Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/News from the WMF

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So if I understand this correctly, there will be only one code of conduct everywhere on the WMF? That’s a good idea, though I personally thought it was already implied that we have to avoid any harassment or bad behaviour. RedBulbBlueBlood9911|Talk 02:52, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. But "already implied" seems to be inadequate, as might be expected considering that we have people editing from all over the world with different understandings and customs. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, what it would do is place a minimum standardised set of criteria (with the issue that different groups of individuals need different minimums, and a global minimum may overshoot some of these), but local communities can place more strenuous restrictions on top of that. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a query, is there a definition for "community functionaries". I'd always thought that both en-wiki and meta use "functionary" (all of which are community functionaries) to mean several limited groups (CUs, OS, 'crats etc), but that doesn't work here. I could well be wrong about meta use, if someone is able to confirm that? Or have they just picked words without ensuring lack of clash with current meta definitions? Nosebagbear (talk) 12:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any place where we can see or take part in discussions for this proposed code? I was considering proposing a rule against people accusing other of bias, especially political, or alleging racism/communalism without any proof (for example, in many articles relating to Indian politics (especially involving Hindu-Muslim relations) like Talk:2020 Delhi riots, a few users (possibly right-wingers?) were acting like pro-Modi Twitterati and accusing Wikipedia of bias, when the problem lay in the fact that mainstream media covered whatever they disliked, and blatantly biased media sites (some of which were banned from being used as sources due to doxing) were covering what they liked) RedBulbBlueBlood9911|Talk 12:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@RedBulbBlueBlood9911:, The place where discussions are taking place is meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/May 2020 - Board of Trustees on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe Spaces. At least that's where volunteers are leaving comments, & talking to each other; it's an open question just how much effect anything written there will have on the final draft. But if we don't participate, we will certainly have no effect on it. -- llywrch (talk) 20:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As we say in Norwegian - veien til helvete er brolagt med gode hensikter... - in English that is something like "the road to hell is paved with good intentions...". I have no doubt that this is initiated by good people, meaning all the best. I am however not so sure that it will be to the best of Wikipedia. Ulflarsen (talk) 19:09, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In principle, I support the idea of a baseline code of conduct to be adopted by all WMF projects. This is long-overdue. But in practice, my support depends on the details of that baseline.
In particular, I am concerned that the WMF's statement follows the current dangerous trend towards viewing conduct issues solely through the lens of group cohesion and anti-bullying principles, with far too little emphasis on the fact that the purpose of this group is to build an encyclopedia. Civility is undoubtedly a necessary condition for enyclopedia-building, but it is not a suffcient condition: competence is also required.

The narrow focus on civility is now frequently serving to privilege the Randy in Boise-style editors who fail to recognise the limits of their own competence, but who are frequently adept at leveraging conduct policies to denounce those who critique their incompetent contributions. Instead, they denounce as "uncivil" or as "bullying"/"bludgeoning" etc any critiques of their unevidenced, poorly reasoned contributions to consensus-forming discussions, and adopt a definition of "civility" which amounts to "how dare you challenge my lack of policy, evidence or sound logic".
This tendency to characterise normal scholarly discourse and critique as "bullying" or "harassment" has the potential to hollow out Wikipedia by structurally disadvantaging Wikipedians with expertise and/or those who employ critical thinking. Its end-product will be a project dominated by under-skilled editors who don't recognise their own limitations. The remedy is fairly simple: to include in the baseline code of conduct a requirement for all editors to adopt scholarly rigour, to recognise the limits of their own competence in that regard, and to act within those limits. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:39, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]