Universal CoC

[Beeblebrox]

This is like, a really lame thing to admit to, but in my defense a lot of people were not a security-conscious in 2007.
Zaphod was the name of my cat at the time, but that was taken. So was "Beeblebrox" and for the first little while I was actually "Beeblbrox" until I found out about usurping names that were registered but never made an edit.

So yeah, I used my pet's name. And I'm pretty sure that at the time I used the name of my other cat as my password.

[Beeblebrox]

Getting back to the topic at hand, what I have suspected for some time would be the biggest problem with this whole concept, enforcement, is indeed looking very problematic. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Univers ... guidelines If this is passed in its current form, all new or renewed holders of advanced permissions, having been duly elected by their local community, will also have to sign a pledge to uphold the UCoC and to attend mandatory training on how to enforce it. Those of us who already have said permissions are given an open-ended time frame as to when we all have to do mandatory training, but the implication is that eventually every single person with admin rights or better on every single project will have to take the training and swear their fealty the UCoC. I'm fairly pissed off about that, it seems insane and totally out-of-touch, and will certainly cause otherwise qualified people to not even pursue adminship or other advanced permissions. I wouldn't be surprised if the fallout far exceeded what we saw during Framageddon. The really alarming part is that so few seem to even care.

[Mason]

Pledging fealty, sure, I get the objection there.

What’s the concern with training, though?

[Beeblebrox]

Pledging fealty, sure, I get the objection there.

What’s the concern with training, though?

There is literally not a single other thing a volunteer does for the project that has mandatory training. Not one. And it is entirely unspecified who would be developing and administering the training, and where they derive the expertise to do so. It as though at least some subset of the drafting committee decided they absolutely had to indoctrinate every last admin to their way of thinking.

The UCoC was sold to the community as a thing that was mainly aimed at smaller wikis that can get out of control and taken over by factions. It wasn't supposed to be "each and every one of you on every project must swear to uphold this and take our training telling you how to do it, or you will not be allowed to continue having the advanced permissions the local community granted you."

[Vigilant]

I did warn you guys...

Repeatedly...

[No Ledge]

will certainly cause otherwise qualified people to not even pursue adminship or other advanced permissions

Yes, this would really make people think twice before they ask for page-mover or template-editor rights

It's not like we haven't already done more than enough to slow down the torrent of wannabes swarming at RfA

I'm OK with it as long as the training is in a place like London or Bangkok or Stockholm or Cape Town or Las Vegas or Hawaii and they give me a full scholarship to attend and don't lock me in the classroom the whole time I'm there, and don't ever make use of the "block button" mandatory.

[Anroth]

Pledging fealty, sure, I get the objection there.

What’s the concern with training, though?

Because a large part of the UCoC is ideologically-written, training in how to enforce it is problematic because it essentially relies on who develops the training. In this case almost certainly the west coast WMF staff who are not even remotely in touch with how the rest of the world operates.

While it would be possible to develop a training program that enables admins to help recognise the problematic behaviours that have led to the UCoC being required (in some areas), there is absolutely zero chance of the WMF developing a training program in how to *enforce* it.

Dont worry Beebs, theres a village pump discussion coming up (when the WMF goes past the point of no return and I can be bothered to start it) to amend WP:ADMIN to explicitly prohibit ENWP admins from using their tools to enforce the UCoC. And any on-wiki advanced tool use used to enforce UCoC (taken by any account other than one WMF flagged) will result in immediate removal of any advanced permissions. Sidesteps the training thing entirely, doesnt matter if you have to attend mandatory training, or pledge allegience, if ENWP prohibits you from acting on it.

Saying that, there is also a sub-discussion here about finally putting in the separation between WMF employees and ENWP super-users. Previously there was little problem with both being an admin and an employee, however now the WMF has essentially created a professional conflict of interest (as it is professionally used, rather than as ENWP defines it regarding editing) - ENWP admins who are also staff/contractors cannot be trusted not to use their permissions at the behest of the employer.

That is essentially two well defined RFC questions. "If the WMF wants to enforce UCoC it can pay people to do it" and "People who are paid to do it cant be admins".

[Boing! said Zebedee]

What’s the concern with training, though?

Wikipedia is supposed to be voluntary, and admins and other unpaid advanced position holders are all 100% volunteers. That means nobody is obliged to do anything if they don't want to. The real strength of that is that you can choose to do absolutely nothing if you so wish, and that sets it apart from the daily grind of real-life jobs, responsibilites, etc. As soon as an activity is mandated by the WMF, it ceases to be voluntary and becomes an obligation - and I would not accept anyone forcing me to engage in "voluntary" activities. Had I not already had enough of admin and handed in my bit, I would absolutely refuse to attend any mandatory training.

The bottom line to me is that it is becoming increasingly obvious that the UCoC is nothing more than a blatant power grab by the WMF who want direct control over the daily running of the project, while there's close to none of them with the competence to do so (and when I say "close to none", I'm trying to be as kind to them as I can).

[Boing! said Zebedee]

Dont worry Beebs, theres a village pump discussion coming up (when the WMF goes past the point of no return and I can be bothered to start it) to amend WP:ADMIN to explicitly prohibit ENWP admins from using their tools to enforce the UCoC. And any on-wiki advanced tool use used to enforce UCoC (taken by any account other than one WMF flagged) will result in immediate removal of any advanced permissions...

You're deluded if you think you have any chance of getting that passed.

[Anroth]

You're deluded if you think you have any chance of getting that passed.

Oh of course not But the point is to have the discussion.

[Jim]

I don't disagree with your philosophy, Boing - admins are volunteers, and volunteers can't be forced to take actions.

It's perhaps a point of contention that a volunteer could be forced to undertake some kind of mandatory training just to continue in that volunteer role.

Where I'm lost is how they could be penalised for not taking any action based on that training or "fealty".

Can they not still just not "notice" it? Or does the new agreement force them to be on 24/7 patrol, with penalties for missing something? Penalties for inaction would seem to draw in, well, nearly everybody, every time.

I really don't see how that works.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

Where I'm lost is how they could be penalised for not taking any action based on that training or "fealty".

Can they not still just not "notice" it? Or does the new agreement force them to be on 24/7 patrol, with penalties for missing something?

That's a very good question, and I do see it as where the "obligation to uphold the UCoC" mandate seems to fall apart.

[Anroth]

As written the WMF would be able to declare something a violation of the UCoC and demand an en-wiki admin take action. Hence my comment above. If the community says in advance "no admins cannot enforce the UCoC on ENWP" it really doesnt matter what the WMF demands. Its not about preventing action being taken, its about making the WMF do it themselves.

[Vigilant]

You guys are telling me that a WeMakeFailures edict was poorly thought out and has no chance of working?!

Unpossible!

[Smiley]

Why would anyone want to administer a site which puts children in harm's way and ruthlessly exploits their labour?

[Jim]

That's a very good question, and I do see it as where the "obligation to uphold the UCoC" mandate seems to fall apart.

As I see it, it falls apart very easily if everyone says "No, don't be silly, we're not doing that"

It's just the next WMF power grab, and the easy way to counter it is to say "No".

Where it gets worrying is that eventually there will be enough of a userbase with no institutional memory that just says "Oh, ok then".

WMF counts on that, and eventually they'll be right.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

As written the WMF would be able to declare something a violation of the UCoC and demand an en-wiki admin take action. Hence my comment above. If the community says in advance "no admins cannot enforce the UCoC on ENWP" it really doesnt matter what the WMF demands. Its not about preventing action being taken, its about making the WMF do it themselves.

But would they be able to select an individual admin and demand they take action? And if so, what's to stop said admin simply not being online for a while? If, instead, they can realistically only make a general demand at, say, ANI - if that is not actioned, would they then desysop all admins? I really don't think they have thought through how they think they can force admins to act.

As for the "admins cannot enforce the UCoC on ENWP" thing, I don't see how that can work as many ordinary admin actions are already in compliance with the UCoC and would appear to be enforcing it. I think you would be better wording it as something like "admins cannot enforce the UCoC on ENWP in direct response to a WMF demand." But even then, as we both know, it would still have no chance of success.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

You guys are telling me that a WeMakeFailures edict was poorly thought out and has no chance of working?!

Unpossible!

Yeah, the smart folk saw that right from the start. It's the dumb naive ones like me who thought there might be a slim possibility that they'd come up with something complementary to existing practice and actually useful.

[Vigilant]

You idealistic youths...

Has anyone considered just how this UCoCk policy would be weaponized by the likes of Fae or Laura Hale?

[Jim]

As written the WMF would be able to declare something a violation of the UCoC and demand an en-wiki admin take action.

Yeah, but which admin are they going to demand it of?

And if it's just a "some admin must do this" demand, and none does, what next?

I understand what you're saying, and sadly some sad-sack will probably always accede to such demands, but is that the extent of what they intend to rely on?

[Jim]

Has anyone considered just how this UCoCk policy would be weaponized by the likes of Fae or Laura Hale?

Almost certainly, and that was probably not considered a real drawback.

[Vigilant]

As written the WMF would be able to declare something a violation of the UCoC and demand an en-wiki admin take action.

Yeah, but which admin are they going to demand it of?

And if it's just a "some admin must do this" demand, and none does, what next?

I understand what you're saying, and sadly some sad-sack will probably always accede to such demands, but is that the extent of what they intend to rely on?

Here's a chance for that quisling Jehochman to get his tools back.

The WMF is really going all out for some Handmaid's Tale vibe here.

[Emptyeye]

If, instead, they can realistically only make a general demand at, say, ANI - if that is not actioned, would they then desysop all admins?

Precedent from Framageddon says that no, they would not.

A little while back, I wrote that adminship was a big deal on en.wp in part because everyone involved needs it to be. This includes the WMF, maybe more than anyone else. Witness how quickly they backed down from their hard-line stance onFram once it was made clear to them that "No, we admins don't care if we'll be desysoped for defying you, and in fact a bunch of us are rushing to be voluntarily desysoped". The WMF needs the ever-present threat of desysop to be there...and they need to not be pushed into carrying it out in order for that threat to have any power, lest the whole charade come crumbling down in their laps.

[Jim]

Here's a chance for that quisling Jehochman to get his tools back.

Oh, please, no.

I was just starting to enjoy him plonking "please some admin close this" templates on discussions and getting reverted when he tries to close them himself. Give me at least a couple of months of that, I beg you...

[Anroth]

As for the "admins cannot enforce the UCoC on ENWP" thing, I don't see how that can work as many ordinary admin actions are already in compliance with the UCoC and would appear to be enforcing it.

Functionally thats quite easy actually. Anything that is a violation of existing ENWP policies will be handled as normal. It doesnt really matter if they are also prohibited by the UCoC. But yes, I get your point.

[Beeblebrox]

That's a very good question, and I do see it as where the "obligation to uphold the UCoC" mandate seems to fall apart.

As I see it, it falls apart very easily if everyone says "No, don't be silly, we're not doing that"

It's just the next WMF power grab, and the easy way to counter it is to say "No".

Where it gets worrying is that eventually there will be enough of a userbase with no institutional memory that just says "Oh, ok then".

WMF counts on that, and eventually they'll be right.

It's built into the very design of it. All new holders of advanced rights must do an "affirmation" (I guess "loyalty oath was a little on the nose) and attend the training. All existing holders of advanced rights can do it later, but the implication is that everyone will either eventually succumb or be removed. Eventually there would be more admins who caved in than those who had not and it would just be expected that you swore the oath to do anything beyond rollback.

I am also still not convinced the U4C (the enforcement committee)is not being empowered to overturn ArbCom decisions if it believes they violate the UCoC. The idea that some group of randos who may not know the first thing about en.wp's local policies could start just overturning what has always been the "high court" if you will, is troubling. The document says they would be "peers" with ArbComs, but also says they are a final appeal venue. That type of vagueness is worrisome.

[Beeblebrox]

You idealistic youths...

Has anyone considered just how this UCoCk policy would be weaponized by the likes of Fae or Laura Hale?

I assumed that's what Fae is waiting for, and if this all gets passed they will immediately return to try and use it as a bludgeon. First target: probably me.

[DanMurphy]

Not even I expected the mandatory struggle session phase to arrive this soon.

[Smiley]

First target: probably me.

I wouldn't worry, Beebs.

Baselessly accusing people of being doxxing queerphobes is probably covered by the CoC.

[Vigilant]

A fun discussion

Don't forget to sign your loyalty pledge for the WMF!

I don't get why some people present "it currently only applies to new admins, not to existing ones" as if that is somehow a good argument. The organisation taking all the credits and money they can get from the Wikipedia content and brand (which they recently tried to claim for themselves as well), the organisation making a living from the work of unpaid volunteers and giving very little in return (server maintenance and perhaps the work of the growth team seem to be the exceptions), now want to get the people keeping those Wikipedia sites functioning (not on a server level, but on many other levels) to sign a pledge to uphold a policy they haven't asked for or decided upon, and to force these same people to follow hours of some undefined training on how to uphold that same unwanted policy and to get some certification before they would be allowed to function as admins. Instead of supporting the Wikipedias, they are reducing the pool of potential admins even further, and alienating the WMF further from the editing and adminning communities. Fram (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, as soon as the sentence "The Wikimedia movement does not endorse "race" and "ethnicity" as meaningful distinctions among people" is explained, and Para 3.3 is rewritten so that it's not confusing gibberish, then maybe. Though, as others have mentioned, the WMF can whistle if they think I'm providing my real name to them, as I wouldn't trust certain parts of the Fundation to tie their own shoelaces, let alone administer reliable data protection. Black Kite (talk) 12:27, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

This is not going to end well if they genuinely expect me to sign an affirmation pledging my undying love of the WMF in order to continue volunteering my time to help them. Without naming names, many are jack-asses and the group as a whole is dysfunctional except when it comes to preserving their own jobs. I didn't mention names, so that's not a personal attack, right? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:02, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

At what point do these oldies begin to realize that the WMF is actively trying to get them to leave?

[Jim]

At what point do these oldies begin to realize that the WMF is actively trying to get them to leave?

Not quite yet.

Don't hold your breath either.

[Vigilant]

At what point do these oldies begin to realize that the WMF is actively trying to get them to leave?

Not quite yet.

Don't hold your breath either.

[Mason]

At what point do these oldies begin to realize that the WMF is actively trying to get them to leave?

Ding ding ding

<willywonka>Stop. Don’t. Come back.</willywonka>

[Jim]

The remarkable thing is that they don't see it yet.

[Midsize Jake]

Am I just imagining this, or didn't the WMF switch from traditional shoelaces to velcro snap-closures a few years back due to their ongoing knot-tying problem...?

I vaguely recall that several of the employees opted to just go barefoot for a while, but then they had that big increase in fungal and staph infections.

[No Ledge]

You idealistic youths...

Has anyone considered just how this UCoCk policy would be weaponized by the likes of Fae or Laura Hale?

Would any edits or other actions of L. Hale and Fae be interpreted as universal CoC violations?

[Ryuichi]

Would any edits or other actions of L. Hale and Fae be interpreted as universal CoC violations?

Probably depends on who is doing the interpreting.

[Vigilant]

You idealistic youths...

Has anyone considered just how this UCoCk policy would be weaponized by the likes of Fae or Laura Hale?

Would any edits or other actions of L. Hale and Fae be interpreted as universal CoC violations?

If you're the wife of the Chair of the BoT, do you really think T&S would have the sack to do anything to you?

The same was true when Fae was on the board of WMUK.
Without WO, he'd still be on top of the pile shitting all over the lessers.

For the WMF, the rules are for little people and always have been.

[No Ledge]

Would any edits or other actions of L. Hale and Fae be interpreted as universal CoC violations?

Probably depends on who is doing the interpreting.

Presumably the goal of the required universal training is to ensure uniform interpretation per the methods taught in the training.

If you're the wife of the Chair of the BoT, do you really think T&S would have the sack to do anything to you?

The same was true when Fae was on the board of WMUK.
Without WO, he'd still be on top of the pile shitting all over the lessers.

For the WMF, the rules are for little people and always have been.

But these rules aren't intended to be enforced by the WMF T&S group. They are intended to be enforced by volunteers acting as directed by their (WMF) training.

Presumably neither the training materials nor the volunteers using them will make exceptions for the greaters, or will they?

[Vigilant]

Presumably neither the training materials nor the volunteers using them will make exceptions for the greaters, or will they?

Have the rules ever been equitably enforced between insiders and outsiders on en.wp?

[Vigilant]

What did I just read?

[Midsize Jake]

What did I just read?

Honestly, it looks like Andreas may have inadvertently given the WMF the idea to canvass encourage all of its employees to vote "their way" on their latest UCoC enforcement-protocol proposals, simply by pointing out that they theoretically could, even though everyone agreed that they'd never done so in the past.

It's especially ironic because usually when we tell people not to "give them any ideas" around here, we're just being facetious.

[Ryuichi]

Honestly, it looks like Andreas may have inadvertently given the WMF the idea to canvass encourage all of its employees to vote "their way" on their latest UCoC enforcement-protocol proposals...

Simpler to just have one intern do the votingdata entry on behalf of all employees.

[Vigilant]

Brian Choo on the mailing list begging for advanced permissioned users to serve on an interim Trust and Safety Review board.

Nobody's signed up and so they've extended the "deadline" again.

Makes you wonder why nobody wants to have anything to do with the Stasi?

[Smiley]

Makes you wonder why nobody wants to have anything to do with the Stasi?

The Stasi were competent. T&S are more like...

[Dennis Brown]

This is not going to end well if they genuinely expect me to sign an affirmation pledging my undying love of the WMF in order to continue volunteering my time to help them. Without naming names, many are jack-asses and the group as a whole is dysfunctional except when it comes to preserving their own jobs. I didn't mention names, so that's not a personal attack, right? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:02, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

At what point do these oldies begin to realize that the WMF is actively trying to get them to leave?

I fully realize the fact that they want obedient drones for admin. That doesn't mean I will go quietly into the night. I didn't get my admin bit until 2012 actually, although I had edited since 2006. So I'm an old editor, mid term admin. Not exactly the same. But I'm not afraid of losing my admin bits because I said something mean to the WMF. My user page should make that obvious. No one complained, so I assume they agree it was an observation, not a personal attack.

[Vigilant]

This is not going to end well if they genuinely expect me to sign an affirmation pledging my undying love of the WMF in order to continue volunteering my time to help them. Without naming names, many are jack-asses and the group as a whole is dysfunctional except when it comes to preserving their own jobs. I didn't mention names, so that's not a personal attack, right? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:02, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

At what point do these oldies begin to realize that the WMF is actively trying to get them to leave?

I fully realize the fact that they want obedient drones for admin. That doesn't mean I will go quietly into the night. I didn't get my admin bit until 2012 actually, although I had edited since 2006. So I'm an old editor, mid term admin. Not exactly the same. But I'm not afraid of losing my admin bits because I said something mean to the WMF. My user page should make that obvious. No one complained, so I assume they agree it was an observation, not a personal attack.

It's not going to be a direct and forthright thing.

The WMF is stacked with passive-aggressive dipshits who will ratchet up the 'discomfort' in an attempt to make stay unpalatable.

Tell me I'm wrong.



Edit:
Necessary epithet substitution.

[Midsize Jake]

There's that "K" again...

I often wonder if Wikipedia's unusually-high admin retention rates have been screwing up the WMF's long-range planning, assuming they even try to do any long-range planning at all. The old theory is that on a typical interactive website, a person will stay interested for about 18 months, on average, so if you double that you get an overall "churn rate" of 3 years, during which most of your active users (from the beginning of any given three-year period) will become inactive and you'll end up with an almost completely different user base at the end. But a lot of WP admins stick around far longer than that, and as Mr. Brown indicates above, 10-15 years is not at all uncommon.

A lot of that is psychological (in the "social" sense), but I suspect it's really due more to the high Google rankings, i.e., the same thing that brings most people in in the first place. The high rankings are perceived as prestige, and not only are people attracted to prestige, they tend to want to hold onto it once they've attained it.

The result is that WP has a lot of experienced people who are good at quickly recognizing when something untoward is going on, for better or worse, but because they also hold a lot of authority (or "power" if you prefer), the standards by which new recruits are judged end up being too focused on how enthusiastic they are about maintaining the status quo.

We also like to point out here how rules and policies on Wikipedia are ultimately arbitrary and subject to change at any moment, but the fact is, the basic rule/policy framework hasn't changed much at all since the early days, there's just been this endless tweaking, patching, term-redefining, and general accretion. Maybe if Wikipedia had a "normal" churn rate, it might have genuinely reconstituted itself at some point during the past few years... but as it stands, the system has been so static for so long, that might be impossible now.

[Dennis Brown]

The WMF is stacked with passive-aggressive dipshits who will ratchet up the 'discomfort' in an attempt to make stay unpalatable.

Tell me I'm wrong.

On the contrary, I think you've hit it the nail on the head. And very direct people like me really piss off passive aggressive types. I fully expect some trumped up charge in time, and a trial in absentia. Like Fram got. It's a little harder with me, I'm so blindly transparent with who I am, what I do, where I live, everything about me is easily verified, but I expect it none the less. I'm quick to compromise, being a "results oriented" business owner kind of guy, but they don't understand or have any use for it. They have the money, they have the control, they demand things only be their way. I would compare it to contemporary events, but that isn't fair to our poor friends in Ukraine.

[Emptyeye]

So here's my question:

What's the endgame for the WMF here?

Or, more accurately, how do they get to that endgame from the current situation?

I get what the endgame is--push out the old guard of admins, install (Or, I guess more accurately, "'coincidentally' end up with") a new, more "WMF-friendly" regime in their wake--but in order to do that, they need to...actually have a new regime to be there in that wake. And that, rather famously, ain't coming, and hasn't been coming for years and years.

I know I've noted before that their position, one which I broadly agree with, is "Any individual contributor is completely and utterly replaceable". But that's at the editor level. It doesn't seem like I'm correct at the administrator level--witness the steadily declining number of admins. For whatever reason, administrators seem to be much less replaceable, or no one wants to do the replacing. And that's gonna be a problem for the WMF and their UCoC, even if they succeed in part one of their plan.