The wikipedia code of conduct is an agreement that every Wikipedia contributor sign. The agreement guarantees that the contributors have read, understand, and agree to the code. It also sets out the consequences for violating the code. Violations can result in sanctions ranging from a warning and the deletion of a Wikipedia article or a Wikipedia user, or in extreme cases, being banned from Wikipedia entirely.
The article about the code of conduct has been up for a year now and has over 100k views, and it has some very interesting discussions in it.
The code of conduct is a set of rules for the general conduct of editors on Wikipedia, and the agreement it sets out is a way of guaranteeing that we follow its rules. It’s a good point, but as someone who has been editing Wikipedia for a bit, I’d rather have rules for my own behavior, such as not killing people. As soon as I start killing people, I’m going to start violating that rule.
It seems that the code of conduct was probably the largest change to Wikipedia that the Wikimedia Foundation made in the last year. They’ve been working on it for a while now, but it has been very public and was the subject of a lot of controversy. I’ve been very interested to see how the Wikimedia team has managed to go from a bunch of rules and guidelines to a set of rules that seem to actually be very practical.
It seems the code of conduct is a direct result of the recent protests against the treatment of the women in #MeToo as well as the increase in violence against them. The code of conduct is a very important step in the change that all Wikipedia users need to take. In the past, Wikipedia’s rules were pretty vague at best and, in the case of the code of conduct, a really bad excuse for abuse.
I’m not trying to cast aspersions on anyone, but I think the code of conduct is a good thing, especially with respect to what can happen to people in violation of it. I wonder if the Wikipedia community would have been better off if their code of conduct was very explicit about what behavior was forbidden and what behavior was not.
Well, if there’s one thing I know about the code of conduct and the Wikipedia community, it’s that there isn’t enough of either and that the two are very inconsistent. I have no doubt that there’s a large amount of people who think that the rules are vague and that there’s a lot of room for interpretation. In the case of the Wikipedia staff, that’s likely to be true.
Its not clear exactly what the code of conduct says about that behavior, but it does seem to be quite vague about the issue. I have no doubt that theres a large percentage of people who think that the rules are vague and a large percentage who think that the rules are quite clear.
The problem is that wikipedia is a wiki and we have no idea whether or not the code of conduct applies to our particular case. The fact that we can’t find any mention of the rules in the wiki indicates that it likely doesn’t. I would agree with that, but even if you think the rules are vague, and even if your interpretation of them is correct, its still a wiki so there’s no way to confirm that you’re right.
Even if you think the rules are vague or not clear, you can still apply them and not break them. But you can only apply them once. The thing that makes code of conduct a little more difficult is that it applies to every single page on your website. You can’t just say that youve followed the rules and they dont apply to your site. This leaves you open to claims that you broke the rules.