Talk:Code of Conduct/Archive 4

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

Now there is a defined section for Appealing a resolution.

I propose to remove "Only resolutions (such as bans) that last 3 months or longer may be appealed by the reported offender." Instead, it could say "Resolutions can be appealed by the reported offenders while they are being enforced." The concern here is that someone obstructs the enforcement with legalese in bad faith, and this is a way to prevent that temptation.
 * I disagree with removing this. Your proposed change allows enforcement during the appeal period, which is good.  I've added a note to clarify this.  However, that does not solve the issue of time-wasting frivolous appeals.  If I am given a private warning or banned for one day from an IRC channel to cool off, I can still appeal.  The original sanction remains in effect during the appeal process, but eventually DR must spend time reviewing the evidence and making a judgement. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As member of the DevRel team, I believe that processing "frivolous appeals" will take significantly less resources than dealing with the potential problem of people unhappy with the rule that doesn't allow them to appeal. If there is a process, unhappy people can follow it. If there is no process, unhappy people will manifest their frustration in other ways, and they are likely to get more community sympathy because they were not given other option than complaining elsewhere. So if your concern is saving DevRel resources, please allow anyone to submit a recall to us. :) --Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:35, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The restriction seems unnecessary; the committee can always agree that a complaint is frivolous and should be rejected - that does not seem like something that would take up a significant amount of time. Also, I disagree that appealing a two-month ban is necessarily frivolous. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:59, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Mattflaschen-WMF, I still think that we should remove "Only resolutions (such as bans) that last 3 months or longer may be appealed by reported offenders. Reported victims can always appeal." For the reasons expressed above. Unless you or someone else has a strong objection, I would like to remove this restriction in this review round.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 23:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I understand where you're coming from (and that your team would be responsible for reviewing these appeals), but I still don't think a structure that encourages appealing every low-level decision (if everything is appealable, might as well give it a shot) is ideal. It's also worth noting that this is already a compromise.  It originally only allowed permanent decisions to be appealed.  See  and Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft/Archive_1. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:34, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You're both making great points, I'm not sure what to suggest myself. I see point and share the worry about abuse of the appeals process, but I think there's another point to be made: why three months? If we make this rule to only allow for appeals for "big" decisions, then why doesn't a month-long or two-month-long decision deserve to be included? The choice of three months seems (and may be raised by others as) a bit random. This is especially true when even a month-long ban from certain technical spaces can absolutely be taken as a very long time, indeed. I think that if we're time-boxing this, we are risking two main problems: 1: That people will be frustrated that they can't appeal shorter times (two and a half months? two months? why not? etc) and 2: That this will make it seem, to the committee, that any decision under three months is "light" or "short" action, which may actually not be true at all, depending on the situation. Another issue we may run into is that sometimes even decisions that don't carry an actionable sanction may actually carry reprecussions, so the question can be asked about why these can't be appealed. Then again, this does risk abuse to the DevRel team, or the committee.
 * I think this is one of those cases where it is wise of us to lean on the side of caution (and remove the restriction) and, if DevRel team sees that this is abused in an unmanageable way, perhaps follow up later, in that case, to enforce some minimum. That will also let us analyze the actual situation and see what minimum actually makes sense, rather than making this judgment before the fact with a time limit that sounds random. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

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

Finalize "Report a problem" section?
Should the "Report a problem" section be considered done? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:37, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I forgot to link the version in question. Please evaluate this version, which is the version as of when I created this talk page section.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:11, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Consensus reached. There was consensus here on the main section.  We started a separate section about the confidentiality sentence (there was feedback both here and by anonymous email about that).  Quim proposed text, with no objections, so that's incorporated.  Tgr also made a small clarification and linked it below.  So (reflecting just the above) the difference between what I linked above and the current text is here.  Ignore the parts of the diff below "Attribution and re-use".  Those sections are not part of "Report a problem". Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:49, 25 November 2015 (UTC)


 * as proposer. I think this is pretty straightforward.  It says who you can report to, asks but doesn't mandate that maintainers take action (this was a compromise; I would have preferred otherwise, but that's how compromises go), and is clear that you can report to the committee if previous reports fail.  It also says that minimal reports will be accepted, but that more information will help.  All and all, I think it's a pretty practical approach. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:37, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I fixed some incorrect wording.
 * "All reports will be processed confidentially" feels too vague. What it means for the Committee is well specified in its own section, but how exactly should maintainers handle a report? (Can they share with the Committee? With other maintainers? WMF HR? What can they share with the perpetrator if the case is not clear-cut and they want to hear both sides?)
 * It would be useful to have something along the lines of "If you send a report to maintainers, include a reference to this document." In practice, most people - even most maintainers - are not going to be familiar with the policies. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)


 * (for clarification: I give this "+1" as a contributor, who hasn't worked on this Code of Conduct so far, and is meant, as one part, that I (as a "normal" contributor) understand this section (so you could assume, that it's well-written), and, as the other part, I can identify my self with this proposal, or better said: I would accept it so, if someone would ask me now :)) --Florianschmidtwelzow (talk) 14:36, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * There are a couple of things that I think we compromised a bit too much on, but as was mentioned in the first comment, that's how compromises go. I think this is a good version to continue onward with. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 18:52, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Although I have no objections in improving the sentence about confidentiality, to set the right expectations.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:12, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Would not object to improving the clarity of confidentiality as others have mentioned. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Kaldari (talk) 04:15, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

"All reports will be processed confidentially"
"All reports will be processed confidentially" feels too vague. What it means for the Committee is well specified in its own section, but how exactly should maintainers handle a report? (Can they share with the Committee? With other maintainers? WMF HR? What can they share with the perpetrator if the case is not clear-cut and they want to hear both sides?) --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

An email received at conduct-discussion@ also suggests a need to be more specific. The sender mentions the example of complaints involving private events. If person A sends person B an inappropriate private message and person B complains about it, if person A is warned or sanctioned they will be aware that person B complained when they are told the reason for the sanction.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:53, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * In this scenario (assuming a sanction is necessary/appropriate) there's no way I see to avoid the offender knowing who the reporter is. However, in such a case, it's probably best they report to the committee or to an event contact they trust.  The Committee members must commit to certain procedures (see "The Committee must get consent from the reporter before revealing any confidential information (including the reporter's identity)." of the draft section) to even be a nominee (as part of committing to comply with the full CoC).  It's not clear if we can expect all maintainers to commit to such detailed procedures (or even remember them 100%).  Also, the Committee may have better judgment whether a sanction is necessary in such a case (if it's not, there's no need for the alleged offender to know there was a report). Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 19:21, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The feedback is about improving the sentence, not about trying to apply it strictly in reality. It might be enough to say: "Reports are processed confidentially. For more information, see Confidentiality." and explain the details there.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 21:59, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Mattflaschen-WMF, I hope my proposal is clear after my last comment. It is a minor edit on the current text, other people has expressed their support to be more clear about the confidentiality, and there have been no objection to the wording proposed after more than two weeks. Are you ok resolving this topic and moving forward?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. There have been no objections in over three weeks. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:58, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

If you send a report to maintainers, include a reference to this document
It would be useful to have something along the lines of "If you send a report to maintainers, include a reference to this document." In practice, most people - even most maintainers - are not going to be familiar with the policies. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think this sends a message of confidence to someone sending a report. There is a finite number of existing admins and maintainers and it shouldn't be that difficult to contact them when this CoC is approved (and before, in our general call for feedback and approval). New admins / maintainers are granted permissions following a process, and it should be easy to mark an acknowledgement of the CoC as part of that process.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:04, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems unrealistic to assume that everyone who ever contributed an extension to gerrit will read and remember the code. People have been trained pretty thoroughly to ignore terms of use. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:29, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It is realistic to assume that every maintainer receiving an email about "IMPORTANT: Code of Conduct for Wikimedia Technical Spaces" will be aware that a Code of Conduct exists, even if they haven't read it. It is also realistic to think that even if they are confused about receiving a report, they will ask someone or somewhere what to do with it. If the maintainer doesn't do any of this, it is realistic to think that the reporter will go for "You can also send a report to the Committee if you reported an incident elsewhere but were not satisfied with the response." I think your proposal sends a subliminal message to the reporters: "the person you are sending this report to may have no idea what you are talking about". How serious is this community about this CoC, then? -- the reporters may think. This defeats the purpose and effectiveness of this CoC, and this is why I think we should not integrate it. A good promotion of the CoC is the correct response to your valid concern.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:04, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Quim. After spreading the word, we can assume all maintainers at least know the document exists.  They may not remember all the details, or always respond properly, but there are ways to deal with that.  We don't need to instruct people to explicitly inform the maintainer of the CoC. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:43, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that people should at least have awareness from the emails, etc. that this exists. Additionally, it's uncomfortable and difficult to report an incident - requiring a link to the document is another potential (small) hurdle that could be avoided. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Logging actions of the Committee
The draft mentions that the Committee must log their actions. The Committee members can define the details themselves when they are formed, but maybe it would be good to set some framework in the draft itself. What actions are absolutely required to be logged (each report and its resolution, anything else?). Also, is this log public, private, both (in which case, what needs to be private/public)? This is probably closely related to the tool the Committee should use to handle reports and discuss them. See T112859 Code of Conduct reports to be handled via OTRS?. Same for Developer Relations and the cases transferred to them.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:01, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Following up on Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft, probably the following should be logged:
 * Each report and its initial outcome (initial outcome is before notifying affected people)
 * Altered outcome (if it gets altered after notifications)
 * Decides to finalize (this could be combined with another log entry if it happens at the same time; see Talk:Code_of_conduct_for_technical_spaces/Draft.
 * The log should be private. The report itself and internal case deliberations will always be private.  Certain outcomes, e.g. "Taking no further action" and "private reprimand" are also private. Given that, and because the log must be somehow (directly or indirectly) be linked to the reports and case deliberations, that means the log must also be private. There will need to be a separate place for certain public actions (e.g. public reprimands), but the Committee can handle that part. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 06:49, 28 September 2015 (UTC)


 * As far as I can see, these privacy requirements can be handled via OTRS. Or probably via a Google Group, but I'd rather use a tool hosted in Wikimedia servers.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 18:26, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we can leave the real nitty-gritty procedural details (private wiki vs. OTRS vs. private mailing list vs. etc.) to the committee. That keeps the CoC shorter, means we don't have to decide it now, and gives them flexibility on a non-substantive matter.  Other than that, do you see anything missing from the draft?  Initial outcome, altered outcome, and "begins enforcing" are also explicitly called out in the draft for logging now. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 21:53, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of the Committee sorting out this implementation detail. There is no reporting before committee, so no need to process incoming reports before a committee exists and is ready to receive them.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no reporting to the committee before the committee exists. However, reporting to other people, such as maintainers, will still be possible and encouraged. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 22:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Done, down or defunct?
Nothing happens here? I am Mister Thrapostibongles (talk) 21:48, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Some weeks are more busy than others. Wednesdays have become our usual checkpoint for review and today is Wednesday, so perhaps... In any case, thank you for the ping. :) I will comment on the relevant sections about the next steps.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:41, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I see this document as having lost its way after having a couple of WMF employees over manage the process for creating it. Non-WMF employee edits on the draft have dropped to zero, and unpaid volunteers that did take part in discussion have been eroded away. The outcome is naturally a WMF document, rather than a policy created with the positive support of the community. Above mentioned post-release consultation, inviting what will probably be the same old rejected comments to be rejected again, is not the way to build a credible consensus. --Fæ (talk) 07:19, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I think the current silence is more related to the fact that discussing processes is less controversial than discussing principles. Overmanaging? We have organized the discussion to slow down the initial speed, volume and complexity of posts, which was definitely driving away people without the time to catch up, including most volunteers. The CoC keeps being open to edits and discussion by anybody, and we are reporting progress and requests for feedback to wikitech-l on a weekly basis. The goal is to promote hospitality and respect in our technical community, and to prevent the opposite. I think we are progressing toward that goal.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:46, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * One need only compare the declining numbers of unpaid volunteers making non-trivial contributions per week since this opened, against those with WMF contracts, to assess which types of participant this WMF employee directed process encourages and judge which others are effectively rebuffed. Perhaps only a handful of volunteers will care either way, however I see this as an unfortunate missed opportunity for meaningful consensus, and a flaw that is likely to be challenged when it needs to be applied in any difficult cases. --Fæ (talk) 19:36, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * We promoters of the CoC also want increasing numbers of people participating in its definition. Any ideas? For what is worth, 45 people are watching this page regularly, which is a respectful level of observation of the process. Your division between WMF paid staff and volunteers might be a bit misleading though, because it might suggest that WMF employees are pushing in a same direction, when the reality of our discussions here shows otherwise. It also might suggest that WMF employees look more after their own interests than after the interests of volunteers when, again, the discussion shows that this is not the case.
 * All in all I think we are drafting a good Code of Conduct, providing enough time to everybody to propose improvements.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 22:18, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

A few electrons rearranged. Anything happening in the real world? Anywhere away from this page? Any future to this project? Anyone responsible? I am Mister Thrapostibongles (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90908 is active AFAICT. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Got it. Discussion moved to WMF insider discussion board, already taking place in parallel.  No notification here, no forwarding address.  Obvious that outsiders are not welcome. Still nothing happening in real world outside WMF offices.  Note that posting of 15 Sep 2015 at 6:05 says "If we are still working on anything but appointing people to the committee in January 2016 something is horribly horribly horribly wrong."   No further comment necessary.  I am Mister Thrapostibongles (talk) 07:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, no? (and Phab isn't the "WMF insider discussion board". It's the movement's project management tool, and helpful community members actively using it may dislike your characterization). There have always been multiple venues for discussing, since the very beginning - first I heard about CoC was on some mailing lists, for example. It is entirely possible it's still being discussed there - I just don't know, I don't follow them so regularly these days. Sad to hear this fragmentation seems to be preventing you from contributing to it, though. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 11:41, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * yes the discussion moved to T90908 and you are right that it should go back to this discussion page. The reason why this happened is that such Phabricator task is/was fulfilling different roles: a Wikimedia Developer Summit session (we used the task to coordinate preparation and to post the minutes) and Developer Relations quarterly goal (I posted there my notes related to the quarterly review). This activity in the task combined with the lack of visible progress here helped pulling the discussion there. I will ask the participants in the task (myself included) to focus the discussion here.
 * The main reason for the lack of progress in the draft has been our conclusion that we need expert advice to assure that the processes defined is sensible and effective. Other organizations have been using codes of conduct in their communities, others before us have found themselves in problems like we are discussing (i.e. privacy of reporters versus legal obligations of the Foundation), and at some point we decided to slow down our own drafting and seek specialist advice. This is how we got in touch with Valerie Aurora and Ashe Snyder, who are starting to help us with answers and feedback as we speak.
 * I hope this explanation helps. The Code of Conduct keeps being a priority for the Developer Relations team and for the people that are working on it on their own initiative and volunteering time. We want to do it right and this is taking more time than we thought. Still, we will keep focusing on quality rather than deadlines.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Valerie Aurora and Ashe Snyder
With regard to "we got in touch with Valerie Aurora and Ashe Snyder", can you publish the invitation to tender for the work that these consultants are being paid for where unpaid volunteers can read it? Can you also explain who the "we" is that was in charge of the final procurement decision. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Why would there need to be a tender? Valhallasw (talk) 14:02, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The WMF supports professional procurement standards, so either there's a job spec for contractors to apply for, or there should be an ITT, or this was part of an existing contract. Either way, there should be a document/spec that can be openly published and the procurement work-flow explained.
 * Purchasing_and_disbursements_procedures appears to apply, unless you can point me to a more relevant procedure. --Fæ (talk) 15:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That page doesn't say anything about procurement, and even explicitly states "we strive for the proper balance between appropriate safeguards and controls (...) and undue bureaucracy". In my experience (in a university environment, where there *are* explicit procurement procedures), we can just pay someone to set up or fix a machine -- no long-term contract necessary. I'm not sure why that would be different for the WMF -- if anything, it should be easier.
 * In addition to the formal rules, why does it matter (content-wise) why there is a tender or not? Do you feel Valerie and Ashe are not suited to the task? Do you feel someone from the community should have been hired instead? As far as I can see, Valerie and Ashe have experience in the area of writing and upholding codes of conduct, so it sounds reasonable to me to ask them to look over the process here. Valhallasw (talk) 10:02, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry to contradict you as you are a WMF employee, but the link I provided is about contracts and purchases, so I read that as a procurement procedure. The quote you have taken is from a section of that document that goes on to state "Purchases that involve contracts need to go through contract review", so there is a specification for this work that can be published, if there was a review of it.
 * Procurement procedures are there to ensure legal and ethical governance of funds. As a manager/director and consultant, I have experienced many environments including academic, commercial and governmental and have had responsibility for auditing procurement processes in all of them, as well as deploying processes.
 * This is not a question of challenging the competence of these contractors, but ensuring that their contracts have been placed in a way that will not compromise the WMF or them.
 * It would be sensible to have an answer from the person that had authority to place this contract, rather than general speculation, though I can raise this question formally with WMF HR or WMF Legal if that is needed. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:53, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Finishing the Cases page
The Cases page is all about process: handling reports, responses and resolutions, and appeals. I propose to start a call for feedback at wikitech-l, allowing for edits in that page and discussing here any open topics. If by next Wednesday edits and new topics seem to be settled, we could open a review period for support / neutral / oppose statements, as we have done with previous sections.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:57, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * , I hope you don't mind if I mention this section in the new Developer Relations/Weekly summary. There was no fresh beef about the CoC last week, and I don't want to miss the chance of mentioning it today.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No, an announcement sounds good. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for starting this section. I've renamed it consistent with the past terminology.  I will send out an email regarding this.  I think we should give more time to finish this section, though, so I think we shouldn't set a date for the beginning of the review period yet.  Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Removing detail in Code_of_Conduct/Draft?
The list of possible responses at Code_of_Conduct/Draft contains a lot of implementation details, and I'm not sure we need this. Enumerating the possible responses is useful. Defining in the document how exactly those responses need to be made is probably premature. The Committee can define their procedures as they go, and they can probably fine tune them based on experience. I don't see any implementation detail so critical that needs to be agreed and written beforehand. Are there any objections to remove them?--Qgil-WMF (talk) 19:44, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The goal is for Code of conduct/Cases to be a secondary page, but binding, much like e.g. https://jquery.org/conduct/enforcement-manual/ (which it is partly based on). What specifically do you want to remove?  Perhaps you can copy the current text to user space, save that, make the edits you want, then link to the diff with the removals you want. Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 00:50, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Translation
Should we mark this for translation now, even though there will be ongoing changes? Or wait until it's approved? Mattflaschen-WMF (talk) 01:02, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I would not bother translators before we have gone through the draft.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 09:34, 22 January 2016 (UTC)