Wikipedia talk:English Wikipedia non-discrimination policy

Purpose

This talk page can be used to discuss improvements to this proposal. I welcome constructive advice and discussion, however it is not yet at a stage to be voted on for adoption by the community. ɱ (talk) 15:09, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I would also like to mention the timely need for such a policy. If anyone is interested I can link multiple relevant cases through the last few years; additionally the New York Times just released an article about the issues of discrimination and harassment on Wikipedia, and the Signpost recently released a humor article that was seen as discriminatory, and resulted in formal apologies and four resignations. Events including these are likewise prompting expansion of Wikipedia's manual of style on gender identity, Wikimedia Foundation creation of a reporting system for users experiencing harassment and abuse, and development of a larger Code of Conduct for the entire Wikimedia community. ɱ (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Prefer term "misconduct" over attack

This policy uses the term "attack". "Attack" suggests an attempt to harm. Many times the problem will be an error without apparent intent to harm. In that case the action might be "misconduct", which is still a problem, but one that we can excuse if the person educates themselves, apologizes, and changes their behavior. Misconduct is not necessarily hostile, intentional, or ill-willed. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:08, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Using the term "misconduct" is ideal, but in some instances where "attack" is used, there is no good substitution that I can find. Wikipedia:No personal attacks has used that language; I think that until/unless an issue comes up, this current wording is okay. ɱ (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I have replaced all possible instances of this. ɱ (talk) 14:51, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

When and how to discuss personal traits

This policy talks about personal traits of editors on which basis discrimination might happen. These traits include gender, race, religion, sexuality, and the rest. This policy talks about editors; we have other policies talking about editorial content regarding the subjects of Wikipedia articles.

There is a tension between disclosing in a positive way and disclosing in a negative way. Sometimes individuals may even self-report characteristics and seemingly consent to information about themselves being public, but then later experience negative consequences and want that information removed. The tension is visibility versus vulnerability.

Suppose that there is an underrepresented demographic - perhaps an intersection of gender / LGBT+ status / culture in a profession or region. For example, women in art, or LGBT+ people in science, or people of a certain culture in a country. Such people might participate in a drive to promote that cultural intersection. Maybe someone is a speaker at an LGBT+ science conference, or they take a leadership role as a representative of a community in a wiki editing drive for that community.

It often seems like people who take leadership roles as representatives of a community are agreeing to take on a label as a member of that community. We are not currently getting explicit statements from people. In community activism, there is power in visibility and encouraging individuals to speak out to show numbers and represent themselves.

Suppose that someone is in one of these roles. Under what circumstances do we take for granted that other people can now label and categorize them in the usual wiki way? Is this presumptive, do we establish a bureaucracy to confirm or revoke identity labels, or what is right to do? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Some ideas

This is a great endeavour. WikiMedia spaces have a pretty bad reputation fro behaviour that I think can still be turned around. Also clearly in line with the Community Health strategy working group. I'd like to think that, being a goal-oriented community, we have the opportunity to even lead the way in best practices for online and volunteer communities. Some ideas below

Protected categories

Perhaps the protected identities list could be transcluded with a collapsible section for ease of cross-checking when reading the policy?

Discrimination and harassment

Sometimes I've seen discrimination and harassment separated out, although it is often a spectrum and there are no universally agreed upon cut-off.

Resources

I found an Australian resource on "Volunteers and the Equal Opportunity Act" organisations useful reading for info on the responsibility of volunteer organisations have to their communities.

Spaces covered

It might be worth defining what spaces this would cover, since Wikimedia projects sometimes have problems in how to react to harassment off-wiki. Could certainly include: all on-wiki spaces, mailing lists, social media channels (fb groups etc), irc, wikimedia-hosted physical meetups. Perhaps also: all communication related to Wikipedia activity via any channel.

T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:02, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability: Thanks for your feedback, and I'm sorry for getting back to you so late! As for the recommended identities - I want to urge people perhaps to even pass this without listing specific identities which invite controversy, and having the list physically in the document makes it seem that it is inherently part of approving it. Perhaps if there's enough feedback/agreement it will be added back in at passing, we'll just have to see. As for discrimination vs. harassment, I can see legal distinctions both with Wikipedia policy and national laws, especially how discrimination can be single acts and affect a protected class, while harassment is usually repeated acts, and completely don't have to affect a protected class (WP:HARASSMENT barely mentions protected classes, only giving the same low-level protection that WP:NDP gives). As for spaces covered, I believe I initially wanted it to span over all community spaces, but I think I changed that? Can enwiki policy extend to all mailing lists, social media, or physical meetups (or all enwiki-based mailing lists, social media, meetups)? Or would that be a more likely goal for if/when this could become a community policy on meta? I suppose WP:HARASSMENT covers "off-wiki harassment", so perhaps anyone/I could add in something to that nature. ɱ (talk) 14:41, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

All or nothing at all

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Wikipedia is a mixed bag of sex, age, knowledge, nationality, language, ethnicity, culture, pigmentation, gender. If the policy does not explicitly include every conceivable manner of discrimination affecting any member of the Wikipedia community it will leave doors open for "if it's not in the policy, you can't say I'm discriminating". Pyxis Solitary yak 09:36, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Pyxis Solitary, and thank you for your concern. I have been working with many others to determine all of the possible manners of discrimination that are relevant to this online community and beyond. They are listed here. If you have further input on other classes that face discrimination, please let me know. What else do you think should be added? As a note - this list is more inclusive than most any non-discrimination laws or corporate policies I have come across, and I only seek to have it developed further. As well, if/when the protected classes are added, the policy would say "including, but not limited to [these classes]" (as most NDPs do), so if the discrimination noticeboard fields an issue or complaint not in the list, we can look into adding it! ɱ (talk) 14:22, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the link for "Recommended identities". I appreciate that it is "more inclusive than most any non-discrimination laws or corporate policies", because institutions and corporations do not consist of thousands of international volunteers from all walks of life and pursuits. Pyxis Solitary yak 10:16, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Pyxis Solitary. This is basically just going to be party time for wiki-lawyers and system gamers. That's the problem with all policy proposals like this, which never go anywhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, I responded to Pyxis Solitary that the proposal does include a list of all proposed protected classes. Ideally this proposal will be approved with every most-supported protected class included in the policy. ɱ (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

My feedback on his policy

Thank you ɱ (talk) for getting this anti-discrimination policy started and seeking feedback. Here is my feedback:

• The policy needs two sections: a "Scope" section (where would this policy apply, for whom, and in what situations) as well as a "Definitions" section. While this policy looks like it would be for English Wikipedia, we are a global, diverse community and need to have terms such as harassment and discrimination defined prior to using them in the policy.
• Is a goal of this policy to strive for a safe, collegial online environment for editing and collaborative Wikimedia work? I think that should be stated, as well as the goal of editors not to nitpick and delete, but to provide collegial, constructive, actionable feedback to fellow editors to grow the community and not shut people out.
• The procedure for calling out bad behavior, and how it moves up the chain, should also be included in this policy.

I worked with WikiJournals folx on a similar policy--you can see what we did here for a Code of Conduct (still a draft at this point): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n4SYJ9pdrfmVSSRuhuyfLInOFQxh7k4y7FRsYcYVGPw/edit?usp=sharing Please let me know if you have any questions-- RachelWex (talk) 20:28, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Rachel, and thanks for your feedback!

• The last sentence before the "Examples" section highlights all of the potentially applicable places I can think of on Wikipedia, outside of traditional edit spaces. Evolution and evolvability also suggested it covering all off-wiki spaces, essentially all communication related to Wikipedia. Do you think that is enforceable? WP:OWH, WP:OWA, and WP:LINKLOVE have relevant information. Perhaps if NPA passes, these can be edited to include the same guidelines for off-wiki discrimination. As for definitions, most enwiki policies that I've seen don't go into that much pseudo-legal detail, with no need to. I also strongly believe the proposal should stay short in length. It's already longer than pretty much every corporate nondiscrimination policy I've ever read. And for people to want to read it and contribute/vote, they've got to be able to digest it.
• I do include about a safe and collegial environment on the penultimate sentence of the lede, and the first sentence here in the body. Is that sufficient or could you expand on it? How are you relating growing vs. deleting? This policy is not about inclusionism vs. deletionism, is that what you are referencing or am I missing something here?
• As for the procedure - the last sentence focuses on reporting - most issues would go to a new noticeboard, where there would be instructions on how to report an incident of discrimination. That would need to be developed if this passes. That paragraph does indicate the average proposed consequence for discrimination and subsequent incidents. It's very similar to the level of detail at NPA and WP:HARASSMENT. Yet I do like some of the details in the response process in your CoC proposal; can I use some wording from it?

Please let me know what you think, and thanks again --ɱ (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Minor feedback on "device and medium by means of which they access the virtual community"

One suggested protected identity is "device and medium by means of which they access the virtual community".

We have had a number of recent questions and complaints at WP:VPT recently about WP not functioning properly on certain very old web browsers. For technical and security reasons, the WMF has deemed it necessary to prevent WP from displaying on certain old browsers, or to otherwise compromise the viewing and editing experience of editors and readers using those browsers.

And that's not even mentioning the mobile interface, which is not functionally equivalent to the desktop interface. Navboxes, for example, do not display on the mobile interface, so a hypothetical WikiProject that worked only on navboxes would not be able to accommodate an editor who was able to view and edit using only the mobile interface.

There probably need to be technical and/or security boundaries on this proposed protected identity. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

This is one interesting point out of many to be made about the so-far proposed protected classes. @Bluerasberry: suggested adding this class; I wonder what he thinks about your feedback. ɱ (talk) 02:38, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Yes, I acknowledge all these challenges which you correctly explain, and yes, there needs to be technical and security boundaries on these minority and alternative users.

I advocate for better documentation about the default service, which is what we provide to the 70%+ of mainstream users on contemporary software and devices who access Wikipedia through the Web with a browser. Following that, we document how many people are using or would use some alternative, and when reasonable, try to serve them. Here are some alternative channels of access:

1. using old technology (outdated browser, slow devices)
2. using a VPN or needing personal security (such as users under the block of Wikipedia in Turkey)
3. using offline packages of Wikipedia, such as meta:Internet-in-a-Box devices to present Wikipedia 1.0 content packages in the Kiwix platform
4. activities in meta:WikiProject remote event participation
5. using the copies of Wikipedia which Facebook, Apple, Google, and other big tech companies present through their closed platforms, such as Internet.org, Siri, and Knowledge Graph

I know the situation is complicated and no one has answers. The vision is just to document the situation and advocate for users however they reach our content.

I am supporting a colleague's current Wikimedia grant funding request to develop a plan for the monitoring we provide to users mostly in Africa who access Wikipedia through offline devices. I would appreciate support and comments at meta:Grants:Project/Fieldback Catalytics. This proposal is would document and make recommendations on our interaction with this community and how it differs from our default practice. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Caste system in India, in the United States

There is a Wikipedia article for Caste system in India. There is not an article for "Caste system in India, as it exists outside India".

Here is a petition which describes itself as wishing to eliminate the Indian caste system in the United States workplace. https://indiacivilwatch.org/petitions/caste-discrimination-in-usa/

This is an example about discrimination by caste in an international context and I wanted to share it here, because this policy also addresses discrimination in Wikipedia's global multicultural environment. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:09, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Duplicative

Thanks for caring and trying. That said, whenever not-voting starts up, I will be opposed and will instead support an alternative, which in general terms will do the following -

• Import, verbatim, the Universal_Code_of_Conduct adopted by the Wiki Foundations Board of Directors
• Including a section that explicitly says something like "and in addition the En Wiki adopts the following additional provisions" then lists them.
• Rejects as WP:CREEP and verbosity redundant language that repeats what was already in the Board's UCofC

If there is a need to wax illustrative on the points made, that's fine and all, but might be best done in an essay. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:26, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

This isn't really warranted, this isn't up for debate or discussion right now or potentially ever. And this was written when the UCoC was barely a thought in people's minds, nonetheless a real proposal. It's disappointing that the UCoC (at least the latest version I've read) is so lacking with anti-discriminatory language; this really aims to accomplish something very different. And it's disappointing to see a half-argument by just citing wp:creep. I'd argue that a law that is adopted by countless nations and companies across the world is also essential to our community here. ɱ (talk) 13:40, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

It's a draft, publicly announced elsewhere, and as you say above "a real proposal". You cited your work here as though it will give gravitas to your comments elsewhere. In either the WP:TPG or WP:GAMING (or any other WP:P&G), where does it say my appearance here is "not warranted"? When it is time, sure, maybe your criticisms of the UCofC are widely supported by the community and we can supplement the UCofC. But we should start with that work and build upon it, rather than have it out there and an entirely separate thing somewhere else. Note that the board requires us to follow their thing however we do the packaging. The efficient way to do all that is to start with their thing and build on top of it, if the community agrees with you about the shortcomings you say you see. When I start to think about it, I might even support your criticisms, I don't know.... I have not studied the UCofC yet. I*'m still waiting for Phase 2 of that process to complete before I load it in my brain, and that also explains why I stopped pushing in the other thread. Changes are premature until Phase 2 of UCofC process completes, in my opinion. We don't need to poke at each other and we don't really need to debate these things now. I just thought you'd appreciate the 30,000 foot big picture view of where I'm coming from, so you have that info as you decide how to invest your time now, that's all. I'm going back to waiting for UCofC Phase 2 process to produce something for us to look at. So once again.... I have not disagreed with your belief the UCofC is not enough. I'm only talking about packaging since we are required by the board to have policies that do what theirs does as a bare minimum. We now return to our regularly scheduled wait-and-see. Or at least I do. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:28, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, comments are acceptable, but I don't appreciate you giving an "oppose" "not-a-vote" without much consideration whatsoever, or discussing your issues with it, and while voting is not even remotely open. Dismissing a work as "duplicative" without a conversation is not the way to discuss issues with an author. And you know as well as me that an essay is as useful to a harassment victim as thoughts and prayers. We need a concrete description of forms of discrimination, followed by several steps to report, with redundancies to ensure it can be properly addressed. ɱ (talk) 12:20, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

The reason for my comment is conceptual at the highest possible point in the stage of policy-crafting. Would you rather get polite alternative viewpoints before or after you invest additional effort in the details? Me? I'd like to collaborate and get consensus at the conceptual level before investing mightily in my version of the details. Your mileage may vary. Have a nice day. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I received alternative viewpoints that were much more polite while writing it. I would appreciate a similar attitude. ɱ (talk) 17:01, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Your different style does not constitute evidence of lack of politeness on the part of others. The fuel that drives collaboration is civil respect (see [{WP:Focus on content]]). But you keep complaining about my behavior. Well, OK. I acknowledge you don't like my style. I can live this despite wishing it were otherwise. If you have a substantive complaint you can't get over, write it up for ANI. If its one of style, you have to decide if continuing to bring it up is more important than moving forward on the fight against discrimination. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:32, 5 August 2021 (UTC)