Universal Code of Conduct/Project

The call for candidates for the special election of the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) began on 10 July 2024.

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) aims to provide a universal baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire Wikimedia movement and all its projects.

The UCoC is a key policy initiative from the Wikimedia 2030 community conversations and strategy process. The Strategy groups consulted Wikimedians from the global communities and put forth 10 recommendations to guide the movement towards its 2030 vision. One of the recommendations, to “Provide for Safety and Inclusion,” included drafting a Code of Conduct, the UCoC. The UCoC is being developed in consultation with communities from across the Wikimedia movement with respect to context, existing local policies, as well as enforcement and conflict resolution structures. Previous community discussions about the Universal Code of Conduct can be found on this page.

The UCoC consultation is being held in two phases. Phase 1, from June to December 2020, involved research and conversations with communities on what a UCoC would look like. It resulted in the UCoC Policy, which is intended to apply to all activities in the Wikimedia movement. The Board of Trustees announced its approval of the UCoC Policy on 2 February 2021, though the community has not approved the Universal Code of Conduct. Phase 2 involves community conversations and proposal drafting on how to implement and enforce the UCoC. It officially began in February 2021.

Between 2018 and 2020, the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process invited volunteers to look at how to best guide the Wikimedia movement towards the future. Through working groups, online discussions, and in-person events around the world, 10 recommendations and principles were published in May 2020. One of these recommendations was to “Provide for Safety and Inclusion”:

We will establish Movement-wide standards for an inclusive, welcoming, safe, and harassment-free environment. This will enable us to better attract and retain new and diverse volunteers and grow as a movement.

A key part of this recommendation was to create a Code of Conduct, the UCoC. It aims to provide a "universal baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement without tolerance for harassment". Wikimedia communities work in highly varied contexts, and no code of conduct will be able to cover every situation and issue. If the Terms of Service are updated to include it, participants and local projects will be asked to follow and build upon the baseline established by the UCoC.

As per the Board of Trustees’ statement, there are two phases for the UCoC project. The first phase ("Phase 1") involved research, community and stakeholder dialogue, as well as a staff-appointed joint volunteer-staff committee that drafted the UCoC text proposal. The proposed text was submitted to the Board of Trustees for ratification on 13 October 2020. The Board announced the approved text on 2 February 2021.

The second phase ("Phase 2") of the project began on 2 February 2021, when the Board approved the draft UCoC text developed in Phase 1. The second phase of the project focuses on how to enforce the UCoC. As with the first phase, determining responsibilities and outlining clear enforcement pathways involves broad input from communities across the Wikimedia movement.

Please see this page for a complete list of current and past UCoC consultations.

Over the next few months, there will be multiple consultations with volunteers on both shaping the community considerations that go into the enforcement proposal draft, and on the draft before it is finalized. Please follow our timeline for a more complete picture of the overall process.

This current period is dedicated to local language consultations. These are facilitated discussions with target language communities in discussion channels and platforms frequented by each of those communities. These conversations began in late January 2021 and are live for an 8 week period:

• Arabic
• Bangla
• Wikimedia Commons
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Korean
• Malay
• Nepali
• Polish
• Wikidata
• Yoruba

As our movement grows, community voices are needed to help shape the pathways to enforcing the UCoC that address the diverse needs of individual communities. The project team encourages communities to regularly share their experiences, ideas, and learnings with behavioral policies here on Meta, in consultations and discussions, or via email.