Fram ban

Having previously pledged to impose a “code of conduct” on all sites owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, staff have finally published a draft version of the document for review by contributors to Foundation-owned sites. Numerous provisions, including on “preferred pronoun” usage, immediately raised concerns among users about their implications for free speech with some harassment provisions also seen as potentially undermining efforts to rein in bad editing.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, recently announced that it will impose a “universal code of conduct” on the site and others owned by the Foundation to make them “safe spaces” and improve the “diversity” of the community. The move comes a year after the Foundation took the unprecedented step of banning a veteran administrator, breaching the traditionally self-governing nature of Wikipedia’s community and sparking a revolt that ultimately saw the ban overturned.