Talk:Code of Conduct/Archive 4

Progress overview
Many parts of the Code of Conduct have reached their final state (see this page and the archive for discussion and consensus votes). There are still several steps left, organised by section here:


 * Page: Code of Conduct
 * This section is finalized.


 * Page: Code of Conduct/Cases
 * This section is finalized.


 * Page: Code of Conduct/Committee
 * Introduction, "Diversity", "Conflict of interest", and "Confidentiality" sections finalized. All of these were approved by the community, except "Confidentiality" was approved by Legal due to special legal issues.
 * The community is deciding whether to approve "Creation and renewal of the Committee".


 * Page: Code of Conduct/Amendments
 * Discussed at Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft

Confidentiality
Some people will recall the prior requirement that WMF Legal raised earlier. I've updated the draft to handle this. Trust and Safety also required an additional change here, which only addresses the most serious of serious matters, where they are already involved today. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should accept a code with this in it. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 20:46, 13 April 2016 (UTC)


 * We did not reach consensus on this issue, to say the least. The full discussion is here: Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft/Archive_1 and Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft/Archive_1. dumped the conclusion on us, but unfortunately did not elaborate on the WMFs position in the further discussion. Quoting myself:
 * "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 (talk) 21:28, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This does not appear thought out. What does "the Law" mean, just U.S. Law, or UK Law because the accused or accuser live in the UK and the UK has much stricter laws for on-line harassment? How can "the Law" apply to an international Committee of mixed WMF employees and unpaid volunteers as opposed to applying to the WMF (which seems far more likely) yet the Committee is under no particular obligation to behave as if it were under contract to the WMF? There are too many questions here for this to be understood by the people who are mandated to comply with it, just reading the words added. The longer this document becomes, the more holes seem to be fundamentally written into it. --Fæ (talk) 21:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Just noting here that Ms. Baranetsky no longer works for the Wikimedia Foundation. It looks like she left in January 2016. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:42, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Looking at the archive linked to above reminds me why I came to the conclusion last September that there was no point in my continuing to contribute to this discussion. I made these points in September and there was no response to them from WMF Legal.  It transpired that a member of WMF staff, in the course of reorganising the discussions, had taken it upon himself to tell WMF Legal that no response was required at that stage (nor, it would seem at any subsequent stage either).  However, whether or not the WMF Legal have considered these points, and whether or not they choose to share their reliberations with the community, the fact remains that this Code has been determined almost entirely by WMF staff and their confidential consultants, parts of it have been dictated directly by the WMF corporately, and it will be imposed on the volunteer community by WMF fiat.  If it transpires that the Code is legally defective, and exposes volunteers to legal risk due from issues of conflict of law that might have been, but were not, foreseen, then the WMF corporately will be responsible.  In a way that's reassuring.  How the WMF will react when (not if, but when) something goes amiss, and whether they will accept the consequences of their actions and inactions, remains to be seen.  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:43, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi all. We took another look at this section of the policy and wanted to clarify a previous statement made by WMF Legal. Given the participation by WMF employees and contractors in the technical community, it is likely for them to be a part of the Committee. Accordingly, we do think HR has an interest in knowing about the conduct of WMF staff, both if they are victims as well as if they are harassing others. The employees may in some instances be obligated to report allegations against or by staff to HR, so a policy prohibiting this would preempt WMF employee participation. We understand the concern that such a requirement holds the risk of deterring reporting with every exception to confidentiality. However, the HR team would be better positioned to act on the complaint and respond to any wrongdoing. Additionally, we hope that through actions like supporting this Code of Conduct policy, we will gain the trust of the community that we are dedicated to creating safe spaces for people on Wikimedia sites and are not interested in retaliating against good-faith complainants. Also, we want to apologize for the delay in responding to this discussion. As was mentioned above, Victoria Baranetsky left the Foundation shortly after posting her message and missed the discussion. Thank you for your patience here. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
 * What was the answer to my point of last September, repeated here, about potentially conflicting legal requirements in other jurisdictions? Have they been considered; is WMF Legal satisfied that these issues have been resolved; and what is that resolution?  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:32, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi We understand this is a concern. Unfortunately, it’s one that’s difficult to respond to because the answer to what law applies to a given case can vary a lot. For example, some places apply the law of wherever an incident happened, while others apply the law of where the people involved lived, and others apply law if they think their state has a “significant interest” in the case. Because this is not a policy that applies strictly to the Wikimedia Foundation (since the committee will be run by volunteers) one can’t rely on using U.S. law because of the Foundation’s location either. Volunteers will need to ensure they follow the laws that are applicable to them, which most often means the place where you live. While we are not aware of any jurisdiction with any mandatory reporting requirements for a position like this, there might be some out there, so we understand why this provision is written as it is. We do want to emphasize that this isn’t a new issue. Arbcom, admins, and others who help keep the projects running all occasionally face this question, but the projects have been very successful over many years with systems of community management in place. Volunteers understand the laws in their jurisdiction, just as they do in relation to copyright and similar issues when they engage in editing the Wikimedia projects.
 * I realise it is complicated, which is why I suggested seven months ago that the issue be looked into by the Legal team. As I understand it, the volunteers are expected to abide by the requirements of the Code and to obey the laws of their own jurisdiction (of course).  So far I have seen no discussion of what WMF Legal, or staff, want to happen when these requirements are incomptible, and what support they will give to volunteers in that event.  It seems likely that the answer is none.  There was a discussion of this last September and it seems that no progress has been made and that the issue remains unresolved.  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 05:33, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If this was true, it would prohibit other companies' employees in the same jurisdiction as WMF from contributing as well as they are not named in the proposed amendment. But in reality, WMF employees happily contribute to other software projects and attend (or even organize) in-person conferences where no such reporting obligations exist or are forbidden by local law, so this does not seem to be preempting WMF employee participation.  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 10:48, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm still quite unhappy with this. I understand the WMF has a legal obligation to prevent harassment by employees, and has an obligation to protect employees from harassment. At the same time, WMF HR and Legal have an obligation to protect the WMF itself. These goals and the goals of someone who has been harassed do not necessarily align. I believe in the good intentions of the WMF, but I'd rather not base policy on my current beliefs on other peoples' intentions.
 * To move this forward, I would like to suggest a possible solution: Make the non-WMF members of the committee the initial point of contact for complaints involving WMF employees (or even for all complaints -- other issues can then be forwarded to WMF members). These members have no legal obligation to report to HR and Legal, and can therefore advise the victim to escalate the issue to WMF HR/Legal, but cannot (and will not) force this. Valhallasw (talk) 10:31, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * An alternative is . Nemo 13:14, 10 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi all, I just want to clarify a few things from MBrar's comments. The complexity with these kind of international law issues isn't one that we can research and answer. One might be able to come up with several legal doctrines that could apply, but without more details about the facts of a specific case, it's simply an impossible to answer question. I really want to emphasize that this isn't a new issue though. Any activity on the Internet, or any activity at all that can reach multiple people in different places can create the risk of different laws applying. If someone lives in a place that has particularly strict laws, it's possible that it could create a conflict with this code of conduct and that person might have to withdraw from the committee to obey the law. But we're not aware of any such requirements or restrictions. If something does happen, either due to an unusual law or a misunderstanding, we have the Legal Fees Assistance Program that could help because we do want to support users who are providing their time to help manage the projects. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 28 April 2016 (UTC)


 * In general, I think we can give a vote of confidence to this process as defined in the draft, and be open for improvements if specific problems arise. I also think we can give a vote of confidence to the first Committee to polish processes based on their actual experiences. Otherwise we can discuss the perfect theoretical scenario forever, presumably none of us having run into these types of legal/process situations before. I'm not talking about this section about confidentiality only, but in general for all our remaining discussions about this draft. We work on open wikis and free software, and we are used to the notion of release and improve based on practice. Ultimately what will prevail is the good criteria of a competent and trusted Committee.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:00, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not know exactly who we refers to in this vote of confidence. I do not regard this Code has having the confidence of anyone but a handful of members of the WMF staff.  If the intention of this assertion is to declare the Code finished, then it is a WMF staff policy imposed on the volunteer community by WMF authority.   Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If I understand you correctly, this was brought up already and you received a reply in https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ACode_of_Conduct%2FDraft&type=revision&diff=2093859&oldid=2093338 --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 06:42, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and the way you frame your response supports my point. There are two classes of people, WMF staff and volunteers, to whom this Code will apply, and the proposed Code treats them differently, at the insistence of WMF Legal.  The majority of contributors to the Code are members of staff and the consensus among them appears to be that they approve the Code and a senior member of staff is taking it upon himself to declare the Code agreed.  The minority of contributors are volunteers and the weight of opinion among them is that they are not happy with the process by which the Code is being implemented.  Your response is that when a volunteer expresses an opinion they have been "answered" by a member of staff: the clear implication being that a point is settled once a member of staff has given their opinion on the subject, and that the member of staff's opinion is somehow binding.  This does not look like a discussion among equals seeking to develop a consensus -- it looks like a mere volunteer raising a point which is then dismissed by the authority of a staff member, a one-way conversation in which volunteers propose and staff members dispose.  This is why I call the Code a WMF Staff Policy -- it is a policy which for all practical purposes has been developed by WMF staff members as a formal WMF team goal and which will be imposed on volunteers by the authority of the WMF acting through a WMF approved committee backed by a WMF Staff team.  It seems important to staff members not to accept this view and I do not understand why.  Why the reluctance to admit that the Code is imposed by WMF authority and accept the consequences of doing so, for better or worse?  Why the effort to make it appear, against the evidence, that this is a consensus across both classes of the community?  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 09:10, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not see how my personal response implied "that the member of staff's opinion is somehow binding" - my sole intention was pointing to a previous comment that looked like a potential answer to your question, without me necessarily endorsing anything. If you think that it "does not look like a discussion among equals", what is your proposal to get more equality and involvement? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I made various suggestions for wider involvement several months ago. They were not taken up and it is too late to rectify the situation, which is regrettable.  I note that you do not dispute my assessment of the present status of this Code.  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 16:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If you have specific past comments you're referring to, feel free to explicitly point to them for the sake of a focused discussion. Regarding your last sentence, I note that I neither dispute nor endorse your assessment. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:40, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The comments are in the archived pages and the links are in an earlier posting in this thread, if you wish to look at the history. There seems little point in revisiting them as the work here has taken a different track over the last eight months or so: I have already said that I see no point in trying to rewind those discussions and I can hardly suppose that anyone else does either.  The irony of a staff member apparently giving permission to a volunteer to do something in the context of a discussion about whether or not they should be regarded as equals is not lost on me.  Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 07:45, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Let's keep this section on-topic, please. I have created and you can continue this discussion there. Thank you.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:47, 5 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I just want to get back to the original point about WMF reducing its own liabilities; I understand the concern, and, beyond what legal has already pointed out about this (and the fact that this is not a new requirement in any space, including WMF projects) -- I just wanted to raise the point that this is in addition to the committee's own handling of the report, and this concept is crucial. If a WMF employee is involved in a report, WMF HR and Legal will be notified - but that notification does not impact the work of the committee, who will still follow the process as usual and decide on whatever steps necessary with the people involved. If, for example, a report is discussed in the committee and the committee then decides to ban a person for a week from some mailing lists, then they will do that, whether the person is an employee of the WMF or not. The only difference is that if that person is a WMF employee, WMF HR and Legal should know about it.
 * That, however, also makes sense. As employees, the WMF technical spaces is our expected workplace; if we misbehave, or if we get banned, or if we were subjected to any wrongdoing or harassment, it is quite logical for our workplace HR and Legal to be aware of it. There are employment and labor laws, for example, that, while the community is not obligated to follow, WMF HR is obligated to follow when it comes to people who are its employees. This is not only an expected (and not new) term and request to have, it makes total sense given the status of the people involved. And it does not influence or change the process by which the committee decides what to do with a case. It simply says to additionally notify those two bodies, who are, quite clearly and practically, responsible for their employees' workplace conduct, and providing a safe workplace environment. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 23:48, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As I wrote above, this does not make sense. If there were any such legal requirements, they would apply to all employers, yet the proposal only mentions one, so there do not seem to be any such legal requirements.  If a WMF employee is banned from his workspace by a third party or harassed there and this should be reported to WMF HR, this obligation can (and should be) be made part of the contracts between WMF and its employees.
 * In addition, I would be very surprised if the committee would not be biased by this difference that you pointed out: If a volunteer is the alleged offender, for example banning them would have little effect on them and can be handed out freely. WMF employees on the other hand would be unable to fulfill their contractual obligations and – as was repeatedly asserted during the ED mobbing – could face unemployment or deportation as a consequence.  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 02:43, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

There seem to be multiple discussions here in parallel: I would like to suggest to split the discussion into those topics explicitly, even though they (at least partially) affect the same text in the proposal. Valhallasw (talk) 14:25, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) The legal requirement of employers to act in case of harassment,
 * 2) The freedom of the CoC to make decisions without interference from WMF HR/Legal,
 * 3) Whether the committee needs to/will take into account the effect of their decisions on employment etc. of the offender,
 * 4) The chilling effect of requiring reports to be forwarded WMF HR/Legal, and finally
 * 5) Potential legal issues for members of the committee


 * I support the idea of splitting discussions. As this section is today (including links to previous discussions), I barely know where to start in order to have an opinion, and I bet any newcomers to this specific discussion will feel the same x 10. If someone has the knowledge and the time, it would be good to start new sections for each of the discussions that remain open, suggesting a specific change to the current draft. From there, digesting information and seeking consensus (or at least isolating the hardest nuts to crack) should be simpler.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:18, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Splitting per request of Valhallasw and Qgil-WMF. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:03, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

WMF is requesting that complaints involving WMF staff be forwarded to the Talent and Culture team which handles human resources responsibilities on behalf of the Foundation. WMF has a legal obligation as an employer to investigate complaints of harassment involving staff and, where appropriate, to take corrective action. In order to protect WMF staff members who make complaints and participate in investigations, U.S. laws also prohibit retaliation and WMF has a specific non-retaliation policy. The T&C team recognizes that the CoC is intended for individuals participating in technical spaces and that the CoC will be enforced by the CoC Committee. While the CoC Committee may be both the initial and primary point of contact for incidents occurring in technical spaces, the T&C team must also be alerted about incidents involving staff in order to take necessary steps to comply with U.S. and California employment laws. --ALewis (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * As I have written multiple times, if this was true, it would prohibit other companies' employees in the same jurisdiction as WMF from contributing as well as they are not named in the proposed amendment. But in reality, WMF employees happily contribute to other software projects and attend (or even organize) in-person conferences where no such reporting obligations exist or are forbidden by local law, so this does not seem to be requested by WMF.  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 18:19, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The above is in regards to this change to the draft. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:03, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with Tim. While you can certainly request it, it's our decision. All employers of technical contributors should get the same rights over this area or none of them should, and I'm leaning towards the latter. I'll be removing the problematic text from the draft shortly, I cannot support the draft in it's current form, especially with this. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 19:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently after I posted this some people accidentally misunderstood me or it was perceived differently to how I intended (this is my fault, I wasn't very clear) - I feel the need to clarify that I do not oppose the idea of a CoC, nor am I trying to weaken it or make it impossible to enforce. The idea is good and I will support it if we can get the implementation and language fair. My position in this particular part of the document is that if we grant some employers of our contributors rights to view their cases, we need to do the same for all such employers, not just specific ones and not just affiliated ones. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 19:23, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The difference is that WMF and users of Wikimedia projects such as Phabricator and MediaWiki.org, agreed to the Terms of Use (which includes the Privacy Policy). That means WMF mostly lets the communities self-manage, but imposes certain key requirements.  One of these is given in Privacy policy: "We, or particular users with certain administrative rights as described below, may need to share your personal information if it is reasonably believed to be necessary to enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy, or any Foundation or user community-based policies."  WMF HR policies are "Foundation [...] policies".  There is no analogous policy that all MediaWiki developers agreed to with, e.g. a hypothetical FooCorp that contributes to MediaWiki. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:34, 6 July 2016 (UTC)"
 * You are missing the point. Of course WMF has the legal and technical means to require whatever it wants.  But there is no logic to posit that WMF is legally required to be informed about alleged incidents with its staff, and other companies in the same jurisdiction would not be required in the same way, and even more WMF's staff has actively organized and participated in events where no such requirement was in place, demonstrating that it does not seem to be required (or WMF has violated the law in the past).  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 09:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Legal requirement of employers to act in case of harassment
See ALewis's comment above. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:03, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Freedom of the Code of Conduct Committee
For this point, regardless of whether the committee makes any disclosures to the WMF, it would be able to act freely. The CoC committee gets to determine how it wants to respond to issues that come to it in technical spaces and will not be consulting with WMF Legal or HR about what to do. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Committee taking into account employment?
There is nothing in the Code of Conduct requiring that the Committee take this into account. This goes for all employers. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:03, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Potential legal issues for members
See my comment above. We are not aware of any jurisdictions where being a member of the CoC committee would create legal problems for members. It's not a risk that can be 100% eliminated, but we have the Legal Fees Assistance Program in part to account for some sort of strange occurrence that could arise from people doing their best to help support the projects in an administrative or functionary role like this one. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Reporter's consent
I see the draft currently has wording that "the Committee must get consent from the reporter before revealing any confidential information (including the reporter's identity) as part of the investigation." So if the committee has confidential information about someone other than the reporter, such as a witness to the event, it has to ask the reporter but not the person the confidential information is actually about? Anomie (talk) 13:20, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a good point. I've added some wording to try to take that into account. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 12:43, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Renewed addition of section on HR reporting
In, Mattflaschen-WMF added the same text that was added earlier. It would be very helpful if WMF Legal could take a more active part in this dicussion, which then hopefully leads to a text that both has community consensus and is OK with WMF legal at the same time. Valhallasw (talk) 14:50, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Suggested rewording
Starting from the essential principle the reporter is in control, the following is my suggestion. I've tried to come up with a phrasing that takes into account that: (names have been randomly generated) Some of the committee's members have the obligation to report harassment to their HR or Legal departments. For example, WMF employees are required to report harassment involving WMF employees (either as victim or as harasser) to HR. The techconduct@wikimedia.org email address is handled by Khorshid Nosek, who has no reporting obligations, except in the case of immediate danger or child protection issues. If your report would trigger reporting obligations, Khorshid Nosek will discuss these with you before forwarding the case to other members of the committee. If you decide to not share your case with the rest of the committee, you will still be provided with assistance and support, but the committee will be unable to take further action.
 * WMF employees are required to report to HR/Legal,
 * This is likely to also be the case for other companies,
 * This is problematic because it forces the issue out of the reporters' hands (see e.g. )
 * There should be a way to provide support to victims without this being an issue.
 * (The link was very confusing to me. Those who want a quick and clear recap can read the Forbes article instead. Knowing the jargon is also needed. Nemo 19:39, 7 August 2016 (UTC))

The members of the committee and their reporting obligations are listed below:

There are two more points that need to be incorporated: but I think those should be elsewhere (not under 'confidentiality'). Valhallasw (talk) 19:02, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * WMF has no say in the outcome of the committee,
 * the committee may take employment into account, but is not required to.

September 22, 2016 revision by WMF Legal
Hi all, After having a chance to review this section, we’ve re-inserted a sentence regarding reporting to WMF and made a couple of other small changes. We removed the language about reporter’s consent at the very beginning because it’s redundant with the bullet point section below it (just cleaning up). We also removed the line about a report submitted by a WMF employee or contractor where neither offender nor target of harassment is a WMF employee or contractor not being forwarded because it conflicts with the section on safety issues that might need to be forwarded. The policy will still allow the Committee to keep reports confidential unless one of these two exceptions applies (safety reasons, or if WMF employee/contractor is offender or target of harassment). We have concluded that the remaining reporting requirements do need to be there, and we want to explain why we came to that conclusion and address some of the concerns you have all raised in this post. We want to be clear that this doesn’t address every issue surrounding this topic and we may never be able to resolve every possible concern, but we want to explain the key issues that caused us to determine that this section is necessary for the CoC. For these reasons, we feel after reviewing the reporting requirement that it is necessary. MBrar (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The Wikimedia Foundation has a unique interest in hearing about issues related to its staff and contractors in their workspaces regardless of the composition of the Committee. As was described earlier, the CoC governs actions that are happening on Wikimedia technical spaces that may involve Wikimedia Foundation employees and contractors. The Wikimedia Foundation has an interest in being informed of potential misconduct by its employees and contractors in the workspace and faces legal risks if HR is not informed about matters related to employee/contractor harassment in its workspaces. These workspaces include not only physical but also virtual spaces. The Wikimedia Foundation has this interest uniquely as a host of the website whose employees are using these technical spaces as their workspace.
 * The reporting requirement will not change any of the decisions or processes of the CoC Committee and should not deter volunteers from making a report. As we stated earlier, the reporting will allow the Wikimedia Foundation to address any issues of harassment using internal processes that apply to all Foundation staff and contractors. Accordingly, the Foundation will not even be in a position to retaliate against non-employees or affect the decisions or process of the CoC Committee. We want to reiterate that the Wikimedia Foundation has an interest in stopping harassment on the projects. That is why staff, as part of the technical community, are among those working hard to develop this CoC. The interests of the Foundation will not be served by retaliating against victims of harassment.
 * This reporting requirement also should not deter employees and contractors from reporting incidents to the Committee because the Wikimedia Foundation may not use any information reported to retaliate against employees or contractors involved in the case. As ALewis (Angel) mentioned above, the Wikimedia Foundation is obligated by law to not retaliate against WMF employees or contractors who report incidents or participate in the investigation of incidents. What this requirement will do is help the Foundation address issues of harassment internally.
 * The requirement of reporting to relevant parties when there is a need is consistent with the types of information disclosure covered in our pre-existing Access to nonpublic information policy that governs Foundation conduct as well as community groups that act on the sites. We think the exception to require reporting to the Foundation when an employee or contractor is involved in a CoC case, like the other disclosure exceptions in those policies, is important to reduce risk to the Foundation and Wikimedia movement.
 * The Committee is uniquely situated to report any incidents involving staff to HR. It would be onerous or unfair to place the burden on the reporter or target of harassment to report to the Committee as well as HR and the perpetrator would obviously not be incentivized to report the issue themselves.
 * I have reverted your change again. Please address the points brought forward in the discussion, then check for consensus, then add the relevant text to the proposal. To add one more point (I'll try to respond to the rest of your post this weekend) -- "The Wikimedia Foundation is obligated by law to not retaliate against WMF employees or contractors who report incidents or participate in the investigation of incidents.": a) this is an obligation that has been broken by many companies before, and b) does not include volunteers, who are left hung out to dry. Valhallasw (talk) 06:14, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Valhallasw. We tried to address the concern you raise in the second bullet point above. To put it in different words, volunteers are protected by the structure of this CoC: the CoC committee makes decisions and the Foundation being told about it when an employee or contractor is involved doesn't give the Foundation any special power to change things or affect the CoC committee. More broadly, what we're saying in total is that we concluded that the legal risk of HR not knowing about these employee/contractor issues isn't an acceptable one and therefore we need the reporting language. But we also read over the whole policy and we think that we can have that reporting without creating new risk for volunteers, without opening up the CoC Committee to demands from other parties, and without discouraging people from reporting incidents. Lastly, while we all know that companies don't always comply with the requirements of the law, I can say as a Foundation lawyer that I intend to do everything I can to make sure we comply with the law and to fix mistakes if somebody messes up in the future. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Is the WMF somehow a special case, because it hosts some crucial infrastructure used by the Wikimedia community? Could there be a more general description about the CoC committee reporting to employers of individuals getting paid for working in the Wikimedia community? I'm asking this as I'm wondering why the WMF needs to be explicitly named and why other entities like Wikimedia Deutschland (random example) are not named, assuming (I do not know) that there were similar legal requirements in German law when it comes to reporting employees' behavior. Could or would we end up having potentially dozens of legal entities mentioned in the text and WMF is just the first one requesting to be mentioned? That's my personal concern here. --Malyacko (talk) 20:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Malyacko, we do think that the WMF is somehow a special case here. From the explanation by MBrar (WMF) above in the first bullet "The Wikimedia Foundation has this interest uniquely as a host of the website whose employees are using these technical spaces as their workspace." So we don't see this language opening the CoC committee up to disclosure requests from anyone else. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 21:10, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Apart from maybe hosting of the website, I still miss any arguments that make the WMF so special that they'd have to be explicitly mentioned in the CoC (instead of having a generic sentence about employers of people being active in Wikimedia's technical spaces). It's unrelated whether the language opens the CoC committee up to requests from anyone else or not; I simply oppose picking and mentioning the names of any employers (though admittedly probably the biggest) in the Wikimedia community. --Malyacko (talk) 12:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This effectively would mean that other companies in the same jurisdiction whose employees are using these technical spaces as their workspace would need to ban participation. It also (still) does not address why WMF lets its employees attend physical conferences where no such mandatory reporting rules exist.  But it (again) points out the power dynamics here: If you're WMF, your arguments do not need to convince someone, so why bother.  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 06:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * For the version of the Confidentiality section with this change, see this permalink. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I want to check if you have any further thoughts. We remain of the opinion that the reporting requirement is necessary to have because of the legal risk otherwise, and I'm hoping we've addressed the concerns about how we can have it without it unfairly impacting volunteers or opening up the CoC to requests from other organizations. I'd like to add the language back in tomorrow (September 30th). -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * My general point (as I have brought forward in earlier discussions multiple times, but you may not have been involved in the discussion back then) is that the reporter should be in control. Essentially, the committee serves two purposes: 1) a first point of contact for when anything bad happens (i.e. a role supporting the victim), and 2) a 'judicial' (for lack of a better word) organ that investigates and hands out punishments (i.e. a role to prevent new victims). I think it's reasonable for the WMF to be notified when we reach stage 2, but if the WMF is already informed in stage 1, this will likely be a huge blocker for victims to receive support when WMF employees are involved. The well-being of the current victim is priority number one, preventing new victims is priority number two. Hence my suggestion in the section above. Does that help to clarify my position, and does it clarify why the current wording does not sufficiently address the risks for the victim? Valhallasw (talk) 19:02, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

One further point that came up in a private discussion: why is there an interest from WMF Legal in CoC cases, but not in, for example, arbcom cases? Valhallasw (talk) 20:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Refer to. I do not see how the text and explanations have "addressed the concerns about how we can have it without it unfairly impacting volunteers". If WMF Legal were to formally agree to waive all future legal action against whistleblowers, including all volunteers with no contract or agreement with the WMF required, that would be comforting. Until then, there seems little doubt that by defending the WMF from all risks, this puts volunteers under a threat of personal risk if they attempt to, say, expose harassment from WMF employees, misuse of data, or any other matter that may be perceived by WMF managers or board members to potentially harm the WMF's reputation or damage fundraising if not suppressed. At the same time the changes give WMF legal access to information from non-WMF employees (whether an alleged victim or harasser) that ought to stay confidential, and there are no provisions for WMF legal to be forced to respect that confidentiality, to never use it to threaten legal action, or publish it, if doing so would help the WMF prevent exposure of a perceived risk to themselves. --Fæ (talk) 10:07, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

First, I think Valhallasw is coming from the right place. In an ideal world, we could offer complete confidentiality because that is the best way to encourage reporters to raise their concerns and to help support people who have been the subject of harassment. This section isn't us trying to say that having a WMF reporting exception makes this CoC policy better in the ideal. Rather, it's that we looked at the policy, at how the technical spaces are used (in particular the combination of lots of WMF employees and WMF as the host of the space) and concluded that the legal risk under HR law is too high for the WMF to do this without having the reporting exception. All the explanation above from us is about how adding this language deals with the legal risk and, we think, still minimizes the impact on reporters. This is also why arbcom is different. They're not dealing with a space that is small and consists heavily of WMF employees, and it's that special factor that makes the legal risk here one that needs a reporting exception. With regard to Fae's point, I think it's actually confusing something else. If someone does something that merits legal action from the Foundation, we have the tools to do that whether this reporting language is in the CoC or not. We have the tools to do it whether there is a CoC or not for that matter, it's just a different thing entirely. The WMF taking legal action against a volunteer is a high bar though. There is no legal cause of action (in other words, no right to sue someone) for whistleblowing or reporting harassment, and the CoC doesn't affect that at all. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * With respect to "[WMF Legal] have the tools to do it", this missed the point that the objection is to WMF Legal having privileged access to confidential information related to harassment complaints. This information may then be used by the WMF to threaten or take legal action which otherwise would not have occurred. No other organization is being granted these privileges to compromise these confidential cases. Even the parties to a case are not given any automatic right to see all the information provided to the CoC committee, yet WMF legal are forcing the committee to provide all records and reports to WMF legal, with no guarantees about how WMF legal may choose to use that information in the future, or how long they will retain these records for potential future action.
 * With regard to the statement that the WMF is not claiming a right to sue a volunteer for whistleblowing, that is a complete tangent and not being put forward. There is no comfort in anything written here that a non-employee volunteer would not suffer legal threats or action from the WMF dependent on information provided to the CoC committee in confidence. The fact that WMF legal has access to everything, will and should put off non-employee volunteers from using this process, especially someone who wishes to assert that a WMF employee has harassed others, and may legitimately fear that getting involved with the CoC committee may lead to WMF legal selectively using information provided by them or other parties to the case to threaten legal action in order to "minimize risk" to the WMF without regard to the long term distress or damage this may cause to non-WMF employees named in the case.
 * At no point in this discussion has WMF legal made any commitment to respect confidentiality, such as never publishing the legal identities and other details of parties to a harassment case without their permission. --Fæ (talk) 21:35, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The exception is more narrow than that. This is not all materials from the CoC, it's the report they receive if a WMF employee or contractor is involved. It's a limited exception that tells WMF HR "here's a report for a WMF employee harassing someone or being harassed" so that HR can look into these issues internally within the Foundation if required to do so by employment law. I'm also at a loss as to what sort of legal action you think would even be possible. The reason I said there was no ability to sue someone for reporting an incident is that I just can't come up with any reason we could threaten someone based on a report to the CoC being shared. Lastly, there is a guarantee of confidentiality. This kind of report is covered by our privacy policy and by the data retention guidelines. Those do leave some exceptions (such as disclosure in response to a valid court order, or to protect people), but they offer a strong set of protections and we do our utmost to defend the privacy and confidentiality of non-public information provided to us. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I understand the WMF privacy policy and data retention guidelines. They offer no protection for non-Employees that the WMF wish to hold their own reports and analysis for, as there is no right of access, nor any right to know that the WMF's reports exist. My experience of WMF legal publicly and formally denying me any access or information about the reports that the WMF holds about me, even actively refusing to state whether reports exist or whether you hold secret reports and analysis indefinitely, gives volunteers no comfort whatsoever. I can imagine scenarios where the committee sharing confidential case information with the WMF would result in threats or actual legal action against non-Employees in these circumstances, it's not all that unlikely in my view considering that such cases are highly likely to relate to contentious or even unlawful material that WMF legal may not otherwise be notified about.
 * With regard to "the report" could you specific exactly what this is, and whether it includes the full details of parties to a case, not just the employees. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Confidentiality language finalized
Hi all. After review, as explained in our previous posts on this page, WMF Legal determined that the reporting language in the confidentiality section is required. I've updated the main CoC page to include this language. As a requirement from Legal, this change is not up for community discussion because we don't have a choice about whether to have it or not. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * How interesting that Jrogers (WMF) believes that he has the authority to forbid the Community to discuss something. I wonder where he believes that authority comes from.  Does he have some personal, inherent, elective or even persuasive authority over citizens of every country in the world, such as being Governor of California and President of the European Commission and Chair of the Chinese Communist Party and Secretary-General of the United Nations?  No.  Is it because he personally has been selected or accepted by the Community as holding some position of power, influence or responsibility within the Community?  No.  Is it being "Legal Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation" a post accepted by the community as having some degree of power, influence or responsibility within that community?  No.  Is it that the Foundation (for which he does not expressly state himself to be speaking) has that authority?  No.  Has the Foundation determined that such a disussion violates its Terms of Use or any other binding agreement with the members of the community?  No.  Does he wish to convey that the Foundation owns the servers and is threatening those who disagree with this determination that the Foundation will exercise their technical ability to delete such discussions and prevent people who do so from logging in?  Perhaps.  Would that course of action be proportionate, justified or productive?  Certainly not.
 * Next, let us consider why the WMF Legal team wish this wording to be inserted without further discussion. They clearly believe that there is something the Foundation is required to do that it cannot do without these words.  But this Code of Conduct is not currently in force, and so those words are not in any code currently in force.  That is, matters are currently proceeding without the benefit of this wording.  Has something changed?  No.
 * Thirdly, let us suppose that these words remain in the draft, and that for that, or some other reason, the Community declines to endorse this Code and it continues not to be in force. Will the situation change?  No.
 * Finally, let us suppose that these words are in the Code and that the Code is ensdorsed by the Community. How will the Foundation enforce the requirement they have imposed on members of the Community?  How will they act to derive the benefits they wish to obtain from it?  What will they do to a community member in a dispute physically located in, and involving citizens of, a jurisdiction in which the WMF desires are not only unenforceable but actually contrary to the requirements of pevailing law?  Do the WMF really believe the pronouncements of its Legal Counsel override all other considerations throughout the world?  Let us hope not.   94.196.237.166 22:07, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * As my concerns remained unanswered I oppose the latest changes made by Jrogers (WMF). Note that I don't challenge WMF's internal handling of situations; I just don't see sufficient reasons to explicitly make it part of the CoC. --Malyacko (talk) 09:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Changing the Code once enacted
In the course of another discussion, the assertion was made "The CoC is a living document, if any sentence in it proves to be problematic in real cases, we will be able to contest it and amend it." It is not clear to me that this is correct, since the Code as written has no provision for changes. It is also not clear who "we" refers to in this assertion: is it anyone discussing it at this page, the Committee, the DevRel team, the WMF Board, ... . So who has this ultimate authority over the Code and how will they exercise it? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 05:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that the amendment process is something that needs to be spelled out. It's one of the things I've been thinking about. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:04, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As people have noted, over time, it may be necessary to amend the Code of Conduct, in response to lessons learned or changing circumstances. It might be necessary to clarify certain points or improve procedures.


 * I think the Code of Conduct should be fairly stable, so there are not frequent changes, but amendments should be allowed. To make this possible, a super-majority (4/5) of the Committee could approve changes. Community members could suggest ideas at any time for Committee discussion.


 * What do people think? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:41, 1 June 2016 (UTC)


 * +1 to your suggestion of having a super-majority vote of the committee to approve changes. It might make sense to have a suggestion drop-box page on which people can leave proposed amendments (or send them to the committee email if they want to be anonymous) which are then evaluated on a monthly/bi-monthly basis by the committee to avoid over-burdening committee members' time. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 09:11, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. There definitely need to be formal or informal ways of suggesting amendments to the Committee. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 14:02, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * --Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:17, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems reasonable; we'd probably want a two-week notice for community participation, like with elections. A somewhat related topic: if the committee somehow goes astray (makes weird decisions, or rewrites its own code in weird ways), would somebody have authority to replace them? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 09:49, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * We can cross that bridge when we come to it. However, it is safe to say that the WMF Board would certainly have that authority. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 14:38, 14 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I think there are two different 'classes' of amendments. One is in, for example, the reporting steps or the handling of cases. Those are, essentially, internal to the committee, and I think it's reasonable that the committee can change these parts. However, I don't think it's reasonable to let the committee change all parts of the CoC -- that would essentially mean the committee can overrule all the consensus building that has happened here. I would therefore prefer a process where amendments are proposed and voted on on the CoC talk page. Valhallasw (talk) 10:13, 2 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I think I largely agree with Valhallasw. The authority of this code of conduct (if it has any) derives from the community, not from the committee, as I understand it. This means that the initial code of conduct would be community-endorsed presumably, but then any subsequent version of the code of conduct would be subject to the whims of whoever's currently sitting on this committee? And, of course, the committee could decide to simply do away with or dramatically alter the amendments process.
 * It seems like a valid concern that this talk page has become too insular and overloaded with Wikimedia Foundation staff. I imagine a similar concern spreads to whatever committee is formed. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed that we shouldn't allow the committee to amend the code. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 02:50, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Might make sense to combine both approaches- have a community discussion for the amendments with a 4/5 veto option for the board or something similar the other way round. I assume amendments should be exceptional, therefore a complex process (not complicated though) should be okay. Either way, I support having a clear, transparent process that is defined before the CoC is applied. --Frimelle (talk) 12:54, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

New proposal for amendments
Many good ideas have been presented, and here is a proposal that tries to accommodate all the concerns raised. Maybe it is too detailed for the CoC draft? Anyway, I think this could work well, and the wording for the draft could be simplified if needed:


 * The draft proposed has been moved to Code_of_Conduct/Draft.

Please discuss.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 20:50, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Several people commented above asking for more community involvement. I think this addresses this pretty well.  Suggested changes:
 * "changes made don't affect its essence and efficacy" -> "changes made are not expected to reduce its effectiveness". Increased effectiveness would be a good thing.
 * 'willing' -> 'wishing'
 * Define "qualified majority", or just say that there has to be consensus, and two or more Committee members together can veto.
 * Instead of "They can be proposed again after one year" (which almost encourages that), "Promoters should not perennially submit the same amendment after it has been rejected." or "If a rejected amendment is proposed less than a year later, it may be rejected." Do we need to spell this out explicitly?  Regarding length, I think we should not put this on the main Code of Conduct page.  None of the other two pages fit either, so I suggest Code of Conduct/Amendments (but still drafted here, like the other three pages). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you Mattflaschen-WMF, points taken. I think agreement within the Committee is just part of the definition of consensus. Wikimedia's usual practices don't require unanimity for consensus, and therefore I don't think that unanimity in the Committee should be required either. If one Committee member objects to a change but the rest of Committee members and the overall participation in the discussion agrees, that could be still called consensus. Two or more members of the Committee disagreeing to a change is a different story, that doesn't look like consensus, and when that happens it is probably better to be conservative and keep the writing of the CoC. Having the process for amending the CoC in its own page makes sense, yes. As soon as this discussion shows a basic agreement, I will move the proposal above to the Draft page for better editing and discussion.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:04, 15 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The new formulation ("A proposal is accepted and integrated to the Code of Conduct by the Committee when its discussion reaches consensus and no more than one Committee member opposes to it.") suggests it is accepted if the Committee's discussion reaches consensus (i.e. the committee agrees), rather than requiring community consensus. I suggest formulating it as "A proposal is accepted and integrated to the Code of Conduct by the Committee when the community reaches consensus and no more than one Committee member opposes to it.".
 * Valhallasw (talk) 16:28, 15 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Ah, good point. My intended meaning was "the community" meaning you are proposing. Change made.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 17:44, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

I have moved the draft proposal to Code_of_Conduct/Draft.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:17, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I've put back the text, "and no more than one Committee member opposes it", which Krenair took out. This was discussed above, and I think it is still a good idea. The Committee will have experience with how the CoC works in practice, which will help them evaluate amendments. Although amendments should have community consensus, it also doesn't make sense to push them through when there's strong opposition on the Committee. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:32, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's not going to stick as long as I have any say in this. The community has the ability to amend and delete these policies and nothing you write in this one will change that, but the fact that you tried to limit community consensus is outrageous. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 14:10, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 * If the CoC is approved via community consensus, it needs to be possible to change it via community consensus, as well. If it is approved by some other means, it should not be possible to effectively revert or disable it merely by community consensus. I think those both stand to reason. Since the process of approval still seems to be an open question (cf. ), that should be decided first.
 * In any case, I don't think specifying "more than one" makes sense. The CoC says "The Committee determines its own procedures, subject to the duty to act fairly", and there is no good reason to make an exception here. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Community and Committee must be able to control each other in order to assure the stability of the CoC. There is no mathematical definition of "community consensus" in Wikimedia, and sometimes "a majority of expressed opinions" will do. The CoC and its committee stand for the minorities and for those who might be in weaker positions at public debates. If there is a nasty debate where one vocal and strong side obtains a majority of expressed opinions while others give up or stay aside, the committee must be able to stop it if they believe that such amendment go against the spirit and efficiency of the CoC. Needless to say, they should provide a good argumentation to veto any proposals.
 * If what happens is that the committee has gone mad and won't listen to what is a perfectly valid point with wide community support only to protect their interests, then the problem is deeper than the specific amendment proposed, and what needs to be discussed is the resignation of the current committee.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:32, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * There are reasons the amendment process is different from the approval process. We don’t yet have a Committee, so they can’t be involved in the initial approval process.  Once we do, it makes sense to use them and take advantage of their skills and real-world experience.  Also, we want the policy to be changeable but relatively stable.  So this is a compromise with that goal in mind.  Regarding "The Committee determines its own procedures, subject to the duty to act fairly", that is about internal procedures consistent with the policy; basically, those are implementation details.  "Amendments" is about actual changes to the policy, which can have a substantive impact. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that if we're going to have a committee veto for amendments, it should at least require a majority of the committee, not just one or two members. To address 's point that the policy shouldn't specify too many details about how the committee should run itself, 1) there's also a rule that says that removals must be unanimous (not including the removed member's vote), and 2) perhaps this could be phrased as "unless the committee decides to veto it" in the assumption that the committee wouldn't make rules for itself that allow a minority to take such a drastic action. I'm undecided about whether I think a committee veto should be in the policy, but I do think the fact that the committee cannot by itself amend the policy (nor does it have a special position for initiating amendments) already does a lot to limit the potential for abuse of power by committee members, so giving them veto power is less of a concern to me than it would be without those things. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Decadent, deceased, decayed
Oh dear. Many talk, no code. Why trying so hard to kill this? I am Mister Thrapostibongles (talk) 17:52, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * 2015: no code. 2016: no code.  2017: prediction=no code.  I am Mister Thrapostibongles (talk) 20:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Clearly code will never appear. Why was this code killed?  I am Mister Thrapostibongles (talk) 18:59, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Finalize "Diversity" section?
Should the "Diversity" section be considered done? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:12, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Consensus reached. Although a couple people would have preferred different text regarding the employer, most people either approve the current text or think it is still too restrictive. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:47, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * as proposer. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:12, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Valhallasw (talk) 07:59, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:09, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * NKohli (WMF) (talk) 11:34, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 15:21, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 17:01, 23 August 2016 (UTC) Comment: Would it be possible to specify what you mean by "diversity"; is it diversity of work experience? diversity of geography? race? religion? gender? All the above?
 * In addition to the specific requirements given in the section, we want to promote diversity in general. In my opinion, it's all of the above plus more (e.g. linguistic diversity would also be very helpful when taking reports from our multilingual community). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:59, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This vote highlights the issue this section should address, one which has unfortunately been raised and "managed" into the archive of this talk page several times. "Committee cannot have all members affiliated to the same employer" could easily lead to 80%+ of the Committee being under contract to the WMF, so long as there are one or two token non-employees/contractors/ex-employees. This would make it virtually impossible, for example, for the Committee to take on any complaint involving a senior manager of the WMF, or a board member, as by the terms of their contract no employee should touch a controversial case that risks bringing the WMF into disrepute. From an independent perspective if over 50% of the Committee were WMF employees, then votes and consensus decisions by the Committee would have little credibility in the "real world". --Fæ (talk) 06:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Most importantly, Quim has made clear that he will avoid having a WMF majority on the first committee (the only one his team chooses under the draft). The question is whether we should permanently limit any employer (including WMF) to at most 2/5.  I have seen a case for preferring that where possible. I haven't seen any convincing case for mandating it for all future committees, regardless of difficulty in recruiting candidates. The claim that there could somehow be over 80% (80%+) affiliated to a single employer is clearly false under the current text.  There is no way it it can be over 80% with the current text.  Contractors are affiliated, so that is also not a possible scenario.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:56, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I have not been allowed to see what you have seen. Why you want to justify making Quim an effective king rather than attempting to apply open and transparent processes is beyond me. I have no idea what you are frightened of. --Fæ (talk) 20:09, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The draft says (in other sections) that the community health part of the Technical Collaboration team (of which Quim is 1/3 members) will jump-start the first Committee, after which the Committee will sustain itself. That is a far cry from a "king". Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * True but the rhetoric is not far from the mark. What you are lobbying for is nothing like an open and transparent processes. If the few WMF employees "managing" this process had made serious attempts to stay open and transparent in their actions, we might have had a chance of creating a positive consensus for a meaningful Code of Conduct. The community issues you are seeing are caused by you, not the handful of unpaid volunteers who have not been driven off this discussion through exhaustion and lobbying from the limited world-view of the super-majority who have signed WMF contracts. There has been no good excuse made for why open elections are impossible and appear to be feared by the WMF. It is possible and it is how a respectable conduct Committee should be formed, rather than another cliquey friends-of-friends system which will have no meaningful external governance. --Fæ (talk) 10:41, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I proposed and I was convinced by Matt and Moriel that diversity goes well beyond affiliation, and that today we don't know how hard it will be to find a good pool of diverse committee members. Avoiding a majority of WMF committee members is still a goal, but having a quite homogeneous committee where the only significant factor of diversity is affiliation wouldn't be any better.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Per Fae. "Avoiding a majority of WMF committee members is still a goal" is not reassuring enough unless it's in writing. ^demon[omg plz] 18:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is any point to a rule saying all members cannot have the same employer. If we are worried about the employer taking control somehow, or the shared culture of some workplace overwhelming the discussions, then 4 out of 5 does not seem much better than all of them. Personally I'm not worried; I would care more about the majority not being from the same city/country than not being paid by the same entity. IMO just drop that half sentence. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * : I remain unconvinced that expanding the "Arbitration Committee" model is prudent. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think this is good enough for a starting point. Considering some concerns with the pool of available diverse (culture/language/etc) people for the committee, I think adjustments for this can be done as an amendment if needs be. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 17:29, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Finalize "Conflict of interest" section?
Should the "Conflict of interest" section be considered done? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:12, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Consensus not reached. There were a few main issues people felt were blockers:
 * How decisions would be made when there were a large number of recusals (e.g. 3-4 recusals leaving only 1-2 people). See.
 * Desire for more specificity (potentially including examples). See.
 * How the decision to recuse is made. See.
 * Whether people with a conflict are barred from the discussion (and presumably reading the case file), or just the decision. See.
 * -- Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:19, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've updated the draft re conflicts of interest (but also including one related part in "Creation and renewal of the Committee"), based mainly on the text suggested here on talk. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 03:57, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * as proposer. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:12, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * . I think WereSpielChequers' comment makes sense, and this section can be improved. Valhallasw (talk) 09:52, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Originally; . I feel Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft has not received the response it deserves. Valhallasw (talk) 07:59, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I agreed with your position ("I disagree. Judges often make decisions by themselves, and there is always the option of appeal."), and didn't take the time to comment.  In the future, I'll try to post my opinion even on less-trafficked sections. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:49, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * NKohli (WMF) (talk) 11:34, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 23 August 2016 (UTC) Comment: What defines a conflict of interest? Are there one or two examples? I would imagine that conflict of interest changes on the context, so its important to specify what falls in and out of COI for the committee. For example: what if the person being reported is a close friend? Or someone who is part of your organization? etc. Perhaps you can offer a link here as well to somewhere that explains conflict of interest.
 * It really depends on the case. E.g. a case involving someone from a member's organization who they have never even met or worked with is quite different from a member's business partner in a two-person company.  Trying to write out a line in the sand ahead of time would become intractable.  How big does the organization have to be?  Is it based on their current working relationship, their past teams, going how far back?  What makes a friend "close"?   I'm glad we're addressing this, since many codes of conduct don't at all.  Some of those that do, e.g. jQuery's take a similar approach to ours.  But I think the details have to be left to the Committee.  I think the Wikipedia article on Conflict of interest is a good starting point, but it's a concept many people and organizations have written about. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The trivial one sentence in the CoC does not say anything about governance, so this has no process for implementation apart from committee members might think about recusing if they feel like it. If this is going to basically be left empty, then there should be a large marker saying this will be written by the Committee and we'll just leave the CoC in draft (which it factually is). Note, if I remove all the WMF employees from this vote, then this section is not considered done. When the consensus of the few, and decreasing, handful of unpaid volunteers left contributing here are the opposite of the consensus of those under contract to the WMF, that ought to mean more than nothing. --Fæ (talk) 05:53, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Fæ: This page is a pretty clear demonstration of a small and vocal faction slowly pushing through its own agenda. The lack of community support (read: support from people who don't work for the Wikimedia Foundation or a Wikimedia affiliate) in any of these sections is indeed telling and troubling. What we've seen here is that it clearly helps to have millions of donor dollars to spend on full-time staff who can devote time to drafting and supporting this pet project. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * . I have left a comment at about this specific scenario.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 07:52, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure, I see the comment. It's clear that you are so intent on getting this document finished by "managing" this page, that you are ignoring fundamental governance problems raised several times by volunteers. WSC is highly experienced on governance, as am I as it happens, both in our professional careers and our volunteer work. The apparent process being followed on this page is that your opinion is final, and issues can be buried as soon as troublesome unpaid volunteers are exhausted from attempting to stop the bulldozer. This is a long way from a consensus process and you are responsible for building in governance problems that will cause later challenges to the committee's credibility, and may result in the committee publicly unravelling later on in ways that are avoidable at this stage if governance is taken seriously, rather than something that the super majority of WMF employees can vote to ignore. --Fæ (talk) 11:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This section is so vague as to be useless, as it relies solely on the best judgement of the committee members. Also, I disagree with the proposed answer above in the situation where all but one committee member recuses themselves.... sorry, but a committee of one is not a committee and the analogy to judges is unfair as they are professionals who are trained in what they do whereas here we're working (mostly) laypeople exercising their best judgement. ^demon[omg plz] 18:18, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Other major codes of conduct like jQuery's also do not attempt to list every possible kind of conflict (financial, family, etc.). We expect that the committee members here will also receive specific training before starting.  True, they're not required to go to law school for 3 years, but that's because the consequences of their decisions, while significant, are not in the same league as actual judges. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:51, August 25, 2016 (UTC)
 * Too vague. What exactly counts as "conflict of interest" is hopeless to pin down, but the process could be defined better. Who makes the call about whether it is a conflict of interest? Each committee/appeals body member individually? The committee/appeals body as a whole? Are people with a COI barred from participating in the discussion, or just the decision? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:01, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, just roll it up into the introduction: "The Committee determines its own procedures, subject to the duty to act fairly and avoid conflict of interest". It's not any less specific and makes it clear that working out the details is the Committee's responsibility. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Why does it need to be in the intro? Either way, the Committee has an explicit binding duty to avoid conflicts of interest, and must create fair procedures consistent with that text. Also, that intro version does not make it as clear that the appeals body must also avoid conflicts of interest. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:13, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * it does not need to, but it would be less text with no loss in meaning. (Or almost none; fair point about the appeals body. Although the appeals body is left so unspecified by the current text that it makes little difference. Is TC the appeals body? A subset of TC? Some group appointed by TC? Who exactly needs to not have a COI there?) I feel if you have language about committee members being "not permitted to" participate in a case but then what actually happens is that each member decides whether they participate or not, that is only good for generating charges of impropriety, and either the process or the language should be changed to be more in sync. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)


 * : I remain unconvinced that expanding the "Arbitration Committee" model is prudent. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Specificity on what conflicts of interest are
Should we add more specificity, and potentially an incomplete list of examples, on what constitute conflicts of interest? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:19, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Being allegedly involved in a case reported is a clear reason for CoI. Common affiliation seems to be also a clear reason reason, either as co-workers for the same employer or as co-maintainers of the same project. Also close friendship, whenever it can be demonstrated.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with "allegedly involved in a case", of course. "co-workers for the same employer" is not consistent with best practice, and is too broad.  "co-maintainers of the same project" is also too broad.  For example, many people help maintain MW core.  Being someone's co-maintainer might lead to a conflict, e.g. if they are close friends, but it depends.  Regarding close relationships in general, these definitely may be conflicts.  Regarding "whenever it can be demonstrated", it's important to remember the member has an obligation to recuse themselves in such cases (among others), regardless of whether there is public evidence. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:07, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No, refer to an external standard. --Fæ (talk) 13:16, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Or not external, see Conflict of interest guide for Wikimedia movement organizations and Code of conduct and conflict of interest policies, including Conflict of interest policy.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with learning from external standards. I don't agree with incorporating them by reference. That is over-complicated, and means readers need to refer to an external document just to understand what policy to follow.  It also means we would need to refer to a specific version of the external standard, or risk it changing without our agreement. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 18:52, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Specifying exactly what constitutes conflicts of interest seems to be unrealistic, since it depends on the context and the case involved. We can, however, define general categories of potential conflicts of interest: MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 23:09, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Professional - Employee/manager relationship, members of the same team or people whose jobs or professions are directly affected by the other person.
 * Financial - Having financial ties to a person or organization involved in a case.
 * Family and personal - Family member or close personal relationship.

do you have a specific external standard in mind? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I suggest finding a U.S. focused variation of https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/conflicts-of-interest-a-guide-for-charity-trustees-cc29, as these define all types of financial and "loyalty" interests, and the Committee members may wish to have a month after creation, before accepting their first case, to review the list at Code of conduct and conflict of interest policies in order to reach their own conclusions if any can be adopted as is, or whether it is worth adding some procedural specifics of the type at en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy which clarifies how there should be transparency for recusals for a fairly similar committee. My professional experience of corporate standards is not encouraging, it's too easy to drive a truck through them, so I would stick to the ones for charities.
 * However, the proposed governance of this Committee remains flawed, especially after WMF Legal's clarification this month. COI standards require a credible independent reporting, an appeal process and meaningful external governance. Without this I don't see how volunteers independent of the WMF can put their trust in the CoC procedures when it comes to transparency, expectations of natural justice or the capacity to respect the private lives or private data of parties to a case. --Fæ (talk) 13:23, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * After reading a bit of literature... Most of it refers to financial CoI, which is not that relevant in the case of a Code of Conduct. Conflicts of loyalty is the type of CoI that applies here. Conflicts of interest: a guide for charity trustees has a section (without anchor) about Conflicts of loyalty and there is no clear cut definition there either. It boils down to having a conflict of loyalty to: whoever appointed you, organizations you work for, relatives, friends. Wouldn't this be enough level of detail for the CoC draft?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Process of recusal
Can we clarify how people are recused? I think part of this can also address Tgr's question, "Are people with a COI barred from participating in the discussion, or just the decision?" Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:19, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Reporters could be encouraged to specify whether they believe any Committee member is in a CoI when they submit their report. The encouragement could be extended to anyone being contacted for the investigation of a report. The chair of the Committee could ask routinely whether a new report puts any Committee member in a situation of CoI, providing time and space for members to declare their CoI or allow others to point out and discuss possible CoI of a colleague.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * How about not making this up on the spur of the moment? It's bog standard governance for running boards or high level committees where interests are likely, many of the volunteers that have attempted to improve this text and got nowhere, have sat on such boards. Take it from a textbook, or use one of the WMF trusted experts to propose changes. --Fæ (talk) 13:14, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Conflict of interest guide for Wikimedia movement organizations looks like a good starting point.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:32, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

There are already ways other organizations deal with these issues, and we can take a few ideas from them while adjusting to our own unique case. Here are a couple of ideas that could be adjusted into our process: MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 23:10, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Recusals before hearing case: Members of the Committee must recuse themselves if a Conflict of Interest arises. If they recuse, they will not participate in the case in any way; they will not discuss it or access the case logs. If a member with an alleged conflict does not recuse, the decision is referred to an external body (see “Cases of refusing to recuse” below.)
 * Replacements: When the regular Committee members are selected, the responsible group must also select five “auxiliary” members of the Committee, in case of recusals. The auxiliary members will have the same training as the Committee, though they will not have continuous access to the ongoing cases.  Rather, one or more auxiliary members will join as needed, when there are recusals (for any reason, including CoI) by the regular members.
 * Cases of refusing to recuse: The auxiliary members also oversee recusals. If a member of the Committee refuses to recuse themselves after a conflict is alleged, the decision is examined by the members of the auxiliary group. They have the same level of trust as the Committee members (they have signed the same agreement and participated in training). They are also removed enough from day-to-day business that they can view the case, the Committee, and potential conflicts with fresh eyes. This will serve as a strong counter-balance to the Committee overseeing its own process when dealing with conflicts of interest.
 * That sounds like a reasonable process, assuming we don't think that finding twice as many qualified members would be difficult. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:27, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposal for the CoC draft: "Before the processing of a report, Committee members must declare and discuss any conflicts of interest, proceeding to disqualifying members if needed. These disqualifications will be documented, and the involved parties informed." If you think more details should be added, please specify which ones. I don't think we need to embed a whole CoI policy in the CoC. If any party involved suspects that a CoI has been omitted, they can complain.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:54, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Implication of September 22, 2016 revision by WMF Legal
The above means that though WMF legal say that "should not deter volunteers from making a report", the fact that WMF legal are in the loop may easily put volunteers and others not under contract to the WMF at risk, and so can and in fact should deter non-WMF employees from taking part in a case where the reputation of WMF may be perceived by WMF legal to be potentially damaged. There is now a fundamental conflict of interest for employees and contractors taking part in the CoC processes as they absolutely cannot guarantee to control later actions of WMF legal, or what may occur "in private" should WMF legal wish to keep their actions and discussions with Committee members or parties to the case a secret from other parties to a case.

As previously stated, though the "Wikimedia Foundation is obligated by law to not retaliate against WMF employees or contractors", this nicely leaves out volunteers or employees of affiliates. Consequently WMF legal is free to consider making threats of action or taking legal action against non-WMF employees related to a case, or even approach their employers, based on reports and any other information passed to them by Committee members or case parties. Should WMF legal believe that taking action outside of the CoC committee's defined procedures be a way of reducing or eliminating risks to the WMF, I do not see how they would ever agree to not taking their own actions.

These weaknesses unravel governance policies, especially any attempt to have a convincing conflict of interest policy. --Fæ (talk) 04:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that the WMF would use the Code of Conduct process to threat volunteers when they report WMF employees for harassment?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:30, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That would be a parody. My words are as written, please avoid emotive arguments. --Fæ (talk) 17:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The three paragraphs above have a complex narrative, and I was checking whether I was understanding them correctly (being descriptive, not emotive). I have read them again and I still interpret them meaning (in short) that the WMF Legal team would use this CoC to threat non-WMF employees in order to defend the WMF's reputation.
 * Following the argument above, it looks like this example would be likely to happen: A volunteer reports a WMF employee privately for harassment in a case where the private proof shows that the reporter is right. The WMF Legal team takes advantage of their access to the private information about the case in order to retaliate, threatening the volunteer reporting in order to silence or distort the case.
 * I don't think the WMF or its Legal team would ever act in such a horrible way. Even if that would happen, I don't see how such situation would not explode with a whistle blow from any Committee member or any other party involved (WMF member or not), constituting a much higher risk of damaging WMF's reputation.
 * As I see it, the revision from WMF Legal has actually an opposite effect in WMF and non-WMF members than the suggested above: when a volunteer reports a WMF member about harassment in any Wikimedia technical space, both will know that the WMF will not be able to avoid any liabilities or other legal responsibilities arguing some lack of awareness about the events. The reporter has more guarantees, no less, that their case of harassment will be adequately handled with all its consequences.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:24, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't see the point of your personal speculation. You are not part of WMF legal, you do not speak for them, neither do you have the experience I have of being seen by WMF legal as a threat, and treated as their adversary (I'm not speaking about current employees of the WMF, but I don't see any evidence of those processes changing). WMF legal take action to protect the WMF, they are not paid to protect individual volunteers when it is not in the WMF's direct interest, and will never make a commitment to do so.
 * WMF legal have made no promises as to limiting their use of data, neither do they commit to ever deleting data or analysis of it that may be part of a case if they feel it might be useful to the WMF to keep it. The Committee defined in this code has absolutely no control over the actions of WMF legal, nor can they offer any protection to parties to a case from actions by WMF legal in the future. Unlike charites in Europe, volunteers have no way to force transparency on the WMF, so no way to see if records and analysis about them are being held indefinitely by WMF legal, and it's a sure bet that is what goes on as WMF legal have directly refused to confirm that they do not. --Fæ (talk) 12:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Finalize new version of "Conflict of interest" section?
Changes have been made to the "Conflict of interest" section to address the concerns listed earlier.

Should the section be considered done?
 * Consensus reached. Clear consensus for the new version. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)


 * as proposer. This resolves all the concerns raised earlier:
 * There is no longer a risk of the Committee making a decision with 1 or 2 people. Auxiliary members will step in.
 * Potential examples of conflict of interest are now listed.
 * The process is explained in more depth. One relevant note here: If someone refuses to recuse, "the decision is referred to an external body".  That body (the auxiliary Committee) then decides whether they will be recused anyway.  As MSchottlender-WMF wrote, "They are also removed enough from day-to-day business that they can view the case, the Committee, and potential conflicts with fresh eyes. This will serve as a strong counter-balance to the Committee overseeing its own process when dealing with conflicts of interest."  There are now checks and balances.
 * It makes clear people who recuse are excluded from discussion and the whole process, not just the final decision.
 * -- Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem to recognise the conflict of interest of when you have the same employer/affiliation as someone involved. It also doesn't appear to limit the number of auxiliary people joining a case. -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 04:36, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Simply working at a (perhaps large) organization is not enough to create a conflict. If it's your manager/subordinate/direct teammate or similar/close friend/someone who controls your projects or changes your pay/etc. that would probably create a conflict, and it's listed.  In a very small organization, you might always work very closely with everyone, in which case that would be a conflict similar to a teammate.
 * It says, "to replace recused members". Members of the auxiliary Committee can't join except for recusals, and they can only replace recused members.  Therefore, they can't say, "1 person is recused.  Therefore all 5 of us are joining"; that's not a replacement. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:08, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * resolves the concerns I had. Maybe it could be phrased more clearly that recused appeals body members are also replaced with auxiliary members (I assume that's the intent but most of the text talks about the Committee). --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:17, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Appears to address the concerns raised. Kaldari (talk) 05:36, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:55, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no independent governance, which is needed if a party to a case challenges interests. The "auxiliary members" are not independent, nor are they intended to be a governance mechanism, or selected for that purpose, in the current document. A more general issue is the piecemeal agreeing of small sections of this code, which the history of committee decisions tells us guarantees a Curate's egg outcome. --Fæ (talk) 13:16, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Valhallasw (talk) 21:31, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 02:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * --Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:38, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * -- MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Finalize introduction to "Committee" section?
Should the introduction to the "Committee" section be considered done? (This is the part after the "Page: Code of Conduct/Committee" heading and before the "Diversity" heading.) Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 16:00, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Consensus reached. Almost unanimous support. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:42, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I struck some comments that were posted 2 weeks late. These discussions do not stay open permanently.  That wouldn't allow us to make progress. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:21, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * as proposer. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 16:00, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Kaldari (talk) 19:26, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I see no problems ^<b style="color:#000">demon</b><sup style="color:#c22">[omg plz] 19:46, 24 August 2016 (UTC)</i>
 * Even though I personally don't like the fact, direct communication is discouraged, I do see why it's necessary. Therefore the section looks good to me. --Frimelle (talk) 20:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the idea was to avoid cases where the committee members are bombarded or harassed for their decisions privately (or generally directly). There is room to allow for personal communication if needs be, but it should be balanced with giving the committee room to not feel threatened to make their decisions, which is why it's "just" discouraged rather than disallowed. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * --Qgil-WMF (talk) 05:51, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * -Sylvain WMFr (talk) 08:12, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * : I remain unconvinced that expanding the "Arbitration Committee" model is prudent. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I seem to be too late to this party but I didn't had time to read this policy properly earlier. Badly formatted, facilitates harassment by misusing the civil card and some phrases are way too vague. (Since when does WMF staff vote for community related policies?) Natuur12 (talk) 14:36, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are very few community votes where WMF staff should stay away. However this Code of Conduct stands out for being 75% to, at times, 100% WMF staff votes (esp. if added to paid WMF affiliate employees). Often in opposition to the majority of votes from volunteers. It also stands out for using a process for agreement that failed to establish a consensus before being enforced by WMF management. For these reasons the end document is unlikely to be seen by many volunteers as a valid community policy. --Fæ (talk) 15:02, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess we agree on those points :). Natuur12 (talk) 16:40, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * All the staff members who participated in this section are active participants in the MW technical community, and have every right to participate in drafting and approving a policy for this community. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:00, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * per Natuur12. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * per Natuur12. --DCB (talk) 16:46, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Striking votes
I see that User:Mattflaschen-WMF has struck the votes here of 3 non-WMF employees. do you agree with your votes being removed, or would you prefer this section to be re-opened? If Mattflaschen is forcing the issue, then perhaps it will be necessary to start a clean new vote on the section.

You are acting as if you are the owner this page, by your action of striking the votes and comments from volunteers without checking with them first. Is this your intention? --Fæ (talk) 05:34, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * thank you for your ping. I do have a problem with my vote being removed since this is a form of wikipolitical censorship. Everyone could have seen that we - as busy volunteers who spend hours maintaining the projects - where a little late but that doesn't make our opinions invalid. Likely the section should be reopened and perhaps we should inform every local community that they can vote for the final, most crucial and most undemocratic part of this policy. (And yes, the section Creation and renewal of the Committee would be a good second.) Natuur12 (talk) 10:23, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, there was no deadline in the first place and it is bad practice when the person who initiates a proposal also closes it. Natuur12 (talk) 10:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are no grounds to reopen it. The discussion ran its course, about 2 weeks, as is standard on this page, and there was solid participation.  Every part of the technical community (see where this draft will apply to) has already been informed. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 18:23, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear that the community members who aren't core tech members aren't considered to be part of the technical community. When dealing with shared project spaces every Wikimedian is at least a stakeholder and if they sporadically use one of those spaces they are an actor. (Last time I checked we are all stuck with Phabricator, tech IRC-channels and the mailing list if we want to report technical issue's) When creating a valid community policy you have to involve the stakeholders and actors who don't belong to your core. This didn't happen.


 * But instead of sticking with the bottom three layers of Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement, could you please respond to the arguments I brought up? Natuur12 (talk) 18:49, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * As you know, it had nothing to do with whether they are WMF employees. The discussion ran for about 2 weeks, and multiple non-WMF people participated (along with WMF people).  None of their votes were struck, and all were considered when closing the discussion. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 18:23, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No there are not "multiple non-WMF people". One non-WMF employee/non-WMF affiliate employee, is just one, not multiple.
 * Could you please point to where the Community agreed the process you are following for closing the vote and where the deadline of two weeks was agreed? And could you try to answer the question I asked rather than defending yourself from tangential questions I did not ask. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 19:26, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Another problem I see in Natuur12's comment and therefore in the additional ones that came "per Natuur12" is that they don't mention anything specific about the introduction to "Committee" section, which is the topic being discussed here. It is a general criticism about the whole CoC draft, and there is nothing that could be used to improve the CoC section discussed. If this situation would happen in an RfC in any Wikimedia project, where someone skips the specific topic of the RfC and leaves a generic criticism, it would probably be considered invalid as well.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:54, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The problem you see is non existing since I was talking about this specific section but I did take the section "Unacceptable behaviour" into account since you cannot see them as separate entities. One of the many problems with this section is that the scope isn't S.M.A.R.T. and if you take into account that the section Unacceptable behaviour also isn't formulated S.M.A.R.T. it should be obvious. You are merely creating an entity with no separation of power whose final word is absolute while "everything" can be seen as "unacceptable". Natuur12 (talk) 14:58, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, a straw poll of WMF staff informed about this section does not equal community consensus. I oppose as well, for what it's worth, because I'm not convinced that additional arbcom-style bureaucracy is really useful in terms of coming to quick and appropriate responses to harassment/naughty behaviour. Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:39, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * sorry but hat comparison is completely ridiculous. The en:wp arbcom has a 15-page process manual. Code of Conduct/Cases fits on a page and most of it is not about process (really the only part that could be called bureaucracy is that decisions can be appealed). It specifically has a section about immediate response.
 * Also, please avoid phrasing which implies that the WMF-affiliated participants of this discussion would be meatpuppets. The vote about the committee section was announced on wikitech-l, engineering, design, wiki-research-l, analytics, hackathonorganizers and labs-l - all open mailing lists with a pretty good coverage of the technical community. As a WMF staffer who has been active on this page, I have not received any other notification which would not have been visible to other community members. --Tgr (talk) 08:51, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Tgr, inference is not proof of someone else making implications. This would require the skills of a mind-reader. Please avoid inflammatory allegations like "WMF-affiliated participants of this discussion would be meatpuppets", nobody has said anything like this apart from you. I am aware of the popularity of post-factual rhetoric in the political world, but writing offensive parodies of the views of volunteers which happen to run counter to the WMF employee majority, is not the way to improve relationships. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:26, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Final approval of CoC
"I appreciate you creating this header. But it is not a good place to discuss procedure, or to link my idea from 11 months ago out of context. That was never final. Many things have changed since then, and it is no longer my approach." -- Mattflaschen-WMF, 24 August 2016.

This is a community code of conduct, and (as far as I can tell) there was community consensus that the proposed process (vote on seperate sections to form a draft, then a final call for consensus on the final draft). I see no reason to deviate from that process. Valhallasw (talk) 08:48, 24 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Refer to, where I propose a 3 month review period after the WMF-eyes-only professional advice given on prior versions of the document is published paraphrased by a WMF employee; when one has some time. --Fæ (talk) 11:07, 24 August 2016 (UTC)


 * If I may ask, what is this section about exactly? About the process of how the code of conduct will be finalized? About general disapproval on how the procedure works? Would be helpful to me to clarify that. --Frimelle (talk) 20:56, 24 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, that indeed wasn't very clear. At the beginning of the CoC process, the following process was proposed: first there are votes for consensus on each section, those sections together form a final draft. At this point, the draft is no longer changed, and there is a final call for consensus on the whole CoC. There was general consensus that this was a reasonable process to follow. At some point, it was suddenly announced that this process was changed (Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft/Archive_2), even though there was clearly no consensus to do so.
 * I have added the original process to the header on the top of this page, but have been reverted by Mattflaschen-WMF twice now. I'm not interested in an edit war, so I've opened this section instead. Valhallasw (talk) 09:51, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't understand edits such as this. Mattflaschen-WMF: Can you please clarify what you're now proposing be done after a final draft is complete? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:30, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The process has ensured (and will continue to ensure) that the community carefully decides the text of the Code of Conduct, and whether to approve it, section-by-section. The community has been widely notified about every discussion and decision to be made.  Awareness among members of the technical community has been very high.


 * You can see a detailed history of the community consensus process at Code of Conduct/Draft/Consensus summary.


 * MediaWiki.org does not have an established process for this kind of social policy, so we need to look to other Wikimedia projects for guidance. This type of policy generally starts as a draft, then evolves through discussion and/or voting on the talk page, exactly as here.  An example is the process that established the English Wikipedia Civility policy.  Similar to the Code of Conduct process, there was extensive consensus-building on the content of the Civility policy, but no final vote.


 * Most importantly, an independent vote would override the many voices who have already approved this policy by careful, step-by-step consensus on each section, over the past year and a half. It would encourage people to come in at the very end, unaware of the issues discussed earlier, and make a shallow, lightly-informed vote. That’s unfair to the earlier participants, and would invalidate the lengthy, thoughtful process this document has gone through. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Your proposed process invalidates the consensus that there was going to be a final vote. That is unfair to earlier participants, and to those who have not participated knowing that they would have a say during the a final vote. Valhallasw (talk) 19:04, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * In the header, you linked to a preliminary informal discussion where 3 people floated the idea of a final vote. That's not a consensus.


 * Since then, there have also been many people diligently participating here. Together, over a long period, we have approved each piece as we resolved difficult issues with the text.


 * That experience, combined with checking precedent, makes clear that a final vote would be counter-productive here too. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 02:11, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm confused here. Looking at past discussions, there are comments from Mattflaschen-WMF that state: "There will be a separate procedure to approve the CoC." In a section to seek consensus for specific sections of the draft, there's a comment from Mattflaschen-WMF that reads: "There will be separate procedure later to decide whether to approve the Code of Conduct."
 * Others, including Ironholds ("There will be a wider opportunity to approve the entire thing and that's a good place to expect more people.") and Valhallasw (cf. this talk page section) seem to have interpreted the previous comments in the same way: there would be a final vote on the entire document.
 * Is Mattflaschen-WMF now saying that he's taking a different approach ("it is no longer my approach") and these previous statements by him are no longer valid?
 * I want to make sure I fully understand what Mattflaschen-WMF is trying to do here before drawing a conclusion about the validity of these actions. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:07, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, there were some early ideas to have a final discussion or vote, and there was an informal discussion (among 3 people, including Ironholds who you mention) about this. Since then, it’s become clear that this method is not consistent with precedent, it’s not fair to earlier participants who’ve been working on this draft for well over a year, and in fact the process we’ve been going with has worked with section-by-section consensus after much deliberation, editing, revising, and reworking. This change was made clear and was well-communicated since April. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 20:38, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

GitHub Community Guidelines
GitHub is not a free software project but is an interesting initiative in any case. They have published a draft about their Community Guidelines.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:31, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

More on GitHub (and beyond): What GitHub did to kill its trolls. It's a long piece, yet I found it very interesting. Thanks to it I have also learned something about Coraline Ada Ehmke, the main author of the Contributor Covenant, which is a seed of this Code of Conduct.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:01, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The standard offer
In cases of blocks and bans, the English Wikipedia has the concept of "The standard offer". This gives a sense of reasonableness to sanctions, in that after a reasonable time limit anyone with bans or blocks can appeal. Consequently when you see sanctions by the English Wikipedia Arbcom, they always include a right to appeal after a certain period and when you see blocks against accounts, the blocks are always time-limited, normally to a maximum of 1 year and appeals may occur before that limit.

Though the section "Appealing a resolution" gives an explanation, there is no sense of time limits, or indeed that a relevant amount of time should pass between appeal attempts. I propose that this is amended to incorporate these well established limits to sanctions, so there is an expectation that indefinite does not mean infinite, and unless there are extreme issues, a normal maximum is presumed of six months between legitimate appeals. Without the hope of appeal, we lose both a claim to natural justice and our shared aim of reform for those that have misbehaved in the past. --Fæ (talk) 17:19, 10 December 2016 (UTC)


 * "These well established limits to sanctions" may be well-established on enwiki, but certainly are not well-established wikimedia-wide, so I do not see a pressing need to include this right now -- we already voted on the 'Cases' page a while ago. I do think the idea is worthwile, so I would suggest to process this as an amendment once the committee has been set up. Valhallasw (talk) 19:12, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

"Creation and renewal of the Committee" section
I've updated this section to better handle vacancies (using the auxiliaries), provide time for training, and address some other issues. Let me know what you think. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 20:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Ckoerner (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Noted, but we're not deciding whether to approve this section yet. I will start a separate discussion for that soon. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:10, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Looks reasonable. Some of the wording could be improved: ''The Committee selects their new members every six months, using the above process. The initial Committee term lasts one year.'' confused me at first, and some of the text talks about regular and auxiliary members of the Committee while the rest about a regular and an auxiliary Committee. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there shouldn't be anything that hints there's an "auxiliary committee" - the idea of the text as I understand it is to supply auxiliary "potential members" that go through the same training and are ready to fill gaps in the actual (only) committee. The committee selects members for active committee work, but a group of members that serve as auxiliary are also selected at the same time as the committee replaces itself, and they have similar restrictions/rules as the selection of the committee, because they may have to jump in and serve in the committee in case something happens. I think the confusion is how to describe this type of behavior considering every person on either "piece" of the selection (committee or auxiliary force) should have the same rigor and get the same skills, but only the members that were selected for the active committee actually have access to ongoing cases. Tgr (WMF), do you have any ideas on how to make this explanation simpler? I'm not entirely sure how to simplify but still keep the important details in? MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 19:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I tried to make it more consistent (diff). Not quite sure about The regular Committee and auxiliary Committee continue to fully function when there are vacancies. - was that intended to mean that even if all auxiliary members are "used up" and there is a further vacancy, the Committee continues to function?
 * The document does not mention how the auxiliary member who steps in gets selected. Are they in a queue? Does the Committee chose? Probably worth to spell out. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll go over your changes in depth in a bit, but just to answer regarding the way auxiliary is chosen -- I don't think we need to specify it in the Code of Conduct, as it's an internal process. That is - if we agree that all auxiliary members are valid to act as Committee members at any given time (which should be the case if they are chosen the same way and go through the same skill training) then defining specifics may actually have potential of making things complicated for the process rather than help. They are all valid members who were vetted, so we shouldn't really care about which one of them actually participates. To be more practical, I'm mostly concerned about the fact that people are busy in real life and have other obligations - if a case arises where you need an auxiliary member to "cover" for a regular committee member, then whatever official process we set up (a queue or something like that) may actually not work in practice (someone can be on vacation, or not be available at that specific time, etc) and in that case the group will still have to pick someone, so they'll go on to other means (toss of a dice, sending an email to see who's available, etc) - Whatever works for them is probably the best way to go at it. I don't see a reason to specify something that will bind them to a process. Does that makes sense? MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 20:53, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Leaving the details for the Committe to work makes sense in general, it's just that in this case it's less clear who the Committee is (especially given that the auxiliary members can "vote out" a regular member when there is a disagreement about what constitutes a conflict of interest). So it's fine if the decision is left to the remaining regular members but it might be worth to spell out that that's the case.
 * (That reminds me that I missed If a member of the Committee refuses to recuse themselves after a conflict is alleged, the decision is examined by the members of the auxiliary group when removing mentions of the auxiliary Committee. In that one case the auxiliary members actually do act as a separate group; not sure how that should be framed.) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The changes look good.  I just made a few minor clarifications.  Re "The regular Committee and auxiliary Committee continue to fully function when there are vacancies", this means that any time there is a temporary or permanent vacancy, the Committee still fully functions.  If it's a temporary vacancy, they will function normally while the vacancy is being filled.  If there's a permanent vacancy (this can only happen the auxiliary members are "used up" as you mention), they will still function normally until the end of term (when everything is refreshed anyway).
 * Which auxiliary member moves is decided by the auxiliary members of the Committee. This was already pretty clear for vacancies ("In case of a vacancy, the auxiliary Committee will move one of its members to the regular Committee") indicates that the auxiliary Committee takes the action/decides.  I've clarified it for both cases by adding, "In either case, the auxiliary members of the Committee determine by their own procedures which auxiliary member will change roles."
 * I've clarified "The initial Committee term lasts one year" by explicitly noting that is an exception. Does that address your concern about that part? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 16:48, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, thanks. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this could be clarified as well: "The community can provide feedback on these candidates, via private email to the group choosing the next Committee. The feedback period will be two weeks. The group choosing the Committee will then either finalize the slate, or update the candidate slate in response to concerns raised. If the candidate slate changes, there will be another two week feedback period covering the newly proposed members. After the selections are finalized, there will be a training period, after which the new Committee is appointed. The current Committee continues to serve until the feedback, selection, and training process is complete." - is this intended to mean that in case of slate change the process restarts (two weeks for comments, possibly another slate change, in that case two more weeks for comment etc.) with the term of the current Committee pushed out if necessary, or is it initial slate -> two weeks for comments -> (maybe) changed slate -> two more weeks -> the changed slate gets selected no matter what? Tgr (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "If the candidate slate changes, there will be another two week feedback period covering the newly proposed members." always applies. The slate change/feedback process can continue as many times as needed (though doing this repeatedly is definitely not the preferred case). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 05:48, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Finalize "Creation and renewal of the Committee" section?
Should the "Creation and renewal of the Committee" section be considered done? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:22, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * as proposer. This does a good job handling various issues (community involvement, training, handling resignations, circulation of new people on the Committee). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:22, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * : I remain unconvinced that expanding the "Arbitration Committee" model is prudent. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * See my replies to Reguyla below. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 12:35, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:48, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Ckoerner (talk) 16:08, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * --PrakashAdhikari (talk) 17:14, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * you guys should really focus on producing code not documents. that is waste. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:00, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Valhallasw (talk) 19:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:26, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Gamaliel (talk) 18:47, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
 * There is no need for another/expanded Arbitration committee on the WMF projects. The current one on EnWP already has too much power and control and the lack of oversight assures that this one wil be even worse. Reguyla (talk) 21:19, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
 * There is oversight through the appeals process. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * In principle perhaps but functionally it will have the same effect as the appeals process within Arbcom. The same people will vote and deny the appeal. Since there are so few people "trusted" enough to be in these positions, you'll just have the same people. No thank you.Reguyla (talk) 03:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Unlike the Arbitration Committee, the Committee does not review its own appeals. That is done by separate people. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * KATMAKROFAN (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * per MZMcBride & ThurnerRupert. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:03, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * per all the archived and overruled comments and questions. --Fæ (talk) 09:53, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Before starting the approval discussion, I first emailed people asking them to look at this section and referred them to . We diligently worked together to improve the section, and I only started the approval discussion when the concerns there were resolved. No one has gotten 100% of what they wanted, but nothing was ignored either, and a lot made it into the text.  That goes for earlier discussions related to this section too, e.g. Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft/Archive_2 (this key concern was solved with the auxiliary Committee, which also ties directly into this section), the feedback period, etc. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * having this new committee be self contained and governed - especially restricting selection of its membership to itself this is disengaging from the larger community as a whole. Xaosflux (talk) 12:24, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Endangers the projects. Natuur12 (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * All the specific details in this section seem quite reasonable. And, although this discussion is not about whether there should be a committee in the first place, I think one is sorely needed.—Neil P. Quinn-WMF (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * per Neil Tgr (talk) 03:27, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * per MZMcBride, but mostly Fae. <b style="color:#c22">^</b><b style="color:#000">demon</b><sup style="color:#c22">[omg plz] 04:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)</i>
 * I see substantial arguments that this will be entirely different from the Arbitration Committee in scope and operation. Milimetric (WMF) (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit concerned about the committee being self-perpetuating; there's little to prevent the same committee members from selecting themselves/each other over and over again apart from the requirement that at least one member must change each time. I would prefer the TC team reappoint the committee each time, but that creates a level of WMF dependence that others seem to be uncomfortable with. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * --Frimelle (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * per MZMcBride et al. Yaron Koren (talk) 18:02, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I share Roan's concerns about the possible self-perpetuating nature of the committee, though I don't know that having the TC team appoint members forever is a better approach. I do believe we'll have a large enough pool of people to avoid ArbCom-like appeal issues. -- ArielGlenn (talk) 10:24, 8 February 2017 (UTC)