2019:Thriving in Safety/Universal Code of Conduct
 | This is an Accepted submission for the Safety space at Wikimania 2019. |
Please have a look at the topics that people want to see in this space before making a submission and describe how your submission connects with those topics.
Description
The Foundation is developing a Universal Code of Conduct for Wikimedians to foster ethical behavior, goodwill, and harmony in the community. Although the Wikimedia projects are driven by underlying principles of collaboration, compassion and diversity, currently, every project and community has its own set of policies and guidelines. While it is important to have different content policies depending on the specific requirements of projects, it is essential to think of universal behavioral guidelines that would create an environment of mutual trust and respect within the community.
The Wikimania Universal Code of Conduct Workshop is a platform for the community members to come together and brainstorm on what the universal behavioral guidelines for the community should look like. It is an opportunity for all of us to collectively think and design the roadmap for stronger health and wellbeing of our own community.
Relationship to the theme
This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:
The proposal for a universal code of conduct is premised on the conviction of the community to protect and preserve the fundamental principles of equality, compassion, respect, and diversity in its projects. All possible efforts have to be made to ensure that our community remains free of biases and unfairness so as to be able to remain a medium that creates and disseminates free sum of knowledge to the world.
The right set of community behavioral guidelines, once formed, would directly address and contribute to some of the main goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Wikimania theme for 2019. Having a universal code of conduct would help us build a harassment-free environment which is more conducive to free thinking and innovation. An atmosphere where our community members feel safe and empowered would ultimately lead us to create reliable knowledge that will contribute to quality education around the world, achieve better gender equality, support and develop stronger global partnerships, achieve sustainable societies and thus contributing to the larger mission of the Wikimedia movement and to the SDGs. The workshop thus calls for active participation from the community members to come and take part in the discussions and help frame the behavioral standards that would guide Wikimedia projects and the communities for years to come.
Session outcomes
At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:
- A broader understanding of communities’ thoughts and viewpoints on the existing behavioral policies on various projects.
- Inputs on concrete elements of guidelines that might be missing from some projects and ideas on new possible additions.
- Collection of comprehensive behavioral policies that are globally applicable to all the projects and communities.
- Limitations and challenges that we may encounter along the way.
- Possible solutions and workarounds for the problems.
- A framework for a mutually acceptable code of conduct globally applicable to all the projects and communities.
- Workable means of running the draft by the community for further feedback and inputs.
Session leader(s)
- Patrick Earley – Manager, Trust and Safety Policy
- Neha Nair - Trust and Safety Specialist
Session type
Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:
- Brief description of the idea and roadmap for the project
- Open discussion on Codes of Conduct - pros and cons
- Summary of the discussion and collection of inputs
- Conclusions and ways to stay involved
Requirements
The session will work best with these conditions:
- A small round-table seating room
- Number of attendees: ~40
- Recording: No