Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement draft guidelines review

Universal Code of Conduct

• Policy
• Enforcement guidelines
• Coordinating Committee (U4C) charter
• Project overview
• Frequently asked questions
• Training modules

Enforcement draft guidelines abstract

In this table, you can find an abstract of the full Enforcement draft guidelines review document. It was created to ensure that every member of the community can understand the new guidelines.

WHO will be responsible for enforcing the UCOC?

• The WMF, designated people such as code enforcement officers, and a new committee called the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (AKA the U4C).

• The U4C will oversee the process of UCoC enforcement, manage special cases, provide guidance and training, and monitor enforcement of the UCoC.

• Local and global functionaries will have guidance to know how to enforce the UCoC even if they are not part of the U4C.

HOW will this be done?

• The UCoC should be visible in as many places as possible.

• Certain individuals will have to declare their respect for and adherence to the UCoC.

• Local communities, affiliates, and the WMF should develop and conduct training for community members so they can better address harassment and other UCoC violations.

• The guidelines also lay out recommendations for which parties should address what types of UCoC violations.

• The guidelines suggest certain principles for processing and filing cases to ensure UCoC violations are addressed similarly across all projects.

WHAT else needs to be done to enforce the UCOC?

• The draft recommends the creation of a common, centralized reporting system.

• The draft also recommends expanding the coverage of ArbComs to increase global coverage.

• The draft notes that appeals should be possible and practically available to individuals who were sanctioned for UCoC violations.

HOW can I get involved in the EDGR process?

• The Drafting Committee has provided questions for the community to think about in regards to this draft. Please answer a couple of them in your preferred discussion venue.

Introduction

The Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee would like comments about the enforcement draft guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). This review period is from 17 August 2021 through 17 October 2021. Comments are invited at the draft review talk page in any language, talk pages of translations, local discussions, round-table discussions, conversation hours, through other forms of outreach, and by email to ucocprojectwikimedia.org.

Input from Wikimedia communities has been gathered throughout the UCoC project. The collected material was reviewed by a drafting committee of 11 volunteers and four Wikimedia Foundation staff members. They met over several months to produce the enforcement draft guidelines for a comprehensive community review. The input collected will be used to further refine the guidelines.

You can choose your preferred language and way of participation. Conversations will be held on many Wikimedia projects in multiple languages. Volunteers are needed to help organize discussions on their projects. Facilitators are watching multiple channels and available to answer questions and help organize discussions.

Discussions will be summarized and presented to the Drafting Committee every two weeks. The summaries will be published here.

Enforcement draft guidelines

A Note from the Drafting Committee

Please keep in mind that the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines outlined in this document are iterative, and will continuously be evaluated and evolve with community feedback, along with the Universal Code of Conduct. The committee has also provided questions for the community to think about in regards to this draft.

Overview

Code Enforcement Definition

Code Enforcement is the prevention, detection, investigation, and enforcement of violations of the Universal Code of Conduct. Code enforcement is a responsibility of designated functionaries, the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee ["U4C Committee" – Final name to be determined], and the Wikimedia Foundation. This should be done in a proper, timely fashion, consistently across the entire Wikimedia Movement. Consequently, individuals charged with enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct must be fully acquainted with the regulations they enforce.

Enforcement of the UCoC is applied by means of preventive work and campaigns, issuing warnings and notices to persuade people with signs of problematic behaviour to comply, imposing technical restrictions and punishments, or taking additional steps that may be necessary and appropriate. Local and global functionaries who implement policies, codes, rules, and regulations on the Wikimedia spaces, both online and offline, are supposed to understand the management of the code enforcement function and the process.

Code Enforcement Officer (To Be Determined) Definition

A Code Enforcement Officer [final name to be determined] is a volunteer or a staff member of the Wikimedia Movement who possesses training and technical rights, and whose duties are the prevention, detection, investigation, and enforcement of violations of the Universal Code of Conduct.

The Code Enforcement Committee – "U4C Committee" Definition

The drafting committee suggests creating a permanent committee as the body responsible for monitoring the UCoC implementation, in addition to being a partner in the implementation of the UCoC with the Wikimedia communities, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

The "U4C Committee" monitors reports of breaches of the UCoC, may engage in additional investigations, and will recommend a course of action to the respondent where appropriate.

When a case involves a request for information from law enforcement or potential legal action either against the Wikimedia Foundation or a user, the "U4C Committee" may request support and education materials from the Wikimedia Foundation to assist the relevant community volunteers or legal parties about the relevant UCoC section.

When necessary, the "U4C Committee" will assist the Wikimedia Foundation in handling cases. Additionally, the "U4C Committee" will monitor and assess regularly the state of enforcement of the Code and may suggest suitable changes to UCoC to the Wikimedia Foundation and the community for consideration.

Once formed, the permanent committee will decide on how often it should convene, and the nature of the cases that can be escalated to it. We recommend that this committee takes the following types of cases, although the final decision is left to them:

• Where no local structure exists to address a complaint;
• Where local structures are unable to handle or needs to escalate cases to this committee for final decision making;
• Severe systemic issues.

Members of the U4C will sign a non-disclosure agreement to provide them access to non-public information.

Preventive work (articles 1 and 2 UCOC)

The goal of preventive work is to make users of public Wikimedia Foundation wikis and others under the UCOC aware that it exists, and promote voluntary adherence to the code.

Recommendations of UCoC Translation for voluntary adherence:

The original and legally binding version of the UCoC is in English. It should be translated into other languages used on Wikimedia projects. In the event of any differences in meaning between the original English version and a translation, the original English version takes precedence.

Recommendations of UCoC Consent amongst Community and Foundation Staff:

The UCoC applies to everyone who interacts and contributes to online and offline Wikimedia projects and spaces. The following individuals should be required to affirm (through signed declaration or other format to be decided) they will respect and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct:

• All Wikimedia Foundation staff, Board Members affiliated staff and contractors;
• Users with enhanced rights such as, but not limited to: sysop, bureaucrat, steward, interface admin, checkuser;
• Any individual, Wikimedia Foundation employee or otherwise who wants to use the Wikimedia Foundation trademark in an event such as, but not limited to: events branded with Wikimedia trademarks (such as by including them in the event's title) and representation of the Wikimedia organization, community, or project at an event (such as, but not limited to, a presenter or a booth operator);
• Any individual, who is seeking out formal, on- or off-wiki documented Wikimedia affiliation (such as, but not limited to: an individual, or group of individuals who is seeking to promote and/or collaborate a Wikimedia sponsored event, group, study, either on or off-wiki in a research setting);
• Any individual who is performing the duties of a Code Enforcement Officer for the UCoC

Recommendations of UCoC Training/Education amongst Community:

Local communities, Foundation and Affiliates should develop and implement training for community members to be able to identify, address, and mitigate the harms caused by harassment. Training for users should include, at least, guidelines and tools for identification of what is considered unethical behaviour and a manual for how to respond when targeted by harassing behaviour.

• Training will have the following level certifications:
  • Level 1: Overall basic knowledge of the UCoC
  • Level 2: The ability to handle a UCoC violation
  • Level 3: The ability to handle a UCoC appeal
  • Level 4: Support targets of harassment by appropriate means (see Anti Harassment Program)

• A link to the UCoC should be present on:
  • User registration pages;
  • Edit confirmation pages when a logged-out user edits;
  • Footers on Wikimedia projects;
  • Footers on the websites of recognized affiliates and user groups;
  • Prominently displayed at in person events;
  • Anywhere else deemed appropriate

Responsive work (article 3 UCOC)

The goal of responsive work is to provide pathways for the processing and filing of reported cases, providing resources for processing cases, definitions for different types of violations and enforcement mechanisms, as well as suggestions for the reporting tools, and pathways for appeals.

Principles for processing and filing of reported cases

• Reporting of UCoC violations should be possible by the target of the harassment, as well as by an uninvolved 3rd party that observes the incident;
• Cases should be resolved by mediation rather than administrative sanction whenever possible and appropriate;
• Cases should be resolved in as reasonable a timeframe as possible;
• Cases may be prioritized in justified circumstances;
• Obviously unjustified reports (such as, but not limited to: bad faith reporting) in which there is a lack of need for investigation should be discarded (keeping the case ID valid);
• Simple cases such as, but not limited to, simple vandalism should be resolved through editing and the regular processes that exist on a wiki to handle disruption;
• Cases should be forwarded or escalated where appropriate;
• Eventual sanctions are applied according to the responsibilities of the person who has violated the UCoC (paid staff, elected or selected user, volunteer, etc.), the nature of the breach and its seriousness;
• Appeals should be possible, and handled by a body different from the one that issued the appealed decision.

Providing resources for processing cases

The coverage of Wikimedia projects by ArbComs should be maximized, by means of the following suggested provisions:

• A shared ArbCom among projects of different types in the same language is an option the committee encourages projects to consider as a means to create a more effective UCoC project enforcement system;
• A group of projects that is sufficiently big (Current suggestions for metrics to measure this may include: active users, active sysops. The committee recommends these details to be elaborated by the Wikimedia Foundation with the U4C) are strongly encouraged to have an ArbCom;
• Ensure such a shared ArbCom is not Wikipedia-centristic, among other by providing a project-neutral domain for it, for example "id.wikiarbcom.org";
• Allow multiple different languages to share such an ArbCom if there is support for such in the participating communities.

Types of violations and enforcement mechanism / groups

This section will detail a non-exhaustive list of the different types of violations (noted in bold), along with the enforcement mechanism pertaining to it.

• Violations involving threats of any sort of physical violence:
  • Handled by Trust & Safety
• Violations involving litigation or legal threats
  • Cases should be promptly sent to the Wikimedia Foundation Legal team, or, when appropriate, other professionals who can appropriately evaluate the merit of the threats
• Violations related to affiliate governance
  • Handled by AffCom
• Systematic failure to follow the UCoC
  • Handled by "U4C Committee";
  • Cross-wiki violations of the UCoC at the administrative level will be handled by "U4C Committee"
• Off-wiki violations (examples such as, but not limited to: in person edit-a-thons or off-wiki instances such as on other platforms similar to: social media platforms, discussion lists)
  • Handled by "U4C Committee", if the case is referred to them by event organizers or local affiliate groups
• On-wiki UCoC violations
  • Cross-wiki UCoC violations: Handled by the "U4C Committee", either directly or by referral from global sysops or stewards and from the bodies that handle single-wiki UCoC violations;
  • Single-wiki UCoC violations: Handled by individual Wikimedia projects according to their existing guidelines (examples such as, but not limited to: vandalism, introducing bias or incorrect information, abuse of power, ban evasion)

Recommendations for the reporting and processing tool

In order to lower the technical barrier for reporting and processing UCoC violations, a centralized reporting and processing tool for UCoC violations is to be developed and later maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation as a MediaWiki extension. The reporting tool should allow the complainant to provide details of the UCoC breach, as well as details about themselves and the other community members involved.

Reports should include enough information to be actionable or provide a useful record of the case at hand. This includes information such as, but not limited to:

• The way in which the reported behaviour violates the Universal Code of Conduct;
• Who or what has been harmed by this violation of the UCoC;
• The date and time at which this incident, or incidents, occurred;
• The location(s) where this incident occurred;
• Other pertinent information to allow enforcement bodies to best adjudicate the matter.

The tool should operate under the principles of ease-of-use, privacy and anonymity, flexibility in processing, and transparent documentation:

Privacy and anonymity

• Allow reports to be made either publicly (where all details of the case are viewable by the general public), or with varying degrees of privacy (for example, where the name of the reporter is hidden to the public; where the username of any individuals involved in the reported behaviour are hidden to the public; and other potential examples);
  • Clarify that increasing privacy may constrain the options available for resolution – for example, public mediation as an alternative to administrative sanctions may not be compatible with a completely private report;
• Permit reports to be made whether logged in or logged out

Processing

• Allow reports to be processed privately by the bodies charged with resolving UCoC violations;
• Allow reports to be forwarded to relevant bodies;
• Link current cases to previous cases involving the same recipient of a complaint, including allowing reports made in-person or off-wiki to be linked to ongoing reports of UCoC violations;
• Provide a way to integrate or document an in-person report into this same reporting system;
• Allow those who are processing cases to filter out bad-faith reports

Transparent documentation

• Provide a way to publicly archive all cases in a searchable manner, while preserving privacy and security in non-public cases;
• Assign each case a unique public identifier for the purpose of public visibility;
• Allow limited data collection on basic statistics about the use of this tool, for the purposes of reporting out information about UCoC enforcement to the general public, in keeping with our principles of minimal data collection and respect for the privacy of our community members

Individuals charged with enforcing the UCoC are not required to use this tool and may continue to work with whatever tools they deem necessary or most appropriate, provided that they allow cases to be handled or created according to the same principles of ease-of-use, privacy and anonymity, flexibility in processing, and transparent documentation.

Recommendations for local enforcement structures

Where possible we encourage existing enforcement structures to take up the responsibility of receiving and dealing with UCoC violations, in accordance with the guidelines stated above. In order to make sure that enforcement of the UCoC remains consistent across the movement, we recommend the following principles are applied when handling UCoC violations on the scale of an individual project.

Training and support

• Resources for translation provided by the Wikimedia Foundation when reports are provided in languages that designated individuals are unfamiliar with, especially where machine translation is inadequate or problematic;
• A training process for functionaries and staff to learn how to apply due processes and understand the UCoC in practice

Fairness in process

• Supportive conflict-of-interest policies that help admins or others determine when to abstain or disengage from a report when they are closely involved in the dispute
• In keeping with existing Wikimedia arbitration processes, anyone named in a dispute should recuse themselves from the case;

We recommend that the Foundation work to create a system where contributors can safely express whether they feel safe in a particular project or not.

Clear communication between local administrators

• Spaces, guidelines, and encouragement for admins to work together with other admins to support review and decision making, especially when an issue is complex (e.g. ones that involve many people, or involve reviewing long page histories)

Transparency of process

• Existing communities and/or the Wikimedia Foundation should provide documentation on the severity of different, common kinds of harassment that can be used to map onto different outcomes. This would aid in supporting administrators or other enforcement bodies to use these recommendations to self-determine appropriate severity

For Wikimedia-specific conversations occurring off-project in unofficial or semi-official spaces (e.g. Discord, Telegram, etc.), Wikimedia’s Terms of Use may not apply. They are covered by that specific social media or discussion platform's Terms of Use and conduct policies. Nevertheless, the behavior of Wikimedians on these networks and platforms can be accepted as additional evidence in reports of UCoC violations. We suggest that off-project spaces create guidelines that discourage exporting on-wiki conflicts to 3rd-party platforms.

Recommendations for how to process appeals

Individuals who have been found to have violated the UCoC should have the possibility of appeal. Appeals may be brought against either the decision of whether or not a UCoC violation occurred, the way in which investigations were conducted, or against the sanctions placed on individuals as a consequence of their violation(s) of the UCoC. Appeals should be handled by a third-party that was not involved in the initial process of enforcement, and determination of that third-party should be based on the following factors:

• The severity of the initial breach of the UCoC;
• Any prior history of UCoC violations on the part of the individuals involved;
• The severity of sanctions against the person engaging in a UCoC violation;
• The impact and harm caused by the UCoC violation to specific individuals, classes of editors, and to the project as a whole

Local enforcement bodies may elect to consider additional factors, or their importance, when choosing whether or not to take or allow an appeal. The specific logistical details of the appeals process for each project is left up to their own determination. In the case that the third-party reviewing the appeal does not speak the language in which the original violation was handled, they should receive translation support from local enforcement bodies.

Looking Forward

Please keep in mind that the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines outlined in this document are iterative, and will continuously be evaluated and evolve with community feedback, along with the Universal Code of Conduct. The committee has also provided questions for the community to think about in regards to this draft.

Experimentation with the reporting tools upon development and "U4C Committee" will occur during a transition period of 1 year. After the year concludes, fine-tuning can be done using observations to adjust the reporting tools and define more precisely the tasks of the enforcement Committee.

Open questions for the Community

• Escalation: Where do the complaints go, what instance/body/judge is supposed to process them.
• Regulations for appeal (after the previous question "Where do the complaints go" has been answered).
  • Should the U4C committee also decide individual cases or process appeals?
  • When should someone be able to initiate an appeal for a UCoC violation?
  • What kinds of behavior or evidence would we want to see before granting an appeal?
  • Who should handle the appeals process?
  • How often should someone be allowed to appeal a UCoC violation decision?
• To what extent should individual Wikimedia projects be allowed to decide how they enforce the UCoC?
• How will people be chosen for the U4C committee?
  • Our current recommended list of users include, but are not limited to: CheckUsers, oversighters, bureaucrats, administrators of local projects, arbitration committee members, Wikimedia Foundation employees, Affiliates, etc.
  • Should an interim committee be formed while the "U4C" committee is being created?
• Should global conduct committees, such as the Technical Code of Conduct committee, be merged into the proposed U4C?