User:Barkeep49/UCoC Revision

For notes on the building committee, see User:Barkeep49/U4CBC.

The UCoC Revisions Committee has adopted the Chatham House Rule which means I can provide some increased transparency and discuss a bit more publicly as we go along about what the Committee is doing. They are not intended to be complete summaries. My goal here is to highlight certain aspects of discussions I think important. If you want a complete summary you should look at the official summaries. My goal is also to factually say what happened at the meetings and not my opinion about whether I agree or disagree. I obviously have opinions but I do not think it is in the spirit of Chatham House rules for me to give those opinions outside of the meetings (but of course I am displaying some editorial judgement by what I choose to summarize).

Meeting 23: Nov 19

The final meeting was held. Lots of decisions were made including formalizing the list of binding verbs ( create, develop, enforce, must, produce, shall, and will) and recommending verbs (encourage, may, propose, recommend, and should) while also making sure that these and other modals were used as intended. Other decisions of note included final wording about composition of the U4C Building Committee and formalizing in the Enforcement Guidelines that it and the UCoC itself are to be reviewed a year after final passage.

Meeting 22: Nov 17

Even less to update than last time because attendance was very small. Our final session is on Saturday and the remaining substantive issues will have to be decided there.

Meeting 21: Nov 10

Not a lot to update. Mostly resolving a bunch of small changes and continuing to get rid of all of the instances of should in the document.

Meeting 20: Nov 3

I had to leave a half hour early, but we committed to a variety of smaller changes we'd made (for instance making clear that the foundation will provide support to communities with UCoC translations). We also slightly modified our preliminary agreement from last meeting. We've decided that will belongs in the "policy" verbs while "may" is a recommendation verb. The plan is to find instances of should and other modals and replace those with one of those other two words.

Meeting 19: October 27

We're meeting on Thursdays now so updates will be on Thursdays going forward (assuming I don't forget again). The biggest happening was on coming to a preliminary agreement on a list of verbs that will represent recommendations and verbs that will be "policy". The preliminarily agreed to list of verbs are:

Recommendation verbs

• Encourage
• Recommend
• Propose

"Policy" verbs

• Enforce
• Create
• Produce

Key to this was the idea that modal verbs (e.g. should) won't be either recommendation or "policy" words. Instead they will either be accompanied by a verb from the list above or just replaced altogether by a different verb. There was also discussion about refining language around use of the reporting tool, how the U4C should gain cultural competency (this will be discussed in far more detail in a future meeting), what happens if somebody doesn't have language outlining UCoC enforcement (section 3.3.2 Transparency of Process) including new projects, and preliminary agreement to add However, some Wikimedia Foundation Office actions and decisions are reviewable by the Case Review Committee. to section 3.3.3 Appeals.

Meeting 18: October 19

I'd forgotten about this after we returned from break and so didn't add entries for our first two meetings back. The first meeting was basically spent discussing feedback we'd gotten. The second meeting was basically spent figuring out how we want to spend time at our remaining meetings. This was the first meeting where we really got into substantive work. The first half of the meeting was spent discussing what parts of the enforcement guidelines are binding, what parts are recommendations, and what it means if something is a recommendation. The second half of the meeting was spent going through the document section by section. Major points of discussion were around the principle of subsidiarity (and defining what "local"/"local level" means) and coming up with a revised definition of what "staff" means (to include community-facing contractors but not, say, an outside janitorial firm).

Meeting 15: August 17

There was discussion about how to word a right to be heard for parties to a case. Agreement settled that the statement should be from the perspective of the parties (vs the perspective of those enforcing) and that they should have the right, outside of privacy/safety exceptions. The bulk of the meeting was spent going through items volunteers serving as editors had identified for more discussion. I will likely post some thoughts/updates that are more opinion than I intend these updates to be on the talk page.

Meeting 14: August 10

There was a long discussion on structure. Particularly whether or not it needs to be made clear what is a recommendation and what is an actual enforcement guideline. There was preliminary agreement this should be made clear but that work could be done after the upcoming community feedback. More time was spent on balancing privacy of reporters, particularly harassment victims, and the rights of people being accused to know accusations. The remaining time was spent going through unresolved committee member comments and making small tweaks throughout the document.

Meeting 13: August 3

I forgot to do this after the meeting and now I don't recall with enough specificity what we did at the meeting to report it now.

Meeting 12: July 27

Discussion was held about how to use feedback offered about readability and ease of translation. The majority of the meeting was in presenting 3 case studies to discuss rights of privacy and the right for all sides to respond/be heard.

Meeting 11: July 20

It was formally announced that the drafting committee would have an in-person meeting in New York City at the end of October. The majority of the meeting was spent cleaning up minor language disagreements. The last quarter of the meeting was spent discussing various harassment scenarios and how much privacy there should be for victims.

Meeting 10: July 13

The first part of the meeting was spent receiving recommendations from Wikimedia Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion staff who joined the meeting. The committee decided to mostly held substantive discussion of the recommendations as we reached those sections of the document. Next the committee reviewed the work done last meeting about affirmation and did not make changes. The committee then began discussing the conflicting roles of privacy/victim protection and the right to be heard.

Meeting 9: July 6

The first half of the meeting was spent learning about and discussing results of the first Community Safety Report. The second half of the meeting was spent on affirmation. Preliminary agreement was reached that noting the UCoC exists in the Terms of Use would mean that volunteers would not have to affirm. There was also preliminary agreement that "off-wiki" people, such as board members, staff, affiliate staff, would need to affirm. More discussion will be had on the UCoC and Terms of Use interaction.

Meeting 8: June 29

Concept lock was reached on a number of training topics. There was a concept lock on having training being easily accessible and available on different platforms and that there will be 3 training modules with 4 topics.

• Module A: Orientation (UCoC general)
• Module B: Identification and reporting (UCoC violations)
• Module C: Advanced cases
  • Module C.1: Handling UCoC appeals
  • Module C.2: Complex cases (e.g. cross-wiki violations, long term harassment)

There was a concept lock that the only mandatory training will be for people serving on the U4C who will be required to complete Module C. Advanced rightsholders (this concept of advanced rightsholders still needs refinement) will be encouraged to take Module C. Training materials for all modules will be made publicly available. There was further concept lock that the U4C Building Committee, with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, will initially develop training, that the U4C will be responsible for the training in the long run, and that certain groups will be consulted in developing the training. There will be continued refinement on who those groups should be.

Since this was our first concept lock, I think it important to note that this does not mean it's completely finalized. There will be a community consultation with the changes before things are truly finalized by the revisions committee. So it just means in our conversations we will not be revisiting concepts, only wording.

Meeting 7: June 22

A fair amount of discussion was held on how to format the training section. Preliminary agreement was reached that the U4C Building Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation should jointly develop initial training and that the UC4C will maintain training in the long-term. There was discussion about what roles communities and affiliates should play in delivering training. There was preliminary agreement that affiliates and communities should get support to implement training.

Meeting 6: June 15

Training remained the focus. Preliminary agreement was reached on having a voluntary simple "orientation" training ("What is the UCoC?"), having more advanced training which would be available to interested volunteers, and that completing training doesn't give a person enforcement powers. There was discussion, without preliminary agreement, about limiting mandatory training to only the U4C (and people the U4C delegates powers to) and perhaps for paid staff. Other discussion topics (which remain unresolved) were who would be responsible for developing training (initially and long-term), what UCoC topics need training developed, and would any training be restricted to certain people.

Meeting 5: June 8

So I just realized I didn't update this after last meeting. Apologies for the late update. The most substantive work was done on training and affirmation. Among the things discussed was for both topics whether it should be mandatory for certain groups or not mandatory at all(but perhaps encouraged). Discussion will continue about things being mandatory - no decisions (even tentative ones) have yet been reached.

Meeting 4: June 1

• There was a presentation on the contents and methodology that was used to compile the UCoC comments summary . Committee members asked questions about that work
• There was discussion of what was surprising in the comments received, committee member observations about the comments in general and what specific comments could be useful in the committees work going forward. Topics discussed included to varying degrees (but are not limited to)
  • Training,
  • Right to be heard,
  • Signing an acknowledgement of the UCoC,
  • Translation and translation difficulties,
  • Other ways the comments could be grouped to get information useful to the committee,
  • Patterns of comments that mention small vs large wikis,
  • Committee member analysis of comments that had been grouped in the "bureaucracy" category,
  • The wording of harassment and how it relates to ArbCom work
  • Volunteerism and the enforcement of the code of conduct

Meeting 3: May 25

• There was discussion about the mismatch between Enforcement Drafting Committee's intent with training vs the language that was published.

  Update: There was specific discussion about this survey question and its inaccurate depiction of drafter's intent.

• The Committee spent some time discussing the themes of the feedback offered by UCoC voters and a smaller amount of time thinking about individual comments.

  There was discussion about how reflective the feedback was of UCoC voters and the larger community.

  There is no expectation that the committee members read all feedback.

Terms

These are my usage of these words and are not official committee terms.

• Concept lock: Final agreement was reached on the concept and the concept will not be changed. The exact wording remains unfinished.
• Preliminary agreement: agreement was reached on the concept but there will be further reflection/discussion before reaching a more final agreement. The wording of the concept remains unfinished.
• Wording lock: The wording has been edited and is considered final. This topic will not be revisited.