
Wikimedia enacts new standards to address harassment and promote inclusivity - elsewhen
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2020/05/22/wikimedia-foundation-board-announces-community-culture-statement/
======
Animats
I can see worrying about harassment. "Inclusivity", though? (From the tone of
the press release, they mean race and gender, not article subjects.) Wikipedia
editors are anonymous unless they don't want to be. How can anyone tell?

~~~
SiempreViernes
By choice of topics primarily?

Wikipedia has some severe biases when it comes to what and who counts as
notable. For instance, you can compare ”programming pattern” and ”knitting
pattern” and try to guess which is a 50 year practice and which is as old as
civilization...

That sort of topic bias is best solved by adding new contributors, but they
will intrinsically have to be different sorts of persons, and historically
that difference has caused issues for the newcomers:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/us/wikipedia-
harassment-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/us/wikipedia-harassment-
wikimedia-foundation.html)

~~~
roenxi
The last edit to the Knitting article at the time of writing is 24 September
2019‎, and the page doesn't seem to have any sort of edit protection enabled.
I'm confident Wikipedia's policies aren't the major issue holding back a flood
of knitting-oriented contributors. The people involved in knitting probably
just aren't heavy internet users.

As for the lurking culture war and worrying about the word 'inclusivity' it is
hard to imagine a less important issue. Wikipedia is one of the most
structurally democratic organisations on the entire planet, and possibly the
knowledge accumulating enterprise most resistant to social pigeonholing of its
members. Even I could literally copy their software and content and rehost the
whole thing if I don't like how the project is run. The Wikimedia Foundation
can do whatever it thinks is best; good luck to them. There is no reasonable
problem here, even for the paranoid.

~~~
SiempreViernes
> The people involved in knitting probably just aren't heavy internet users.

The knitters manage to set up vast collection of patters for download just
fine, and more people spent time knitting last month than there are
programmers in the USA, so it is in fact more an issue of them not being
present on wikipedia.

~~~
kleiba
The fact that more people knit in the US than there are programmers is
irrelevant though for the argument that most of "the people involved with
knitting probably just aren't heavy internet users."

And it's conceivable that it's only a relatively small percentage of all
practitioners who actually upload patterns.

~~~
watwut
> And it's conceivable that it's only a relatively small percentage of all
> practitioners who actually upload patterns.

That holds for anything through - including programming. Why would it be so
hard to accept that a group of people can be active on internet without adding
stuff to wikipedia?

Wikipedia is crappy about anything sewing, knitting, embroidery etc related.
But whenever I need something, I can find information on reddit or blogs or
youtube quickly and easily. It is not that information does not exist on the
internet in general, it is that those groups dont find wikipedia place to put
stuff in. It is not even that those groups cry for wikipedia to add them in
cause they are helpless without that. Wikipedia is not a thing in that space,
because who cares about wikipedia and anecdotally those few who tried found it
generally waste of time and frustrating.

This is wikipedia finding about situation, because its mission is "to be the
largest, most comprehensive, and most widely-available encyclopedia ever
written" and it is failing in these areas. And somehow people take offence on
that.

~~~
kleiba
_That holds for anything through - including programming. Why would it be so
hard to accept that a group of people can be active on internet without adding
stuff to wikipedia?_

Not a problem for me, I agree with your post.

------
Jonnax
Hacker news is a really good site for tech discussion.

But when it comes to anything about diversity / harassment in the workplace,
it seems like a group of people crop up needing to tell everyone that they're
the real victims

There's a signicant subset of people that cry the loudest of censorship only
when it comes to communities having a stance against racism, sexism and
homophobia.

In any other discussion about Wikipedia, there would be a significant
concensus that Wikipedia has a unwelcoming to new editors community.

~~~
dang
The community reflects the larger society, which is divided on social issues.
It's also that the users come from many countries. That's a hidden source of
conflict, because people frequently misinterpret a conventional comment coming
from a different country or region for an extreme comment coming from nearby.

The biggest factor, though, is that HN is a non-siloed site
([https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20silo&sort=byDate&type=comment)),
meaning that everyone is in everyone's presence. This is uncommon on the
internet, and it leads to a deep misunderstanding.

(Edit: in what follows, when I talk about the internet I mean internet
communities of HN's size and scope, or larger. The problems are different at
smaller size or narrower scope, but those aren't the problems we have.)

People on opposite political and ideological sides tend mostly to self-
segregate on the internet, exchanging support with like-minded peers, and
coming into contact with the enemy only when going on raids to bash the other
side with clubs of snark and condemnation. The HN community isn't like
that—here we're all in the same boat, whether we like it or not. People
frequently experience unwelcome shocks when they realize that other HN
users—probably a lot of other users, if the topic is divisive—hold views
hostile to their own. Suddenly a person whose views on (say) C++ you might
enjoy reading and find impressively knowledgeable, turns out to be a
despicable foe.

This shock is in a way traumatic, if one can speak of trauma in internet
communities. Many readers bond with HN, come here every day and feel like it's
'their' community—their home, really—and suddenly it turns out that their home
has been invaded by enemies, spewing offensive rhetoric that they've managed
to insulate themselves from everywhere else. If they try to reply and defend
the home front, they get nasty, forceful pushback that can be just as
intelligent as the technical discussions, but now that intelligence is being
used for evil. I know that sounds dramatic, but this is how it feels, and it
really is a shock. We get emails from users who have been wounded by this and
basically want to cry out: why is HN not what I thought it was?

Different internet communities are products of their initial conditions. Each
is a fractal with its starting set of rules that replicates in new yet self-
similar ways as it grows—Reddit factored into subreddits, Twitter and Facebook
have their social graphs, and so on. It's HN's fate to have in its initial-
condition set the property that it's a single community that is the same for
everybody. That has its wonderful side and its horrible side. The horrible
side is that there's no escaping each other: when it comes to divisive topics,
we're a bunch of scorpions trapped in one bottle.

I said that the non-siloed nature of HN leads to a deep misunderstanding—now I
want to explain what that misunderstanding is. Because of the shock I
mentioned—the shock of discovering that your neighbor is a monster, someone
whose views are hostile when you thought you were surrounded by peers—it feels
like HN is a much worse community than the others. If you read what people
write about HN, for example on Twitter or really anywhere, the most common
thing you will encounter is people's narration of this shock experience. It
isn't always framed that way, but if you understand the dynamic you will see
it unmistakeably and you will see it everywhere. This is the key to
understanding most of what people say about HN. If you read the profile the
New Yorker published about us last year, you'll find the author's own shock
experience of HN encoded into that article (and it's something of a miracle of
openness and intelligence that she was able to get past that—the shock
experience really is that bad).

The reason this is a misunderstanding is that it misses a more important
truth. The remarkable thing about HN, when it comes to social issues, is not
that ugly and offensive comments appear here, though certainly they do. It's
that we're all able to stay in one room without destroying it. Because no
other site is even trying to do this, HN seems unusually conflictual, when in
reality it's unusually coexistent. Every other place went into fragments long
ago and would never dream of putting everyone together [1].

It's easy to miss because of all the conflicts, but the important thing about
HN is that it remains a single community—one which somehow has managed to
withstand the forces that blow the rest of the internet to bits. I think that
is a genuine social achievement. The conflicts are inevitable—they govern the
internet. Just look at how people talk about each other on Twitter: it's
vicious and shockingly violent. I spend my days on HN, and when I look into
arguments on Twitter I feel sucker-punched and have to remember to breathe.

The challenge is that somehow the social achievement of the HN community, that
we manage to coexist in one big room and still function despite vehemently
disagreeing, ends up feeling like the opposite. Internet users are so not used
to being in one big space together that we don't even notice when we are, and
so it feels like the orange site sucks.

I think it's time to reflect a more accurate picture of this community back to
itself. What's actually happening on HN is the opposite of how it feels:
what's happening is a rare opportunity to work out how to coexist despite
divisions. Other places on the internet don't offer that opportunity because
the siloes prevent it. On HN we don't have that, so the only options are to
modulate the pressure or explode.

Hacker News, fractious and annoying and frustrating as it often is, turns out
to be an experiment in the practice of peace. Real peace isn't what the word
'peace' sounds like—it sounds like John Lennon's 'Imagine', but in reality
it's extremely uncomfortable. Peace is somehow managing to coexist without
becoming violent. Peace is the ability to bear the unpleasant manifestations
of others, including on the internet. Peace is not so far from war. It's
because this community brings the warring parties together that it gives us an
opportunity to become different.

It sounds odd to say it, but if this is true, then HN is a step closer to real
peace than anywhere else on the internet that I'm aware of—even though it
seems like the opposite. The task facing this community is to take a step
further in that direction. Becoming conscious of this dynamic is probably a
key, which is why I say it's time to reflect a more accurate picture of the HN
community back to itself.

[1] Is there another internet community of HN's size (millions of users, 10k
posts a day), where divisive topics routinely appear, that has managed to stay
one whole community instead of ripping itself apart? If so, please point me to
it so I can learn.

~~~
thosakwe
One important thing you should _also_ consider isn't just the fact that the
community mostly stays together, but instead also that there's something to be
said about who leaves, and which voices are subsequently never heard again.

Many of my friends who left this site did so because of how alienating these
threads can be to people not represented in this community. I think that's
been overlooked.

~~~
dang
I agree that that's an issue. I've spent many hours talking with such users
(generally by email) but of course most of them don't contact us.

The goal here is to have a healthy community that's organized around
intellectual curiosity. Every time we lose one intellectually curious user, to
me that is a disaster that cuts into the core of the site. To the extent that
people aren't here because they feel unrepresented in the community, that's a
big deal. We need their curiosity as much as anyone's, and diversity—if I may
use that word literally—is a must-have for intellectual curiosity to function
at all. Curiosity thrives on diffs.

And of course there is a vicious circle: if they leave, then they are even
less represented here. I'm open to ideas about improving this. The problem is
not that it is overlooked (by us, at least). It's that the same forces that
make it hard to solve in society at large make it hard to solve here, and in
one respect even harder, because people misinterpret the nature of this
community in the way I described above.

This discussion can be tricky because it overlaps with the ideological
question, which is not the same thing. Sometimes people want us to ban
everyone who expresses the opposing ideology, because that's the only sort of
community they feel welcome or safe in. Even if we wanted to do that, it
wouldn't work. That does not mean we don't care about inclusion. We care a lot
about inclusion. In fact I spend the majority of my waking hours trying to
nurture the conditions for it here.

By the way: if any of your friends would be open to it, please send them to
hn@ycombinator.com. I would very much appreciate hearing their concerns.

~~~
zzzcpan
_> but of course most of them don't contact us_

Not everyone is comfortable talking to you privately, given all the ridiculous
warnings you give out. I wanted to talk to you about turning off downweighting
of my comments that you secretly enabled, but there is no easy way to say
anything to you publicly.

~~~
dang
You said this to me publicly, and it seems to have been fairly easy.

------
cmdshiftf4
People, and I'd argue especially on HN (for an internet community), generally
aren't out to promote harassment or exclusivity so it's telling how Orwellian
things have become when such a statement - which on the face of it sounds good
and worthy - is rightly recognized as Newspeak.

Wikimedia can do as they please, and if it results in a shitshow as many such
efforts have before, then on their head may it be.

I've been pretty generous with recurring yearly donations up until now but
I'll honestly put things on pause until we see how some of this plays out.

If anyone is genuinely concerned about the impact this may have, I would
suggest archiving a recent dump of wikipedia at the least. It's only ~25GB.

------
stormdennis
All the buzzwords are there, toxicity, harassment, safe spaces, sanction, ban,
inclusivity. All to promote/cement the viewpoints that we now understand to be
,self evidently, the correct ones.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
The most tolerant societies end up tolerating the intolerable.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

~~~
FeepingCreature
I'll embrace that. Yes, the most tolerant societies tolerate the intolerable,
_and that 's good and right._

something something paradox of "please ban things I don't like" something what
good is tolerance if people end up disagreeing with me

~~~
shadowgovt
Tolerating the intolerable is much worse than that.

A society ends up nourishing something that destroys it, because the
intolerable is under no obligation to play fair.

Germany wrestled its censorship laws from hard history lessons.

~~~
free_rms
The thing is, whenever you invoke Popper, you're calling the person you
disagree with a literal Nazi who wants to liquidate millions of people.

Anything short of that and the logic falls apart -- there's no threat in
tolerating some disagreeable person unless they go on to take over the
government and forcibly outlaw all disagreement with them.

~~~
shadowgovt
I'm afraid I don't know what "invoke Popper" means.

> there's no threat in tolerating some disagreeable person unless they go on
> to take over the government and forcibly outlaw all disagreement with them.

If that intent is demonstrable, there's no reason to assist them in their
goals.

~~~
free_rms
Karl Popper's the original author of the paradox of tolerance meme.

The paradox isn't "you don't have to tolerate intolerant people because
they're bad and tolerance is our goal", the paradox is that tolerating people
who then proceed to seize power and outlaw all disagreement with them
undermines tolerance.

Unless there's a credible threat, it's a misuse of the quote.

If you're talking about anti-Nazi laws in Germany, fine, but I see the quote
trotted out all the time to justify eg twitter banning some alt-right-adjacent
nerd for having bad opinions.

~~~
shadowgovt
I suspect what has changed is that such "alt-right-adjacent nerds" are
increasingly seen as credible threats.

Nobody paid much attention to what that guy on gab was saying to like-minded
folk on gab... Until he grabbed a gun and massacred everyone in a religious
building.

When the threat evaluation models aren't trusted, the spread on evaluation of
"credible threat" increases.

~~~
free_rms
I mean, even a mass shooting like that doesn't trigger the paradox of
tolerance. It's a terrible tragedy, and a law enforcement issue, but society
as a whole is not less tolerant for it -- we all agree, don't shoot up a
synagogue or mosque, that is extremely bad form in our society.

The paradox of tolerance would be if we decided to be tolerant of a pro-
mosque-shooting political party and they took power and instituted mandatory
mosque shootings every Friday. We would have messed up in that case.

It's not, "I demand people who disagree with me on less clear-cut issues be
silenced because they're bigots, according to me".

~~~
shadowgovt
> we all agree

Well, that's the issue, isn't it? _Do_ we all agree? I think a lot of people
do. There's a disturbingly large number who do not. And there are corners of
the Internet perfectly willing to entertain their fantasies of establishing
such a political party.

I think whether one should cut that off at the knees by monitoring such sites
and, when necessary, squelching the channel or one waits until someone has
grabbed a gun to act on the ideation is an intensity slider on paradox of
tolerance that reasonable people can disagree on.

Given the sliding scale, it's probably a case-by-case issue. Hard to come up
with a general principle that's going to universally apply; give an example of
something people have been silenced on that they should have been allowed to
continue, and there's debate to be had, but on the general principle, both
sides can probably agree that there's times to silence and times to not.

~~~
zozbot234
I think it's a fallacy to assume that spree killers are trying to seize any
kind of political power. The Columbine killers could not care less about
educational or school policy: they were simply extreme nihilists who hated
everyone and everything, and they were ready to prove it in the most self-
aggrandizing way.

Mind you, I'm not saying that we should _tolerate_ such folks, either; and
once you get past their tiresome, narcissistic self-aggrandizement, it's not
like they have anything worthwhile to say. But that's a _different_ argument
than Popper's; it assumes the existence of some minimally basic ethic of
thriving, and says that no, you _can 't_ aim to destroy the world around you
even if you would be quite OK with everyone else doing it back to you in
return.

~~~
shadowgovt
It almost feels like one could, if one so chose, synthesize out a "Societies
interpret self-destructive nihilism as damage and route around it" statement.
Or something near to it.

------
nicbou
We have not seen the code of conduct. We can't imagine what it will be like
based on two or three adjectives from this article.

I moderate a small community. When we introduced new moderators, we had to
formalise the unspoken rules that governed our moderation habits.

Now, we follow guidelines instead of intuition. Writing things down forced us
to think about our behaviour, and to discuss the flaws in our unspoken rules.
It makes our behaviour more consistent, especially towards content we
personally don't like.

A code of conduct can be just that. A formal, consistent rulebook for a
community.

~~~
sradman
A code of conduct that flexibly promotes civil interactions between community
members is commendable. Framing civility in terms of the language of social
justice activism is worrying. Attempts at inclusivity should not hand-out veto
power. Safe spaces should not be exclusive platforms for the grievances of
anyone who self-identifies as marginalized.

A code of conduct promoting civility should be sufficient.

------
Polylactic_acid
Wikimedia needs to make some serious changes if it wants more editors to join.
They need to do a lot of UI work to make the process for creating a new
article or discussing new changes. When I tried it I found the process very
confusing. Why is all communication done in a wiki page editor?

~~~
nullc
> Why is all communication done in a wiki page editor?

Dogfooding, essentially. This guarantees that all participants eventually
become broadly competent at using it.

There are newer tools to streamline common interactions, though personally I
think they make the learning curve steeper in exchange for making it start off
a little easier.

Plus, wiki is often an exceptionally good way to hold discussions. The fact
that other contributors can, e.g. fix broken links and that freeform layout
can be used... that multiple contributors can seamlessly collaborate on a
single comment. It's very powerful.

Wiki for discussion also builds community and trust, because people could
screw up your comments but they don't. (and if they do, it'll get fixed
promptly and they'll have helpfully identified themselves as someone either
totally clueless or having difficulty with self control)

~~~
nicbou
Dogfooding helps you build better tools for experts, but it doesn't help you
build friendlier tools for newcomers. Those who have the power to improve the
tools are well past the point where they need friendlier tools.

------
tumetab1
Does anyone know what problem are they trying to solve?

I find it confusing that the foundation statements says it's just a
formalization of existing practices but on wikimedia meta page it say it's an
urgency.

Also if this just formalizes existing practices why creating a "retroactive
review process"?

~~~
finnthehuman
> Does anyone know what problem are they trying to solve?

Know the phrase "follow the money"? In this case, follow the power.

To be caught up arguing about codes of conduct in general is a distraction.

>I find it confusing that the foundation statements says it's just a
formalization of existing practices but on wikimedia meta page it say it's an
urgency.

Remember that time the Wikimedia office banned a user for unclear reasons,
without engaging community governance that would typically handle the banning,
and the row it caused because that wasn't the normal way of doing business? If
you doubt how huge the separation of responsibility between the people who
work FOR wikpmedia and work ON wikpedia is, see:
[https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/wikipedia-fram-
banning-...](https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/wikipedia-fram-banning-
editor-controversy.html)

This release from wikimedia says that they're going to be taking top down
control, but unless you're already versed in the structure of the system you
just hear names of groups without understanding the boundaries they represent.

> Does anyone know what problem are they trying to solve?

Either, the wikimedia board is again trying to "fix" wikipedia engagement with
all the insight, art and tact of people that wouldn't be caught dead
participating as editors within wikipedia's self governance system.

Or, a wedge issue has emerged that will allow the foundation to take more
direct control while minimizing the appearance of ramping down wikiepedia's
self governance.

------
Hokusai
> enacts new standards to address harassment and promote inclusivity across
> projects

Well done. I like how Wikimedia works with many languages and helps to share
human knowledge. It is a great institution and a good example on how humans
can collaborate to create something great. Inclusivity is at the roots of
humanity at its best.

It is sad to see the unconstructive cynical comments in this post. We need
more people to build a better world. Cynicism is a good tool agains tyranny,
used agains a foundation that has done so much good is just a cheap shot. Be
civilized, be constructive.

~~~
disposekinetics
This kind of language is a tool of would-be tyrants. Mocking it is a defense
of the good the organization has done.

------
nindalf
I remember when the Go community adopted similar code of conduct. There was
similar push back based around concerns that the rules would be abused and the
community would end up becoming less welcome. This hasn't actually happened in
the last 4 years, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Most other open source software projects have adopted similar guidelines and
they're thriving as well. Taking Rust as an example, they manage to put out
high quality releases every six weeks. Thousands of developers of all
backgrounds have contributed, which makes me think that the Code of Conduct
has encouraged more participation rather than less.

There are dire warnings in this thread about how Wikipedia is going to burn to
the ground because of this change. Based on experience of Go and Rust, I'm
somewhat skeptical.

~~~
alpaca128
The worries probably aren't because of the rules themselves but how they might
be interpreted by the people who enforce them.

A CoC can make complete sense for everyone and still be abused or
misinterpreted to fit a bias. The reverse is also true.

------
brmgb
Standards and a "universal" code of conduct to adress harassment and promote
inclusivity, that all sound extremely American both in the approach taken and
in its wording.

I impatiently await to see how it's going to be received by the international
Wikipedia community. If I had to guess, I would say with a large dose of
scepticism but who knows, that might work.

~~~
zozbot234
Well, Wikipedia is a US-originated project. The CC license applies worldwide
though, so anyone is welcome to fork it if that becomes an issue.

~~~
brmgb
I am not sure I understand your post.

There is no need to fork. Wikipedia is a US originated project but it's also
very much an international project already with a presence in 300 languages
and 39 local chapters which are independant but affiliated with the
foundation.

There is a reason the press release talk of a _universal_ code of conduct.

------
drukenemo
We’re are entering a new wave of censorship, all in the name of “the greater
good”.

~~~
groby_b
Codes of conduct aren't censorship. In the physical world, they're known as
"house rules". You want to join the community, here's how you behave. It is
essentially a list of "how not to be an asshole".

Nothing is stopping you from expressing yourself however you want - just
elsewhere, if you can't follow the rules.

fwiw, this very website has its own code of conduct:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

It focuses on different things than the Wikimedia one, but it's fundamentally
the same thing. For both of them, I'd suggest that if there are things that
you feel are detrimental, you specifically address them.

Making an empty comment like "new wave of censorship" achieves nothing except
saying "I don't like the rules". In which case, fine, there are plenty of
other places on the Internet.

~~~
neonate
> Nothing is stopping you from expressing yourself however you want - just
> elsewhere, if you can't follow the rules

That argument doesn't work if it's a monopoly or a near-monopoly, which
Wikipedia is. Also YouTube etc.

~~~
shadowgovt
Wikipedia and YouTube are as large as they are, in terms of user base, for
their utility. Part of that utility does and continues to include some thin
editorial voice. They're under no obligation to be all things to all people.

People have set up alternative data sources to Wikipedia. Conservapedia has
existed for years. Its relatively smaller size says more about its relative
utility then about anything ill Wikipedia has done.

~~~
neonate
You could say that about any monopoly or near-monopoly. Windows in the 90s
etc.

------
travisoneill1
The irony in this is that this type of language about "inclusivity" only
really appeals to a narrow subset of upper middle class white people.

~~~
iron0013
You will be quickly disabused of this notion if you talk to poor and/or brown
people. While I’m sure that you can find occasional individuals who do not
care about inclusivity, the large majority do care.

The attitude that your comment reflects crops up a lot in relation to, for
example, the Washington Redskins naming controversy. Folks who like the
current name are always bringing up a couple of examples of Native Americans
who say they “don’t care” about the name, and claiming that it’s really only
white liberals who are offended; meanwhile, in my experience, the large
majority of Natives actually do care very much, and are upset that a racial
slur used for their ethnicity is being used as the name of a sports team.

~~~
DuskStar
> The attitude that your comment reflects crops up a lot in relation to, for
> example, the Washington Redskins naming controversy. Folks who like the
> current name are always bringing up a couple of examples of Native Americans
> who say they “don’t care” about the name, and claiming that it’s really only
> white liberals who are offended; meanwhile, in my experience, the large
> majority of Natives actually do care very much, and are upset that a racial
> slur used for their ethnicity is being used as the name of a sports team.

I found this comment rather funny, because if CGP Grey is correct [0] the
preferred term _by American Indians_ is "American Indian", NOT "Native
American". So you're claiming knowledge of the general opinion of a group,
while not using the group's preferred name for themselves.

0:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ)

~~~
iron0013
The attempt at a “gotcha” is annoying. I can only speak from my lived
experience as a white person who grew up on a reservation. I married a native,
and almost all my closest friends were (and are) natives. Everyone I knew
called themselves “native” or “Native American”. “American Indian” wouldn’t
have been considered offensive (unlike “redskin”), but it really wasn’t the
common parlance. The only place one would routinely see the phrase “American
Indian” is on government paperwork, eg from the BIA.

This is one of those things you can find out for yourself: go to a pow-wow
(non-native visitors are typically very welcome) and ask the people there how
they usually refer to themselves.

~~~
DuskStar
That'd be evidence for CGPGrey being wrong, then. But I'd still love to see
statistics on what proportion of people found the existence of the Redskins to
be offensive.

~~~
iron0013
There’s also this element of framing surrounding the word “offensive”. when
someone is put on the spot and asked if they find something “offensive”, it’s
kind of a socially precarious moment. If they say “yes”, it could lead so
challenges and confrontations (“why? Can’t you see that it’s just a word? No
one’s getting hurt, it’s just a game”), but if they say “no”, the conversation
will probably end, without any uncomfortable follow-ups.

------
8bitsrule
Just searched on 'wikipedia editing for beginners'

The top item links to article 'Help:Editing'. This page is -not- for
beginners.

The article: 'Help:Wikipedia' does not mention editing. It does lead to
'Help:Menu'. It offers general help.

Anyway, I had to wander around a while to find this article: 'Help:Wikipedia:
The Missing Manual/Editing, creating, and maintaining articles/Editing for the
first time'. This page also tries to do too much.

It seems clear that a site this size, trying to attract new and diversified
editors, could afford to invest in a 'tutor-text' approach to taking on
different kinds of editing tasks. Beginners could jump in at 'adding a link'
or 'changing a spelling' or 'rewriting a sentence'. Each would offer them a
sandbox to try out something they want to learn to do. After couple of dozen
of these, they'd feel more at-home in the editing environment.

~~~
baud147258
It doesn't help that the editor is not very user-friendly. Though I remember
seeing a visual editor, what happened?

------
dannyw
These ideas can come from good intentions, but what it often means is that a
certain opinion is the _right one_ and another opinion isn't.

As an example, some parts of the internet ostracised Brendan Eich for a
personal donation he made to support a Californian ballet proposition on same
sex marriage; forcing his resignation. There were no complaints about any of
his behaviour or actions at Mozilla whatsoever.

That's not a good thing to be doing.

As another example, the recent Stack Overflow changes where a controversial,
over-empathsised policy change on respecting pronouns (also pretty much a non-
issue, I have never seen pronoun complaints come up on Stack Overflow) has
forced multiple community moderator resignations and a widespread community
revolt.

These changes are often negatives for the projects involved.

~~~
midasz
(I'm willing to catch some flak for this, since I know this may be
controversial but it's how I truly think about this)

What to you may be just another opinion is another's legitimacy of them being
them.

Maybe it's because I see myself as a progressive, I understand why people were
mad at Eich and petitioned his removal. Him being the face of one of the
biggest tech companies in the world actively working against your best
interests must be hurtful. In my bubble it's absolutely normal to be gay, gay
marriage is also nothing to be frowned upon, my country (NL) was the first in
the world to legalize it. I realize a large portion of the rest of the world
sees it differently, but I'd place it in the same category of a CEO donating
money to the KKK or other extremist groups - should black people just think
well hey he's doing a good job right? Who cares he's funding a group that
actively detests me not for who I am but the color of my skin? Just like gay
people think he's funding a group that detests me for something that isn't
even my choice?

I followed the SO debacle and what I gathered from it was that there were a
couple of individuals who made some very very poor decisions, ruled with an
iron first, and any dialogue was not only suppressed but the mod in question
was booted in such a despicable way that the rest of the community followed. I
don't think they're comparable.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> " _What to you may be just another opinion is another 's legitimacy of them
> being them._"

Ironically, progressives say this piously while failing to extend it to those
with conservative (or even moderate) beliefs or religious beliefs.

(For the record, I am a non-religious classical liberal, part of which means I
am against the intolerant aspects of progressivism.)

------
4cao
Wikipedia already has too many policies and this is part of the problem.
However noble the intentions, adding yet another policy-like document is not
going to be part of the solution.

Obviously harassment and toxic behavior are bad and should be discouraged but
all this will accomplish is that politically-inclined editors will have even
more weapons in their inventory to throw "harassment" and "toxic behavior"
accusations at one another.

The bar to start contributing to Wikipedia is already very high: the way it
works in practice, one must familiarize themselves with hundreds of pages from
the WP: namespace, and learn how to use them strategically to defend their
contributions. No wonder few people have the time and inclination to do that.
To encourage more inclusivity this burden should first of all be lowered, not
raised.

So, if more inclusivity was really the objective here, a better experiment
would be to remove all the current policies except a dozen of the most
important ones decided by popular vote among editors, and then edit them even
further so that they fit on a single page, leaving these as the only rules in
force. From then on, not more than a single policy change could be made per
month, and all of it should still fit on the same single page. This would give
new users an equal footing with the entrenched ones, with rules
straightforward enough for everybody to understand and follow, which in turn
should empower people to use their own judgement instead of being
micromanaged. Disagreements would have to be solved by discussing the matter
at hand, as opposed to flinging projectiles from the safety of the WP:
namespace. Wikipedia could learn something from how remarkably simple the HN
rules are in comparison:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

OK, maybe the above is not the greatest idea but it'd at least rattle things a
bit in the right direction if done as an experiment. On the other hand, much
of what Wikimedia Foundation has been doing recently is tangential to the
development of a free encyclopedia, and this press release is no different: it
reads like an exercise in corporate bullshit that checks all the right boxes
but will change exactly nothing. The response to the failures of bureaucracy
is more bureaucracy: "What we were doing so far has failed, so we urgently
need to do even more of the same. This time it'll work."

------
etrabroline
Saw these under the article.

>Lisa Lewin, Managing Partner at Ethical Ventures, a New York City based
management consulting firm, will be the newest member of the Wikimedia
Foundation’s Board of Trustees

>Yesterday, the Wikimedia Foundation announced a new member and leadership
appointments to its Board of Trustees. Shani Evenstein Sigalov, currently an
EdTech Innovation Strategist and lecturer at the School of Medicine in Tel
Aviv University

I wonder if these new board members were involved in the new CoC and
inclusivity rules.

~~~
IAmEveryone
These articles are from August and January 2019, respectively.

And, yes, it is likely that these board members were among the board members
that voted on this proposal, considering they are members of the board, and
the board voted on it.

Is there any specific problem you see with these two as opposed to other board
members, or why do you feel the need to point them out?

~~~
mcbits
> why do you feel the need to point them out?

The web page points them out as "RELATED" (emphasis in original) at the end of
the press release. It's not clear if that was done manually or
algorithmically. If algorithmically, perhaps it's one of those unintentionally
bigoted algorithms?

------
drukenemo
Once again, we fall prey to a monopoly. Britannica exists and it’s quite
decent, but it’s edited only by a few and has a tiny fraction of the reach as
Wikipedia.

~~~
shadowgovt
It's ironic that, in fear that Wikipedia is an information monopoly, someone
would turn to the Encyclopedia Britannica, given how many supporters of
Wikipedia have historically been seeking an alternative to the centralized
print encyclopedia model.

[https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/anencyc.txt](https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/anencyc.txt)

------
thinkingemote
This will be very interesting to observe because it might apply western
concepts of good behaviour to a global audience. Previously it let different
chapters, different parts of the world behave differently. In effect Wikimedia
should want to allow users who are actual signed up Fascists in their
countries to contribute to their project, whilst also ensuring they behave
themselves.

To me, (most probably because the language of this has been shaped by
progressive politics in the west and the article is written in English and
Wikimedia is primarily English speaking) this might well be an experiment with
applying the western, middle class, highly educated, liberal and progressive
values which really do work well on monocultural programming and tech
communities to a really globally diverse and actual multi cultural project.

There really is no other global project like this which spans and crosses
actual cultures and languages. None.

This will be fascinating to watch, I hope they get it right, or at least
publish their failings if they don't.

~~~
zozbot234
> western, middle class, highly educated, liberal and progressive values which
> really do work well

Says who? Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic folks, of
course. Don't get me wrong, there _is_ an underlying reality behind the oft-
repeated claims of 'Whig history'
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history)
. In particular, democratic and classical liberal values seem to do an
unusually good job of de-escalating unwanted social conflict: NPOV (as known
on Wikipedia) is at its root a "liberal" idea, not an authoritarian or
intolerant one! But these overbroad claims should always be treated with
plenty of caution.

------
luord
In this thread I saw how a petition to show an example of bogus claims of
discrimination, followed by a clear cut answer to which not even the asker
could argue against, devolved into nebulous musings on what certain
organizations should or should not consider unfair advantages.

This is probably the main reason why I hate these discussions whenever they
appear in HN. It's not because of whether I consider that initiatives for
"inclusivity" are "baseless, performative and counterproductive at worst" or
"the right step into promoting a more dynamic exchange of ideas", but because
one side of the discussion never stops moving the goalposts.

The conversation only stops when one side has successfully shouted out
dissenters, and not out of any actual solid argument made in their favor.

~~~
textgel
This is something that really strikes me as interesting.

When one side of the debate is clearly completely operating in bad faith what
do you do? I think by now anyone who's joined these debates is familiar with
the tactics seen.

\- The attempt to exhaust the opposition by wasting debate asking for
clarification/examples of things that are common knowledge and to try and
drown out core arguments with word salads and getting side tracked in
arguments over semantics.

\- The tendency for every argument to effectively follow the narcissists
prayer.

\- The tactic of spamming the same illogical arguments over and over despite
the fact these have been refuted before; seemingly in the hope that if enough
of their own side pile on with enough logical fallacies it will get too
exhausting for the opposition to repeatedly tear down the same arguments over
and over again while having to remain civil.

Ironically it's the one thing I can think of that even comes close to aligning
with the tolerance of intolerance argument.

------
Mizza
Ah good, a new way for the deletionists and power hungry busybodys to cudgel
the people who actually make positive contributions.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Citation needed

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Its common knowledge at this point. English wikipedia is guarded by an army of
moderators who try their best to prevent new articles from being created.

~~~
unishark
I think that was little joke.

~~~
wccrawford
You know what I think is really telling? I think you're correct that it was a
joke/meta-commentary, but I didn't even process it as such until you called it
out.

And that's exactly why Wikipedia has such a problem with its editors. They're
so good at getting their way while appearing to just have logical arguments,
as has been stated elsewhere in these comments.

So that either makes it an incredibly on-point joke, or actually a statement
that anecdotes aren't facts, and I can't even tell which for sure.

------
generalpass
> Specifically, the Board has tasked the Foundation with:

> Developing and introducing, in close consultation with volunteer contributor
> communities, a universal code of conduct that will be a binding minimum set
> of standards across all Wikimedia projects;

> Taking actions to ban, sanction, or otherwise limit the access of Wikimedia
> movement participants who do not comply with these policies and the Terms of
> Use;

> Working with community functionaries to create and refine a retroactive
> review process for cases brought by involved parties, excluding those cases
> which pose legal or other severe risks; and

> Significantly increasing support for and collaboration with community
> functionaries primarily enforcing such compliance in a way that prioritizes
> the personal safety of these functionaries.

The first thing they state is creating a universal code established by some
hand-picked team.

The second thing discussed is how this code will be enforced.

The third thing discussed is rewriting everything published to be sure it
conforms to the new code.

The fourth thing discussed is building a wall around the functionaries. It
seems notable they have chosen a word which describes an obtuse rule enforcer.

These activities do not describe the way to create anything "inclusive" of
anything that is not in service to some very specific set of viewpoints.

------
blondin
hey, this is totally tangential to the topic being discussed but i am hoping
wikipedia people are here, reading these comments...

why not make the mobile theme the default theme?

it has better readability. works on both desktop and mobile. i find myself
always adding "m" in the wikipedia urls to get to the mobile version. also
started updating all my bookmarks.

------
nca-peripherals
I maybe wrong but this sounds like a good recipe for groupthink bias, low-
level fascism, newspeak, and weaponizing a CoC for cyber-crybully attacks and
de-platforming while purporting to promote contrary ideals. Orwellian and
Kafkaesque, eh? So much for classical liberalism, free association, and
tolerating (not necessarily condoning or endorsing) a diversity of viewpoints.
Identity politics and unspoken "correct/acceptable" beliefs come next. _Sigh_

------
dntbnmpls
Ah the dystopian newspeak - inclusivity. We are so inclusive that we only how
people who think, act and talk alike are allowed. The tech world is rotting
top down from the inside.

China has "harmony". We have "inclusivity". But ultimately, it's all about
control and manipulation.

------
freen
Seems like a refresher in the paradox of tolerance is needed.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

“ The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit,
its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the
intolerant.”

~~~
ThrowawayR2
Lesser known is Popper's meta-paradox which is that Popper's paradox is often
quoted by people attempting to justify their own intolerance, the same sort of
people that Popper's paradox tells us cannot be safely tolerated by a society.

------
swebs
Does anyone know why this is happening? I just assumed Reddit, Youtube,
Stackoverflow, etc were doing it because they were being paid by the DNC or
various political action groups. But Wikipedia is a non-profit with a good
chunk of money in reserve.

~~~
DanBC
Lots of people try to eidt Wikipedia and are driven away by arseholes, and
this is a problem that Wikipedia has been trying to fix for years.

Things came to a head last year when a prominent editor was harassing users
for years and the English wikipedia failed to address it. It came to the
attention of Wikimedia foundation who took action against the editor, and that
caused a storm.

Personally I think they need to do a lot more than a CoC, especially if it's
going to be applied by Wikipedia.

~~~
swebs
Can I get a link to this specific incident?

~~~
DanBC
The blocking of Fram.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20317921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20317921)

