Governance: Consensus and Bans

Joseph Reagle

Governance

How do groups make decisions?

  • coin flip
  • dictator
  • tribunals/committees
  • majority
  • super-majority
  • consensus

Challenges of consensus

Buffy naming

  • what happened?
  • what was the WP process?

Consensus

  • what is consensus?
    • general agreement without active opposition
  • what is “rough” consensus?
    • dominant view …
  • how do you know when you have it?
    • … as assessed by Chair

Deliberation and openness

Open Thread (4586670523)

no charter, no list of members in good standing, susceptible to abuse (trolling & forum shopping)

Time and precedence

Pocket watch with chain

rehashing vs reconsidering

Facilitation

307 wikimania2022 0-workshop 02

trust, power

Polling vs voting?

25.06.2005 FWG Rheinland-Pfalz Landestag

polling shapes consensus process, not ends it; this can be slow and frustrating

Bans

vs. Block?

A ban is a formal prohibition from editing some or all Wikipedia pages… for a specified duration or an indefinite duration.

A ban … does not technically prevent editing; however, blocks may be used to enforce bans. (Wikipedia 2019)

Scope

  • Site ban
  • Article ban or page ban
  • Topic ban
  • Interaction ban (Wikipedia 2019)

Authority?

  • community, by “consensus”
  • Arbitration Committee as a remedy
  • or as delegated to admin
  • Jimbo Wales
  • Wikimedia Foundation (“though rare”) (Wikipedia 2019)

Structure of an Arbcom Case??

“One Woman’s mission to rewrite Nazi history on Wikipedia”. (Cohen 2021)

Code of conduct

Harassment

In February, Molly White, age 27, received yet another creepy message: “We have three people who are going to be taking a tour [of your apartment] and looking at it, but you will not know who they are because we wont disclose that ahead of time, just know that when they do they will be wearing a hidden camera and we will be sharing the deets.” For White, the threat was one more example of the harassment she has received because she is one of Wikipedia’s most prolific female contributors. (Harrison 2021)

Community health

Wikimedia’s 2018 Gender Equity Report found that 14 percent of the women who were interviewed had experienced poor community health on Wikipedia, reporting issues ranging from a general lack of support to harassment. “I have had porn posted to my userpage,” said one interviewee. Another interviewee reported that there was a lot of “aggression when discussing [Wikipedia] biographies of women.” (Harrison 2021)

Creating a code

more than 1,500 Wikipedia volunteers representing five continents and 30 languages participated in the creation of the new code. (Harrison 2021)

Wikimedia “Universal Code of Conduct”

“We expect all Wikimedians to show respect for others.”

  • Expected behavior
    • Mutual respect
    • Civility, collegiality, mutual support and good citizenship
  • Unacceptable behavior
    • Harassment
    • Abuse of power, privilege, or influence
    • Content vandalism and abuse of the projects (Foundation 2021)

Mutual respect

  • Practice empathy
  • Assume good faith, and engage in constructive edits
  • Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves (Foundation 2021)

Harassment

  • Insults
  • Sexual harassment
  • Threats
  • Encouraging harm to others
  • Disclosure of personal data (Doxing)
  • Hounding
  • Trolling (Foundation 2021)

QICs

Conclusion

Wrap up

Review

  • In what circumstances would the following governance approaches work best?
    • benevolent dictator
    • majority/democratic
    • consensus

What were your two higher order questions?