Thank you for watching this video. I'll see you in the next video. That's great. This is so cool. There's a lot of water here. I'm trying to get the rest of the window. Can you? You can? Oh, wait a minute. Please, you're still coming up with that picture of the water up there, is that all you're doing? Yeah. Do you know what you mean? You put this slide shell together a couple of years ago and we have these kind of water sensors really active and so we have something in the cafe in the record store today and we've been using them for a long time, you know, a lot of our people love the water. We've been using them for a long time, we've been using them for a long time and we have this with a lot of people. They're really active and so we have something in the cafe in the record store today. Do you want to change that? Do you want to go to the same store? Yes. Do you want to go to the same store? Yeah. So we have a lot of sensors that are really active to get down. Yeah. Also, okay, so that's a lot of the water. Wait, that's not. So I think it's down to the surface. Yeah. I would like to invite you into a few minutes of Centering Silence and now please remain seated and join in singing our in-gathering hymn found in the Order of Service. Good morning. Welcome to the first Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious people gather to explore spiritual, ethical and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Dorit Bergen and on behalf of the congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors.  Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and look for people carrying steel excuse me, teal stoneware mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our programs and community life and they look forward to the chance to speak with you this morning. You can also stop by our information table outside of the library where you can find more information about our upcoming events and programs. In this lively acoustical environment it can become difficult for those in attendance to hear what is happening in our service so we remind you that our child haven and commons areas are excellent places to go and meet, to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. We do have hearing assistance devices available please see one of our ushers if that would be helpful for you. This would be a good time to turn off all electronic devices that might disrupt the service. Experience guides are generally available to give a building tour after each service so if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house please meet near the large glass window on the left side of the auditorium. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our services run smoothly. Your greeter this morning was Joan Heitman. Usher's are Sam Bates and Smiley and Pat Becker and coffee is being made by Jean Hills. Please note the announcements on the red floors insert in your order of service which describe upcoming events at the society and provide more information about today's activities and I do have one special announcement. The music director search committee is beginning the process of finding our new music director and they want to know your thoughts regarding the music program and its role here at FUS. There is a table set up for you to visit after the service today. Please feel free to stop by discuss your thoughts or fill out a note sharing your ideas and wishes. And now we hope that this service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. We come together as rivers seek the sea bringing with us the waters of the earth. We begin as tiny springs and far off places gathering strength as we plunge down rough ravines and flow through peaceful valleys. Always there are other living streams that join us flow through us sharing their strength then ultimately all of us flow into the great ocean of being. We are like the waters of the earth we seek the peacefulness of a still glimmering lake we search for the strength of the raging river we long for the freshness of the mountain spring and so from the springs and streams, lakes and oceans we co-mingle our waters in a cup of beauty we pour out the moments of our lives into a container that gives them shape and substance knowing we are a part of the great ocean of being we treasure the fragile droplets that belong to us here and now we give thanks for the cup of beauty that is ours to create ours to behold and ours to enjoy and I invite you to rise in body or spirit as we join together in the affirmation for our chalice lighting and so we gather from the ebb and flow of our lives thirsty for connection to ourselves thirsty for connection to others thirsty for connection to the larger life as we light this chalice may all who gather here be filled with joy and hope filled with compassion and love here may we be filled so that we may pour ourselves out into the world and before we join together in song if you'll take a moment to turn and greet your neighbor please be seated welcome to our annual water communion service this morning we join together and gather the waters of the world we rejoin in community renewing our spirits and our commitment to the waters of this glorious planet for almost 40 years now Unitarian Universalist congregations have been holding services that honor and celebrate and give thanks for water perhaps it is because water has been an important symbol throughout human history this is so because it points to a fundamental truth without water there is no life Lauren Isley once said that if there is magic to be found on this planet it is contained in the waters for millennia the religions of the world have used water to point to the power of the divine and the mystery of life Hindu priests pray that the waters will bring us well-being and new life Muhammad the founder of Islam regarded rain as the most obvious and direct symbol of God's mercy many ancient cultures from India to Peru associated their goddesses with rivers, lakes and other bodies of water we do well to remember that our destiny is woven with the destiny of the waters all life comes from water life started in the ocean where it began to take its many forms babies are cradled in water before they are born everything that lives needs water from the smallest points to the largest whale from the smallest plants to the largest whale from the beginning of history humans have built their homes and their lives around water and so it becomes a fitting symbol of all that sustains and nurtures the port's life today we bring our waters which have touched the west, north, south and east which come from the sky the surface of the earth and from deep wells and springs within we bring water that belong to lakes streams and reservoirs of fresh waters that quench thirst we bring water that is a part of the great oceans and the seas that circle the globe teeming with life the source of all life we bring water to this place of meeting and sharing in this water there is new water formed in the atmosphere daily and there is old water water as old as the earth water from which life has evolved over the ages this is the stream of life from which all life flows all people are connected by this stream for it runs through our veins and courses through the stems and leaves of plants it is the symbol of the cleansing power of forgiveness and the faithful promise of healing love it is the symbol of the reality of the oneness that unites humankind and all life today we bring water to honor the earth that gives us life to honor the community of all life plants, animals and people today we offer thanks for the gift of water and also for the web of life we all share near or far may our separate waters join into one sacred stream as we add our lives into the stream of living souls who live from a place of love work for a world of justice and hunger for a time of peace in a moment we will invite you to come forward with your water whether water you brought this morning or water from our pictures here which can symbolize the water important to you we invite you to come forward and pour it into one of these large green containers we're going to call you forward by the directions east, south, west, north and here's the tricky part waters of Wisconsin are the center our home so if you have water from somewhere up north if it's up north in Wisconsin wait till we get to the center and as you come forward TK and I will be reading from the cards that you wrote on your way in letting everyone know where these waters originated so I first call for the waters of the east Garenger Ford in Norway New Meadows River west bath Maine the archipelago of Stockholm, Sweden from the river Seine in Paris a muse camp in Sawyer, Michigan spring in Tennessee the cold Atlantic at Bahaba, Maine Lake George is that Maryland? No New York New Delhi, India the Arrow River in Michigan Sand Dunes National Lake Lake Michigan Lake Michigan and Holland Tanzania and Zanzibar Reykjavik, Iceland Lake Champlain Westport, Connecticut All right the waters of the south Panama the Bahamas the Caribbean and Puerto Rico Tennessee River Chattanooga South Africa Sliding Rock, North Carolina the Mississippi River in New Orleans Isle of Palms, Charleston, South Carolina From my home rain from our rain from overnight collected I live south of here in Oregon Tennessee River Chattanooga Crooked Lake, Florida the waters of east Texas that are causing destruction and fear for so many fellow travelers in the interdependent web may our mingled waters cradle them with care and hope the Tasman Sea off the coast of Sydney, Australia and Table Rock Lake in southern Missouri Next we have the waters of the west Glacier Bay, Alaska Kauai, Hawaii San Francisco Bay Mississippi River Estes Park, Colorado Eclipse water from the west Eclipse water from the Snake River on the Idaho-Oregon border So that's where you went Portland, Oregon And now the waters of the north Did everybody go north in Wisconsin and that's what We have a couple Iceland The Boundary Waters in Minnesota Franklin Lake, Oneida County in northern Wisconsin Lake Superior Two Harbors, Minnesota Kiwena Peninsula Upper Peninsula in Michigan And now the waters of our center the waters of Wisconsin from our play space here in Madison Rock Island, Lake Michigan Wisconsin Yihara River in Stoughton I'm going to mispronounce this Wanaki, Wisconsin or Wanaki? Wanaki Not from here We'll have a little bit of name that place this morning Hoodoo Lake in the Brule National Forest in Brule, Wisconsin I think this says Potosi Point in Wisconsin on the Mississippi River Tenney Park Lagoon Madison Central Park I know we had a Central Park We sure do The International Crane Foundation Seven Island Lake in Harrison Hills Rainwater from Madison East A Rain Gauge in Madison The Wisconsin River in Moskota, Wisconsin Everett Lake near Iron River, Wisconsin and Madison and Rainwater from home Bless this water We are many Bless this water We are one Spirit of life and love overflowing Throughout our community and our world Shape us, move us Guide us to find the courage and the wisdom to create a better way Bless our hearts with love's welcoming embrace Bless our minds with openness and curiosity May compassion flow through us like water and find a love within resounding strong May our gathering together this morning be a blessing for one and all May it inspire us to a year of hope and love and courageous faith and may we walk this year in the full awareness as often as possible of the blessed ties that bind each to all Bless this water We are many Bless this water We are one And our first story this morning if anyone would like to come on up I guess Come on, Owen, look a little happier about it Come on I'll be honest with you, I kind of feel the same way myself right now Not enough coffee Hey, Lula, how are ya? There's Winnie, not over Come on, Finn, you too Here he comes So have any of you ever been afraid of water? No Have you ever been afraid of water? Somebody this morning said she's not afraid of water but she's afraid of the sharks that live in the water I think that makes really, really good sense Are you sharks? Yeah, sharks, right? So our story today is about a little boy who overcomes a fear of water and it leads him on a really fantastic journey So do you have your imaginations working this morning? Good, thank you, Basil I'm going to need your imaginations for this story Okay So the boy's teacher said to him you are water mostly This information fascinated the boy but at the same time he found it a little bit unsettling He wondered what would happen to him What about in the rain? Would he melt in the rain if he was made mostly of water? Would he turn to ice in the winter if he was mostly water? What do you think, Lula? No, we don't turn to ice in the winter, do we? Even where we live we don't turn to ice in the winter If his cat scratched him would all the water leak out and leave him lying flat on the sidewalk like a punctured balloon? No Once he could swear that his bathwater was trying to wrap itself around his toes and tug him someplace far away So he refused to take a bath at all and when his mother asked why he told her what his teacher had said Well said his mother, water is a part of all of us It's a good thing We can't live without water And after that the boy was a little less afraid to get back to taking baths but he clung to the side of the tub the entire time Now as the days went by water became more and more like a friend to the boy When it rained, he put on his boots and he went outside to play and he would splash in the puddles And if it didn't rain that day he would fill up his boots with water and slosh around the house until what do you think happened? What would happen if you brought your boots full of water into the house? What would happen? You'd get in trouble Right, his mother told him to stop So the boy was visiting his grandmother and she asked him what his favorite color was Blue, he replied So she knit him a sweater the color of the ocean on a cloudless afternoon and he wore it nearly every day And after that strange things began to happen One evening as he was helping with the dishes the water from the faucet curled into letters that spelled his name Atticus is like, no way It's not going to happen As he walked along the beach near his house the bird circled him and brought him treasures from the ocean When he stood on the cliffs the waves sang to him And in the bath Now this is super cool In the bath the boy could push all of the water to one end of the tub where it would stay until he nodded his head Now how cool would that be? Wouldn't that be cool? That would be really cool Now this trick came in handy on a school field trip to a world famous waterfall where a little dog fell into the water and was in danger of being swept away And at the pond in the park when his sailboat tipped over and began to sink a water spout picked it up carried it back across the pond and gently placed it right at his feet The boy spent a lot of time practicing water tricks After much trial and error he was able to toss water from a glass wrapping back like a yo-yo But the boy's favorite trick was to balance a drop of water on the tip of his finger when he held it up close he could see everything that lay at the bottom of the ocean The boy discovered that he could squeeze gallons and gallons of rainwater into an old baby food jar And then he placed the jar on his window sill so the water absorbed the energy of the sun and then he began to conduct some experiments The boy found that just one drop of water from that jar could clear up a bottle of the darkest ink Two drops could clean a large mud puddle So he took the jar to school one day to show the other kids the water strange power And on his way home he was crossing a bridge and he heard a voice calling for help The boy looked around He was all alone Then he heard it again He looked over the side of the bridge There was nobody there The cry was coming from the river begging to be made clean So the boy removed the jar from his school bag and he carefully poured out one gleaming drop When it splashed into the river that single drop formed a sparkling blue ring that rippled steadily outward He poured another drop and another and another and the shimmering ripples reached from bank to bank Slowly the boy emptied out the entire jar and watched as the river ran clear all the way to the ocean and beyond Later as the boy walked along the shore a bottle washed up at his feet and inside the bottle was a note and the note had his name on it Thank you the note said So the boy slipped the note into his pocket and continued on home His bath was waiting So we don't have a magic baby food jar full of gleaming water cleaning up all the waters I wish we did So what could we do to help the waters? Do you have any ideas? What can we do to help the waters? Do you know that there are groups here in town that clean up they have river clean up days? And you could go and you can clean up trash on river banks? What are your questions? Let me hear them What are your questions to ice in the winter? What do you think guys? No! Nope, what's your other one? How's that blanket rippling? That's a pretty cool trick, isn't it? The grown-ups can't see that that blanket is rippling They're going to see it soon You know how it's happening? I'll let you on a secret It's over the air vent That's T.K. He's tricky Uh huh Can we clean up? Your dad has good ideas, doesn't he? You guys are going to get to see his good idea in a minute What about when you're taking a shower brushing your teeth or doing the dishes? Do you let the water run the whole time? No What do you do, Winnie? Turn it off when you're done Wet your tooth, brush your teeth and turn it back on, right? So there's all kinds of ways Another thing we could do is when you go home ask your grown-ups to show you what kind of cleaning products you have at home and check and see are they good for the water or are they too icky of a chemical and maybe we should try something different There's all kinds of things that we can do to help the waters and I know that you are the ones to do it Awesome Winnie and dad went out and picked up trash Dad was in charge of the cigarettes Good job, dad I've had that job myself many a day Dad was in charge of picking up the cigarettes not bringing them on the trip, right? We got it We got it, good job, dad Thanks, guys You know what? We are going to have you return to your seat to listen to some more beautiful music from Heather and Emily and Jennifer and Peyton So thank you for being such great listeners for our story The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures It is the same stream of breath and hope of love and memory that runs through each one of us here and it is this stream of shared memory of shared belief in a living faith that gathers us back here together into our community As we gather here today we bring with us our hopes and our joys and also our disappointments and our sorrows We bring with us the ebb and the flow of life We come here to share with one another a special event or circumstance in our lives or the lives of a loved one If you feel so moved I invite you to come forward and pick up one of these stones as you share your joy or sorrow with this community When you are through place the stone into the water knowing that as the water holds the stone the community holds your concerns and your joys You may also come forward and wordlessly drop a stone into the water and return to your seat I now open our time for the sharing of these important matters of our lives I want to thank everybody for a very I hate to say the word but successful service Saturday we had 14 projects including labeling storm drains 100 participants so thanks everybody it was truly a community event Anybody else? Pick a stone This is a concern I'm Judy Troyer my niece Laura is having some very serious surgery in the next few days and my friend Gaye Eliason just managing her cancer so hopefully they all feel the love and care that surrounds them I'm having an emotional morning I'm recovering from a week away with my immediate family where I got to spend time with my 8 week old new nephew so that's my joy and then my sorrow is yeah thank you my sorrow is we have a close friend who is a member of this community who is in a really hard place right now and I'm missing him this morning being here I'm Barb Avery this stone is for my former mother-in-law she was certainly a force in my life and practically a force of nature and she died 2 weeks ago good morning my name is Catherine I just moved to Madison about a month and a half ago and that's been kind of a mixed bag and then my grandma died about 3 weeks ago sharing that sorrow with the community I'm Tom Heiney I've had epilepsy most of my life and 3 days ago I had a grand mal seizure after 50 years of being mostly seizure free so if I fall down and go boom in your presence just try to keep the hard stuff away from my head and don't worry my heart and mind are with the people of Houston who have too much water today and I feel a great deal of sorrow for their suffering I'm Lorna Aronson and I just spent a just really glorious week with my 11 year old granddaughter and our major activity for the week was painting kindness rocks so if you're traveling around Madison some of the parks various places and you see bright wildly colored rocks with beautiful sayings on them especially if you're in the Tenney Park area just know that the kindness is flowing to you John Mix I would just like to share the joy that we a number of us enjoyed yesterday here in this space James Morgan and Rachel Kinkade were married here last night and what a joy my name is Stephanie my family is visiting from the La Crosse area we moved our son into I thought I could compose and it's his 18th birth today you did it we hold any unnamed joys or sorrows in our hearts for this moment of silence we'll sing hymn number 1007 in the teal handle all the kids not just mine everybody go ahead and pick a boat that they want try not to fight over any colors this is the journey it was going to be blue boats but now it's multi-colored boats that's a color of boats sorry throw it out there was once a group of little boat friends for their entire lives they had lived in a harbor giant red mountain there's the mountain this behind the screen it's a pretty big mountain they were all good friends but they were tired of floating around and around in their little harbor so one day they got together and all agreed that a journey was in order they all talked to the wisest boat and said we decided that we will take a trip and that you should take us absolutely said the wisest boat and off they went down the waterfall they sailed along the rocky shore for several miles or kilometers if that's your thing until they came to an old barren forest full of fallen trees what a sad place said one of the boats can you say what a sad place what an awful way to start our journey said another but the wisest boat was very wise and said without trees like these there would be no paper and there would be no us so the old barren forest became a special place for the boats and they each took a small piece of wood to remember and continued on their journey do you want to put in your boat everyone got a piece of wood we'll see if they stay in this time so the first service we made boats it's going to work so if you want to learn how to make boats I'm going to be at a table after service we can all learn how to make the boats together alright excuse me we're going out the door back there can you get that door out hold it open thanks we'll go through here and into here next in a place where the high cliffs had been completely broken down by the waves there was a lonely sad beach now this really is a dreary place can you say now this really is a dreary place no you got it Lou indeed the land is always so much worse than the sea said another can you say the sand is worse than the sea I mean the land is worse than the sea but the wisest boat was very wise without the land there would only be endless sea and that would be very dull indeed and so the beach became a special place for the boats and they each took a seashell to remember you want to get a seashell fishes really don't like me everyone got a shell? not quite back out the door oh my log fell out that's okay that's mine oh is that yours next all the boats got caught in a cold drizzly rain how dreadful said one of the boats how dreadful nice if we were at home we could hide in one of the red mountain caves and stay dry complained another yes said the wisest the very wisest boat but we are fortunate that this is just a gentle rain that teaches us that if we did not know what it felt like to be wet and miserable we would never appreciate how wonderful it feels to be dry and comfortable so the rain became a special rain for the boats it's a raindrop you certainly can do you see any different colors in there Adda? how about this beautiful how about this beautiful blue raindrop it's a raindrop shaped like a seashell okay thanks Adda nice bud and they returned home we are going to go up the ramp because we can't go up the waterfall you have the ramp right there it's uh I don't know it's where the river goes uphill but some of their friends did not choose to go on a journey that's fine at last they returned home after their very long journey it was longer in the first service at last they returned home after their mildly long journey we really liked the forest who wants to say we really liked the forest do you really like the forest? okay that's a raindrop I think and the beach and the rain said one of the boats but we are glad to be home can everyone say we are glad to be home the wise boat remained silent because she realized that the boats had learned their final lesson all on their own it takes a journey far from home to make us realize how special home really is thanks we're now going to have the offertory the money will be going to Wisconsin wetlands please be generous I invite you to come forward to take some of our mingled waters home with you take these waters with the recognition that our planet flows like a soft blue sapphire in the darkness of space because of water take these waters knowing that they are made of our loves and dreams, adventures and sorrows and hopes for a better future and prayers for today remember that due to the polluted state of many of our waters we must advise you please don't drink it please don't mingle it with any of our lakes, rivers or streams use it to water a favorite plant put it in your garden mingle it with some paints and paint a beautiful picture save it in a jar where you can see it and be reminded of these people in this place we do have containers here for you if you did not bring one with you today so I invite you to come forward while we rise and body your spirit to join together in our closing hymn number 1064 blue boat home please be seated it starts with a drop then a trickle, a burble a splash of water bubbling toward its destination and finally the wide endless sea all rivers run to the sea today you brought water ported into a common bowl though our experiences have differed these waters mingle signifying our common humanity today you came and shared in this sacred community may you depart this place hearts filled with hope for new beginnings go forth but return to this place where rivers of tears may be shed where dry souls are watered where your joy bubbles where your life's cup overflows where deep in your spirit you have found in this place a home for all rivers run to the sea blessed be and amen and go in peace


If it makes you feel any better, I just about had a heart attack. Okay, we're live. Sorry. Hello world.  All right friends let's go ahead and get this party started sorry for the delay everyone we had a bit of a technical hiccup but we are all set now to have a great conversation. So, I'll go ahead and say, I'm Jackie Kerner, I am the communication specialist for community resilience and sustainability. Thanks for joining us. Those of you watching live and watching later or the future. So, I would like to welcome everyone in the room today. We have several staff members sprinkled about who will be asking, answering any questions you will ask. So, there are several ways to join the conversation, you can post your question and zoom. You can also raise your hand, or do that cute little circle slash, whether you do use a zero or an Oh is perfectly okay. You can read that in the chat. You can ask on YouTube, email answers at seeing grab any of us there to answer any questions will put your question in the queue. If you choose to answer or ask your question live. I encourage you to please speak slowly and consider being concise because we have a lot of questions to get through and we want to make space for as many folks as possible. And you also want to remind people who are responding to questions to speak slowly as we have different comfort levels with English here. And I want to acknowledge this space is covered by the safe space and universal code of conduct. So let's be kind to each other. And Maggie I'll hand it over to you to dual introduction if you'd like to get settled and we can start with the first question when you're ready. I am Maggie Dennis the Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability. I am always nervous for these things but the technical issues and the advance of this one really made me more nervous than usual. So please excuse me because especially when I get excited I talk fast I will try to go slow if I don't just poke me and I will slow down. So I am here to talk about the work that we do in Community Resilience and Sustainability. You are welcome to bring up other topics if we don't have an answer I can try to help connect you with staff who will. Community Resilience and Sustainability is largely in charge of trust and safety and the overall, I guess we'll call it emotional sustainability of our communities. We do human rights work we do disinformation campaigns we do standard trust and safety with all the legal aspects that that implies as well as behavioral investigations. We also do committee support so we work with committees ranging from the affiliations committee down to giving some support to the stewards and I'm probably forgetting something major oh yeah I am how about the MCDC yeah. So, we are also working to support the movement Charter Drafting Committee and moving forward, major component of the movement strategy initiatives. So with all that said, thank you. Those of you who are joining on YouTube and especially those of you who join in zoom I love looking at your faces it makes me feel a little more relaxed. So those of you who I can see. Thank you for letting me see you. And Jackie, let's go ahead save everybody from my awkwardness. No, I think that's probably beauty is we get to be human with each other in these spaces. So, let's jump into the first question. The meeting I just wrapped up. That was very exciting. I know there were staff there to support attendees with harassment and other ucoc violations. Is there really enough of a problem for that to be necessary. If it is, why don't you staff all community conferences and gatherings. I'll place the question here into the chat. The first of these meetings that I did somebody asked me my, my favorite flavor of ice cream. I would like to invite that person to come back. Because the questions I get tend to be very hard. So, unfortunately, yes, there is enough problem with ucoc violations that support is necessary at movement events. I will say that the foundation doesn't staff all community conferences because particularly depending on scale and location community members are very capable. There's training for people the friendly space policies are well understood. However, with larger international conferences we have typically found the professional support is beneficial. So, people who are giving community conferences who feel like support may be lacking, I would love to hear from you so that we can see if, if this is something that we can support with. We are still trying to work out particularly in this post COVID world, what kind of support and at what scale we need for what types of events. I am complete, as Carl would say. Thank you for saying that I love that that facilitator shared that with us. It's such a great thing, especially when we don't have good signal always so thanks for that facilitator who shared the I am complete. All right, next question Maggie, this might rope in some other people on the call to the movement charter is nearing completion. There are people on my wiki who say it doesn't have anything to do with us and who think it is something the affiliates and the foundation are trying to force through. It's the editors who are making things happen, and this isn't for or by us. What would you say to those people. I'll paste that there in the chat. Thanks. I'm going to wait until it pops up in chat just so I can read it there we go. I think that it is very hard to mobilize a community of thousands of people to all work on the same thing at the same time, particularly when that thing has taken so many years, and that it makes sense to me that we are not all in the same place and on the same page. I think that the movement charter however is critically important for all of us because I think that at the risk of being not politically savvy over the past forever. There have been struggles between affiliates and individual contributors or volunteers and individual wikis and the foundation and there's everybody is working in good faith everybody has different ideas about how to do and achieve things and quite often we spend a lot of our time arguing over process and protocols when we could be doing work.  I know the MCDC and I am going to put the one who's in the room on the on the mic in a minute if she is willing. I know the MCDC is very interested in your feedback. And that we want this charter to be something that is useful for all of us. I mean, I would be amazed astounded if the MCDC manages to come up with something that makes everybody happy. If something doesn't make at least somebody unhappy from every group then they're probably not doing their job, but it needs to work for us all and it needs to represent us all. Oh, MCDC member are you okay with coming on and thank you. Hi, I'm risker and and I am indeed a member of the MCDC the movement charter drafting committee. I would say that the I understand where the questioner has comes from, because when I look at what we've written to this point, most of the stuff that talked about the frontline volunteers the content contributors came out a long time ago. And people forget that we've put that right into the values in the preamble, but that was reviewed almost a year ago by the community. And it actually got a fair amount of support some, some definite suggestions for improvement. There's in the sections that have most recently been published. We're getting into an awful lot of the governance issues, the global council hubs, and what we call our basic roles and responsibilities, which again because there are a lot more organization type things, affiliates and so on. Appears to be much more of a governance document. So it's reasonable to say to for somebody who is coming into it fairly recently to say this is this has nothing to do with us there's very little in this section that really does speak directly to contributors. But I think the most important thing I can say is, we need to hear this feedback we need to hear from frontline community members people who are who are feeling that it doesn't really have a lot to do with the project, or that it will not affect them because it probably will. Just as all kinds of policies do. And the effects may not necessarily be obvious right now. So we need to hear from these people, whether it's through feedback channels like this, I mean like this counts as feedback to us. Whether it's conversations with individual members of the committee, there are a lot of us, at least half of us are regularly on wikis and communicating about this or speaking about this. We really need to hear this because at the end of the day frontline community members editors and and other contributors are one of the four groups that we have to persuade that the charter is going to be workable. When we do our ratification, we are ratified by, we need a supportive ratification in order for the charter to be accepted from editors as a group projects from affiliates, and finally from the WMF. So we need to have four yeses in order for the charter to be accepted. And we are constantly negotiating, trying to find that middle ground that will make Group A happy and Group B not too upset. Right now we seem to have managed to made everybody upset so maybe we're actually doing it right. Everybody is upset with us so maybe right now, we've got it right. But, but I don't know exactly how to answer this question because we don't even know where you're from the questioner is from. And we would like to have that conversation with you find out what we need to do to persuade you that this is a worthwhile effort. You know, if we come to the end of this road, and there is not sufficient support for a charter, we won't have a charter. It's really that simple. We won't have a charter if we get to the end of the road and we don't have the support for it. I'm going to be honest, it's been a tough two years working on this project. It's probably the hardest work I've ever done on Wikimedia, but I feel that putting putting something forward for our community to talk about, and to think about, and to help us build has been worth the investment. So, I'm complete. I think I've answered the question. But if I haven't feel free to redirect. I'm going to hop in before Jackie doesn't say thank you risker I think you did a did it beautifully and if we get a follow up question I'll certainly let you know. I also want to say for those of you who don't know riskers background. If she's saying this is the hardest thing she's done in the movement that means something because she's done some very hard things in the movement. I am very grateful to you and to the rest of the MCDC for the work you're doing, even if in my stage right I temporarily forgot that I worked with you. Okay, Jackie, next question. Hi sure and thanks risker yeah you don't shy away from the hard work that's for sure. The next question Maggie is there was a law passed recently in Russia about working with nonprofit organizations. What are the implications for volunteers living in Russia or individuals who volunteer and have some connection with Russia like citizens and so on. I'll post this here and I don't know if. Maybe yawn yawn's been doing a lot of research on this question so I don't know if he would want to chime in on on this one so and as we're reflecting of course on on the realities of what we're doing today. Okay, I see one chat Cameron, who is leading our human rights operations work has volunteered to speak to this thank you Cameron. Awesome. Hi everybody hope everybody's doing well thanks for being here and thank you for this thoughtful question I think it's a really important one. And also of course you know a disturbing question as well. So really quickly for those of you who might not know what we're talking about. At the end of July on the 31st, President Putin of Russia signed a law, signed into law, a bill that prohibits individuals and legal entities from taking part in the in any activity associated with foreign non governmental organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation that are not, you know registered with Russia. And of course, the law just in terms of like bounding it geographically, it only can, it doesn't affect Russian nationals outside of the country, but it's territorial so it applies to individuals in Russia who might be working with non unregistered NGOs. And of course this can present, you know, quite a serious issue, because if individuals are caught in some way or assumed to be working with an NGO that's not registered they can have prison sentences I believe up to three years. From the what the human rights team, our guidance for this is, is that not is for individuals at the foundation to not take any to make any sort of communication public communication with Russian users about the law. And the reason for that is that to ensure that we're not linking ourselves with individuals in Russia and more importantly, not putting them under pressure for potentially, you know, being part of the Wikimedia Foundation's work. So for that to give an example, in any sort of banner or large group email about this law to Russian community members inside Russia could likely raise the risk their risk, because if they, you know the email records were to be subpoenaed for example in a Russian court. You know it could plausibly from their perspective you know be construed is actually colluding or working with a foreign NGO. So, and in private channels and generally speaking with Russian users, you know, we encourage them, and I can post a link, when I'm done with the question to you know follow best security practices and we have a lot of digital security resources on the human rights team page in so that individuals can practice good online safety good digital hygiene just to ensure that they're not putting themselves at under risk. And most importantly, since we're all here live, you know to avoid using their real name on wiki and and or using a same username across multiple social media channels where they could be more easily identified. From a nation perspective, we are also avoiding launching any initiative specifically targeting, you know, working with not targeting, excuse me, working with Russian Wikipedia, in order to minimize the risk of connecting their work to ours which could trigger a violation of the law. So, which is really is quite perfect. Thank you for posting that max is, you know, very human centric here we want to, you know, minimize our contact and not put people at risk unduly. For any reason and we also encourage other individuals at the foundation to not be doing that as well. Hopefully that answered the question. I just posted a link to our digital security resources which we have a lot of resources in Russia, and so that people can ensure that they're safe online and not triggering a very vaguely worded law, which is deliberately designed to try to catch as many people as possible and that's also part of the concern that we have. Thank you Cameron. Is somebody able to post that link in the YouTube video. Thanks Jackie. Yes, I will shuffle it over. I'll set you up for the next question and I'll paste that question into the YouTube chat. So Maggie next question is, I know you won't talk about specific trust and safety cases or human rights cases. And I understand why in most cases, but that can make it hard to talk about the issues behind them. It's broadly known that some Wikipedia's are in prison and one jurisdiction. So I think we should talk about that case. Secondarily to this, what kinds of things does the foundation do when people go to prison for editing. Okay. It's always challenging not to be able to talk about cases particularly when some some details are known in public but I think what I'm going to do is refer back to what Cameron just said briefly. What I want to remember is that if there is a jurisdiction where say an individual may be subject to imprisonment for editing Wikipedia, they're not the only individual who is subject to imprisonment for editing Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia foundation has to be mindful of the impact on the whole community of any efforts any work we do. So in order to avoid raising the risk profile for Wikimedians all over the world, our preferred approach is to connect people to experts in their region to work to hook people up with those organizations and individuals who are experienced at dealing with these issues where they live. It's possible, while the Wikimedia foundation is certainly not neutral on the question of information equity and sharing and free speech. We do not step in in areas where we do not have enough expertise to be sure we aren't causing harm. I have a question related to what Cameron was just saying that I'm going to take on because I'm already got the mic so I'm going to say, we generally speaking, the movement has always had sort of a conflict between privacy and transparency. Many of our values are about respecting privacy. We don't out people, you know, even if we suspect that people are celebrities, you don't out them on Wikipedia, you can talk about whether or not maybe they act like they're conflict of interest but you don't say, I think you're Richard gear, no offense Richard gear I don't think you're editing Wikipedia. But we also do believe in transparency we conduct our business in private you can look at the history of an article and see everyone who's edited it. I have long been aware of some tension between those who believe that editors should use their real names, and those who do not I myself came into Wikipedia as a volunteer using a pseudonym. I'm glad that I did that I know that there are many people who have edited using their real names who feel like that's the right thing to do to be open about who you are. I will say that that is great as long as it is great that when you use your real name to edit, there are potential downsides and side effects that range from some of the worst kinds of harassment that we've seen interest in safety where people are personally targeted for stopping vandals or conflict of interest editors, all the way over to laws have changed in your jurisdiction and your your government knows who you are. So, it is my team's recommendation that people be extremely mindful before signing up using their real name, and that if they must engage in their real identity such as if they attend events. The use of appropriate and approved alternative accounts is not a bad approach. I will say at the risk of outing myself. When I started as a volunteer and I was using a pseudonym. I did not want people to be able to find out who I was I was nervous about online harassment there's a reason I do trust and safety work. And there is an article about a medical condition that I have that I created a fully justifiable alternate account. I only ever touched that article under that fully justified alternative account because I did not want people to be able to put together for my editing history who I was that ship has sailed but it was a decision that I made very carefully very mindfully, and along with certain other safeguards. So, I think I think I probably split enough on that but I'd be love to talk about that more with people at some point. Be safe, be safe in everything you do. Knowledge is important to fight for but protecting yourself matters. Cameron, you have something to add. I just would add thank you for that Maggie just one other thing also about the real name issue is also, you know it's important to remember this is a global community. And while you might be in a safe jurisdiction and it's totally fine for you to use your real name you might be interacting with people. You might not even know it that are an unsafe jurisdiction, addictions for example, and bad actors could try to see who do they talk with and then look you up and you might be working for an organization or government, you know, that could put them at risk but you're colluding with, you know, this government against us so it's also something to remember this is a global community and even if we, we are in a safe jurisdiction we might by using our real name but other people at risk. Thank you both for sharing that the complexities around all of this so. All right let's go on to the next question and let me let me grab it here it's a very long one Maggie are you excited. All right so I'm going to paste this in the chat allow you to read along because it is very long one. There are a lot of there's was a lot of press coverage in Singapore around the gender neutral bathroom. For one example, linked to news article. Singapore is a pretty modern city with laws protecting gay and transgender people, but some are still calling for a boycott of sun tech because they allowed this and some texts where the community was hosted. It's only been a few years since two transgender tourists were arrested in the UAE for impersonating women. How can we ensure safety and inclusion of LGBTQIA plus individuals across the globe, what even the right to exist can lead to an arrest and protests. We can't ensure it we can try for it. We can try for it by being mindful of, of where we go mindful of how we act mindful of how we treat each other mindful of how we stand up for each other. So this is this is a really important topic in my opinion. The LGBT plus user group has been in contact with me about a number of issues that face volunteers across the globe. There's been a great range from debates about how to cover certain controversial subjects online all the way to threats to life for editing in areas where promoting gayness is is capital events. We operate in the world we live in. I mean this just sounds so cliche. We operate within the world we live in, which means that the foundation doesn't have a magic wand, neither do I. All I can say is, we will continue to try, we will listen, we will look for security at events, we will be mindful about where we go and what we do to do the best we can to ensure safety. And we ask all contributors, regardless of how they identify how how who they are to think about safety for everyone, and, and to help make sure that it's it's something that matters to us all. I hope I said that right, it's, you know, I'm sorry I don't have a magic solution. If anybody has a magic solution. Please feel free help. I'll help you publish it. Yeah, agreed. We would all hope for that magic solution. Unfortunately, somebody's challenging human rights concerns. All right, Maggie, the next one. It's a little, little lighter, I guess. So you've committed to reviewing the ucoC policy a year after the enforcement guidelines are approved because you wanted them. You wanted to see them in action. What's the point of that when the you foresee won't even be operational. I'm going to make reference to an English Wikipedia role that I quite like despite also not always quite liking it which is ignore all rules. If, if, if, if we need the you foresee to be operational to do this review then we should do this review and the you foresee is operational. I understand they've published their draft and the the you foresee building committee and that people are responding to it. So, I think we need to be open to doing things in the smart and right way. That's all I have to say about that, although I'm once again open if people have more specific questions or if they have thoughts. Yeah, I'll jump on to another ucoC question. And then we can go back to the thoughts if anyone has thoughts that pop up. I'll paste this. It's actually a short question this time so my local wiki doesn't have an outcome. How do I report a ucoC violation and what happens after I make that report. So, local wikis, most local wikis are large enough to have local processes and local processes are always a good place to start. So I will say that challenges with behavior have been taking place on wiki is long before there was a ucoC. So many community members who are experienced and good at handling these things. I don't think you always have to go to the court of final appeal when you run into a problem. However, even though I don't want to necessarily encourage or increase the workflow of the trust and safety team. If you reach out to the trust and safety team at ca at wikimedia.org, then they will certainly be in position to tell you whether it's something you can help with and if not they may be able to suggest to you can talk to. And the u4c hopefully will be complete soon, and we'll also be able to provide guidance on this question. And I'm going to ask you on ice felt if he has anything he wants to add he's in this call he is the global head of trust and safety. He might not and I know that he has an iffy connection, but just checking. If people can hear me thank you kindly. Excellent. So, I fully conquer the place to start is always local processes. And I think the community committees that wrote the ucoC and wrote the enforcement guideline that the community has twice affirmed in global votes before the board ratified it actually state that very clearly. So, if the user who asked the question or any other volunteer basically encounters that ambiguity, you know, where do I go. I'm looking in the enforcement guidelines to communities supported in those votes is a very good start because it gives you a pretty good map. Once the community has also endorsed the Universal Court of Conduct Coordination Committee. Then there will be an additional pathway for which there are also rules that the current community are dropped in committee is modeling over and well comes feedback on. So, first step always should be the local process. And then one can work once way just like what currently does through the system, the ucoC is really just that to strengthen local autonomy, and to fill holes that communities have talked about for a very long time in the existing structure to make sure that nothing and more importantly, no one falls through the cracks. Thank you very much for that. Well, I'm going to jump down so that we can continue on with this topic. We have a question in the chat Maggie on a director attention to. So William follows up on the first question. Are there policies within trust and safety that require the foundation to proactively update information of individuals that are globally banned or banned by trust and safety. There was an incident in the in this year's Wikimedia where the on site volunteer trust and safety team could not identify an individual that was banned by foundation trust and safety because of information gap. So I don't know if you'll speak to that. What I'm sorry. So if you want to take a minute to speak to that. Yes, although I might also have to invite yon to assist me with this one, as I'm not. I'm, I don't attend Wikimedia I'm not up to date with all of the practices there and he may have something to add. But I know that on site volunteer trust and safety members are meant to be given a list of banned individuals. But sometimes we don't have means of identification visually we don't always have pictures of individuals. In this case I think I think we might have. And I'm unsure what the practices are regarding circulating pictures do you know yon or do we need to check with a onsite friendly space enforcement team. I'm happy to take that question. So as a matter of general practice William as you know we don't comment on particular cases. Yes, trust and safety does update information. If it relates to foundation global bands right your question is somewhat more broad I just want to acknowledge that foundation processes administered by trust and safety on legal behalf. Don't cover community global bands. They only cover foundation global bands. And the list that Maggie noted always has the up to date information that we have on individuals that are Wikimedia foundation globally banned and are being made available to appropriate community partners if they're hosting events like Wikimedia for example, that information is not always complete. And it's not always up to date if you think about pictures for example that may be considerably old given that we have been at this for a meaningful period of time. So there's always a delay, not so much in Wikimedia foundation processes but in the Wikimedia foundations awareness of potentially relevant information. Just because what we do, of course track activity on the platform where appropriate. We don't snoop in people's real lives outside of the projects and I think that will be well outside of the foundations charitable educational mandate. So that is where sometimes misalignments between the information we would like to have in the information we actually do have at hand arise. Thank you young I will add, if ever there are gaps and policies and processes that make it difficult for us to do the work I'm very interested in hearing about them. We may not always be able to identify solutions, but I'm always interested in hearing ideas and seeing what we can do. So thank you for bringing that up William if you want to follow up with me with more details or if you have insights especially into what you think would have been a better approach I would love to hear them. And Jackie back to you. All right, great. So I might note that we are 15 minutes till the end of the time. I don't know if you're comfortable Maggie going over a little bit since we started a little late. Please let me know. It depends on our o it if they can manage us. Yeah, but how much do we have left in queue faster. We have about five more questions so let's see how we can do a speed round. Okay. Not fast. All right there we go. All right so go ahead and share the next question. Is it okay to share the details of a complaint filed to the AFCOM or trust and safety team with other community members. Oh dear. This is a question the answer to which is it depends. The UCOC I believe talks about the ways that that valid concerns can turn into a hammer in that is used to harass other people. It is, I think, perfectly justifiable to talk about concerns you are having but once you have begun putting a question into the proper processes of, of dealing with it. Are you, what is the reason that you are telling other community members about this what is what is your effective goal. I believe the UCSC speaks about whether a reasonable bystander would see such behavior as intended to drive somebody away. So, I can't say yes or no to that I can say that there is no policy that says that you cannot. However, there are sometimes reasons that perhaps you should not, and you should always think about why you are doing it and how you are doing it and when you are doing it. We should always be working towards solving problems and towards making the community and the movement better. And if you're unsure if what you would instead be doing would seem to be attempting to blacken someone's reputation. Then it's never hurts to ask. Is this likely to be a concern. There have been there we have all seen cases where people have used our calm cases or other behavioral processes in a way that is clearly intended to embarrass somebody else that's not okay. But there are some circumstances where where it is anyway I felt like I got rambly at the end and I was trying to be succinct sorry next question. I'm on the list be more succinct no teasing you. All right, we have good news that are beautiful it ad folks can go over a bit so we're good there as long as we're all good. We can stay and have this very tense party I can say we're having very tense conversations it's all good conversations but tense. All right, this one's no wider Maggie so I think it's a two part question. There are two questions about this I'm just adding them here in the chat together. So then they can be thought about together. How are incoming regulations such as the digital safety act going to I think it's digital services act is what's meant here, going to impact the community content moderation policy enforcement processes. The DSA just went to effect on Friday. What is it with community foundation doing to comply with this new act. I am smiling at the question because right after Jackie posted it young I felt posted that he has to leave at the top of the hour, you bring up the DSA and young leaves right young get back here.  I'm going to ask you on to speak to this but the first thing I want to say is, I used to do copyright cleanup on English Wikipedia a lot and when I retire I plan to go back and happily resume that little fiddly work area which I enjoy but it's time consuming. In my opinion back when I was doing this volunteer work, one of our greatest defenses against being legislated out of existence is proactive compliance. Those who if you look back at the history of like censorship of movies of books of comic books quite often. These have been avoided by, by the communities kind of policing themselves and Wikipedia has been really really good at this. If you talk to the lawyers at the foundation they will they frequently say the community is our best defense, because Wikipedia is good at cleaning up vandalism. It's good at cleaning up copyright problems it's good at cleaning up all this stuff that would potentially result in lawsuits or new laws harsher laws that would shut us down. There is an increasing tension across the world in freedom of the Internet, because we don't always use the freedom responsibly disinformation campaigns are on the rise all over you all know this we're all adults. So we are dealing with the tension between a desire to make a safer Internet and a desire to keep Internet open for the work we're doing and community is how we avoid so many of these problems that said we do have to comply and there will be impacts beyond, please. Thank you friendly. So the first thing that I'm going to say, people who come to these meetings more know that already, as I'm not a lawyer. So, you know, take it with a picture of salt. I said that a good way to think about the DSA in particular is to acknowledge the European Union was actually pretty good in making room for community self governance within the framework approach that the foundation and communities have practiced together successfully for the decades, meaning there is a language in the DSA that acknowledges that community practices exist, and that they should be treated differently from platform provider obligations that in itself is a really good acknowledgement of how good our model works, and also its strong positive contrast, compared to other legislation other kinds of jurisdictions, including for example the UK online safety bill that is going back to the House of Lords in London. And so this week that as people are aware of both Wikimedia UK is an independent NGO in the country, as well as the foundation have articulated grave concerns about. The DSA compliance. The second question already notes, it is already in effect and the foundation is already working in dialogue with the regulator through compliance efforts that is largely because of the distinction the DSA has introduced, acknowledging the importance of our model issues that are really relevant for Wikimedia foundation in particular trust in safety and legal departmental internal processes, but also and all of this will be public. And that is one aspect that the DSA is also interested in, because communities consistently tell us in the annual community insight survey, that roughly half of our editor base don't really know what's going on. We have a community working group on community health. And that is one aspect that the DSA is also interested in because communities consistently tell us in the annual community insight survey that roughly half of our editor base don't really know where one should go if one has a concern to affective and effective models of a render to address it. So, from a community perspective, while regulation in general certainly should be carefully looked at the DSA, I think that is fair to say, is on the more positive side of the movements in that space, and can potentially be even quite useful because it forces media foundation as a platform provider to do these risk assessments to address certain long standing desires the community has also articulated. It will be a long journey of course to get compliance right, and we will continue to do that in closed dialogue, especially with NDA signing arbitration committees and other functionaries as those things get through the workload that actually matter really for community self governance and practice. I am complete. Thank you, and I'm going to jump to the last question on the list so we only have two more after that so the folks who are in the room has the questions. I will come back. I just want to grab this because this might be relevant for yawn and maybe even human rights participation on this question. I have a question from YouTube. I have a couple of general questions about a recent event. When considering a global ban to what extent and how does the foundation consider whether the subject is likely under political pressure, influencing their behavior, and to whether such a ban could harm movement interests. That's an interesting question. All right. So, let me see how I can, how I can package that up. The foundation foundation global bands are based on behavior. Whether the person is under political pressure or influence, yes, of course we think about that.  I'm stuttering. Stop, group, collect my thoughts. People in this world who are put into the position of doing things they wouldn't necessarily want to do, because they don't understand what they're doing, because they are true believers in what they do, or they may be like ring at the end of the day, when, when we deal with global bands that are related to, like, people who may be politically motivated, or influence. What we're looking at is, are they working against local policies in a concerted way that suggests that they are undermining the ability of the community to self govern content. There are some projects, there's one in particular that has have long been suspected of being under takeover, where a certain group or party has come in and has subverted the whole process of consensus the whole process of elections for administrators. We have seen situations where potential administrator candidates there have been threats against people who vote against them there have been, you know, these kinds of activities do happen. So the foundation does indeed consider, consider these generally in the same way that the community evaluates suck puppetry and meet puppetry we look at patterns of behavior we look at article content we also may look at what organizations are prevalent in the region, and how the activities may be tying into that. Whether such a band could harm movement interests. Well, I mean we consider that with every band we do. We may not always make the right call, but the, at the end of the day, movement interests are what we are charged to consider. I will say this, if somebody came to me and said, we, we are seeing an active editing campaign in extradition, but we are concerned that if we ban the people in extradition, then the leaders of jurisdiction X are going to start executing this call, then I would probably look for alternatives to bands, or at least be exploring how true that is. So, there are so many ways of movement and risk of the armed. If we're talking about, do we increase the risk of persecution of volunteers that certainly matters to me or I don't think anybody should die or face torture for contributing to free knowledge, certainly not unless they choose to mean there are people who have chosen to die for causes but people who come in just to edit articles about their hometown and find themselves suddenly at the end of a metaphorical weapon or literal. That should never happen. The interest in the movement of maintaining the ability of the community to effectively govern content is really key to me. And when we see concerted activities such that that a community can't do that, then we have to find ways to deal with it. And I'm really hoping that groups like the u4c will be able to do this people who can be trusted with information that might not be safe to publish as transparently as our ideals once would have encouraged us to do so, who can help us find solutions to minimize risk to liberty life, while also making sure that we're protected. Y'all are asking some dark questions. Is the next one also dark. No. It's a little lighter and we actually have the person in the room some of you in the room would like to voice your question about the uc oc language around age and language fluency. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Maggie. But I'll compensate two questions into one. There are two bits of the universal code of conduct where it currently clashes with our understanding and expected. Well, what we do on the English Wikipedia and probably at least one other one. One of them is over age. And the other one is over language fluency and the age example I would give is we had an RFA not that long ago where there were a number of opposites based on somebody being under 18, which is a pretty specific age thing. We also have oversight isn't so on who will oversight stuff that people like me report to them of children putting dates of birth into their user pages. Now, am I in breach of the universal code of conduct when I report that sort of thing to oversight, or is it that age discrimination amongst amongst adults. We don't discriminate, but there are certain specific rules about children because that's not in the uc oc. It's a similar thing about language fluency. I'm sure everyone on the I hope half of you on the call are aware of these Scots Wikipedia a few years back when a bunch of people who could actually speak Scots tried to take control of it back from a bunch of people who who like to think that they could sort of speak Scots but clearly couldn't. And I fully understand that in the multi lingual wikis such as Commons, we need to have something there that where we're saying we shouldn't discriminate on language fluency with we shouldn't set from there, but we do in practice discriminate on grounds of competence and fluency. And is the universal code of conduct meant to be about how we put practical rules in to to differentiate on on what people can actually do. But we do it in a way that is, that is polite and civilized, or is it that we literally can't discriminate on on age or language fluency in the way that you can't on on race and so forth. Am I, should I read the uc oc literally, or not. Well, you've heard me, thank you for the question first. You've heard me refer to ignore all rules once, and I'm not going to tell you that you should ignore the code of conduct but what I am going to say is this. I like always to use myself as a personal example because it's hard to offend me when I'm speaking about me. I am a person with a physical disability. There are things that I cannot do. I have to discriminate against me based on my being a person with a physical disability, but if you say, you cannot be the person who carries the luggage up the stairs, I will say, you are right. So here's the way I think about that. If you have somebody come to English Wikipedia who does not speak English their ability to add content is going to be extremely limited. And dealing with content that is not up to standards is not discrimination. Being impolite about how we do it is a problem. However, if, if you have someone who comes to English Wikipedia and I'm just going to make up a scenario who's operating a bot and the bot is operating perfectly fine. And it's not causing any problems.  I love English and that upsets you and that is discrimination. So I think it is more about capacity to do the work, just like it is with my disability. I do not feel discriminated against when people acknowledge the limitations that I have, particularly because I'm smart enough to know them myself. But when it comes to age and what people can and should do that's a harder one because age of majority and maturity is so widely differently conceived of across the world. But I don't think that saying you are too young to do this job, particularly when it's backed with good reason is harassment. I think the euphoria are going to be the ones who will ultimately have to make some of these calls. But if, if, if people were accused of discrimination, for example, we handle another dark subject, maybe it's me who makes all this dark. We handle child safety material, which is code for those of you don't know it for material that should never exist much less be uploaded on the internet. I could never allow a minor to do that job. Never. I mean, it would, it's illegal. Right. And I would not want minor volunteers working on that workflow either. So that's not discrimination to me that's not harassment that's that's recognizing that not everybody is suited for every role. If the code of conduct were being used to argue otherwise, I'd be right up there with you. Or I'm making assumptions about you. I'd be right up there with a person who's saying that's not a good policy saying we need to reward this because it's being misinterpreted or misunderstood. I think at the moment the risk is that people are reading that sort of thing and then saying, well, okay, the there's some some high sounding principles here. But clearly, I'm sure they don't mean that we have to stop. And then once you get into that, it's a case of, well, if that bit is meant to not meant to be taken literally, what other bits are not meant to be taken literally. And that's an icon probably guess most of these rights. But we also have people on, shall we say on a certain spectrum, who get reasonable not unreasonably annoyed when you have rules where where you say, well, actually, you have to read between the lines and follow the spirit of the rules. Don't apply this literally. And I think in order to how we rephrase this so we can apply the rules literally is not going to be easy. I think on the terms of the age. I think it's relatively straightforward that you can have to put something in about age of majority which I'm not at least on the in the English language I don't think there's a huge problem about treating 18 as the as the age of majority. There may be other languages where it said, but that's more of an issue. But having something in there about age of there are certain things where you need to achieve age of majority. And once you've done that. There's a huge discrimination above that age. I think that will be a relatively minor and acceptable tweak on the on the issue of language fluency. I think we're on the same page is where we where it should be. But there needs to be some either some wording in this or something like that. This is about how we treat people and not how we treat contributions, because we do have some language folks focus projects. And we have a certain amount of language fluency arguments within those on the English language Wikipedia. We've got this tolerance of many different varieties of English. Most of the varieties of English are acceptable within the English Wikipedia one or two extreme variants even have their own wikis. But there are other languages where there's one particular version of that language which has taken over that language version of Wikipedia. Other variants are are not less acceptable or not acceptable there. And I can see that coming up with a code of conduct. But as far as as far as English is concerned. Yeah, I think what the code needs some point is something that makes it clear that it's about how you treat people. And yes, it's okay to say this content isn't isn't good enough. I'm not, for example, I edit in dozens of different languages. But if I'm adding a picture into another language where there isn't a picture of something. And I might have an edit summary in English. I will I will leave the caption blank, but I've added a picture that they find useful. I don't find myself being criticized for that. I think those are very good observations and I will say what what I what I'm thinking as you're talking is these are all things that we probably need to work on as we continue to evolve the policy and the guidelines. I also want to note that there are some people who would prefer that we treated this more like a living document that could be changed at any time. One of the challenges there is that it is a huge hall to in working on a policy that is multi international to get everybody to look at it which is what one of the reasons why we are doing it annually. And I had in my early days of working on the ucoc and optimistic hope that we would have the ucoc and the enforcement guideline and the universal code of conduct committee whatever they were going to be called all seated within like, I don't know, three months. That didn't happen. So we are behind and where I had hoped we would actually be able to start doing the review and the tweaks. And my feeling is probably that in the meantime, when cases come up that are maybe out of alignment with the intention, we should probably deal with those and kind of track the issues, so that when we actually get around to fixing it we can. One of the big challenges we're going to have is those of us who are English or comedians know English Wikipedia has a lot of rules, a lot of policies, a lot of guidelines, a lot of essays. And one of the challenges with the ucoc is we're trying to keep the documents simple, but there could be simple language tweaks that I hope will fix that kind of thing. So I hope you stay in it. It's been three years since I first raised this, but yes, I appreciate it's, it's a multi-year process and it's not going to be simple, but there are a few things like that where the other one is senility. I'm dealing with, dealing with senile members of my own family from time to time. I'm very much aware that with the incredible retention rates we're getting on English language or comedians. We're going to have to start dealing with admins who started to go senile. She's not called senior moments. She's 82. So yes. She better not watch this. Okay. It's okay. We'll edit that out. It's fun. My mom was 98 and a few weeks ago greeted me with your late from school. It was. Wow. Yes. Yes. Anything else? You're complete at this point. So I don't know, Maggie, what is your favorite dessert then? If we're not talking about ice cream, we already know that it's caramel caramel, depending on what part of the country you're in. So what's your favorite dessert? I'm brulee. Yeah, and we all share your favorite, favorite sweet in the chat, if you would, so we can kind of run ourselves as we go out of this room into the other space and do some deep breathing. These were all very complex, complex questions. And I don't think we're here because it's easy. I think we're here because this is important. Agreed. And I really do appreciate those of you who join in and the people who send questions. Sometimes I panic in the moment, but it's I think it's worth it. And I also am open to follow-ups after my, you know, you know where to find me. At least I hope you do. If you don't email answers at and I will make sure to get the question over to Maggie for sure. So thank you all for joining. And thanks for the patience with the technical hiccup at the start. So thank you all. Yes, thank you very much. I really appreciate you spending your time with me. All right. See you all soon. See you next time. Bye.


Hello there! My name is Anna, and today I am doing a spoiler-free review of Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. If you follow me on Goodreads, you know that I finished this a few weeks ago. I have been traveling a reviewed Game of Thrones a couple weeks ago right after I finished it, but I rewatched and was trying to edit those clips, and I realized that I was just super tired. I sounded bored, I was bored. I was honestly just wanting to get the review over with, and that's really not how I like to do reviews.  If you have read the book or have watched the first season even, because they are very, very similar, I recommend you check out my non-spoiler-free discussion, which will be coming soon, so it's gonna be posted like probably a day or two after this. So let's dive right into it. If you haven't heard, Game of Thrones follows a series of characters who are living in a medieval, fancy world that has a lot of historical elements. There is a ton of political and social intrigue in these novels, which I think is fantastic. Something that I find really unique about Game of Thrones, despite the fact that it's complicated, is the really, really in-depth characterization of many of the characters in the book. Characterization is something that I've seen fantasy novels struggle with a lot. George R. R. Martin follows eight different perspectives, and to summarize exactly what the book is about would be hard without summarizing each different perspective, and so what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to talk about the perspectives that George R. R. Martin follows, and then the characters and what I liked, what I didn't, and do the review, and do the review that way. So first we're gonna talk about Daenerys Targaryen. Now Daenerys is probably one of the most famous characters on the show. I feel like people who say that they haven't watched Game of Thrones, they're gonna be like, I don't know Game of Thrones, I don't know what it's about, I just know that there's this dragon lady with white hair. That's Daenerys. Siri, can you Google how old was Danny in the Game of Thrones book? Searching Google for Harold was Danny in the Game of Thrones book. See, I have an issue. In the last review, another reason why I thought it was too low quality to post was that I kept calling literally every single character 14 years old. So Daenerys Targaryen in the book is at the young age of 13 years old, which is very different from in the show, where they definitely bumped up her age by a decent amount. Age is one of the few things in this book that is very, very frequently changed, like almost none of the characters, especially the characters that are young in this book, are the same age in the TV show. So Daenerys Targaryen's father was king, and he was known as the Mad King, and he was killed by Jaime Lannister, and now the Lannisters are basically in power and king's landing. So Danny and her brother Viserys were basically exiled, and they grew up in a distant area in the south. Danny has been abused by her brother Viserys for a very long time, and he threatens her, he says don't wake the dragon, which basically means don't get me angry. He has a huge tool, he's very entitled, and he feels like the throne is his birthright, and he wants to take it back by whatever means possible. Now one of these means is he needs an army. So what he does is he marries Daenerys off to a very powerful call in the Dothraki. Now a call is like a leader or king named Cal Drogo. Cal Drogo is an interesting man. He is very fierce, very terrifying, and honestly like very few emotions it seems like. The Dothraki are known for invading villages, raping, pillaging, killing. They are very, very violent, and Daenerys is thrust into this culture at the tender age of 13 and forced to marry one of the lead calls.  Lots of people argue that Danny in the book consented a lot better and a lot more, and the whole dynamic between Danny and Cal Drogo in the book is a lot better than it was in the TV show. However, you also have to note that Danny is 13 years old in the books, so it's still an incredibly uncomfortable, really dangerous situation for her to be in. Danny's entire story has to deal with how she fits in with the Dothraki, as well as how she deals with her brother and uncovers some secrets from her past. Daenerys' storyline is the one storyline that I can say without a doubt I really liked better in the TV show. A lot of this storyline here was just kind of really overdrawn, kind of awkward. The things that happened in the book were a lot less exciting than the things that happened in the TV show, and I don't think that's just because I saw the show first. Which is sad, because Danny is really great. She's been characterized pretty well, not the best I have to say, but pretty darn well, and I think out of all the characters you really get to see Danny grow into herself a lot in this storyline.  You get to see her dealing with Jorah Mormont, who's a nice man with a big secret, and there are a lot of really interesting characters at play. Just not a lot of interesting plot developments happen super quickly, so it gets a little boring in comparison to the other perspectives. So let's move a little farther north and deal with Tyrion Lannister. Now, Tyrion's storyline starts when they visit the Starks. Tyrion Lannister is basically known as kind of a joke in his family, in the Lannister family, because he is a dwarf, but he is so incredibly wise and so smart, very book smart. He's very cunning, very flirtatious, and he has a lot of fun with women, but not in nearly as much of a way as he did in the show. Tyrion's ability to be super cunning and clever is ultimately what made me really love his perspective. But another reason I really loved his perspective is because Tyrion, especially in the first part of the show, I didn't really know how I felt about him. He seemed kind of sexist and a little gross, and just overall a very emotionally closed-off person. The thing about books that I love so much is that you can see what's going on on the inside more than you could ever see what's going on on the inside in a TV show. Tyrion is so vastly different in the books because you actually get to know what's going on inside of his head versus what's going on just in general, like how he's acting, which made such a big difference. It made all the difference for me. I really, really liked Tyrion in the books. There were parts of his storyline that I felt I really didn't like, but that's more that because it intersected with another storyline I didn't like. I don't want to say who's because it's kind of a spoiler.  And surprisingly enough, out of the eight perspectives, those were the two perspectives coming from people who aren't Starks. Now, the Stark family is an incredible family with very poignant traits. The Starks have a lot of traits I really admire. They're incredibly loyal, incredibly dutiful. So at the beginning of the book, all of the Starks reside in a place called Winterfell. It's a really cool place very far north. Northerners have some really interesting traditions that are very different. I love the world building in this book so much. You get different gods, you get different religions, you get so many different cultures, and the Starks definitely bring another really interesting culture to the table. I will start with Ned Stark because I feel like his perspective really kicks things off for the Starks. Ned Stark is approached by King Robert Baratheon, one of his close friends, someone he fought with in battle with alongside a man named John Arryn, because this man, John Arryn, died. John Arryn was the hand of the king, which is basically like the guy who kind of does all the work for the king while the king just sits there. So Robert needed a hand in the literal and metaphorical sense. He goes to his friend Ned. Ned is a very interesting character. He really embodies what a Stark can be. He's tough and honorable. He honestly just wants the best for his family and friends and that's why he eventually decides to agree to go to King's Landing to be the hand of the king, even though that does mean separating from his family. Why? Because the death of John Arryn basically might not have been that big of an accident. So he's kind of going to scope things out as well as help out his friend. Ned ends up taking his two daughters, Arya and Sansa. Sansa, who was set to marry Prince Joffrey in a couple years when she's old enough. Ned's introduction to King's Landing instantly brings a ton of political intrigue to the table and I think Ned is definitely the most hefty politically as far as chapters go and I absolutely loved it. You discover so many different things about the people living in power and Ned himself is really fearless when it comes to finding out the truth. He's all about getting to the bottom of what happened and the bottom of what's going on politically in King's Landing. He did bring some really great cards to the table and I really appreciate his perspective. His daughters who joined him are, as of right now in the tv show, my two favorite characters. I absolutely love them. However, Sansa I do not love. For the first few seasons Sansa was terrible and same with the book. She is absolutely a nightmare right now.  I think it's amazing how George R. R. Martin can go from a perspective like Dany's to a perspective like Sansa. The way he wrote Sansa was actually kind of unbelievably on point just because I didn't like- I don't like Sansa. That doesn't mean that I didn't really enjoy her perspective. You see her go from spoiled child to a kind of traumatized one because she ends up going through a lot of experiences. In fact if I have to pick I'd say Sansa's it might be one of the saddest perspectives of this novel.  The reader knows how ignorant she is and just watch and watch and watch as her whole world is kind of destroyed. So huge kudos to Sansa's chapter. I absolutely loved her. Aria. Aria was my favorite character when the show started. My favorite character in the book and currently my favorite character. I love Aria more than anything. She is a very big fighter of the Stark and just in general medieval patriarchy.  So Aria ends up taking sword lessons from a guy named Serio Ferrell and ultimately she has really really hard experiences in King's Landing. She ends up hitting it there very very early on. She has definitely one of the most horrific chapters and I knew it was coming. It's at the very beginning. However Aria is still a young child and she finds herself in situations that are really scary and dangerous for a kid to be in, but ultimately end up really boosting the level of political intrigue that you see in the novel. Some people might think that having three perspectives of three family members in the same place would be such overkill, but it really isn't. In fact it adds to the novel so much because it isn't overkill because you can see so many different sides of this conflict and come out a lot more knowledgeable about what's going on. Just a quick note, you know this doesn't really fit in with any perspective but I do want to talk about the characters and the culture of King's Landing. We meet some really interesting characters. Most of them I can't stand. We get Varys, who is fine. He's literally just fine. Like I still don't really have an opinion on him. He's kind of cunning. He's a eunuch and then the rest I just can't stand. We have Littlefinger who is absolute trash.  He really just doesn't have good qualities. Yeah sure he falls in love but we also are introduced to the absolutely disgusting Searsie and Jamie. Searsie and Jamie are just freaking gross. Oh man but like not knowing why they're gross is gonna make it that much more shocking when you realize why. Very power-hungry, very entitled. They think they deserve everything just because of their family name. Rart. I think most people feel that way about him just a kind of meh and I kind of agree. He's kind of gross, kind of weird. No one really likes him that much. The thing that you do end up liking about Robert though is that he isn't evil. You'll end up valuing that a lot. Then of course in King's Landing you get Prince Joffrey. Now it makes me sound like I hate a lot of characters but trust me these are all Lannisters. Lannisters are the worst. Prince Joffrey is a spoiled brat who basically is so power-hungry. He's like I'm the future king. I can do this, this, this. I can balance this around. I can kill this.  I can kill him. He's a nightmare. It's very evident very early on that if he becomes king things are gonna be really bad for basically everyone. So hot in here. Now let's go back up north and talk about Catlin, Bran and Jon. Catlin Stark, I'm gonna start with her because she is kind of the mother or the lead figure in this story. I personally never liked Catlin. I would like her if it weren't for the way that she treated Jon, who is Ned's bastard son. I think she took the fact that Ned cheated on her out on this boy. Catlin makes really rash assumptions that are really frustrating and make her perspective really difficult to follow or like because she just does so many things and you're like, Catlin, no. I don't really like her perspective. I didn't pay much attention to her perspective to be honest. I just think it really dragged on in some places and because I don't like Catlin it made it that much harder. Catlin and Ned's son Bran on the other hand, I have always loved Bran. I feel like he's really undervalued as a character. Bran goes through a lot within the first like two chapters. The first thing to happen to anyone except for like the prologue where someone where something else happens is Bran. So like Bran is such a forefront and such an important piece in this story. Not just because of what happens to him that triggers like an entire series of events but because Bran is able to see and understand things that most people don't aren't able to understand. Trust me, Bran has some really interesting things to say and to see but you also get to watch a young boy. I'm not going to specify why but he is very limited one can do after what happens to him and learning to live with what has happened is really fascinating to watch. I liked Bran's perspective but I didn't love it. Not necessarily because there's anything super wrong with it but I just feel like not a lot happened. Like the first couple chapters were like oh my god and then it was kind of like wow. Moving on to Jon Snow.  The Night's Watch is basically this this band of men who are protecting the inner kingdom from what's outside the kingdom and guarding this massive attack on Titan-esque wall. What's beyond the wall some people say White Walkers which are really really terrifying zombie like super zombie like creatures. So when Jon gets there he instantly makes friends with this boy named Sam who really struggles with being in the Night's Watch. He did not want to go but his father wanted him to do it because of all this like honor crap and he gets picked on a lot. And so does Jon because Jon is a bastard, he's young, he's small and things really aren't easy for him. But not only that when Jon gets there something happens to his uncle so he's really determined to find out what happened to him. I like Jon. I'm not one of those people who's like the biggest Jon fan ever but Jon is really great and that brings a lot to the table because there's not much else that was brought to the table in this perspective. I think it was a really good story other than the pace like there were some parts that really did not need to be included but ultimately I do get it as far as like setting up the rest of the story goes because the Night's Watch is going to be very critical in the rest of the story. Just now it just seemed like it was a little slow and probably a bit unnecessary. I hope that this review really encouraged you to go out and read Game of Thrones. So anyway that's all I really had to say. I hope you enjoyed this. I am so sorry it was so long. Please feel free to like and subscribe, follow me on snapchat and instagram. Those are my two most used social media. I don't really use twitter. Also follow me on goodreads if you want to. I will leave a link to all of my social media in the description. Remember to keep writing, reading and doing whatever else you're doing. I will see you in the next video. Bye!