Universal CoC

[Vigilant]

You'll probably like it after the rectal tearing is completed

Bend over and think of England!

[Randy from Boise]

Ya lost me there, man.

In general, establishment of an appeals mechanism for something for which there was previously no appeal is a good thing, is it not?

t

[Vigilant]

Ya lost me there, man.

In general, establishment of an appeals mechanism for something for which there was previously no appeal is a good thing, is it not?

t

In theory, this would seem to be a good thing.
In practice, this will be like admin wannabees doing the admin dirty work they don't want to do with their own hands.

Trust and Safety is building an army.
Begun, the drone wars have.

[Beeblebrox]

It a weird idea. I think they are trying to recover from the Fram incident, but as he pointed out, what is the point of an appeal when you won't disclose what the evidence is? How can you appeal that? They should just stick to the stuff we asked them to do like banning the worst of the worst trolls and pedos, who don't need or deserve an appeal process.

[Midsize Jake]

In practice, this will be like admin wannabees doing the admin dirty work they don't want to do with their own hands.

Trust and Safety is building an army.

To be clear, it looks like the T&S folks have assembled a group of ten anonymous users chosen by stewards, for which the only definitive prerequisite is English fluency — and they're giving them the task of reviewing e-mails in which users banned by the WMF can appeal their bans.

The Case Review Committee consists of 10 experienced volunteers from the Wikimedia community. Applicants for the interim committee were processed and reviewed by a small subset of stewards. For their safety, committee members are anonymous, though their real identities have been disclosed to the Foundation's legal counsel.

I guess if we're trying to be charitable, we should probably wait on whether or not this group actually overturns a WMF ban before we refer to them as an "army of quislings." But that could take months, and of course there has to be a test case (and the regulars here are already aware of who that test case would most likely be). Apparently there will be monthly reports, but who knows what those are going to consist of...

So, will anyone even take them up on this at all? And if not, then is it really an army of quislings, as opposed to just a bunch of people doing nothing whatsoever?

Let's face it, there are really only three, maybe four, cases that have any real chance of being overturned by Wikipedians, plus another (I'm guessing) three or so that might have had a chance if this committee consisted of non-Wikipedian unbiased third parties. And even then, they'd insist on quite a lot of groveling and self-reproach before they actually did it, just like regular admins and arbs would. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they get zero appeals.

Anyway, the thread title is obviously a bit, ehh, inflammatory. I assume the point there is that they'll present the committee as a fait accompli next year when the Universal Code of Conduct is imposed, basically quashing other, potentially-better proposals by virtue of the fact that this thing already exists...?

[Poetlister]

It a weird idea. I think they are trying to recover from the Fram incident, but as he pointed out, what is the point of an appeal when you won't disclose what the evidence is? How can you appeal that? They should just stick to the stuff we asked them to do like banning the worst of the worst trolls and pedos, who don't need or deserve an appeal process.

The appeal committee would have to be given all the evidence, with the clear understanding that nothing is disclosed to the appellant. Even that is of course unsatisfactory. You can't refute or challenge somethig you haven't seen.

[el84]

I followed the link above, and read the discussion pages that User:GZWDer linked to (as they were asking a lot of questions):

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... d=20484062

Never realised that Alex Shih had received a permanent ban from advanced rights through NDA disclosure, and that Bbb23 had his access revoked here as well on recommendation of the Ombuds.

[Vigilant]

That explains bbb's pouting.

[Poetlister]

I followed the link above, and read the discussion pages that User:GZWDer linked to (as they were asking a lot of questions):

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... d=20484062

Never realised that Alex Shih had received a permanent ban from advanced rights through NDA disclosure, and that Bbb23 had his access revoked here as well on recommendation of the Ombuds.

What's the scope of the Ombuds? Does it only cover ENWP? Even if it does, obviously it would be bad if people on Meta ignored its decisions and did not consider whether to agree.

[el84]

Ombuds are cross-wiki:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombuds_commission

[Pudeo]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... d=20484062

Never realised that Alex Shih had received a permanent ban from advanced rights through NDA disclosure, and that Bbb23 had his access revoked here as well on recommendation of the Ombuds.

Interesting. Here WMFOffice also clarified that the wording in Bbb23's CU/OS ban means "without end and non-appealable". I was thinking he could return with maybe the next ArbCom. I guess not.

[Vigilant]

Which means that the allegations posted here about him were almost certainly true.

You're welcome, again, WMF

[Beeblebrox]

I was wondering when you guys would finally notice that.

They take so long to do anything, it's my understanding they actually started looking into it before we even did.

[Vigilant]

I was wondering when you guys would finally notice that.

They take so long to do anything, it's my understanding they actually started looking into it before we even did.

Since they only bat about .500, it makes the situation all the more comical and tragic.

[Poetlister]

I was wondering when you guys would finally notice that.

They take so long to do anything, it's my understanding they actually started looking into it before we even did.

WP:SOFIXIT (T-H-L). You're fully entitled to draw these things to our attention.

That is of course the Wikipedians' answer to anyone who dares to point out errors on Wikipedia.

[Zoloft]

I was wondering when you guys would finally notice that.

They take so long to do anything, it's my understanding they actually started looking into it before we even did.

WP:SOFIXIT (T-H-L). You're fully entitled to draw these things to our attention.

That is of course the Wikipedians' answer to anyone who dares to point out errors on Wikipedia.

[el84]

I'm more shocked that the Ombuds actually did something.

[Vigilant]

A chance to talk to the Stasi

Some limitations...

I can't and won't discuss specific Trust & Safety cases. Instead, I can
discuss Trust & Safety protocols and practices and approaches.


I can talk civilly about our work even if you disagree with me or I
disagree with you. I will not respond to comments or questions that are
disrespectful to me, to my colleagues, or to anyone in our communities. I
won't compromise on this.

My favorite part

I am the Vice President of Community Resilience & Sustainability

That sounds like a title that someone with zero actual ability would give themselves.

[Moral Hazard]

The WMF needs some more jobs entitled "Evangelists".

[Vigilant]

The WMF needs some more jobs entitled "Evangelists".

Reminiscent of that wildly overrated douchecanoe, Guy Kawasaki.

[Moral Hazard]

I guess he has what in Silicon Valley passes for "executive hair".

[Vigilant]

I met him once at a friend's house.

He was insufferably smug, intellectually banal and conversationally shallow.

If you weren't immediately in awe of his positions and ready to become a roadie, he lost interest.

Shades of Jimmy Wales, as I was told by a former boss, though I've never had that particularly dubious pleasure.

[Vigilant]

I had to laugh at Tits&Shits' page on anti-harassment

They have four priorities:

* Hash checking - "It would check images against a database of hashed, known images of child sexual abuse to allow Foundation staff to remove them and report their existence to law enforcement."

Why it's dumb: Changing even a single bit on an image yields a completely different hash and makes the tool useless. Crop an image, resize an image, run a filter, add a border, slightly change a color element and the hash is worthless. As soon as it's deployed, assuming without reason that the WeMakeFailures team can code something this trivial without error, every shorteyes uploader will just minimally crop their nasty images to avoid detection by this tool.

* SecurePoll - You mean the one they broke right before the ARBCOM elections by changing a crypto flag without doing obvious regression testing? That SecurePoll?

* Universal Code of Conduct - The subject of this thread. Mushy puddin'heads trying to create a groupthink utopia.

* Online anti-harassment training for administrators and functionaries - I'd be interested in hearing from some of our 'advanced permissioned users' on how this has gone. I have strong suspicions that, if it exists at all, that it's as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

[rhindle]

My favorite part

I am the Vice President of Community Resilience & Sustainability

That sounds like a title that someone with zero actual ability would give themselves.

Totally agree but "Community Resilience" is kind of a thing now. It's grown due to the pandemic and also for things like Earthquake preparedness, something Dr. Lucy Jones (SoCal's "Earthquake lady") consults on. However, it really doesn't make any sense for the WMF to have a position like this. They just need to hire an expert consultant to tell them what to do and that would be enough. But I guess some people need their meal ticket.

[Capeo]

A chance to talk to the Stasi

Some limitations...

I can't and won't discuss specific Trust & Safety cases. Instead, I can discuss Trust & Safety protocols and practices and approaches.

I can talk civilly about our work even if you disagree with me or I disagree with you. I will not respond to comments or questions that are disrespectful to me, to my colleagues, or to anyone in our communities. I won't compromise on this.

So she won’t be answering any meaningful questions at all then.

[Zoloft]

So she won’t be answering any meaningful questions at all then.

Easy enough. Run your questions and responses through the Victorian Gentlefolk Translator:

Egads, my dear Doctor, your words wound me! Please do not so besmirch my character that we cannot have a civil discourse! We are not brutish animals, we are civilized, thinking people!

Of the question hereof, do you truly believe the Foundation has the sagacity and sapience - regardless of its supposed competence - to be the fount of knowledge on this issue? Gad, I think not!

[MrErnie]

The only question you need to ask to understand if this thing will actually have any purpose is - what would they done had Fram appealed?

[Giraffe Stapler]

* Hash checking - "It would check images against a database of hashed, known images of child sexual abuse to allow Foundation staff to remove them and report their existence to law enforcement."

Why it's dumb: Changing even a single bit on an image yields a completely different hash and makes the tool useless. Crop an image, resize an image, run a filter, add a border, slightly change a color element and the hash is worthless. As soon as it's deployed, assuming without reason that the WeMakeFailures team can code something this trivial without error, every shorteyes uploader will just minimally crop their nasty images to avoid detection by this tool.

I doubt that it is expected to actually catch anything. It would be easy to set up and then the WMF can tell people about the efforts they make to prevent people uploading child porn and "terrorism related content". I would be more concerned that it will be used to blacklist other images like a certain portrait of Jimbo.

[Beeblebrox]

* Online anti-harassment training for administrators and functionaries - I'd be interested in hearing from some of our 'advanced permissioned users' on how this has gone. I have strong suspicions that, if it exists at all, that it's as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

I am not aware of any such training. There's been some surveys, which they do every year but this years' seemed really focused on harassment, so that might be step one?

[No Ledge]

* Hash checking - "It would check images against a database of hashed, known images of child sexual abuse to allow Foundation staff to remove them and report their existence to law enforcement."

I doubt that it is expected to actually catch anything.

This check won't catch any smart people, but it might snare some dumb people who pass bad images around.

[Poetlister]

There must be ways of doing it. There are many sites that can search for photos similar to one you upload or link to, such as Google images and Tineye, and they can find slightly modified versions.

[Vigilant]

Absolutely there are.

Could the WMF engineering team find and/or build any of them?

[Giraffe Stapler]

There must be ways of doing it. There are many sites that can search for photos similar to one you upload or link to, such as Google images and Tineye, and they can find slightly modified versions.

You have to remember that the WMF doesn't have access to the child porn images (nor should they). They will have a database of hashes of those images. They take each newly uploaded image, calculate its hash, and check it against the database. There is no way to determine "similar" in this scheme.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Absolutely there are.

Could the WMF engineering team find and/or build any of them?

Absolutely there are not. Let's fight about it.

[Vigilant]

Absolutely there are.

Could the WMF engineering team find and/or build any of them?

Absolutely there are not. Let's fight about it.

Two parts, no fighting.

If all they have access to is the database interface, then you're correct and this was the point I was making in my post that PL responded to.
Any minor change to the picture being checked means a miss.

I suspect that PL was asking a broader question in his response and was answering that one.
Something along the lines of 'Could something like tineye be built for these images'.
Very possible, not within the technical reach of the WMF engineering team.

[Zoloft]

The WMF could partner with a more competent organization that has already developed a machine learning system, using the Commons image repository as an asset and also as a problem to be solved. I doubt they have the imagination and the bargaining savvy for this solution, however.

[Osborne]

There must be ways of doing it. There are many sites that can search for photos similar to one you upload or link to, such as Google images and Tineye, and they can find slightly modified versions.

Yes, there is: sing up for TinEye and use their API to search for similar photos
The problem would be the tagging of images as NSFW: eg. any image that's available on a porn site (which would include some false positives like logos).

The proposed AI solution is however to train a neural network with a set of NSFW and non-NSFW images, that would recognize patterns in images, thus requiring no image similarity search.

[Vigilant]

I've found tineye to be pretty disappointing in general.

I suspect there are much better algorithms and implementations but that they are viewed as NatSec assets.

[Osborne]

[...] using the Commons image repository as an asset and also as a problem to be solved.

The tedious part is to create two training sets: one positive and one negative for being "NSFW". Maybe there is such database commercially available, but if not, presumably Fae would be a knowledgable advisor for creating one.

Or one could take images from porn sites for one set, possibly with few false positives. I'm not sure where to look for strictly non-NSFW images.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I assume we're talking about the NSFW screening again and not the child porn filters. There are multiple commercial APIs that already do this quite well. There are also open source ones including the one used by Yahoo, but that one fairly dated now. It's a far more nuanced problem than your description suggests.

[Jim]

I've found tineye to be pretty disappointing in general.

Yeah, it's generally pretty poor. Google image search beats it on most occasions.

I suspect there are much better algorithms and implementations but that they are viewed as NatSec assets.

Doubtless...

[Vigilant]

Here it comes, folks. Grab your ankles.

This is a cynical attempt to use gay people as a means to implement youCOCK, even in the face of mass opposition.
This is also directly tied to the machinations of the board around Bylaw changes and the 'suspension' of board elections.


The post

The premise

It is apparent that many volunteers openly identifying as LGBTQIA+ are targeted and attacked for their identities, with transgender, non-binary, queer, and queer feminist editors in particular at higher risk for such abuse.

I'd love to see the data that supports this apparent conclusion.
Which studies were run?
How was the survey constructed to prevent confirmation bias?

An interesting question to ask would be, "How much more abuse does a gay wikipediot take than a straight one?"
The methodology alone on this question should prove illuminating.

The Wikimedia movement is based on the value of inclusivity, that anyone may play a part in not only receiving but curating and sharing knowledge.

lol

You're a social media site with ingrained cliques who gleefully victimize each other in a relentless and unending cosplay of Dante's Inferno in fursuits.

We as a movement have been called upon by a broad and diverse group of our own movement members to promote inclusivity and reduce harms to our participants.

In light of this, one of my teams has been directed by the Board of Trustees to (among other requests) facilitate the drafting of the Universal Code of Conduct called for in the Movement Strategy recommendations.[5] This collaboratively drafted document underwent significant community review in September and October and is currently under review by the Board. We will next be launching a second phase of that work in January, meant to result in enforcement pathways that will make our projects safe spaces for all volunteers.

No, YouCOCK got righteously ripped by nearly everyone and you're desperately trying to pretend that it didn't get panned so you guys can proceed with this Flow level organizational disaster.


The underlying post continues on for a while with more pointless posturing and virtue signaling...




Edit:
P.S. Maggie Dennis' post includes a link that doesn't work. Here's the link that does.

Every single thing the WMF does seems to be riddled with failure.

[Vigilant]

But what about the pedos?!

Phil Nash phnash at blueyonder.co.uk
Wed Dec 9 00:06:39 UTC 2020
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Great news. Vulnerable contributors to Wikimedia projects should be owed a duty
of care, not least because they make good, well-informed contributions, but
also that those projects should not become the preserve of a socially and
politically advantaged elite.

However, what he have here is only much less than half of the story. Those who
are falsely accused of unacceptable, maybe criminal behaviour, when there is a
significant lack of evidence to support that, have little or no comeback. Minds
seem to be irretrievably poisoned against you.

I make no secret of the fact that I am User:Rodhullandemu on multiple Wikimedia
projects. I was blocked or banned
(it's not been made clear) on en:WP in 2011 on the basis of some fake Usenet posts that Roger Davies found, and for some reason gave credence to, despite the policy [[:en:WP:Usenet]]. There is no pretending that this is not the case, given

---
New Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail replacement - get it here:
https://www.oeclassic.com/

the entry in my block log on en:WP. As an experienced user on Wikipedia, I know exactly what "Refer all enquiries to Arbitration Committee" means. It's
a code which everybody understands, and as it stands, is a defamatory libel as
an innuendo.

I have asked Roger to copy those Usenet posts to me, compete with headers. I
have no doubt that he will be unable, or will refuse, to do so.

Meanwhile, I cannot trust ArbCom to understand their role in relation to due
processs and the rules of natural justice, given the recent input into my
desysop on Commons from two sitting arbs, one of whom was such in 2011, and one
of their clerks. So I
can't ask them to unblock me. They are irretrievably poisoned.

Meanwhile, WMF T&S refused to do anything to intervene when someone misguidedly complained about me to them. Shameful, as I said at the time. I deserve at least as much as those who are against me. Jimbo Wales's
decision on my appeal against my block missed the point completely. He
suggested that I shoud prove myself sane. That's both impossible and ridiculous, and mentioned in my RFA on Commons.

Time, perhaps, for the WMF to get its act together and say to people "That was the wrong thing to do, and we have no hesitation in correcting it". Fortunately I am no longer alone; I have people interested in exposing the arbitrariness of arbitration.

Phil Nash/Rodhullandemu

[Vigilant]

If you bear down, wikipediots, while they push their fist against your sphincter.... you might just be able to fool yourself into believing they love you and this in consensual.

The goal of having a 'diverse' board seems to vastly outweigh having one that is competent and fit for purpose.

It looks to me like the Bylaws changes will just be rammed through and 'teh communitah' will just have to lay back and think of England.

[No Ledge]

Where we are is online, on the English Wikipedia. Which is, usually, where you are not.

You may want to meet me on Twitter or Facebook but I'm in neither of those places. I'm editing Wikipedia.

Nor am I on the email lists. I read them occasionally but I can't recall ever sending an email to one of the Wikimedia lists.

Deep, meaningful consultation is not a substitute for deep, meaningful consultation. Carry on with your deep, meaningful consultations.

[Randy from Boise]

Mods, can we change the name of this thread?

I'm unclear on what it supposed to be about, what is being parodied, and why dickwobbling is appropriate here.

t

[No Ledge]

Mods, can we change the name of this thread?

I'm unclear on what it supposed to be about, what is being parodied, and why dickwobbling is appropriate here.

t

+1 on Randy's request to bring more civility to the title of this thread.

[Vigilant]

Go ahead and change the title for the limpdicks here

The only caveat is that the word 'youCoCk' must survive.

It is a legacy tribute to the Aunt Flow.

[Randy from Boise]

I have no idea what "YouCock" is supposed to be...

t

[Ryuichi]

I have no idea what "YouCock" is supposed to be...

UCoC - "Universal Code of Conduct".