Universal Code of Conduct/Annual review/Charter review 2025

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This page is dedicated to collect and discuss potential changes to the Charter of the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). Everyone is invited to comment or make suggestions on the review subpages.

Proposed changes

Instructions: Please propose any changes as simply as possible and with your signature. You may propose and comment in any language. Longer thoughts or explanations can be included as a reply.

Reduce seats to 10-12 - Ajraddatz from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

* Oppose: Such reduction will hurt the diversity of the committee. The WMF should be given the option to fill the empty seats at its own discretion if needed. Such appointment can be capped at, e.g., 4 seats, but it is definitely better than leaving them empty. TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 20:19, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Eliminate the homewiki rule - Ajraddatz from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Eliminate the regions and replace with 3 or 4 seats (on 12 member committee) for underrepresented communities/regions - Ajraddatz from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Allow the U4C to appoint 3 or 4 seats to promote diversity/underrepresented communities/regions/groups after elections results - Ajraddatz from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot recall if the U4C charter allows for appointment of members; if it doesn't now, then it should be updated to do so. Several of the candidates from currently unrepresented regions are perfectly well qualified to serve on this committee; they just didn't have enough name recognition to make it through the voting. Risker Copied from this comment by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have rarely seen good results from appointments to movement bodies, but I understand the point. I would therefore suggest that appointments should be limited to appointing the candidates with the highest election results for the respective seats. Denis Barthel (talk) 10:10, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"the U4C may leave the seat empty and temporarily fill it during the next election, or the U4C may call a special election." Currently the charter only allows for either calling a Special Election or holding an entirely new election and filling vacancies during the election process. Sleyece Copied from this comment by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, we're not going to piecemeal my proposal from last years election. I was derided and criticized so heavily for the entire thing. If you want it to fix the U4C charter, then the community has to take the whole thing or none of it. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:31, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Charter allows members to be appointed if, and only if, vacancies result from "resignation or removal". It would be possible for the U4C to call a special election and fill the regional seats using a plurality, rather than majority, vote. Obviously, that method has its own problems, and the U4C will have to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons. Adrianmn1110 Copied from this comment by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This feels like it's open to interpretation as to what "promote diversity/underrepresented communities/regions/groups", which I don't like. Leaderboard (talk) 06:30, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Only the WMF should be given the option to fill seats. The U4C election has its own biases (in good or bad ways) and allowing the committee to fill vacancies will amplify those biases. We need diverse channels to recruit committee members in the hope that that different forms of biases will end up in reduced cumulative bias. TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Allow for the charter to be more easily amended - (Ajraddatz from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Lower support threshold to 50% - Ghilt from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think 60% is good and changes to it just to fill seats might result in unsuitable candidates being elected. - BRPever Copied from this comment by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Change the quorum - Ghilt from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Prequalfication before appearing on the candidate list - Yger from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Limit to 24 candidates - 1233 from the Elections page. Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Remove all mentions of the U4CBC from the charter. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Define a fool-proof method to determine the home wiki of a candidate. From U4C discussion. Posted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are candidates allowed to change their home wiki in order to escape the two candidate per home wiki limit? Excerpt of comment by Johannnes89 Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know there isn't a precise definition of "home wiki" (perhaps we should think about establishing criteria), I think we should consider the wiki where a user has more userrights and/or more edits so personally I do not think that changing homewiki to circumvent this limit should be allowed. Imho (but I know this is probably too stringent) I would also not allow Meta as home wiki being a coordination project and not a content or technical project. reply by Civvì Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are certainly people for whom meta truly is their home wiki. I would say Meta was MarcoAurelio's home wiki back when they were active, for example. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 05:37, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Define a fool-proof method to determine the region of a candidate From U4C discussion. Posted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ineligibility criteria: incomplete form, wrong region or wrong home wiki From U4C discussion. Posted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Remove the role of the elections committee from the process (U4C self-manages like stewards). From U4C discussion. Posted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Candidates with lower % should not pip candidates with higher. Ideally that should have been the order of seating (not "regional seats first"). Excerpt of comment by Soni Procedurally noted by Barkeep49 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Examine the recusal wording. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's great that a recused member can fully participate, just not vote. I think we likely need two kinds of recusal: voting recusal (when a project/affiliate the u4c member belongs to is being discussed, but the u4c member is not involved) & full recusal (when a u4c member is involved in the problem and should not be participating in any part of the discussion or result. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Change the home wiki rule so that it applies only to the community-at-large members of the U4C. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think getting rid of the rule completely is a good idea. Since the U4C's job is to investigate systemic issues, having too many members from the same wiki could lead to conflicts of interest.

On the other hand, half the U4C is already limited by region, so applying the home wiki rule to those people would make things overly complicated. Adrianmn1110 (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Loosen the homewiki rule to allow for a maximum of 3 users from the same wiki, but do not eliminate it entirely – it's natural for a committee like this for voters to favour users from larger wikis, and we don't need the entire team to only come from a set few wikis. --SHB (t • c) 09:13, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ensure that voting is public, similar to SEs – that way we get a better view of why some candidates failed and also prevents troll oppose votes (i.e. opposing just for the sake of opposing, which is not unheard of when the polls are anonymised). --SHB (t • c) 09:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can fix your current crisis with the following: "The U4C has no real powers except on questions of Charter and the decision is final on any project on which they determine a systemic failure to have occurred." -- Sleyece (talk) 13:34, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Quoted from here as follows: "Allow me to describe how I think this will have to work. I think the systemic failures must be addressed at the source, with the source when applicable. Look at my en talk page. It's clear that the Admin Katie was acting in good faith, but I still feel it's obvious that the block was a systemic failure. The charter states that the foundation must give global rights to the U4C to carry out its work and will appoint up to two foundation reps to be nonvoting members. I think how this will have to work is that the foundation should give Global Rollback permissions to all members except one elected member chosen by the foundation. That member should get global founder rights for opinions that check institutional power and be referred to as the Founder for their office. The Founder will choose a Second to take over their rights when they leave office by disqualification or term expiration. Votes should go as follows. The 14 rollbackers (excluding the Second and nonvoting rollbacker who also have those rights) vote on an issue, and, in the case of the tie, a subcommittee of four (Founder, Second, and two Foundation Nonvoters) meet separately and the Founder and Second must be resoundingly advised until they agree on a solution. If they can't agree, the vote is de facto a non systemic failure. If the 14 rollbackers vote that the Founder and Second have a common conflict of interest, then the tie will be broken by Jimmy Wales alone. The punishment for using global rights by committee members not in the course of carrying out U4C voted on opinions should be a non appealable global range ban from all foundation projects. They should be treated as sockpuppets for the remainder of their natural life. Emeritus members should get whatever rights Stewards get only on their home wiki for life (pending good behavior) and have their Global Rights revoked + be disqualified for life from any other committee except to run for election again to the U4C or a home committee or as otherwise allowed by the Charter. I think one nonvoting member should be Jimmy Wales for life or until incapacity, and if I was (as an example) elected and chosen as the first Founder, the Foundation would need to choose Admin Katie (if she's willing to accept), to be the first of the second nonvoters because she is connected to my source. From what I've seen, and since the Foundation is considering the parameters of U4C powers, I would Pre-Nominate Ruby D-Brown as the Second provided she is elected because of the cultural juxtaposition she would offer the subcommittee against mine. If she gets along with Katie, Jimmy Wales could approve that to be as good as source when I leave and Ruby became Founder so they could continue good work. I think being elected to any public office outside Wikimedia Foundation should be an immediate disqualification from office on the U4C, and members should be range checked daily and removed from the U4C as soon as they fail one range check. (ex. the range is any known political office's sphere of influence of more than three other Wikimedians.) So, the member is booted from office by procedural bots if they are a U.S. Representative the first range check after they are sworn into office, but if they're the mayor of a town with only three Wikimedians registered in some Montana wilderness, they pass the check. No one should be allowed to run for the U4C until the day they pass the next range check. I also think the U4C will need an official in person meeting place to debate and vote on the most sensitive matters placed in their care, and that location should be controlled in Right and in Deed by the foundation. In my example system, Katie would need global rollback rights to use at her sole discretion with or without an opinion of the U4C, but to be used at her general discretion to support the U4C or comply with co-equal committee orders that check the U4C and Jimmy Wales would need global Founder Rights to do the same in that same capacity. Upon death, abdication of duty or incapacity of Jimmy Wales the foundation would need to select a new nonvoting member to receive a lifetime position on the U4C and receive Global Founder rights with the exclusion of Katie (just per my example), any current member of the committee and any emeritus member of the committee." All of it has to be accepted into the U4C or none of it, since I was correct the first time I was yelled at. -- Sleyece (talk) 13:34, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Remove or clarify: "It is a co-equal body to other high-level decision-making bodies such as NDA-Arbitration Committees and Stewards." (How can they be co-equal if the U4C can take cases about severe systemic issues about projects with an arbitration board?) TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 01:50, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because systemic issues from high-level decision making bodies will hopefully be incredibly unusual and rare? So there is a check against them but in day to day operation the U4C should act like a peer and not a superior/appellate/higher group. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:09, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Barkeep49, that is true currently. For the future, I am concerned that some projects, under heavy admin influence, may start forming disfunctional ArbComs just to get out of the U4C jurisdiction. TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If an ArbCom is dysfunctional that would be a kind of systemic failure. But I want to assume good faith that any new arbcoms that will be formed will be effective (or at least more effective than the U4C trying to do it from the outside). And the U4C not becoming a sort of global arbcom was very important to the community when drafting the Enforcement Guidelines (and to me personally). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:30, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Change "The U4C may delegate its final decision making authority except in instances of severe systemic issues." to "The U4C may delegate its final decision making authority except in instances of severe or systemic issues." (If an issue is systemic, its damage accumulates over time it is probably severe even if the individual violations are not severe.) TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 01:52, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Severe systemic issues" used to be a phrase used in multiple places throughout the Enforcement Guidelines. It was mostly, but not completely, change there to "systemic" and the language copied from the EG to the charter happened ot use that phrase. I think this should definitely get cleaned up in both documents. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:07, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

I think this may need more emphasis: "Strive to act in a transparent manner, providing explanations for their decisions whenever possible while maintaining appropriate confidentiality." TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 20:35, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References