is inadmissible);
 * how cases are adjudicated (e.g. read charges, determine facts, determine applicable substantive law, decide penalty);
 * how decisions are announced (e.g. three brief paragraphs: findings of fact, findings of law, and penalty).

Procedural law is about the judicial system. If the work load grows, it may become necessary to have many such committees. Procedural law is our guarantee that the substantive law is applied in a uniform manner across many cases and many committees.

Uniform handling of cases is an important component of fairness. Moreover, public perception of uniform handling of cases contributes to public perception of fairness. Wp mirror (talk) 03:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed they should be split into different sections but they should be considered part of the same document, jurisprudence aside. This is not intended to be a legal system and should not be read as a legal document; as you say, fairness is important, and uniform handling and transparency are important parts of that fairness, but speaking as a former lawyer another element of fairness is to ensure that justice is efficient. Replicating a legal system down to the level of specifying the determination of "applicable substantive law" and every single possible type of evidence that is and is not acceptable does not necessarily help with this. Ironholds (talk) 19:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * An example might help. Procedural law, for many not-for-profit organizations, includes a reference to RONR 10th ed, Chap XX Disciplinary Procedures. The draft contains no such reference. Procedural law for the Conduct Committee should be gathered into one or more paragraphs, and thought through. Otherwise, committee members will find themselves having to improvise when they receive their first few cases. Improvisation leads to an aggrieved party claiming that committee members act in an arbitrary and capricious manner, which in turn injures the public perception of fairness and shrinks to pool of volunteers willing to serve on the committee. Wp mirror (talk) 05:29, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In short, should we create a section "Code of Conduct Committee" and move there the details about its creation, membership, second level...?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:45, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it's fine to create separate (sub)sections for that. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have never seen a reference to Robert's Rules (which are incredibly US-centric) in any code of conduct for this sort of community. Could you point me to an example of a code of conduct for a technical or online community that contains such a reference? Quim: yes, I am reading this as a request to create a dedicated section about the entity tasked with enforcing it, and endorse that request (although Code of Conduct Committee may not be the best name, since it leaves ambiguous whether that is an enforcement body or an amending body or or or). Ironholds (talk) 14:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What part of the substantive six-step process do you feel is unclear? I agree the committee may have to choose certain non-substantive manners themselves (e.g. do they meet by private chat room, or telephone, who takes notes?) but the substantive matters should be addressed here in the policy. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:21, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Would anyone object to my starting a page called "Conduct Committee Charter/Draft". The idea is this: There should be two pages: I would be happy to provide a first draft to get the conversation going. The outline would look like this: Wp mirror (talk) 00:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Code of conduct for technical spaces/Draft - contains substantive law (definitions of unacceptable behavior, penalties);
 * Conduct Committee Charter/Draft - contains procedural law (committee structure, membership, responsibilities, procedures).
 * Purpose of Conduct Committee
 * Membership and selection
 * Responsibilities
 * Procedures and process
 * They should not be separate pages, they should be the same page, as I thought we'd all agreed on. I am loathe to set more than the high-level elements of the appeals process due to the potential (in fact, the certainty) that we would get bogged down in that debate. The committee should determine, within the restrictions of the code of conduct, their own policy (and transparently document it). Ironholds (talk) 00:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ironholds on both points. The committee will quickly gain a sense of what is effective in practice; let's provide a reasonable blueprint and clear goals here and let them do their job. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do object to drafting a new charter from scratch. There are already important procedural aspects in the main document.  The key procedural questions should be described in the Code, but I do not support drafting our own very-detailed procedure in a vacuum.  Many of the procedural elements (including resolutions) are based on https://github.com/jquery/jquery.org/blob/master/pages/conduct/reporting.md and https://github.com/jquery/jquery.org/blob/master/pages/conduct/enforcement-manual.md .  This in turn is based on https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/reporting/ and https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/enforcement-manual/ .  The key insight here is that we are benefiting from the procedural experience of real organizations (Django, and the others they adapted from, such as PyCon) that have dealt with these problems.  Making our own elaborate procedural system based on Roberts Rules of Order, but without practical experience with dealing with this, will lead to an unwieldy procedure that does not solve the problem.
 * As already noted, I expect the committee to answer some non-substantive procedural questions on their own. It is also possible they will ask for some substantive procedural changes, in which case they may request to amend the CoC.  But in either case, we'll be benefiting from practical experience in this kind of committee, which we can't if we draft our own based on Robert's Rules of Order. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Membership of the committee and ECT's role
The CoC doesn't explain how the committee is formed and how are their members renewed. Following with 's comment on Substantive v Procedural (thank you, I learned something), I'm not sure whether such information should be included in the CoC itself or in an attached document, but we need to define it.

Then, as ECT member I would like to understand what is the role the community wants us to have here. Especially when it comes to escalations, public statements and very ugly cases in general, I think it is useful to have a speaker paid for doing their job, saving some stress to those volunteering in the committee. However, I don't see the need of ECT to be involved in the regular work of the committee. If they would want our help, they could simply "escalate", as defined by the CoC. I think having a committee of equal members chosen through the same process by their own merits would give this team more credibility, independence, and strength.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Why is there a presumption that the appeal body must be the ECT? An elected group such as Stewards or Oversighters, positions of trust open to both unpaid volunteers and appointed WMF employees, would be in-line with putting the volunteer at the centre. --Fæ (talk) 16:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Neither the Stewards nor the Oversighters necessarily have technical accumen, and this duty is not something they've volunteered to take on. One of the things to make sure of here is that the people doing the job are deeply knowledgeable about technical spaces and discussions and thus capable of recognising tech-specific forms of harassment for what they are.
 * Quim: it would probably be included in the document. The jQuery CoC, for example (which got passed today!) sets out this sort of thing very specifically, which I think works well. Ironholds (talk) 19:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If I understand right, you're saying ECT does not necessarily need a reserved spot on the first-line committee, as the document currently lays out. Is that correct?  I agree we will have to specify how the committee is formed, either in this document or a sub-document.  I have added a note to this effect. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree that we will need to specify more about the committee. I think that ECT should have a reserved spot for several reasons: ECT's job is community expertise, and there is substantial gathered knowledge and resources on that team, including easy consultation with other community teams; all-volunteer committees are vulnerable to gaps in institutional memory (and as tough a time as we have with our technical documentation and continuity of project knowledge, we need a way to ensure this doesn't happen here!); and CoC response and enforcement is a difficult and sometimes draining position, and having at least one person whose job this is part of should mean the committee has more support and structure. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * for what is worth ECT also wants to be sure that the role this CoC gives to us is the role the community wants us to have. Any big social problem in the tech community has been and will continue to be a problem that we ECT need to help solving, with or without CoC. How exactly should we involved, you tell us. A pragmatic approach would be to define the process to form the committee (leaving the hypothetical ECT seat out for now) and to know the opinion of those interested to be part of it. At the end, these are the people that need to work comfortably with us.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:35, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that I did not mention ECT's participation in the committee, only the nature of the appeal process. I would think it natural that some ECT members would volunteer to be part of the proposed committee, and if they end up going through a community election I doubt they would be likely to fail to get in considering the case. See below for my follow up on the choice of appeal body. --Fæ (talk) 09:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that having an appointed and immutable ECT member in that first-line would set a default point of gravity that would influence how the committee operates. Also, this permanent seat would not help in cases where pro/anti WMF attitudes are part of the problem (not an unusual situation). Having all the members of this first-line appointed equally through a community-driven process would make this first-line stronger in many ways. Whenever the committee members feel that they need ECT's help (or help from anyone else at the WMF), we would be there to support them and to call anyone else that needs to be involved. No less, no more.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:02, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Let me make a specific proposal for the committee membership, to prompt some discussion.


 * 1) Once we form consensus to enact the code of conduct, we (the people interested enough in this issue to be discussing it here) discuss amongst ourselves and nominate a slate of five trusted community members. I also think one seat should always be reserved for a member of the ECT, to help provide capacity and institutional memory, but if Quim doesn't think that's a good idea I don't think I can force him :)
 * 2) That slate gets ratified by the same process we used to enact the code.
 * 3) People serve on the committee as long as they want (unless they're forcibly removed). When a member leaves, the other members simply use their judgment to replace the departing member with another trusted community member. The code will explicitly mandate that they focus on keeping a wide variety of perspectives on the committee—which primarily means gender and geographic diversity—and that at the very most 2 (3?) members can be employed by the WMF.
 * 4) At any point, the community could use the same process used to enact the code to form a consensus to replace a committee member (this would essentially be a constructive vote of no confidence, requiring consensus on a replacement to remove someone). This means that as long as the committee does a good job (which, given that it's composed of trusted community members, I expect it almost always will), the rest of the community doesn't have to spend any time worrying about it.

Unanswered questions:
 * Should there be other mechanisms for removing a committee member? I imagine this would come up very rarely, so a community-wide discussion would be sufficient, but perhaps 4 members of the committee could vote to remove the fifth, or the ECT could step in to remove people.
 * What kind of process do we use for the community-wide discussions necessary to enact the code, select the first set of members, and remove them if needed?

My main objective here is a lightweight process. There's no need to institute the equivalent of enwiki's ArbCom elections when we will likely have far less conflict to deal with here. Also, I move that the committee be called the Conduct Committee, so we can call it ConCom for short :)—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 06:43, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The question of why the appeal body must be the ECT is actually still floating here. There have been no solid reasons put forward as to why no alternatives are possible, or more desirable. --Fæ (talk) 09:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For what is worth, I don't think ECT or whoever is at the "second-line" should be the automatic appeal body. The first-line is in charge of receiving reports, and also appeals. If the committee or the person(s) appealing think that the first-line is no good fit in a specific case, then they can go to the second-line.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have difficulty comparing your reply against what is currently written in the draft document. It might be helpful to stick to the same use of words. --Fæ (talk) 10:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, this is because we are all discussing and drafting, still with different opinions. We will get there. What is your take?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * To use the same terminology as the document, in a "case where the committee disagrees with the above initial response", the Committee already has the right to revisit a decision by a single Committee member. I don't think there should be a general right to appeal to the Committee again.  However, I will broaden the 'objection' stage to reflect that the alleged offender can also object. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ironholds answered the question about why ECT above ("Neither the Stewards nor the Oversighters necessarily have technical accumen, and this duty is not something they've volunteered to take on. [...]"). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with this proposal for membership. My primary concern is very simple; you are assuming that people confident and certain enough to publicly comment in this discussion are adequately representative of the community, its concerns, and the nuances around problematic behaviour - and the members of the community who have left due to the inadequacy of existing codes of conduct, where they exist, and/or people who have not joined yet. That does not seem in any way a safe assumption to make. If we limit the pool of candidates and how they are evaluated to the people on this talk page we end up with a pool of people acceptable to the existing community - the existing community that in some elements is still discussing whether a code of conduct is even necessary much less what it looks like. This repeated idea that those who turn up represent the full gamut of opinions, or the opinions worth listening to, is problematic, and the assumption that the pool of people discussing it represents the pool of people who care about it is inaccurate (I know several people who have strong opinions here but are not comfortable commenting publicly) and honestly rather offensive. People not commenting do not "not care", they are in some cases simply not comfortable, and that should be something that causes us to re-evaluate how we hold these discussions, not dismiss factoring them in. Ironholds (talk) 14:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What Ironholds said. I've personally heard from a fair handful of people who've been intentionally avoiding these discussions for reasons that include discomfort and lack of trust that their opinions will be thought to matter. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 03:27, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ironholds, Fhocutt (WMF): My thought behind that idea (and maybe this is naive) is that it's not incredibly hard to find people who would do a good job in the role of a ConCom member. It's certainly not something I would entrust to anybody off the street, and it certainly requires sensitivity and empathy for the type of people we want to include with this code. But I think there are enough good options that even an unrepresentative discussion would come up with pretty good choices. For example, I think that both of you would do a great job—and despite the limitations of this discussion, you're already here.
 * That said, it's still a fair criticism, and it seems like the provision for private comments in Matt's plan would give people who are not comfortable discussing this in public a chance to make their voice heard. The only problem is that private comments means the ultimate decision on committee membership has to be entrusted to a third party—in this case, ECT. I don't think that would be a bad outcome, since I trust them and think they would make good choices—and since they are ultimately accountable to the community through the Board of Trustees. However, the Wikimedia ideal is fairly direct community semi-democracy and I would be disappointed if we couldn't find a way to make that work in this case.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 06:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I just reread what I wrote and saw where I put "the people interested enough in this issue to be discussing it here". You're right—that's misguided. There are many reasons why someone might be interested yet not be commenting here.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 06:17, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * And actually, to modify my comment again, I've actually thought of some ways to make anonymous comments compatible with discussion-based consensus decision making (see ). I also don't think giving ECT the ultimate authority to approve the people initially selected by the community would be bad—this isn't very different from the CA team having ultimate control of the global ban process, which I don't find concerning.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 06:52, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would be worried if the CA team claim to control global bans, as this has always been a community driven process. You may be conflating Global Bans with WMF Global Bans. --Fæ (talk) 08:02, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You probably know a lot more than I do about the global ban process; as I understand it, it's primarily community driven, but the CA team does intervene in extraordinary circumstances. I like the idea of a similar role for the ECT team here. For example, I wouldn't make them directly responsible for selecting Conduct Committee members, but I might well give them veto power over the community's picks, to be used only when strictly necessary.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 01:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the proposal that 4 members could vote to oust the fifth. That would meant they could do that to prevent that 5th member from escalating (which the current draft explicitly says a minority could) the issue.  I also think the idea of the community ousting members at any time risks politicizing it (think 'recall election').  I need more time to think about the rest. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:33, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, on reflection, recall discussions do seem like a bad idea.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 06:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I also object to the idea of limiting the number of WMF employees to 2/5. I do think there should be non-WMF members, but I don't think you've made a case for why most (at least 3/5) members should be required to be non-WMF at all times. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree on both counts. Recall elections get nasty easily, and if we're instituting quotas I don't think that WMF/non-WMF should be the only characteristic we filter on. Let's not open that up. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 03:27, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I disagree on the formation of any such committee. Existing Wikimedia projects processes should be used, such as sysops and stewards. --Nemo 06:40, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Existing Wikimedia projects processes have failed pretty thoroughly in this regard. As you yourself noted earlier, wikis which have behavioral policies are even more toxic then the Wikimedia tech space. Replicating that failure one more time does not seem like a worthwhile endeavor. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:07, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of said processes being attempted for the cases presented and in the only cases I remember of blocks etc. in the MediaWiki community our processes worked perfectly. --Nemo 07:30, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Existing Wikimedia projects processes are designed to be effective on specific tools, and they don't attempt to be cross-tools. There are no stewards specific to "Wikimedia technical spaces", and it will be interesting to ask them what they think about enforcing a CoC in places like Phabricator, Gerrit, etc. I do think some stewards could be very capable committee members, though. As for sysops, only mediawiki.org has close to 200 users with that role. We cannot expect such group to deal efficiently with delicate situations privately. So no, I don't think the existing Wikimedia processes you are referring to have been effective to address the problems this CoC aims to address, and I don't think they are designed for this task.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "Existing Wikimedia projects processes have failed pretty thoroughly..." is this really what the WMF believes and is trying to fix here? I have seen some anecdotes and ridiculous amounts of over dramatic grandstanding, but a lack of measurable evidence to show that if today we abandon community driven collegiate processes and force an untested WMF procedure from the outside, that this would result in attractive and healthier Wikimedia project communities, or be more effective for handling harassment. --Fæ (talk) 08:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what gave you the idea that I am expressing the WMF's beliefs here. As for my beliefs, I do think the Wikimedia movement has a chronic problem with conduct, both with occasional harassment and with a constant background noise of hostility and microaggressions; and existing processes could not fix it, neither in the tech spaces nor in the content projects. This proposal borrows elements from other tech organizations, who had some success with them. In general, replacing a method that has failed for us with one that worked for others seems common sense to me; and implementing it and then comparing two processes that we actually tried seems more reasonable than trying to somehow measure theoretically how well something will work before we implement it. Maybe it will fail, and then we can scrap it; it doesn't seem like a particularly risky experiment. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 08:21, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * A big +1 to that. It's worth considering, when people summarise WMF employees' opinions as "the WMF's opinion", that one of the components of being an employee at the WMF is that people are usually (as part of their job) spending more time in technical venues, if they're in technical roles, than is the norm. When the most regular contributors to and users of technical discussions are saying "we have a problem", "they're being paid to say they have a problem" is not the read to have there. Ironholds (talk) 14:39, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Another membership proposal
I'd like to propose a self-perpetuating committee, boot-strapped by the Engineering Community Team (ECT).
 * 1) We open up self-nominations (if you think someone would be a great candidate, you can ask them to self-nominate).  These self-nominees can make a statement up front.
 * As part of self-nominating, each nominee must agree to comply with the full code of conduct, including the Reporting and Enforcement procedures. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) People would then comment on nominations, both publicly and by emailing ECT (as they prefer).
 * 2) ECT consults with Community Advocacy on the candidates.  The past behavior of the candidates should be in the spirit of the Code of Conduct.
 * 3) The ECT will then select five candidates, considering their involvement in the community, background, and experience that would inform their Committee work (if any; this is not a hard requirement).
 * 4) Every 6 months, the Committee will vote on a new Committee to replace it (Nominations are opened one month before this month; re-nominating yourself is allowed).  Majority approval (3/5) of the overall slate is required, but unanimity is encouraged if possible.  Re-selections are possible, but no one can be on the Committee for more than 12 consecutive months, unless the Committee unanimously agrees that an exception to this is necessary because suitable new candidates are not available.
 * 5) ECT can remove Committee members, but this should be only be exercised in case of severe problems.

It is required that the Committee can never be 100% WMF staff, and it's encouraged to choose various affiliations.

I think the main benefit here is that the Committee will have some knowledge about the community, and problems we face, so they can use that to help inform their decisions on the next Committee. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

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)

Conduct Committee v Legal Counsel
The draft mixes two classes of unacceptable behavior that must be handled differently.


 * Unacceptable behavior
 * Class 1 - violence, threats of violence, intimidation, stalking, inappropriate touching;
 * Class 2 - inappropriate communication, sustained disruption, offensive comments, unwanted photography, outing.

In many jurisdictions, class 1 behavior is a crime, and must be handled by the authorities. Not to inform the authorities would make one an accessory. Only class 2 behavior is properly handled by a WMF Conduct Committee.

Wp mirror (talk) 18:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Procedure
 * Class 1 - inform law enforcement, inform WMF Legal Counsel;
 * Class 2 - report to technical space moderator, file case with WMF Conduct Committee.
 * Penalty
 * Class 1 - WMF Legal Counsel recommends: ban, suspension without pay pending investigation, termination;
 * Class 2 - WMF Conduct committee issues: warning, timeout, suspension, ban.


 * 'Class 1' behavior can be handled by the authorities, but it is up to the victim to decide whether to report it to the authorities or not. The WMF and the conduct committee must not report what happened to the authorities, unless explicitly asked to do so by the victim.
 * There is no need to distinguish the two classes for this code of conduct; our (civil) response to a criminal act is seperate from a potential criminal investigation. Valhallasw (talk) 19:00, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Valhallasw. I'd also say that your argument very nicely demonstrates one of the problems with this kind of distinction; some of the acts you have categorised as "class 1" are not crimes in some places, but are in others, or have totally different standards in different jurisdictions. I absolutely agree that in the case of situations where we believe a crime has been committed, counsel should be notified. I disagree that the need to provide that notification precludes civil enforcement in addition (and would argue there are going to be cases where filing legal reports, straight off the bat, is not in the interests of the victim). This seems like an area where counsel should be consulted if there are legitimately worries that not reporting constitutes making the Wikimedia Foundation (or the committee, or anyone else involved in the reporting chain) an accessory. Ironholds (talk) 19:41, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Nothing in this document discourages reporting to the authorities (and that is exactly as it should be). However, I think it is still worth reporting to the conduct committee as well (remember, the authorities may not be able to take legal action, but that doesn't mean we want that person in our community).  There is also a clear statement, "If you believe anyone is in physical danger, please notify appropriate law enforcement first and email emergency@undefinedwikimedia.org", which is an additional way the WMF could be informed about such serious matters.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:19, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The draft states that one of the penalties is "public reprimand". This does create a need to distinguish the two classes. For a class 1 case, if the Conduct Committee issues a public reprimand, the following charges could be filed against the members:
 * Libel. If the Conduct Committee got the facts wrong (e.g. deceived by a vengeful X), the announcement could ruin the reputation of the reprimanded party, who would in turn seek remedy.
 * Accessory. If the Conduct Committee got the facts right, but did not inform the authorities, the announcement would alert the authorities, who would in turn want to question the members (what do you know, how long have you known about it, why did you not notify the authorities).

For a class 2 case, these concerns do not arise.

From time-to-time, the Conduct Committee will get the facts wrong. Why? No rules of evidence. The committee can not insist upon sworn testimony. The committee will sometimes have to rely upon hear-say. If we wish to claim that no distinction exists between the two classes, then perhaps we should choose penalties less likely to cause blowback. Wp mirror (talk) 08:48, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, you are introducing a distinction that is not found in the actual draft, and these questions are best handled by actual lawyers. Ironholds (talk) 14:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

If the proposed Conduct Committee issues public reprimands, then we should expect that, sooner or later, actual lawyers will get involved. Shall we ask WMF Legal Counsel to look over the draft before this happens? Wp mirror (talk) 11:05, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

WMF Legal has reviewed this document for the Foundation. It is required that any reports involving WMF employees in any way be reported to WMF HR and potentially WMF Legal. VBaranetsky (WMF) (talk) 01:26, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am puzzled about what "It is required" can mean here. It is in the  passive: by whom is it required?  Do they mean that they, WMF Legal, require the Committee to pass on all such reports and if so by what right do they claim to require the Committee, which might well consist entirely of non-employees, to do something? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:47, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Please rephrase in order to describe who is supposed to report and how those supposed to report can actually contact "WMF's HR". Also please explain what the abbreviation "WMF" stands for as it's the first time it's mentioned in the document. Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This intervention is not entirely hepful. Firstly, WMF Legal is not in a position to simply dictate arbitrary unexplained and obscure additions to this code, which is in the middle of a community discussion aiming at consensus.  Secondly, the addition is surprisingly vague, as pointed out just above.  Thirdly, it is incompatible with at least two other provisions of the Code, which states in other sections that All reports will be kept confidential and mandates of the Committee that before revealing any confidential information from the report, they must get consent from the reporter -- are you now attempting to order the community to alter those provisions?  Fourthly, it is potentially incompatible with legal requirements in other jurisdictions, where these events may take place, which mandate certain privacy procedures for the protection of complainants and suspects in certain kinds of crime.  Fifthly, it is unenforceable, as WMF has no authority over non-employee actions.  This requirement needs to be restricted to areas in  which the WMF HR and Legal departments have authority, which is over their own employees.  Simply make it an internal rule that WMF employees and contractors are required to report to line management if they are involved in a complaint under this code.  That is proportionate and enforceable. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:29, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This can certainly be edited as needed. My understanding is that under California (USA) law, organizations are liable in various ways when their employees are harassed, whether by employees or third parties (like customers or, in our case, volunteers). I am personally ok with including whatever reasonable provisions are needed to make it easy to comply with employment laws or reduce the probability that the WMF could be sued for allowing a hostile work environment. I do share concerns about confidentiality and not forcing victims to report, however. That said, I suggest waiting to hash this out for when we are focusing on reporting/governance. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately this cannot "be edited as needed" since we have no idea what it is trying to achieve, why it is necessary or what alternative forms of wording or processes would meet whatever it is that WMF Legal "requires". It is probably counter-productive to guess without having a clear statement from them of their rationale.  I have proposed a alternative form of words to meet what I guessed to be that rationale, and which preserves the independence of the Committee.  It is disappointing that VBaranetsky (WMF) has edited the page again, albeit in a minor way, without addressing those points.  Waiting is certainly an option but since there is currently a fundamental contradiction in the Code as written (between confidentiality and requirement to report to WMF), and confidentiality is a rather important principle to get settled, it seems to me important to resolve it sooner rather than later.  I may say that my inclination is to accord more weight to confidentiality of the proceedings than to the currently unexplained demands of WMF Legal.  If it is indeed the case that this requirement stems from their legal duty to protect their staff, then it would seem that they have no confidence in the ability of this Code to do so, which is rather sad news for the rest of us who are not protected by the WMF in the same way. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:35, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * A couple of scenarios.
 * A participant in a hackathon at Wikimania 2016 is sexually assaulted by another participant. A third participant is a witness and is able to give clear evidence that the incident was an assault.  The victim is embarrassed to describe the nature of the assault but does so in the assurance that the description will remain private.
 * Now we discover that the witness is a WMF contractor. Under the required rule, the Committee is required to report to the WMF Legal department.  They cannot help in any way, and the victim is further distressed by having the details of their assault pointlessly communicated to unknown parties in another country.
 * A participant in a hackathon at Wikimania 2016 is sexually assaulted by another participant. A third participant is a witness and is able to give clear evidence that the incident was an assault.  The victim is embarrassed to describe the nature of the assault but does so in the assurance that the description will remain private.
 * Now we discover that the perpetrator is a WMF contractor. Under the required rule, the Committee is required to report to the WMF Legal department.  The victim will now be faced with the details of their complaint being given to a team of lawyers at a multi-million-dollar organisation who have been given this information in order to protect the interests of the perpetrator.

Do we believe that either of these scenarios will encourage victims to step forward and complain formally to the Committee? Or do we believe that the requirement in question will have a chilling effect on the reporting of serious breaches of the Code? What benefit is there to counterbalance the harm done to the community? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 09:06, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Since your edit does not address where reports concerning people affiliated to other organisations should go, it's been reverted. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 20:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That question is already addressed: the answer is nowhere, since it is twice stated that all reports will be confidential. It is only the WMF that has asserted, without explanation, the requirement to breach that confidentiality and the right to order the Committee to do so.  It is not at all clear what will happen should a member of the Committee decline to pass on this confidential information because it violates the privacy laws in the country where an incident took place, or because it violates their personal or professional code of ethics, or because they resist being told what to do by an outside party without authority over them. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:47, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Rogol: I've replied below. I share some of your concerns, but I also don't want, say, the only information that HR has to work from to come from the offender, as might happen with only having an internal policy that mandates involved parties report. What I mean to say in suggesting we handle it later is that it falls under enforcement/reporting, not under principles/unacceptable behavior/re-use and so it doesn't block Qgil-WMF's suggestion to approve this by stages. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Double jeopardy
I think it's implicit in some of the preceding discussion, but I think it worth stating explicitly. By double jeopardy I mean the issue of whether sanctions under the Code should be applied in cases where other proceedings and penalties, possibly legal, are also applicable to the conduct in question. For example, some forms of harassment are legal crimes. Some people take the view that one should not be proceeded against or punished twice for the same offence. I personally take the view that the Code is here to protect the community and that the additional privileges and benefits of being a member of this community justify the imposition in principle at least of imposition of additional penalties for conduct that disrupts or damages this communty. I further think that this is the consensus view of this discussion. It might be worth discussing exactly what that means in the case og, for example, criminal proceedings. For example: "If the conduct complained of is or becomes the subject of formal legal proceedings, then the Committee will suspend its final decision until the results of those proceedings is known, but may make an interim ruling for the protection of the community. At the conclusion of those proceedings, the Committee will decide whether to continue with its own decision or to rule that further action is unnecessary.". Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 08:54, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that we do not want to exempt someone from a Code of Conduct penalty due to a separate legal proceeding. I'm not sure suspending decision during a separate process is necessary, but it might work if the Committee still has its full powers for the "interim ruling".  I also disagree with deciding "further action is unnecessary" on the basis that a separate body (e.g. a court of law) has taken action.  There are cases where the court could impose a severe penalty but we would still certainly want to take action.  But even if the court takes relatively minor action, we may still choose to take action since the Code of Conduct is a different set of rules with different consequences.  If by "rule that further action is unnecessary", you mean "decide that the interim decision is sufficient, and simply making the interim decision final should conclude the case" that might be appropriate in some cases.  However, the penalties imposed by other bodies (if any) should be irrelevant to the Committee's decisions. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Most legal systems are terrible at handling harassment. This policy is about what behavior we want to accept and support in our community, and I'm fine with other communities and policy systems having their own say about what behaviors they want to accept. Legal proceedings are often long enough and vary enough by location that I don't think there's a reason to mention them explicitly. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Physical contact
MzMcBride removed the parenthetical in "Inappropriate or unwanted attention, touching, or physical contact (sexual or otherwise)" with the rationale that it felt "awkward and unnecessary". To kick off a discussion about that:

Sexual versus non-sexual touching has different levels of acceptability within western society (speaking very broadly, there). Sexual contact is seen as obviously inappropriate for professional spaces, and non-sexual totally fine if both parties are comfortable with it. This split in characterisation should be called out when we're talking about how to handle unwanted contact. Ironholds (talk) 19:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the key point is that unwanted or inappropriate touching is prohibited either way (sexual or otherwise). I agree it's worth calling out, since sexual harassment is one of the problems this is trying to address.  I've put it back. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Which split in characterization should be called out? I don't follow what you're saying. I also still don't see the need to parenthetically clarify that physical contact can be "sexual or otherwise." --MZMcBride (talk) 02:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

This area seems more than slightly over-egged, possibly this is a cultural gap of some sort between Europe and the US. If I were at a lunch at a Wikimedia sponsored hackerthon, and a fellow volunteer started choking on their chicken sandwich, I would like to avoid feeling so awkward about potential embarrassing claims of inappropriate touching, that I never tried to slap their back or attempt abdominal thrusts to clear their airways before they lose conciousness. At the moment I'm thinking that I would step back and wait until someone else helped out, especially if the person choking were half my age (which is quite likely). --Fæ (talk) 09:50, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In the event that somebody was choking to death would your read genuinely be that the Heimlich was unwanted? Ironholds (talk) 14:06, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think this is unhelpful hypothetical argument. I'll respond to this one direct question, but I prefer to avoid getting into replying to more of this type.
 * The way the draft is being extended in ways that only relate to thought experiments, rather than case history for our community, is of concern and especially the emphasis on "touching" as a reason to apply this policy. My feelings on this are from the last few years of targeted sexual and sexuality related abuse/vandalism on and off the Wikimedia projects (one of these attacks was on my Commons talk page in the last 24 hours, and has been deleted from the page history). This past does make me concerned about the risks of socializing at physical Wikimedia events, and has made me concerned about practicalities of things like sharing rooms when I attended Wikimedia events.
 * If I take your comment literally, then there is plenty of precedent and I note that preferred description is "abdominal thrusts" as other terms can be confusing or controversial depending on what you read. --Fæ (talk) 15:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I concur the choking example was unhelpful and I'm glad we're in agreement on that. You seem to be making a false distinction, here; that there are "thought experiments" and "things we have seen in our community" and nothing in-between. What we are talking about is not thought-experiments that could never happen, or could happen but never do happen; we are talking about things that absolutely happen in communities incredibly similar to ours in terms of focus, demographics and process. It is hubris for us to take the position that because instances of this have not been reported - in an environment similar to those where it has, and an environment lacking an existing enforcement mechanism in many ways - they cannot, or will not, happen.
 * I am deeply sorry for your past experiences of harassment in this community, along those axes or along any other axes. Ironholds (talk) 16:43, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * With regard to "axes", sarcastic apologies that are deliberate personal attacks are just as unhelpful. We should all expect better behaviour of WMF employees if the Wikimedia community is to provide them with special trust and authority. --Fæ (talk) 16:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That was not sarcastic, nor do I see where it was a personal attack. I was genuinely saying that I am sorry for your experiences. I apologise if what I wrote was badly written or ambiguous and so came off as an attack in any way; I will endeavour to be more precise before hitting save. Ironholds (talk) 18:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've now realised the ambiguity might be around "axes"; I meant it in the sense of "the plural of axis" not "the plural of axe". Apologies for the ambiguity :(. All data visualisation and no play makes.... Ironholds (talk) 14:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The precedent you cited is from Weekly World News, a fictional tabloid publication. I'm sorry about any harassment you've received on any of the projects.  This draft code of conduct does address communication ("Inappropriate or unwanted communication", "Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments", etc.), not just touching, in the covered spaces. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Protection of Conduct Committee members
A volunteer serving on the Conduct Committee must consider the possibility that an aggrieved party will sue for libel. To attract qualified volunteers to serve on this committee, one should consider how best to protect them. The main methods are:
 * D&O Liability Insurance. Many not-for-profit organizations purchase a D&O policy that extends coverage to chapter members and volunteers. It is not clear if the WMF has such coverage. Nothing relevant appears when one searches wikimediafoundation.org.
 * Limited disclosure. To take away the grounds for a libel suit, many not-for-profit organizations follow RONR 10th ed, Chap XX Disciplinary Procedures, §61: "If (after trial) a member is expelled, the society has the right to disclose the fact that he is no longer a member—circulating it only to the extent required for the protection of the society or, possibly, of other organizations. Neither the society nor any of its members have the right to make public the charge of which an expelled member has been found guilty, or to reveal any other details connected with the case. To make any of the facts public may constitute libel."

For the protection of Conduct Committee members, please: Wp mirror (talk) 07:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * procure D&O liability insurance, and post the terms on your site;
 * specify, in the procedural law for the Conduct Committee, how to report the outcome of cases; and
 * reconsider the "public reprimand" penalty clause stated in the draft.
 * The Wikimedia projects are not organised as a society of members. Again, these concerns are best surfaced to and handled by counsel, not pseudorandom members of our technical community (I include me in that). Ironholds (talk) 14:07, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What open source code of conduct committee offers D&O insurance to all members (both staff and volunteer)? Unless you can show a significant number of them do, I don't think it's reasonable to pursue this.  I also can not think of any cases where someone has successfully sued an open source project or related organization for libel after being banned from participating or reprimanded.  Can you? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I have in mind the following libel cases: The last three are sometimes called cyberlibel cases. Consider the following: As to D&O Liability Insurance: The need for coverage is real. This is why potential committee members need to see a copy of the policy. The WMF Chief of Finance and Administration is only one e-mail away. Shall we ask him? Wp mirror (talk) 03:33, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Zenger (1735) - ruled that truth is a defense against libel charge;
 * Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. (1991) - ruled that carrier/distributor not liable for libelous posting;
 * Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. (1995) - ruled that publisher is liable for libelous posting;
 * Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (1996) - ruled that Communications Decency Act (1996) protects on-line service providers.
 * If the proposed Conduct Committee got its facts wrong and publicly reprimanded someone for a crime he did not commit, Zenger (1735) would not apply, and WMF General Counsel would seek another defense.
 * If WMF General Counsel disavows the Conduct Committee, then Cubby (1991) might be a defense. But then the Conduct Committee would not have authority to enforce the Code of Conduct.
 * If the WMF Board of Trustees acknowledges the Conduct Committee (e.g. if the Conduct Committee reports to the Board of Trustees, like say the Affiliations Committee does), then Stratton (1995) might apply and WMF would be liable.
 * members of the WMF Board of Trustees are indemnified (see Bylaws Article VIII - INDEMNIFICATION);
 * the WMF Chief of Finance and Administration is responsible for purchasing the coverage (see seventh bullet under ADMINISTRATION).
 * If coverage is not provided, qualified volunteers might be hard to find, and even WMF employees would be prudent to hesitate.
 * If WMF employees are covered, but not volunteers, then committee membership should be restricted to employees.
 * If WMF General Counsel needs to be able to disavow the Conduct Committee, then WMF employees must be excluded from the committee.
 * I asked some specific questions, with the goal of comparing to similar situations (open source or at least similarly-minded organizations with code of conduct enforcement). None of the libel cases you mentioned show that a good-faith ban or reprimand can lead to a successful libel suit.  I am not convinced libel suits are a real problem other communities have faced in connection with their codes of conduct.
 * Similarly, you have not shown that D&O insurance is something other similar committees have had. It's not always affordable or realistic to buy more and more insurance, and it certainly doesn't seem to be legally required (or you would cite an example of a community that had bought it). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:04, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Example: The Association for Computing Machinery is a publisher, has chapters and special interest groups that also publish, hosts public speaking events, and has on-line communities. The ACM also has a code of ethics, breach of which may result in termination of membership (see section 4.2). When I was a member, the ACM had a D&O Liability Insurance policy that extended coverage to all its chapter members and volunteers worldwide. As an officer of one its chapters, I had a copy of the policy. When the conduct of one of our members created a legal liability, we initiated a disciplinary process. We followed RONR 10th ed., as stated in our Bylaws. Charges were drafted, the board went into executive session, and we do not disclose the facts of the case.

Following RONR plus D&O coverage is why libel is not a problem for the ACM. The ACM is not unique in this respect. Indeed, the formula is widely used in the not-for-profit world. Public reprimands for breach of professional ethics are issued by governments and governing boards (e.g. legal, medical). Non-profits, however, quietly dismiss an unethical member.

D&O premiums are low. Cost is not the issue. Nor is having a list of court cases. Getting people with executive experience to serve is the issue. This is why WMF trustees are indemnified. They would not serve otherwise. Wp mirror (talk) 06:52, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We should definitely check this with WMF Legal before it takes effect. There may be other approaches to dealing with any potential liability arising from participation on this committee. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The ACM Is only loosely comparable. It's not an open source organization, but a publisher.  Unlike us, they also have a clearly delineated set of 'members'.  Moreover, their bylaws say, "The Association shall have power to purchase and maintain insurance or to self-insure on behalf of any person who is or was a director, officer, employee or agent of the Association".  You'll note that it says nothing about having the power to purchase insurance for all ACM-related volunteers.  In fact, it doesn't even authorize them to purchase insurance for all paying members.  That suggests that if they ever covered all volunteers or all members, they no longer do.  No one has suggested that 'executive experience' is required to serve on this committee.  I am confident we can get people to serve on this committee, including volunteers.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:38, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In order to resolve some of these issues, it will be necessary to have a decision from WMF Legal. Is the WMF willing to take steps to give legal protection to members of the Committee (and the appeal body)?  If so, this discussion can proceed on the basis that WMF Legal will know what to do and will do it effectively: it may be that they will wish to advise on procedural matters to make that protection most effective and efficient.  If not, then the discussion will need to proceed on the basis that individual Committee members and indeed individual community members are legally at risk in these proceedings, and again WMF Legal may be able to help by advising on how to manage those risks (although I do not know whether their remit extends to advising non-WMF people or entities, of course).  Personally speaking I would not advise anyone to undertake this is sort activity without adequate legal protection, but other community members may have a different appetite for risk (or better legal insurance).   as one who has been taking an interest in the legal relationship between the WMF on the one hand and this Code and its Committee on the other, can you please help here? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:33, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Canvassing
By the way, this whole discussion seems dominated from the start by a cherry-picked pre-determined very small subset of the community, which convened in external places and then started this concerted effort. In our wiki culture, this smells of so-called canvassing, which by definition makes a discussion and decision invalid and void. --Nemo 06:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This proposal, just like most proposals in our community, was started publicly by some people who cared about this topic, and others equally interested have been involved since then. Nobody has been sherry-picking anybody, and nothing has been pre-determined. Trust me, I have been following this process and its collateral discussions and initiatives since T87773 (2015-01-28), both in public spaces and in the casual private conversations where I have been CCed.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:05, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I learned of it from wikitech-l (2015-08-07) which is one of the technical spaces that would be covered by the proposed Code of Conduct. If anyone is aware of a technical space not notified, we should remedy that now. Wp mirror (talk)
 * Basically what Matt said; I heard about this from the Wikitech thread and to my knowledge it started on a phab task and with a public meeting at Wikimania. That's about as far from canvassing as you could get. Ironholds (talk) 14:35, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I learned about this from the same Wikitech thread as Ironholds and Wp mirror.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 05:24, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I learned about this draft by personal email from a deeply concerned long term technical contributor. They have not contributed here themselves, from my understanding of their history, the most likely reason being that they do not want to be seen to be 'non-positive' about any WMF driven initiative, and with weaker English skills their voice would be lost in the wiki-lawyering. Without the email, I would never have known that this draft had been created. --Fæ (talk) 08:21, 22 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think I would say canvassing - but it certainly does seem as if it is being pushed by a rather small group of interested people, and being pushed rather hard. I am somewhat concerned in how the discussion doesn't seem to have all that many voices among the long term mediawiki/core developers (Since that is one of the main groups this document plans to regulate), but there is a long thread on wikitech-l, so its not like the relavent parties don't know about it. If the people commenting are the people interested, I guess that is that. Bawolff (talk) 06:48, 23 August 2015 (UTC)


 * As other people have noted, this work started publicly on Phabricator, and I've sent multiple notifications to wikitech-l. Architecture committee/2015-08-12 indicates the architecture committee members (i.e. long-term contributors) are aware of it; I would expect anyway they're aware from wikitech-l.  If you feel it should be sent out to another public forum, please do so. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:57, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Next steps
We need a bit of organization. Even when the discussion is being shared basically by just a few people, it is becoming harder to follow and get involved productively (even more for volunteers with little time available). The goal of this exercise is to draft a proposal of an enforceable Code of Conduct to be approved by the Wikimedia technical community. We can slice the drafting in modules, allowing for a lighter process of discussion and consensus:
 * 1) Intro + Principles + Unacceptable behavior define the scope of this CoC, and have an intrinsic value. If those of us active in this Talk page now focus on these points, we should be able to reach a level of agreement good enough to send a proposal to wikitech-l.
 * 2) A new section "Committee" (that I will create now unless someone is faster) comprising all the details about this committee will need some more iterations. We can work on it while the community has time to discuss the points above. Hopefully by the time that the points above are stable and clear, we could share our proposal about the committee to wikitech-l.
 * 3) With the previous points on its way for agreement, Reporting, Appealing, and Enforcement should be relatively simpler to deal with, as they are mostly a matter of process. Once we have a draft we are happy with, we would share it with wikitech-l, adding that this is the last chunk of the CoC and we are seeking general consensus for the approval of the entire document.
 * 4) The CoC would become official as soon as it is approved. Then we would proceed to the creation of the committee.

The trick here is that the most active contributors to this discussion would focus on the topics that need more urgent approval, leaving he rest for later. Sporadic contributors can comment anywhere, of course.

There have been some comments about a self-selection (for a lack of a better word?) of people participating in this draft, in this discussion page, and in the related threads in wikitech-l. In order to help capturing a wider range of opinions, we could offer an email alias i.e. coc-discussion@undefinedwikimedia.org that would relay emails to, say, three identified people that will commit to treat this feedback with confidentiality and channel the contributions received to the public discussion. Three is big enough to be reliable (a single person might miss an email, be away, etc) and small enough to maintain personal trust.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:36, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I really like this proposal. One implication it has, though, is for the approval process; the problem with a consensus-driven approach is that it is very hard to identify the trend of agreement or disagreement when confidential feedback or disapproval or approval is being factored in. What are your plans for dealing with that? Ironholds (talk) 14:34, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I like this staged approach, although I share Ironholds' concerns about how to make consensus (or its lack) apparent. I do think that offering the opportunity for anonymized input is important in this discussion. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 00:53, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think anonymized feedback can still be taken into account in reaching consensus, as long as it is posted to the page (in anonymous form). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:53, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I also like this plan—it isolates what seems to be the hardest part of the discussion: the composition of the Committee. Ironholds: I think there are two routes we could take to deal with confidential feedback:


 * 1) Have the trusted parties channel it into the discussion, but have it impact the discussion by (hopefully) affecting the positions of the people taking part directly.
 * 2) Allow people to send their positions anonymously to the trusted parties, and have those parties paraphrase it, confirm that the senders haven't !voted publicly in the discussion and have some basic level of involvement in the Wikimedia technical community (I don't think this should be high—for example, a preexisting Phab account should be sufficient, even if it hasn't commented), and add it to the discussion on the same level as an identified comment.

I lean towards 2, personally.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 06:39, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I like 1 better. I appreciate that some people may be reluctant to publicly state their positions, but I think its important to make sure that their is no question about the community support for the proposal (In order to ensure the entire community feels bound by it), and part of that is being able to verify that the vote isn't being controlled by a sock puppet army. Bawolff (talk) 07:23, 23 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I did think about that, so in option 2 I mentioned that the trusted parties receiving the anonymous feedback would take some basic steps to guard against sockpuppets (essentially the same steps that anybody would take take when checking public comments): checking that the sender has a Phab/mediawiki.org account that predates the discussion and that they haven't already commented. Do you think these wouldn't be enough?—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 18:09, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Its more I would like to err on the side of caution. Its a complicated issue, I'm not 100% sure where I stand. Bawolff (talk) 19:27, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not trivial to cross-check someone's email address with their MediaWiki.org or Phabricator account. First, some accounts don't even have email addresses associated (but the anonymous feedback might still come from an email). Even if there is an email associated, you would need to use Special:EmailUser to send them a message to confirm the previous email came from them (otherwise, you don't know their email address and don't know if the from address of the original email was forged). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:45, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, then let's start applying this sequence. About anonymous feedback, I think we should go for 1 as long as consensus is build through discussion (and not votes). If we decide to go for votes, then the scenario changes, but there should be enough time for anonymous feedback in any case. Good ideas are good ideas, regardless of where they come from. If they are influencing, so be it. The fact that such ideas come from a techie sockpuppet, someone alien to Wikimedia tech, etc, it doesn't matter. Considering that users can post here anonymously already (with an IP or a newly created account), users of the private channel would probably be people willing to make a point without having followed the entire discussion or without willing to pick a fight publicly.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:51, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Who should be the three people publicly identified as recipients of coc-discussion@undefinedwikimedia.org? Once we have the names Matt or I can create the request in Phabricator. We should offer this email address when sending our next email to wikitech-l (see so I hope we can go through this step quick.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:14, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am willing to be one of those people. Also, I suggest "conduct-discussion@undefinedwikimedia.org", as abbreviations can be confusing. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No more volunteers so far? Then I will join as well. Two people are enough to get this started. I have requested the conduct-discussion@undefinedwikimedia.org email alias to WMF Office IT and I have also CCed, so he knows when this email address (the last blocker for the announcement) is ready.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Governance
jQuery's Code of Conduct Committee is a creature of the jQuery Foundation's Board of Directors: This is documented in their Enforcement Manual. This is documented in their Reporting Guide.
 * the board appoints and reviews the committee members;
 * the committee is empowered to speak on the foundation's behalf to contact witnesses and to stop ongoing situations;
 * the committee reports the outcome of each case to the board;
 * deadlocked cases are escalated to the board; and
 * public statements are issued by the board, never the committee.
 * appeals go to the jQuery Foundation's President and Executive Director.

No equivalent language appears in the draft Code of Conduct under consideration here. These are issues of governance; and they need to be addressed. Is there any reason why the proposed Conduct Committee should not be a creature of the WMF Board of Trustees? Wp mirror (talk) 17:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Time, existing org structure, and lack of technical background, mostly. The jQuery Foundation is very different from the WMF and the two organizations and their boards focus on different tasks. This proposed committee's purpose (to promote and maintain a healthy technical community) is well within the Engineering Community Team's purview and skillset and I think it is a more natural fit. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 22 August 2015 (UTC)


 * That seems unsatisfactory. Members of WMF technical staff will be actively working in spaces where this code is in force, and subject to its provisions.  It cannot be right for the ECT to sit in judgement on, or take appeals from, its own members or fellow-worker -- the clear failure of natural justice implied would completely undermine the credibility, acceptability and authority of the Code in all its applications, not just those that might involve a member of the WMF engineering staff.  The authority of the Code must surely emanate from the Board, which is the ultimate authority and embodies the community consensus through its elective structure.  It seems unlikely that there will be large amounts of business for them to transact and if it prove burdensome, I am sure the Board is fully capable of managing its own business either by delegation ad hoc or to a standing subcommittee. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Presumably the WMF's HR department should also not be involved in WMF employee behaviour, nor their lawyers, nor their managers, since they're all "fellow workers", and the committee should not contain any technical people since then the technical contributors they're tasked with checking the behaviour of will be "fellow workers" too. There are conflict of interest and recusal provisions practically by default for entities like this. The Board does a vast amount of work already and is not a particularly technical body; it also has little to no exposure to work within the technical spaces. Your proposal is that to avoid conflicts of interest we abstract the task away so far it lands on the plate of a group of people with absolutely no expertise or lived experiences that pertain to the space-specific problems. Ironholds (talk) 14:43, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am sure that the trained professionals in the HR and Legal departments are fully capable of handling those issues. That is of course of marginal relevance to this discussion and I presume you knew that when you dragged it in..  My proposal -- that is, what I actaully wrote rather than your mis-statement of it -- is based on the belief that the Board has the authority, the independence, the community  support, that it is fully capable of understanding the issues of human interaction,  fully capable of managing or delegating its own business and fully capable of obtaining technical advice should it see the need to do so.  Apparently you disagree and it would be interesting to know why?  It seems that you find independence a disadvantage in dealing with these governance issues -- I would see it as a positive advantage. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 08:39, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any problem in asking the Board for their opinion once this draft is more consolidated. If they say "Yes, we want to be the ones enforcing this Code of Conduct directly", I don't see any strong reason not to agree with them. However, I find this possibility unlikely for practical reasons, and we'd rather have an alternative proposal where the Board is either not in the picture or basically nominally, with their duties delegated to an executive body, aka a committee. In any case, the first step is to consolidate this draft, which we are doing at and related sections.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't have any issue with independence; I have a problem with independence to the point of lacking context, and concerns about the time the board has available. But in any case, I endorse Quim's comment on this. Ironholds (talk) 14:40, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think there is in fact language addressing the same questions. It's just that the current draft has different answers.  The draft is quite clear about who speaks (e.g. "A private reprimand from the committee", "A public reprimand. In this case, the group chair will deliver that reprimand", etc.), and it's also clear about the appeals process ("To appeal a decision of the committee, or if you have concerns about how it was resolved, contact the Engineering Community Team at ect@wikimedia.org and they will review the case").  The main question not addressed is how the committee will be formed.  There is already active discussion about that.
 * I think ECT has better understanding of day-to-day life in the technical community than the Board of Trustees does, and is thus better suited as the appeals body. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:47, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed additions
i suggest the fllowing addition to Principles:


 * This code is published by Resolution of the WMF Board of Trustees, which acts as the authority for its implementation on behalf of the community.

and under Enforcement:


 * The WMF Board authorises a Code of Conduct Committee to manage reported infractions of the Code! Constituted as follows ...


 * The WMF Board will hear appeals from the decisions of the Committee, either directly or through a committee formed ad hoc.

A draft resolution for the Board would be needed. Rogol Domedonfors (talk)
 * Except it's not, it hasn't, and it doesn't. If there's a desire to have the board as the appellate body or authorising body the board should say "Yes, we're comfortable doing that". Ironholds (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You will need to explain the various values of "it" in your first sentence: the tricolon loses in rhetorical power by the unclarity of the referents. The proposal is however exactly as you say in your second sentence.  To achieve the situation outlined in this proposal would indeed involve putting the proposed Code formally to the Board and having them formally adopt it by Resolution.  Of course a prelininary informal approach and agreement in principle would be needed first, so to that extent we seem to be in agreement. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:38, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's ordered by your original order. If we're in agreement that informal approach/agreement in principle is needed first then somebody should be doing that; we should not be adding language which presumes acceptance and makes the entire draft ride on board agreement. Let's draft without presumption; if the board later decides to adopt it they can pass a resolution that contains whatever modifications are necessary to confirm the board is doing it. Ironholds (talk) 20:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Its a community initiative not something being imposed from above. I don't think the board really has any place here. Bawolff (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This doesn't belong to Principles but to Committee. Rogol Domedonfors, if you are in a rush willing to include the Board in this initiative, feel free to contact them and ask their opinions. I still think it is better to wait to have a more consolidated draft, though.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 21:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The rush is being imposed by those who do not wish to proceed with a draft along these lines without asking the Board in conjunction with those who want the draft in order to consult the Board. So I have anyway, at Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:12, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This does not require a Board resolution, and I disagree with asking for one. The Terms of Use (which is Board-approved) 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. You agree to comply with the final decisions of dispute resolution bodies that are established by the community for the specific Project editions (such as arbitration committees); these decisions may include sanctions as set out by the policy of the specific Project edition." Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Then you will be pleased to see that I did not ask for one. As discussed here, I asked for informal views about how the Board viewed the proposal that thry should be the authority behind this code.  If they wish to do so, they would eventually enact it by formal Resolution, but that is a long way off.  If they indicate their views informally at this stage, it will make drafting easier. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 07:08, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

It makes me feel sad to see that Board involvement is asked for. This is exactly the place where I thing the affected community should deliberate, find a consensus, agree on wording and implement such a policy. A code of conduct only works if it is backed up by those who have to follow it. A top-down-manner is not the best idea to create this ownership feeling. Lyzzy (talk) 15:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Outing
Hi. Re: this edit, "outing" actually has a different meaning in the context of Wikimedia wikis (cf. w:en:WP:OUTING). --MZMcBride (talk) 00:29, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. Without looking at the link, I would assume the other definition was meant in this context. Bawolff (talk) 06:23, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've pointed the link to the enwiki project page you linked.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 18:05, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The original Contributore Covenant says "Publishing other's private information, such as physical or electronic addresses, without explicit permission". This is plain English, and very clear. I propose to go back to this original sentence. "Outing" and "doxing" are not part of everyday's vocabulary. If you prefer, we can add the concept of "person's identity": "Publishing a person's identity or other private information, such as physical or electronic addresses, without explicit permission".--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:46, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The version of Contributor Covenant we based this on does not have that text (see revision link in See also). That said, it seems fine to use more plain language for this. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:20, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It should be amended as you suggested, since unlike some communities, in ours name/identity is often private, which is not addressed in your first quote. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:22, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ taking the wording proposed at since it is directly based on the previous sentence, just removing the very specialized terms.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposing Intro + Principles + Unacceptable behavior
As proposed in, let's focus on agreeing Intro + Principles + Unacceptable behavior up to a point where we can make a wider call to wikitech-l and whatever channels we decide. These sections define the scope of this Code of Conduct, and have an intrinsic value. Please do not discuss these topics or new ones here. Use the existing or new sections instead. Here we are only coordinating the work of proposing these three sections of the draft CoC to wikitech-l.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:25, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The intro (first paragraph) seems to be ready.
 * Principles, it looks like the previous discussions are settled now.
 * Unacceptable behavior, there is still recent discussion under, , , ,.


 * I think the current version of these sections is solid. We could leave a bit more time until Thursday evening / Friday morning Pacific to see whether there are still major changes proposed, and if not, then proceed with the call for feedback at wikitech-l. Does this sound sensible?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:25, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The plan and the timing sound good to me. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that seems reasonable. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:21, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We have got conduct-discussion@undefinedwikimedia.org and this is good to go. Mattflaschen-WMF, whenever you want.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Remove "Principles" section?
The "Principles" section as currently written seems both incorrect and pointless. There's a reason why the coding conventions pages, for instance, don't say "As Wikimedia developers, we all believe that tabs should be used instead of spaces." If there are rules, fine; but there's no point pretending there's unanimity behind them.

The first sentence of the section is simply incorrect: "As members of Wikimedia's technical community, we work together to build technology that makes free knowledge available to humanity." There are plenty of MediaWiki extension developers, myself included, who have never worked on code used on any of the major Wikimedia sites; we thus make no real contribution to free knowledge for humanity. (Why this sentence belongs there, even if true, I don't know. If the goals were less lofty, would harassment be okay?)

The second two sentences, starting with "We welcome" and "We pledge", are actually similarly nonsensical. Did everyone pledge? (Did anyone pledge?) What does it mean to pledge? Do you have to pledge repeatedly, or only once?

I don't know why you need a set of principles to explain rules in the first place. It feels like this whole section could just be removed. Yaron Koren (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree that there is no point to this section although I accept that you don't see one. The point of this is the same as the point of any preamble anywhere; to provide a context within which the document can exist and be interpreted. So that people reading the code of conduct can understand not only what specific activities are proscribed but the principles under which the community is organised.
 * As for the 'there's no unanimity behind them' or 'who pleged?' - that is about the principles, not the individual rules. Excepting the working together section, do you disagree that the community should be a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone, say? Ironholds (talk) 04:34, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think Yaron's point, is that pledging is usually defined as an active action. Almost akin to signing something. Regardless of whether everyone agrees with the statements to be pledged, its not true to say that everyone has pledged it, unless they've actually pledged those principles, which they haven't, and there is no plan to make everybody pledge it. A policy we all agree with, is different from a policy we have all pledged to uphold. Bawolff (talk) 05:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For what is worth, this section is basically an adaptation of the first paragraphs of the Contributor Covenant this Code of Conduct is based upon. "Pledge" is being used there. Today nobody has pledged anything, but the approval of this Coc implies that the Wikimedia Tech community endorses it. To me this reads as a linguistic detail, and in general I think that deviations from the original Contributor Covenant benefit from a strong justification. As per MediaWiki-not-Wikimedia contributors, anybody participating in the Wikimedia tech infrastructure is considered a Wikimedia tech contributor, and does contribute in a way or another to Wikimedia's mission. So yes, it is a preamble, it might sound a bit redundant for those knowing the details, but it is informative and usefl to set everybody in the same page.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Ironholds - I agree that respect is good and harassment is bad. Now, if you can get everyone who's ever contributed code to a Wikimedia project to agree with that, you'd have a stronger case...
 * Qgil - I simply don't see how someone who writes, say, a Google Ads MediaWiki extension is contributing to free knowledge for humanity. Right now the wording makes it seem like such people don't even count; is that really "welcoming"?
 * Seriously, though - instead of "We pledge to make participation in Wikimedia technical projects...", what about "Participation in Wikimedia technical projects should be..."? Yaron Koren (talk) 14:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If there are people who can't agree on that they shouldn't be members of our technical community, full stop. I have no issue with the people who are concerned by individual clauses and the edge cases they might introduce, but if you do not believe that, as you put it, respect is good and harassment is bad you have no place here. I don't have a problem with your rewording. Ironholds (talk) 14:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, that's refreshing. People have been wasting time arguing about warning levels, arbitration committees and so forth, when it turns out that all we needed all along is just an immediate lifetime ban. Yaron Koren (talk) 15:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I really don't want to spend my energy with us digging ever-deeper into this, so I'm going to back off at this point, but I really don't see how you concluded that a comment consisting entirely of deliberate facetiousness was helpful. Ironholds (talk) 18:08, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yaron's valid point refers to the part of the community focusing on MediaWiki-not-Wikimedia. It's a topic that we are considering in other areas, and can be considered here as well. The incidence on the mission and purpose of Wikimedia is not essential in this Code of Conduct. In the original Contributors Covenant, the "pledge" is used in a slightly different way. All in all, here I don't see strong reasons to depart from the original writing, so I will edit the Principles section proposing a writing closer to the original. Feel free to revert if you prefer to discuss further.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 20:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it's better now, yes. Yaron Koren (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Reorganization of types of harassment
The list of types of harassment has grown to a point where I don't think it is serving its original purpose as good as it could. Having two levels (a bullet list and an extra sentence) doesn't help. Having similar concepts in different points doesn't help either. We can be just as specific with a clearer organization and self-explanatory descriptions. Here is an attempt:


 * Harassment and other types of inappropriate behavior are unacceptable in all public and private Wikimedia technical spaces. Examples include but are not limited to:
 * Personal attacks, violence, threats, deliberate intimidation.
 * Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments.
 * Inappropriate use of sexual language or imagery.
 * Unwanted attention, touching, or physical contact (sexual or otherwise).
 * Unwanted communication, following, or any form of stalking.
 * Unwanted photography or recording.
 * Disclosure of a person's identity or other private information without their consent.
 * Trolling through sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration.
 * Other unethical or unprofessional conduct.
 * Project administrators and maintainers have the right and responsibility to...
 * Project administrators and maintainers have the right and responsibility to...

What do you think?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:08, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * They're in different sections because some of them are inappropriate but not actively harassing. 'inappropriate use of sexual language or imagery' is grossly inappropriate and should not be tolerated but I wouldn't describe it as harassment necessarily. You've also categorised anything unprofessional as harassment, which, again, is not always the case. Ironholds (talk) 06:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would also consider some forms of trolling to not be "harrasment" (but still problematic). Bawolff (talk) 06:18, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine, but the goal of this CoC is not to define Harassment as in Harassment, but to identify types of "unacceptable behavior" in our community. The distinction between "technically harassment" and "other" is superfluous here. I have fine tuned the description.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Some of the changes seem okay. Others I disagree with.
 * I strongly disagree with only forbidding certain forms of trolling, which I think the new wording does. The Contributor Covenant forbids all forms.  I don't object to adding a parenthetical definition of trolling, but I also don't believe that's genuinely necessary.  If you want to merge in the others (from Sustained disruption), it could be done with "Trolling, for example by" (I'm not sure those are 100% the same as the definition of trolling, but it's probably close enough).
 * Your list keeps "unwanted communication" (albeit moved, which is fine), but removes "inappropriate [...] communication". This is somewhat hard to define, but basically I think of creepy, harassing, or upsetting communication (especially private communication) that is not appropriate in this setting.  I would prefer to put that back.
 * No problem with shortening "Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments"; it should be obvious it includes offensive comments related to the listed characteristics.
 * "threats" should be changed back to "threats of violence". If someone threatens to stop editing Wikipedia, that should not fall under this.
 * Would prefer to put back "Inappropriate or" before "Unwanted attention". Similarly, it is possible for touching to be clearly inappropriate without someone explicitly telling you it's unwanted.
 * The definition of Unwanted photography or recording was put in response to feedback, but if most people don't have a problem with this wording it could be kept simpler.
 * Personal attacks might now be ambiguous. We have to forbid both verbal and physical personal attacks (physical is handled by violence, though), but a reader might now think it only refers to physical.  Maybe clarify it.
 * Other than that the changes seem alright. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Take a look to the current version. I think I have addressed your concerns. I have left the "Inappropriate or unwanted" pairs, although I still think "Unwanted" alone is clearer for everybody and more straightforward to act upon. In these sentences "unwanted" clearly implies "inappropriate". The "or" conjunction opens the possibility to deal with "inappropriate but not unwanted" behavior, which might be a can of worms. When not unwanted, what is appropriate/inappropriate differs a lot between individuals and their social contexts. In order to consider a behavior unwanted, we don't need "someone explicitly telling you it's unwanted". Social norms exist that define the lines of the unwanted, which are the same lines that define socially appropriate vs inappropriate. Those lines are fuzzy across cultures and individuals, but adding "inappropriate" to "unwanted" in our CoC does not solve that fuzziness either.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:57, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the new version is okay, as long as we clearly understand that personal attacks includes verbal and written personal attacks, such as insults. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:19, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Level of experience
"We are committed to making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sex, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, political affiliation, or religion."

I feel the inclusion of "level of experience" in this list is problematic, if that is implicitly "level of technical experience". The other attributes in this list are identity attributes which have no bearing on someone's contributions, and should never contribute to someone being less respected, welcomed, encouraged, etc, etc that anyone else.

However level of technical experience does influence how respected, welcomed, and even encouraged that a participant will be, especially when at the coal-face of code review.

I can appreciate that our technical environment should be "harassment-free" for everyone, and especially for juniors. (This is especially critical in physical spaces, however that is covered with a different policy.) In the context of technical interaction in online spaces, the term "harassment" can be interpreted much more broadly by participants. Broad definitions of "harassment" are a good thing in the event that the behaviour appears to be discriminatory to identity attributes. They are not good if someone is reaching to find a reason why their technical contributions are not being accepted, and wanting to shift the blame from their inexperience or poor quality onto others.

I have similar concerns about the inclusion of "consistent and unwarranted rejection of patches", as "unwarranted" can also be a situation where code submitter vs reviewers have view different perspective of expectations wrt quality, and ultimately review of patches should be a consensus or stalemate of available +2'er, and this policy is unlikely to be a useful tool in preventing stalemates between +2'ers.

I believe that level of technical experience, if that is the objective here, should be handled separately from identity attributes.

I suspect that "level of experience" is trying to get at either/both of the following, which I agree with:
 * 1) newness of the contributor (i.e. number of years involved in this community) shouldn't be a discriminatory aspect
 * 2) power relationship games are completely unacceptable

Sorry I don't have answers for how to rephrase this yet. John Vandenberg (talk) 05:33, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think part of what its trying to get at, is making fun of people for lack of skill, is not ok. I think there's also a dual meaning of the word "respect". It can mean being a decent person, but it can also mean how seriously you treat their ideas or how likely you are to defer to their decisions, etc. I believe its important to be nice to everyone. But if someone wrote on wikitech-l proposing to rewrite half of MW, I'm going to treat their email much more seriously if somebody like Tim Starling is writing it, than if someone I don't know is writing it. Bawolff (talk) 05:55, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 * "a respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience" means that we commit to avoid that someone shows lack of respect and/or harasses someone else because of their level of experience. If I open a discussion in wikitech-l about rewriting MediaWiki from scratch as a Lua template (!), the community has all the right to ignore me or tell me that I have no idea what I am talking about, but according to this CoC I will still have the right to be respected and not harassed. Same if my knowledge of written English is poor, I write emails as if they were txt mssgs, use all-caps too much, top-quote, use a vague subject in my new email thread, ask every other minute on IRC because I don't know better yet, and many other very realistic cases. These behaviors are annoying and require certain patience and dedication to fix, but no one deserves "Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments" because of this.
 * For the rest, look at the new version; I think that it has solved your concerns as well.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a genuine choice here about what sort of Community to be. Consider the situation where a novice makes a suggestion that is apparently reasonable but has been tried before and is known not to work, or is unworkable for some other, not obvious, reason.  In some communities I have known, it would be acceptable to say "no, you don't know what you're talking about" or "Wrong.  End of" and to respond to the obvious followup question with an accusation of trolling.  In others, it would be regarded as rude to reply with anything less than "we tried at out in such a date and it didn't work as you can see on such a page" or "that sounds reasonable but the buffer is updated asynchronously and you can't be sure that the data is there although it almost always is, and we have decided to design code for the unlikely cases as well.". In other words, some communities choose to be learning communities, which takes more time, and others choose a model in which experience and expertise buys you the right to be brusque with newbies.  Which do we want to be? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 07:29, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "an open and welcoming community" (as described in Principles). We already are (or at least want to be) open and welcoming. There are many examples, although we can always improve. In any case, I don't think this discussion would bring any changes to the current proposal.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:44, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We want to be a learning community. Experience is never a justification for rudeness; in fact, it undermines any defence. Ironholds (talk) 18:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * One step further: if we want to make it so that "every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge", and not just the human beings whose backgrounds we understand and whose expertise we already respect, we must be a learning community. It takes more work, yes, but it's work worth doing. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we ought to be the kind of community that tries to engage new people and learn together. Besides basic respect, another advantage of the "that sounds reasonable but the buffer is updated asynchronously" approach is that maybe a few months later, they will post to wikitech-l "But what if the asynchronous update triggers an event using this mechanism..." (or whatever), which might turn out to be a really good idea.  Bringing new people into the community also brings in new ideas and experience (they might not know anything about wiki software, but what if they know a lot about algorithmic optimization, or UX, or...)? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * both of those, yes, but also what Qgil-WMF mentioned. Knowing the social conventions of an open source project (or how to find them out) is not actually trivial, though we tend to forget it the longer we participate in a given community. Open source has a long and unfortunate tradition of "RTFM, n00b" and this point is intended to address that. Specifically, I'm aware of someone who was turned off MediaWiki development after seeing their early contributions discussed uncharitably on IRC. Learning doesn't happen when people are afraid they'll be mocked or insulted for making mistakes, and many people will just go away when they feel unwelcome. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, which help clarify the intent. Also thanks for removing "consistent and unwarranted rejection of patches".

However the inclusion of level of experience, in this list, bothers me as raises it to the same level as discrimination based on identity attributes. In many countries, including mine, there are discrimination laws that explicitly address the majority of these identity attributes. Those laws are usually full of complicated aspects, and typically only apply to employees, differ per country, and often dont handle online spaces well, so it is wonderful to have a community consensus which unreservedly and strongly rejects all forms of identity based discrimination and harassment, using broad language, in our shared online environment.

To me, adding 'level of experience' in this list trivialises all of the other items in the list, which are all identity based. 'level of experience' (broadly speaking) does deserve being highlighted in the CoC, somewhere else, but it fundamentally is not the same as the others in this list. Including it weakens our commitment against identity based discrimination and harassment, when it should be using stronger language for those. Dealing with contributors with seemingly low competence/familiarity can become quite hard, especially if they are not hearing the sometimes too subtle cues, and we all struggle with how to support newcomers effectively - there is always room for improvement here (IMO not reviewing patches in a timely fashion is not respectful). Of course extreme reactions, such as mocking a contributor, is unacceptable, however "RTFM, n00b" is a completely different type of problem to responses that focus on a person identity. Any complaint lodged relating to identity attributes, irrespective of how trivial it is, should result in strong community rejection, and rapidly escalating enforcement. Non-trivial complaints lodged relating to primarily to 'level of experience' are typically going to be complex to untangle, and will often be unresolvable due to difference in perspectives of the events in question. If isolated, complaints related to 'level of experience' will need to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. Repeated bad behaviour related to 'level of experience' will need more careful handling, and possibly even providing training if the accused is a valuable technical resource. John Vandenberg (talk) 08:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Would it help to have "level of experience" at the end of the list instead of the beginning? Level of experience is a known target of certain types of unacceptable behavior that we don't want to see in our community. Identity is a tricky concept and I don't think it is worth entering into this debate. Some people won't care much about their own political or religious views, but they might feel stronger about their "geekiness" or "non-geekiness". Also, maybe "level of experience" is not the best wording. Someone can be an expert in several fields of humanities and sciences, be a great family and social partner organizing all kinds of stuff, but have little experience in the context of a free software project. "technical skills" might be a better label for that.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:56, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd be much happier if our treatment of newcomers / competence levels / skills is clearly separated from the others. IMO it is worthy of its own sentence/paragraph in the Principles section.  Putting it at the end doesnt address my concern.  If there is any interest in separating it, I'd be happy to put in some effort to try separating it from the others in a way that highlights it as an important problem.  If not, so be it.
 * "technical skills" is IMO better. John Vandenberg (talk) 09:25, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think one of the things we're trying to say here is that established contributors do not get special consideration or licence in matters of conduct on account of the claimed value of their contributions. (This is a principle which the English-language Wikipedia continue to struggle with.)  Is that indeed what we are agreed on?  If so, is there is suitable form of words?  Something like "The behavioural standards expressed in this code apply equally to all members of the community irrespective of status".  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:47, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have tried to address your feedback in this edit.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:05, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That is pretty much what I believe the consensus here to be. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 16:52, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with the principle behind "The behavioural standards expressed in this code apply equally to all members of the community irrespective of status" (not saying we necessarily need that exact sentence in it, but I support that idea). However, I don't think that's all it should mean.  It should also including the ethos of (these are ideas, not proposals for the draft) "Treat newcomers in a welcoming way" and "Try to make interactions with them educational where possible, rather than devolve into RTFM, or just 'Won't Work'", and "Don't harass them because they're new". Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:15, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Now? (I thought I know everything about wikitext discussions, but I'm getting lost with bullets, colons, and indentations...) :) --Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I like the phrasing in the draft now. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 17:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Removal of commits and code
"Project administrators and maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, tasks, and other contributions that violate this code of conduct."

Are there processes/tools in place to remove commits from Git, and code or comments from Gerrit? As a maintainer, I have no idea how I would go about this. John Vandenberg (talk) 05:38, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Messing with public git history causes significant problems. We should not be removing commits from git once they reach master, except in rather extraordinary circumstances. I think that making a new commit that reverts problematic things, and banning users as needed will have to be sufficient. Bawolff (talk) 05:46, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ideally, commits that violate this code of conduct would be rejected just like any other inappropriate or unworkable commits. If they make it in, I think that Bawolff's suggestion is a good way to move forward. --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Added "revert" here. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:37, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is still a bit problematic. If there was a commit that changed code in a good way but personally attacked someone in the commit message, none of the required actions ("remove, edit, revert, or reject") are any use. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 20:57, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The idea is that admins and maintainers have the right and responsibility to take action wherever something is wrong, within their possibilities and in a reasonable way. If a case is technically complex, the committee will have to find out the best compromise. I think the current sentence is just fine.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Who is going to approve this/how?
It's not clear to me how we expect this draft to be made into policy. Are we going to vote on this? If does eventually become policy, what would be the process for amending it? -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 21:00, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It was suggested above under that it be formally adopted by Resolution of the WMF Board of Trustees. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:37, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think who approves and how depends on the final draft, and this is why I'm focusing on pushing the draft further as proposed in . I would personally prefer to try first a process of discussion and consensus.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Qgil-WMF that consensus here on this talk page is the best way. A Board resolution is unnecessary.  See my last comment at Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft ("This does not require a Board resolution, [...]") for why. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Authority/power of committee?
It's not clear how a committee is going to work unless they are either actually given the power to issue bans etc. themselves, or can convince local technical space admins to give effect to their decision in every single controversial case (of which there will hopefully be few/none, but that can't be assumed) -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 21:04, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Local technical space admins are subject to this CoC just like anybody else. There is a specific sentence mentioning them in the Principles section. They should apply the decisions of the CoC or have a good argument for an appeal.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:16, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There is also specific text ("The committee can also bring in people from the spaces involved (e.g. if it happens on both MediaWiki.org and IRC, bring in involved admins and IRC contacts).") about bringing in local space admins when appropriate. In such cases, the local space admins have a direct opportunity to participate in discussion, and thus better understand the basis for the committee's decision. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

IdeaLab/Community discussion on harassment reporting
Has this discussion take full account of the parallel meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Community discussion on harassment reporting? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 11:29, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you see specific points that we could take in our CoC draft?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 14:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It contains a lot of useful material. The section What types of harassment have been reported on Wikipedia is revealing (and depressing).  Not all are explicitly covered here.  That's just one example. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 16:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Looking at "Community claims" and "What types of harassment have been reported on Wikipedia", I think the cases mentioned there would be covered by our CoC, even if they are not necessarily spelled out with the same words here. If someone finds an actual gap, please report it.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know if that specific document has been used. However, Grants:Friendly space expectations has been, so we are taking some lessons from their experience.  As far as the specific list of things that happened on Wikipedia, this is partly why we have "Examples include but are not limited to". Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Reports involving WMF employees
This is a spin-off of the discussion of 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)