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Wikipedia launches new global rules to combat site abuses
- jan_Inkepa 6y agohttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Policy_text https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Po... seems to be the document itself, not linked from any news sources I could find.
- Aachen 6y agoIt's a code of conduct which "bans harassment on and off the site, barring behaviors like hate speech, the use of slurs, stereotypes or attacks based on personal characteristics, as well as threats of physical violence and ‘hounding,’ or following someone across different articles to critique their work". It also disallows introducing bias in articles on purpose. Enforcement is something they will figure out as a "next step", and there are no plans to increase the current abuse team. No source link anywhere or link to more info, and frankly banning harassment and undue bias doesn't sound very new for Wikipedia to me. Not sure what impact this will have on this valuable resource. Perhaps someone should, I don't know, do some journalism here.
- jan_Inkepa 6y agohttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Policy_text https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Universal_Code_of_Conduct/Po...
- Aachen 6y agoYes, I saw and upvoted your sibling comment, thanks :). My post is more a critique of the source than actually asking for a link though, as there doesn't seem to be news for those who aren't regular editors (and even then, mostly if you're intending to harass someone).
- itsoktocry 6y ago>It also disallows introducing bias in articles on purpose How on earth would this be provable or enforceable?
- lldbg 6y agoIt doesn't have to be. Capricious enforcement of rules is the name of the game.
- dane-pgp 6y ago> bans harassment on and off the site I wonder if "harassment" will be in the eye of the beholder. If you read someone's Tweets and find an opinion that you think is insulting towards the rich or immigrants or men or women, is that grounds to get that person's Wikipedia account deleted?
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoWe don't have to leap to an extreme, paint this in black and white. Some cases may be shades of grey, but 'insulting' is fairly obvious when you see it.
- dane-pgp 6y agoSo you're advocating for an "I know it when I see it" standard for assigning guilt to people? If you're familiar with the phrase "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" then you might understand why people could be concerned about selective enforcement of these rules.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoAgain, trying to put words in others' mouths. Abusive language, slurs, ad-hominem attacks are not ambiguous. Neither is 'putting words in other's mouths', which is against this (HNs) site's rules. Lets do better.
- dane-pgp 6y agoYou said "'insulting' is fairly obvious when you see it" and I asked if you supported the standard of "I know it when I see it". I'm sorry if I misunderstood you, jumped to conclusions, or phrased my question poorly, but I hope you can forgive me for finding those two approaches very similar. If you think there is a universal unambiguous system for deciding whether a claim is "insulting" then I'd be happy to learn about it. For example, I can imagine people disagreeing about whether the statement "Country X has a problem with corruption." is insulting to people in country X.
- dmatech 6y agoGiven what happened to Fram a year and a half ago, I'm not surprised that they're continuing to do this stuff (especially given that it's the same people). Honestly, I think WMF needs a serious examination of the agendas of its leadership and a focus on actually doing good work instead of stuff intended to make them look good. I personally won't donate a single cent until Sefidari and Maher are replaced with people who can focus on the real priorities. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20317921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20317921 for earlier discussion.
- Blikkentrekker 6y agoI actually monthly donate to Wikipedia, but after some of the things I've seen I think it's better to stop it. However useful the project often be, it's no longer something I'm willing to support as a charity.
- avereveard 6y ago"stereotyoes" - So one can now dig any dirt on any editor on whatever social media and in private conversations he engaged, present and past, and unless a literal Saint have him banned, with no limitations and no exception?
- yostrovs 6y agoA good deal of Wikipedia is composed by biased actors rewriting history to promote their point of view. These are often government agents, corporate representatives, or just individuals. This is the core problem for Wikipedia that's not going away and that should be the focus of some sort of reform. I fear though none is possible given the site's format.
- orange3xchicken 6y agoOne cool solution the wikimedia research team has been working on is to apply multilingual nlp. Like, how can someone detect a discrepancy in information presented in an article written in english & the same article written in russian?
- notahacker 6y agoSeems like that'll run into the obvious problem that even without intentional bias, some pages are much more interesting and some angles much more 'notable' to some language communities than others
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoThis is a relatively minor event. For most any actual Wikipedia author, nothing will change. That's because these global rules merely codify a minimum standard that any of the top-50 or more wikimedia sites have long had on the books. The purpose is to expand these rules to some of the small properties (Gaelic Wikinews or whatever) where they lack due to omission: admin teams are small, resources scarce, etc. No community has ever decided "no, we believe harassing women is great" (is there a gop.wikisomething.org?). The just haven't gotten around to putting it in writing. It'll also make it easier to work across projects, because you won't have to familiarise yourself with the nuances of local rules in easy cases. Sort-of like the EU's harmonisation of customer rights across jurisdictions makes it easier to order from France or Italy. But, mostly, a non-event. I'm sure there'll be hot debates and open letters and then everyone will forget about it.
- jaredandrews 6y ago> is there a gop.wikisomething.org https://conservapedia.com/Main_Page https://conservapedia.com/Main_Page I have been aware of this site for a while. I always thought it was a parody because everything is so over the top. But a few years ago the admin got in a fight with a left wing YouTuber I watched and I learned it is apparently a real and serious project.
- Andrex 6y agoIf you have any more context for that "fight," I'd be interested in tumbling down that rabbit hole, haha.
- andrepd 6y agoSame, it's the same sort of compulsion that makes people stare at accidents.
- jaredandrews 6y agoIn staying with the theme I will provide you with the Conservapedia entry: https://conservapedia.com/Secular_Talk#Kulinski.27s_.22best_argument_for_atheism.22_video_offers_invalid_argument_for_atheism https://conservapedia.com/Secular_Talk#Kulinski.27s_.22best_... It will probably shock you to learn that both sides declared victory.
- belorn 6y agoWhat will the enforcement policy be? I can easily identify several contradictions in the guideline, in particularly the concept of no exceptions. Regardless of my own personal opinion about the practice, there is a reason why the law against discrimination here in Sweden has a explicit exception that state that discrimination is not allowed unless it is for the purpose of reducing discrimination against marginalized groups. It also seems to the favored method of choice since the 1980s. For conferences, for which this document seems partially focused on, it has always been clear that respecting disabilities follows cultural norms. If cultural we see the disability as inconvenient, a problem which the disabled individual should be ashamed of, and trait of low social status, then people rarely care about it.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago> unless it is for the purpose of reducing discrimination against marginalized groups Everyone invested in identity politics considers the group he most identifies with as marginalized, and he can always cherry pick the appropriate statistics to show it, as every group indeed is marginalized depending on what one chooses to investigate and consider, and who is to decide what matters more? The Jew will cite historical events, and conveniently ignore capital possessions; the male will cite workplace deaths, and conveniently ignore political holding; the female will cite income inæqualiy, and conveniently ignore criminal sentencing; the child will cite lack of suffrage, and conveniently ignore lack of criminal culpability before the law, — and so forth, and so forth. Whom the courts agree with does not seem to be based on evidence but simply subjective opinions.
- belorn 6y agoThe enforcement has been rather inconsistent (in my view, from my perspective), and is one reason why I am not that happy about it. You can have a women only meetup in a conference, but a women only music festival is forbidden. You can have gender discriminating prices at a hair stylist, but not at a restaurant. You can have single gender university programs for a minority demographic, but you can not give additional points during the application phase to a minority demographic. I can not think of an explanation for any of these.
- sunjester 6y ago"The new code of conduct bans harassment on and off the site" How is it any website's business what happens OFF their site?
- laurent123456 6y agoI think it makes sense, otherwise disputes would spill over emails, Twitter, etc. as a way to escape bans. But here if it's proven that an editor has harassed another editor, even outside of Wikipedia, they can be banned.
- encom 6y agoIt isn't, but it's convenient ammunition to use against people you want to get rid of.
- Proven 6y agoWell, anyting that's an opinion, I already ignore so no change for me. If an article says a country has 7.6 million pop, or some software was released in 2015, 2017 and 2019, it's likely true. But when it comes to "opinions", I have my own and don't care whether it was written by a diverse team or not. In fact don't read those articles anyway.
- ardy42 6y ago> The new code of conduct bans harassment on and off the site, barring behaviors like hate speech, the use of slurs, stereotypes or attacks based on personal characteristics, as well as threats of physical violence and ‘hounding,’ or following someone across different articles to critique their work. > It also bans deliberately introducing false or biased information into content. Wikipedia is a relatively trusted site compared to major social media platforms which have struggled to curb misinformation. I'm a little confused. Weren't hounding and introducing false information already against the rules? I'm pretty sure they are, and I'd also be sure most of the other stuff is too (except maybe the "off site" behavior stuff).
- joshuaissac 6y agoThere were rules against such things on the English Wikipedia (and other large Wikimedia projects), but not necessarily the smaller projects. The new rules apply across all Wikimedia projects.
- mormegil 6y agoThat's not right, the current (global) Terms of Use already prohibit (among other things) "With the intent to deceive, posting content that is false or inaccurate". (See https://foundation.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use/en https://foundation.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use/en section 4.) I guess the inclusion in the CoC just adds more options for enforcement.
- remram 6y agoIt sounds like a simple announcement that they are looking into enforcing the rules more seriously, and the first step was breaking off part of their existing terms into a separate "code of conduct" document?
- h_anna_h 6y agoConsidering that I was not able to report toxic behaviour that I encountered in wikipedia recently (there was no information anywhere that I could find on how to do so, especially when said toxicity was coming from an admin) on wikipedia I believe that this is just theatre to make themselves look good.
- toomim 6y ago> It also disallows introducing bias in articles on purpose Wikipedia already requires a Neutral Point-of-View as one of its' five pillars [1]. So this policy doesn't affect the content of articles, but it does ban editors who say something that disagrees with an admin's bias, before the editor get a chance to respond e.g. by citing reliable sources that argue their case. Wikipedia editors and admins are already biased towards the far-left [2]. I'm a liberal, and I've seen them routinely wipe away conservative viewpoints, slander conservatives, and ban people who seem to support conservative views. But today, a ban only happens when editors can see a conservative breaking some other rule, such as "edit warring", which they will raise to admins, who will examine the complaint and block the conservative's account. This takes a lot of work. But now the wiki-activists can ban conservatives just for saying something conservative, which is what they've really wanted to do all along. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars [2] https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
- seneca 6y ago> But now the wiki-activists can ban conservatives just for saying something conservative, which is what they've really wanted to do all along. Exactly. This is always the point of CoCs that punish offsite behavior and include "hate speech" and such as an offense. The language is always humpty-dumptying and a preemptive mott-and-bailey. Say you're banning "harassment and hate speech", then in the future claim that "a machine can not make a sneetch into a star-bellied-sneetch" makes you feel unsafe and magically you've created ideological homogeneity. The intent it to make sure you're not allowed to speak views that oppose the orthodoxy and still exist online.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago“neutral point of view” is a ridiculous idea to profess to be able to have. Any man who stakes such a claim is deeply biased without realizing it. The crux is that it be proportionally featured in what are considered “reliable sources”, but Wikipedia has no definition of what makes a source “reliable”. The other issue, of course, is that this U.S.A. “left vs. right” debate is often considered as though the U.S.A. be the only place in the world. The reality is of course that most continental Europeans will say that both the “left” and the “right” in the U.S.A. are very much “right” in their opinion, but they more so speak fiscally, rather than socially about these matters. “left” vs “right” in U.S.A. parlance seem to mostly refer to whose cause one arbitrarily champions in social identity politics, both having a rather similar, hignly right wing capitalist fiscal platform. English-language Wikipedia is of course also heavily biased towards Anglo-Saxon sources as one expects, but it does not report it as such. Very often in reviews of media it says that something was “critically acclaimed” when it only was among Anglo-Saxon criticism. And finally, when the entire world be considered, rather than merely the developed world, the situation becomes even more complicated. — English-language Wikipedia definitely does not repræsent neutrality with respect to the entire world, and does not attempt to do so, nor wishes to do so.