Wikipedia To Combat Toxic Behavior With New Rule Against Harassment of Women and LGBTQ

Alec G., Tech Times 23 May 2020, 05:05 pm

Wikipedia will implement a new rule and code of conduct to fight against "toxic behavior."

Wikipedia Takes Action

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the runs site has voted on new measures to be implemented and will be finalized by the end of the year. If you don't know, Wikipedia is a site that is written and updated by the site's volunteers.

Of the many volunteers, particularly women and LGBTQ, have complained about the abuse and harassment of other editors of the information site. Wikimedia's board of trustees has reiterated that maintaining civility was one of their core values.

Katherine Maher, the chief executive officer of Wikimedia Foundation, has said, "We must work together to create a safe, inclusive culture, where everyone feels welcome, that their contributions are valued, and that their perspective matters. Our goal is all the world's knowledge, and this is an essential step on our journey."

What New Rules Will be Implemented

The foundation's code of conduct for its members will include limiting access or even banning them if they are ever caught and proven that they have violated the terms and conditions of the foundation. Doing so will create a retroactive review process for harassment, which took place before the new rules were set.

Wikipedia has widely known to the world as one of the most trusted sources for gathering information. However, several complaints regarding gender inequality and harassment have been happening behind the curtain for almost a decade.

There was a study performed by the University of Washington on the gender gap in Wikipedia editors, and they found that many of the female and LGBTQ editors fear for their safety. The editors got so many complaints from female editors in which male editors were the ones causing this.

An article from the New York Times back in 2019 also spoke about the concerns that editors who are members of the LGBTQ community have received death threats.

One Form of Harassment Received by Wikipedia Editors

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Wikipedia is not a formal social media website, but editors can interact with each other and exchange and edit the content on a page after it has been written. The harassment takes place where after one page is done being edited, another volunteer would remove or change the work just a few minutes after.

This forces the writer to redo the whole thing again, which will lead to endless editing battles between both parties.

The new rules would take place in two phases, by which the first would be to include setting policies for in-person as well as virtual events and policies for technical spaces to include chat rooms and other Wikimedia projects.

The second phase will be to outline enforcement and sanctions as when the rules will be approved by the end of the year, that is all according to the board's plan.