zlacker

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

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.

>>groby_+(OP)
If the rules were decided by the English Wikipedia community following their process for making such decisions then this would be a meaningful criticism. But this is an edict from the WMF ivory tower. To say it's representative of the Wikipedia editors is a gross mischaracterisation.

From my perspective it's naked entryism, striking at the centralised weakness in an otherwise robust, decentralised system.

>>groby_+(OP)
> It is essentially a list of "how not to be an asshole".

No, they're essentially just a list of vague rules that are at the sweet spot of "vague enough that I can make anything you write fit into it" and "vague enough that you can't point to it and definitely say that somebody else does it to you". It's basically a very rough outline of laws, with everything in between to be filled out by a judge on a case by case basis, without precedents or abstraction.

They are an instrument to strengthen the power of whoever is enforcing those rules. There was a fun read some time ago where Chinese princelings were showing off their riches, dollar bundles, rolexes, cars etc, one-upping each other. The person who won just posted a badge of attendance at a conference of the party's committee tasked with enforcing the party's moral standards (or something similar, Google is shit, I can't find it again). That's power, not being an editor with a thousand articles.

>>cthor+q
The English Wikipedia can be part of the problem in some cases. It's not a democracy but a "tight-knit" community where insiders have a lot of influence, and even harassing, uncivil behavior can go on for a long time if it's perceived as "defending" the community's precious "work" from new editors. Part of the problem is also that harassment concerns must often be disclosed in private for obvious reasons, so a community-wide dispute resolution process might just not work very well for those.

And then there's Wikipedias in other languages and other Wikimedia projects, which come with additional cans of worms.

>>groby_+(OP)
Posting from a throwaway for obvious reasons.

> Codes of conduct aren't censorship... It is essentially a list of "how not to be an asshole".

It would be great if that were true.

But it's not, and we both know that.

A Code of Conduct a thinly-veiled justification to harass and bully your ideological opponents.

There's an XKCD that talks about this. Dumbest thing Randall Munroe has ever written: https://xkcd.com/1357/

You can "show someone the door".

And there will be a welcome mat, doughnuts, and a lot of friends on the other side.

>>zozbot+x1
> where insiders have a lot of influence, and even harassing, uncivil behavior can go on for a long time if it's perceived as "defending" the community's precious "work" from new editors

It definitely happens, but the influence and uncivil behaviour by longtime editors are always, in my experience, very well disguised under a veneer of civility and lawyering. So the CoC will be completely useless against that, which is IMO the serious issue with Wikipedia right now.

>>groby_+(OP)
> 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.

>>crowdg+J1
Of course there will be. The internet has done wonders for helping people with terrible opinions congregate.

But that doesn't imply one needs to let the Stormfronters hang out in one's digital lobby instead of directing them back to their own donuts in Stormfront.

>>neonat+b9
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.

>>neonat+b9
When I read these things I always have to think of Voat, the reddit clone that was 'open to assholes'. A lot of reddit users who could not follow the rules actually jumped ship, but what they found was that Voat was not really what they were looking for. They (ironically) did not find their safespace there because the other side of the coin was that other users could also criticize their views (extremism is exponential). That was not what they were looking for.

The other reason it didn't really work out well is that people need an audience. Voat was and is much smaller than reddit, so they had less reach. What I'm trying to say is, is that it's not a technical challenge, those have been solved already. It's people with extreme views who want to be able to express themselves where those views are not tolerated.

I'll join the protests once they actually start censoring, but if it's just like hey: don't be an asshole or you can just be an asshole somewhere else... I'm fine with it.

>>shadow+Ap
You could say that about any monopoly or near-monopoly. Windows in the 90s etc.