Talk:Friendly space policies

Regardless of what?

Yes, we want to welcome everyone, regardless of (...). But I am a bit surprised about this list of things that we explicitly want to protect against offending behaviour. It is somehow out of balance. "Gender" comes first and is expanded into "gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression" while other things aren't even mentioned although they are a quite frequent reason of misunderstandings: e.g. intelligence, emotional skills, convictions, political views, merit, authority, ...--LucSaffre (talk) 08:10, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Implementation of this

Obviously I cannot speak for the entire Wikimedia community in moving this from being Wikimedia New York City policy to a general Wikimedia community policy, but I think it is a good idea. Others are welcome to give feedback or criticize this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:33, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Victim support services

I just made this proposal, which I feel is related to a friendly space.

• Grants:IdeaLab/Victim support services

Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

"Offensive" needs to be defined

The definition of harassment includes "offensive verbal comments", but the word "offensive" is not further specified, and, we all know, is very subjective. One person's stated opinion on a controversial topic might be some other person's offensive statement. I worry that by leaving this ill-defined, the result will be to stifle honest debate, because some participants will err on the side of caution, and not voice opinions; whereas others might misuse the policy to punish those they disagree with.

Let me throw out two examples -- just meant to be examples -- please don't be offended!

1. "I think people overreacted to Larry Summers, when he suggested that differences in variability of some characteristics between men and women might help to explain the underrepresentation of women in top-tier universities"

2. "Women belong in the kitchen"

And of course, there is a continuous spectrum of statements with degrees of "offensiveness" between those two. Where is the line drawn? Does it depend on context? If so, how?

I'd suggest that "offensive" be defined simultaneously with defining "safe" as used in the phrase "safe mental space", which appear in the Event Ban policy. Klortho (talk) 16:36, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I opened a topic on Code of Conduct/Draft. Klortho (talk) 23:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

comment: moving language indicator out of link

In ja, I put out language identifier out of the parentheses as; [https://wiki.wikimedia.cat/wiki/Protocol_contra_agressions_i_assetjament|''攻撃と嫌がらせ行為禁止の方針''] {{ca}} ----Omotecho (talk) 19:01, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Adding wording around virtual events

Hello! I have just added some wording in the introduction to the policy that includes virtual events. Many events are moving into remote / virtual spaces as the world reacts to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It seems important that as Wikimedia communities begin to run more online events that our safe space policies adapt as well.

Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Adding wording to the Wikimedia Foundation FSP around virtual events

In order to adapt to current events and make the Wikimedia Foundation Friendly Space Policy inclusive of virtual events, we are proposing to add the new wording found at the end of this post to the policy.

These are the proposed changes:

First sentence now: The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to providing a harassment-free venue and conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, physical appearance, age, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, national origin, or religion—and not limited to these aspects.

First sentence proposed change: The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone at all venues and events - such as conferences, virtual events, and related social events - that this policy applies to. regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, physical appearance, age, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, national origin, or religion—and not limited to these aspects.

Last sentence now: We expect participants to follow these rules at Wikimedia Foundation venues, all conference venues, and conference-related social events.

Last sentence proposed change: We expect participants to follow these rules at Wikimedia Foundation venues and events - such as conferences, virtual events, and related social events - that this policy applies to.

All suggestions that help to incorporate virtual conferences and events into the policy on the Foundation wiki welcome and we can discuss them here. We are planning to make the change by 15 July, 2020 but are happy to adapt it as additional suggestions make sense.

This effort is done on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Conference Grants program and reviewed by WMF Legal and WMF Trust and Safety representatives. An email about this proposed change was sent to Wikimedia-l on 30 June, 2020 Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Good proposal. One remark: why don't you adhere to the same order? In the proposal (last sentence), the conference event and the social event are separated.

And, as we are changing, why not add the conference social events in the first sentence? RonnieV (talk) 17:47, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this, Rfarrand (WMF) - the sentiment is definitely good! The specific change to the first sentence feels a bit grammatically clunky, might it work better like this?

The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone at all conferences, venues and virtual events...

Just a suggestion Naypta (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Update note. I have just made a change to the proposal incorporating suggestions from RonnieV & Naypta. Thanks a lot to both of you for the clarifying suggestions. :) Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Very happy to support this change Naypta (talk) 18:36, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Rfarrand (WMF),

I'm generally embracing the direction of the change. However, what I'm a little concerned about is that the boundaries of where this policy applies. While 'venues' was already a bit vague in the previous version (I'm assuming it only refers to venues of these events, or venues owned/run by Wikimedia organizations), the term 'virtual events' is tricky. Is there an opportunity to find more precise language? What I'm understanding, is that it is somehow restricted in time (no ongoing activities) and space (we can clearly see where the event begins and ends), that there is some kind of convener (who agrees to enforce this policy). For offline events these things are much more intuitive than in the online case. For example, a list of some grey area activities which I wouldn't be sure if they would be covered: The Facebook Group related to a specific event (online or offline), an IRC channel, an on-wiki editing marathon (coordinated on talkpages: which policy applies?), a WMF office hour, a volunteer-run office hour without specific affiliation, a thread on a mailing list.

Alternatively, you could also go in the other direction, and replace "conferences, venues, virtual events and conference related social events" simply with "events" and make clear in another way that this only relates to activities where this policy has been invoked.

Note that the section about 'contact information' now makes no longer sense. You may want to add explicit suggestions for online events.

Best, Effeietsanders (talk) 19:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Effeietsanders as well. It's tricky but I would like to see more inclusive language especially with the CoC on the horizon. How about "events and their related spaces"? That might cover online and in-person events. Best, Jackiekoerner (talk) 00:12, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Good point Effeietsanders & I think that Jackiekoerner's suggestion makes sense. I will have to double check on that one because this specific change is meant to be very specifically about virtual events and not as much about changing other parts (I guess that could become a slippery slope) but as long as the folks in Legal and Trust and Safety are OK with with as well I will make the change from "conferences, venues, virtual events and conference related social events" to "conferences and their related spaces, virtual events and conference related social events" Does that sound like it would address this to both of you? Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

One other thought. Would "virtual conferences" instead of "virtual events" maybe be better? Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The first suggestion wouldn't change much to me. Virtual conferences is definitely more specific - but I'm not sure if that isn't too specific for your purposes. If you decide to make it handwaivy, it's probably better to take it all the way to 'events that this policy applies to'. It would still require a change in the 'contact' section though - a local phone number to the police doesn't make a whole lot of sense for virtual conferences. Effeietsanders (talk) 17:38, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

OK! Thanks so much to Effeietsanders for the quick side chat. I have update the proposal with some new wording that I think incorporates these concerns. Happy to hear any additional suggestions. Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Rfarrand (WMF), this seems a good step, though I am wondering about its timing given the Universal Code of Conduct process is about to begin and it seems there may be some overlap with this? --- FULBERT (talk) 01:23, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello! I hope not! This is very much limited to expanding the in-person event policy to cover any virtual events that the WMF may organize. Wording around virtual events has already been added to the meta FSP policy which general Wikimedia community events can use or adapt as they choose. Maybe the CoC efforts will result in even more changes to both policies or maybe they wont, but from the WMF Events perspective we are just trying to allow for current events that are happening remotely to have some coverage within this existing policy instead of leaving any upcoming online events without any kind of Friendly Space Policy explicitly including virtual events. If you have suggestions on how to improve the wording to clarify that please suggest :) Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion concluded: As we have reached the end of our timeline and there are no further unresolved comments I have just made the change to the foundation policy. I want the thank everyone who participated very much for your input and contributions. We have a much better end result because of this. The change can be seen here - https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friendly_space_policy&type=revision&diff=123465&oldid=116288 Rfarrand (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 16 July 2020 (UTC)