Discussions/Submissions/Good faith collaboration - Principles for Interaction and Conduct on the Wikimedia Projects

Title: Good faith collaboration - Principles for Interaction and Conduct on the Wikimedia Projects.

Proposed by

Kritzolina, Patrick Earley (WMF), Kalliope Tsouroupidou (WMF), and JGerlach (WMF)

Description

Wikimania is an ideal venue for a conversation about principles for interaction because there will be a many different people present who can share a range of experiences with collaboration on the Wikimedia projects. What needs to be done to make Wikipedia a friendlier space for everyone while also safeguarding freedom of expression? What generally accepted principles for conduct and interaction within the Wikimedia movement are necessary to ensure everybody is able to contribute and participate? Is to “assume good faith” enough to advance Wikipedia’s goal of being an encyclopedia of free knowledge in which every human being can participate? We hope the conversation will produce principles that can be adapted into rules that fit into a local context of culture and norms.

Purpose

To develop and discuss a set of possible principles that strike a good balance between free speech and safety from harassment for all editors on the Wikimedia Projects.

Targeted participants

All Wikipedians, and especially members of what can be considered “vulnerable communities” within our movement.

Preparatory readings or materials

Wikimedia Harassment Survey, Harassment Consultation, Online Harassment Resource Guide, existing policies (like Friendly Space policies, Code of Conduct for Technical spaces, etc). Some current thought trends on the issue can also be identified under these articles:

• Where should the limits to freedom of speech be set?
• Online harassment isn’t freedom of speech
• 3 reasons why internet harassment is not ‘freedom of speech’

Questions and Comments 51

• Hi Kritzolina, Patrick, Kalliope, and Jan, thank you for your excellent proposal. Regarding its focus, I understand this discussion should be more about talking about a community ruleset? --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

  Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposals "Harassment on Wikimedia projects, and the road forward" and "Tools for Tackling Personal Attacs, Harassment and Toxicity". --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

  • Hi Gnom. Thank you for raising this question. We would like to talk about interaction principles for the Wikimedia movement that could have a positive impact on collaboration and content. JGerlach (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

• (responding to all three at once) Having a good working environment is indeed very important, and we should somehow get that topic in there. Not sure what would be the best form though. Prohibiting and acting upon harassment (which does then need a clear definition, given the variety of linguistic backgrounds) could maybe be a separate topic from good community behaviour and best practices in creating a friendly working space. What are different approaches? Effeietsanders (talk) 15:04, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Hi Effeietsanders. The approach that we wish to discuss is based on principles that can be broken down into rules that take into account languages, cultural context, etc. --JGerlach (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
• Hi JGerlach (WMF), could you expand your proposal based on these answers? Please make sure that it is easy to understand for people who do not speak English fluently. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 06:19, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Hi Gnom, I expanded the description above. Thanks! --JGerlach (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 28 April 2016 (UTC)