Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Anti-harassment

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Community Wishlist Survey 2021
Anti-harassment
3 proposals, 186 contributors, 152 support votes
The survey has closed. Thanks for your participation :)



Partial block of IPs across categories

  • Problem: Editors evading a block/ban often go to the dynamic IP route to continue editing. Sometimes it is not possible to rangeblock that IP across the whole of WP due to collateral damage of blocking good editors.
  • Who would benefit: Anyone who has suffered harassment/hounding/stalking from an IP that continues to pop-up day after day.
  • Proposed solution: Partial blocks should be allowed across a group of categories for a range of IP addresses. For example, blocking range 123.245/ across Category:Black English sportspeople. I've raised this before at WP:VPT, with a reply stating that an article could be removed from the category, and the block wouldn't work. But once the block is in place, then the IP could not edit the page(s) in question to circumvent the partial block. Thanks.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Lugnuts (talk) 08:24, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • It's also possible that such a feature would be used to provide technical implementations of topic bans, though I think on the English Wikipedia there might be disagreement to such an idea. In the IP case, how will this work under the new system of IP addresses being replaced with identifiers (see en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-11-01/Op-Ed)? I'd be worried about a tool that relies on the current system of rangeblocks if this may change soon. — Bilorv (talk) 17:42, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • One major concern raised when this was mooted on en-wiki was that articles could be added to a category incorrectly (including wilfully incorrectly) to cause problems for the user. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:43, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Indeed, category blocking was discussed when partials were first implemented and the concern for abuse was why it was not implemented (first). --Izno (talk) 01:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Anyone gaming the system to add categories to pages to stop others can be dealt with if and when it happens, with continued distruption being stopped with blocks. I think the p/block of IP ranges across categories to stop long-term harassment far outweighs other concerns, and is something that this survey should take very seriously in relation to harassment. Lugnuts (talk) 08:44, 23 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Unless you know how to make it clear what is gaming and what is dubious adding (there is a lot of dubious adding to categories in the usual course of things), how to make it rapidly handled, who will do that vetting work and so on, then I'm rather concerned by your fairly sangfroid "can be dealt with if and when it happens" Nosebagbear (talk) 15:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I could see this being used for abuse, as it effectively gives non-admins the ability to block partially blocked users from a page by adding a category. Although such attempts would probably be seen relatively quickly, it does still give the ability. On smaller wikis additions of the categories may go unnoticed, so a user could potentially block IPs from pages they don't want them editing. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | enwiki 00:00, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Hi Lugnuts. I work with both the Anti-Harassment Tools team (who built Partial Blocks) and the Community Tech team. We are going to allow this wish to move to voting. However, because of the circular nature of categories on wikis, if implemented, this would work on a single category only and not extend to any sub-categories or sub-sub-categories. There are holes/workarounds here in that someone could remove a category, commit their bad-faith edit, and then move on or even add the category back. Still, it could be implemented so we are allowing it to be voted on with the single category caveat. --AEzell (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, that sounds like a fair compromise. Thank you. Lugnuts (talk) 08:45, 3 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Would it be technically possible to prohibit it for certain users or IP ranges to add or remove categories in general? -- Aspiriniks (talk) 18:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
AEzell (WMF), most wikis would disallow circular nesting of categories. Is there not some existing API call that can check for supercategories of a page without choking on the rare cycle? Instead of limiting the depth to 1, you could set it to say 5 and still avoid an infinite loop. Pelagic (talk) 02:00, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Another idea would be to make page categories available as abuse filter variables. --Count Count (talk) 19:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Make this "list of pages, generated from a snapshot-in-time category membership list" instead of "categories" and I'll support it. This would solve the "any user can add or remove a page from a category, thereby page-blocking/unblocking an IP address from that page, possibly unintentionally" issue. Davidwr/talk 15:44, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • One problem with this is that the search engine does not reliably search within a category using with the incat function. There are often error messages such that the category is too deep. Before something like this is implemented, the search engine should be fixed in order to allow people under the partial block to quickly see which pages they can and cannot edit.--76.4.9.147 01:15, 28 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

  • Support Support Would be quite helpful. Count Count (talk) 19:10, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Your suggestion is obtuse for 2 reasons: #1 Abusive IPs should be (range)banned from using Wikipedia period and #2 They can still remove an article from a category by using a public WI-FI, their mobile data or a VPN that had yet to be banned from Wikipedia. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Just to clarify, the range-block doesn't work, as it is too big a range, with a lot of collateral damage. Lugnuts (talk) 12:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support better than blocking innocents Leftowiki (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per MarioSuperstar77. One can just protect the page. Firestar464 (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support --Ciao • Bestoernesto • ✉ 01:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support AnotherOnymous (talk) 03:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Sthakur88 (talk) 05:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support As nom Lugnuts (talk) 12:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Em-mustapha User | talk 14:53, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Too easy to make more harm than good. Exceptionally easy to go around it. --Олександр Кравчук (talk) 16:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Is a large population of Wikimedia users knowledgeable enough and/or mobile enough for this to do any good? Tyrekecorrea (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support — WinnerWolf99 talkWhat did I break now? 20:03, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose The nature of categories does not make this practical, and this wishlist request is trying to use technical means to solve a social problem. It relies on a) pages being sufficiently categorized that the topic that an editor is banned from appears in the category hierarchy, and b) that the category hierarchy itself is properly set up (that is, making sure that the categories themselves are in the right categories). Too complicated for too little gain. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support This reminds me of an LTA, why constantly spammed attack and nonsense categories. This would help defend the wiki from LTAs like this. 4thfile4thrank (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Like what GeneralNotability have stated. Too complicated from a technical issue to gain so little. SunDawn (talk) 04:20, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support JPxG (talk) 05:42, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support - yona B. (D) 07:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support InShaneee (talk) 08:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Tim bates (talk) 15:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)like Олександр said, easy to harm, easy to avoidReply[reply]
  • Support Support This is a deterrent which won't prevent the most determined of harassers, but it will slow down those who just want to cause trouble until they give up. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:03, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support The proposal is excellent, as the partial block by category will prevent IPs from editing on certain pages where they vandalize pages and harass users, solving the problem. WikiFer msg 22:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support ArnabSaha (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support That's a good idea. Tsaag Valren (talk) 15:38, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Susanna Giaccai (talk) 16:46, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose This is just going to lead to edit warring over categories. Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 18:20, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Mounir Touzri (talk) 21:40, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose strongly. This would have a disastrous effect on mobile editors. IP range bans tend to affect mobile users the most, especially those in highly populated areas and those actually moving.Lostinlodos (talk) 22:31, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support It will only solve a part of the problem, but it's worth doing. DGG (talk) 00:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per Lostinlodos , Klaas `Z4␟` V:  13:35, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Gce (talk) 18:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Khoshhat (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support is helpful. --IWI (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support The proposal is great and often good, but the digital world is also changing with fast masking. Ravikrishnam (talk) 10:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support helps in conflict situations Medea7 (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose This is a PoV-pushing / content-control mechanism (whether intended as one or not) disguised as an "anti-harassment" tool. Harassment of users has to do with users not categories of content. We probably do need tools that thwart interaction of IP range X with registered user Y, but this isn't that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:00, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Natemup (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Uu70344 (talk) 11:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Stephan Hense (talk) 18:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Temp3600 (talk) 17:52, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Living in a country where we have 3 major pre-paid mobile operators covering almost all of the population it is just too easy to obtain a new dynamic IP for everyone. On the other hand blocking ranges of those operators means blocking sometimes hundreds if not more of potential good faith editors. Base (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Dey.sandip (talk) 15:55, 18 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Astronommica (talk) 08:56, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Excellent idea in my book! Dolotta (talk) 16:23, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Author23 (talk) 19:22, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Kelvin (talk) 09:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per GeneralNotability and Lostinlodos. Enjoyer of World (talk) 09:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Nachtbold (talk) 11:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support David1010 (talk) 11:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Schniggendiller (talk) 17:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

UserBlind mode

  • Problem: Certain discussions, particularly those dealing with individual user conduct issues, are difficult to participate in in an unbiased manner and without generating side-effects like occasional animosity between editors. The fact that users know that particular other users have passed negative judgement on them can make it difficult for those users to work together in the future. The concern over this can also cause people to avoid dealing with conduct issues entirely.
  • Who would benefit: All contributors, but more directly those dealing with reports of conduct issues (including Arbitration Committees and users active in fora like enwiki's ANI, AE, etc). Also contributors to wikis with "unblockable" users which the community has difficulty fairly judging.
  • Proposed solution: A [selectable] "UserBlind" mode, in which [for you only] all visible usernames would replaced by tokens, eg "[USER #23]", effectively anonymizing other users while the mode is enabled. This would allow fair assessments of conduct reports in a impersonal manner. Not only would the person passing judgement on the actions not know whose actions they are (thus evading bias), the person whose actions are being judged would not have reason to think that the commenting user has anything against them in particular, thus avoiding inter-user tension.
  • More comments: Links: Proof of concept, VPM post
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Yair rand (talk) 05:51, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • @Yair rand: - how would individuals handle verifying evidence and doing further investigation with this process? Neither AN or ArbCom can function like judges where evidence is just provided - it needs to be cross-checked (in ANI, the closer doesn't do investigation, but everyone else participating would follow it down the rabbit hole). Additionally, when I'm reviewing people for certain roles, such as at RfA, then I need to be able to review their ANI participation to know the quality of their judgement. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Nosebagbear, when you need to see the usernames, then you just turn the system off. This is a user preference/user script thing, not a permanent change to the underlying software. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jo-Jo Eumerus, MarioSuperstar77, Braveheidi, Firestar464, Tyrekecorrea, KlauRau, Lollipoplollipoplollipop, I-Bin-A-Bibi, The Hand That Feeds You, WikiFer, valepert, Gereon K., Lostinlodos, SarahSV, Klaas, Shushugah, HAL333, I am concerned that you might not understand what you've voted against, so here's my attempt at an explanation. If you had a significantly different idea, then you might want to remove your comment ('oppose votes' aren't counted anyway).

Current situation:

  • The policy says you are supposed to w:en:Wikipedia:Comment on content, not on the contributor.
  • Some editors find it difficult to follow the policy if they can see who said what. Instead, they find themselves evaluating comments based on the reputation of the editor who posted them. For example, if there's a snarky comment, but you see that "I" posted it, then you just know that it was kindly meant or at least not meant to be mean-spirited, but if That Other Editor posted the same words, then you know that it's terrible behavior.

Proposal:

  • Do not change anything whatsoever about your own editing or what you can see in the page history.
  • Do not change anything whatsoever about what's stored in the database. Every edit gets recorded with each editor's permanent username.
  • Offer, as an option, for people who happen to recognize that they're interpreting comments in certain ways, or voting in RFCs (and maybe even in this wishlist proposal) on the basis of "who" said something, rather than focusing on "what" the editor said, a button that would replace all the usernames on their screens only, and not affecting anyone else at all with a number.
    • Set this up so that it's easy to tell which comments on the same page came from the same editor (e.g., every comment from the first editor named on that page is from "User 1", every comment from the second editor named on that page is from "User 2", etc.).
    • Set this up so you can turn it on or off whenever you want.

I see in the oppose votes below that there are a lot of IMO misplaced concerns about transparency and conflicts of interest. What I don't see is any explanation of how transparency suffers by simply not requiring me to see your username at the end of your comments. Nobody's being prevented from seeing the usernames; the proposal here is merely to stop forcing me to see your lovely usernames if (and only if) I don't happen to want to see them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

WhatamIdoing, there's no benefit in cutting myself off from "this user who is proposing A is the same as the user who proposed the very damaging B last week, so I need to look closely at all this person's ideas." How is this proposal related to anti-harassment, by the way? SarahSV talk 23:08, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
SlimVirgin, is there any benefit in you requiring all editors to see everyone's usernames? Some people think there is a moral imperative to ignore an editor's reputation. They could choose to use this feature; you could choose not to. You said that letting people voluntarily choose not to display usernames on their own screens would reduce transparency. That's not the same as just saying that you wouldn't choose to use it yourself.
(I assume that this is in anti-harassment because not knowing editors' identities means that jerks won't know who's female. The "r u female?" jerks didn't cease to exist when AOL chat rooms died, and some communities have a fairly significant problem that way.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
WAID, there is a script that does this at de:Benutzer:Martin Kraft/hideUserComments.js. If it's voluntary, the jerks will see the names. I can't think of a way this would help anti-harassment. As for reducing transparency, will this remove names and histories? Because if you click on a user name, you'll see the other issues that person has commented on, and it will often become clear who they are. SarahSV talk 06:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm sorry, I didn't realize there was a script for enwiki too. Why does it need help from the WMF if we can already do it? SarahSV talk 06:51, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I suspect few people would opt in to this and leave it on for themselves wiki-wide, especially if they perceive that nobody else is doing so. An interesting variation would be to mark specific pages with a keyword that turns on BlindMode by default, with a button for the user to unblind at will. (Button could toggle off-on-off, save state in a session cookie so that it works for anons as well as logged-in users.) Pelagic (talk) 02:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
If a person clicks Edit, will the names still be aliased? Then they would need to be translated back on publish/save/commit. It would be hard to catch instances where people mention others by name in plain-text without wikilinking, doubly-so if the mention isn't their exact username, like this: Yair, WAID, SarahSV. Still, I guess you could start with the easiest case (sigs, read mode only) then progress to the harder ones (mentions, editing). Pelagic (talk) 02:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
If I reply to or @-mention "User24" and it turns out to be "User:WhoImInteractionBannedWith" is that going to go badly for me? How would I prove that I'm interacting blindly with them? What if I criticise a bunch of different User65, User31, etc. across multiple pages and it turns out to be the same person, then I get accused of harassment and stalking? Pelagic (talk) 02:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

  • Support Support ValeJappo【〒】 18:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose It is often important to know who is commenting on an user conduct dispute - there are users who either can be trusted in their comments and those which can't. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    @Jo-Jo Eumerus: I'm sorry, I think you (and maybe some others here) may have misunderstood the proposal. The proposal is for a mode that users could enable, so they could look at a page without seeing the names behind the actions/comments, when this would be helpful. In situations where it would be counterproductive, it could just be not used. --Yair rand (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Perhaps, but I still don't think it's a good idea - it sounds like we'd be enabling folks who want to be careless. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:45, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:31, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support _ I use this already as script and it is truely a benefit for my work. -- Marcus Cyron (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support I have positively contributed in the past, only to see my contributions removed by previous editors of the page I was seeking to improve. They acted as if they "owned" the page and dismissed my arguments. I gave up because I'm too busy with other things in my life than editing Wikipedia. Too bad, as I am an expert in the area I was trying to improve. Cerniagigante (talk) 19:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I don't think this would be a useful tool. It's likely to lead to further distrust among the community. Plus when a strong conflict emerges, many people are aware of who is defending which position. Everyone will be guessing who is under user1 and so forth. --Braveheidi (talk) 20:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Suitable as a user script, you can choose, but don't promote it.--YFdyh000 (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Editor760 (talk) 23:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support UncleMartin (talk) 01:30, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support --Ciao • Bestoernesto • ✉ 02:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support AnotherOnymous (talk) 03:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per Braveheidi and Jo-Jo Eumerus. Firestar464 (talk) 05:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Yair rand's reply to Jo-Jo Eumerus is key to me, this could be a optional valuable tool. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 06:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I don't think I know when to use that feature. Users will see the comments before they use the feature. To prevent that, you have to enable the feature by default. But it is dangerous to show all comments anonymously by default. Because malicious users may also comment. --Tmv (talk) 08:16, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose One of the main values of Wikipedia is its transparency, with the trade-offs that this might imply. Replacing users by tokens distort the traceability of edits and other problems or conducts (e.g. vandalisms, corporate edits, etc.). For anonymity the basic option of creating a nickname already exists. Xavi Dengra (MESSAGES) 10:59, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose We don't need this. There are better things to do and Wikipedia is an open project. If somebody doesn't want to contribute, they don't have to. --Ján Kepler (talk) 14:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose --Олександр Кравчук (talk) 16:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose The thing is that part of this is about connecting with people, and if people don't have any idea at all who's who, they can't make the connections between people which make Wikimedia work in the first place. Tyrekecorrea (talk) 19:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support — WinnerWolf99 talkWhat did I break now? 20:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose there's already enough going on with users hiding behind IPs etc. therefore no tool to make it even easier close to default to avoid transparency--KlauRau (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support 4thfile4thrank (talk) 04:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Weak oppose // Lollipoplollipoplollipop :: talk 05:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Per Xavi Dengra I-Bin-A-Bibi (talk) 14:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Oppose Oppose Thanks for the explanation, but I understood quite well what this proposal is about. We already have a certain level of anonymity within Wikipedia, and frankly this issue has nothing to do with the tools at one's disposition, but with the ability of not looking for drama. I-Bin-A-Bibi (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Lvova (talk) 15:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose While I understand the sentiment behind this, it would only be useful in a very narrow set of circumstances. Otherwise, it's better to have people posting under their own usernames, because patterns emerge from user behavior. Plus, obfuscated usernames will become a problem when UserX shows up in a discussion as User#22, but everyone can tell it's them due to their argument and/or writing style. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • ('oppose votes' aren't counted anyway)
    • That's an odd statement to make. If you mean "this is not a vote," that's already understood. We are airing our reasons for not supporting this measure.
    • To that end, since this is apparently optional for each user, I still oppose this feature. Individuals who wish to avoid letting the identity of an editor bias their opinions should... work on doing that themselves. It's a social issue, not a technical one, and a technical solution will not help. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:12, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      User:HandThatFeeds, the wishlist has always operated on approval voting. Oppose votes are not counted. Only the raw number of support votes matter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      That... makes no sense whatsoever, so I'm hoping a better explanation is available. Because if Oppose votes are not counted. Only the raw number of support votes matter. then a proposal which has a single Support vote and twenty Oppose votes... gets passed & implemented. What am I missing here? — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:32, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      HandThatFeeds, the wishlist is a ranking system. A proposal that gets a single Support vote will be so far down the list that it has no chance of getting CommTech's time assigned to it. This wish ended up as #135 on the list, with 22 support votes, neighbor to wishes such as Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Mobile and apps/Welcome page on mobile app should respect dark mode setting, which got 22 support votes and no opposition.
      In practice, only the top handful of wishes will be implemented (unless someone was planning to implement those independently anyway). Looking at the results, if they try to fully implement the top item, then they won't even make it to wish #2 next year. Wish #4 and #6, if fully implemented, are also potentially whole-team-whole-year Wish #135 has no hope at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      Thank you for the explanation. Seems an odd way of deciding what gets made, but at least the format makes more sense. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:58, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I imagine that it is not by transforming the account name as anonymous that it will resolve the judgment of accounts with serious cases of conduct. I believe that whoever is part of the Arbitration Committee, of the members of the administration, should be responsible for carrying out all evaluations based on the project's policies and all of them were elected for this. Therefore, hiding the name for anonymity would only bring more problems, especially for those being accused, not even being able to find out if the user is really part of the team of evaluators. WikiFer msg 22:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Strong support Strong support, particularization, animosity, personal attacks, are bad counselors and not based in justice. BoldLuis (talk) 09:30, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose valepert (talk) 12:25, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support ArnabSaha (talk) 15:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Seems to be in contradiction to transparency and openness. --Gereon K. (talk) 17:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose let’s not give bullies another cloak to hide behind. Lostinlodos (talk) 22:40, 11 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose We need transparency when discussing user conduct, which can have serious implications for the person being discussed. SarahSV talk 04:44, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Neutrality extends to not prejudicing users against each other. Ingeborg S. Nordén (talk) 06:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose If someone wants to discuss anonymously just logout and use your IP-address Klaas `Z4␟` V:  13:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support I have been blocked before because of Administrators opinions. Turns out, the user I had serious issues with was, as I had suspected, a serial sockpuppet Wikipedia user with a string of aliases- neutrality is of the utmost importance Melroross (talk) 16:35, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support  ⎛⎝Grzegorz Wysocki⎠⎞  14:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose This may lead to situations of inadvertent conflict of interest. There are simpler alternatives for this script side or even using logged out IP address if temporary anonymity is the goal Shushugah (talk) 19:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose This would limit transparency.HAL333 (talk) 21:15, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    HAL333, how does an optional and reversible system "limit transparency"? Everyone's usernames are still recorded in the database. Anyone can see them at any time. The point of the proposal is that you are not forced to see other editors' usernames when you don't want to. Some people find that it's easier to "Comment on the content, not the contributor" when they don't know who the contributors are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    WhatamIdoingI get that, I am concerned with the case where a genuine blind peer mode occurs, however the people involved have COI in whatever contexts, and such COI will be dismissed because user claims to have done a blind peer recommendation. Shushugah (talk) 22:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    I don't think this proposal is for a genuine blind peer mode. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support good idea Medea7 (talk) 22:13, 14 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose See comment no. 4: this already exists in user-side script form, so the devs have no reason to spend resources reinventing this wheel.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  04:57, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Not sure I support the proposal at this stage, but very strongly support further discussion and development of the core idea. Better have a good understanding of all possible implications before designing this. I believe it could eventually become a very positive tool for Wiki communication. --Joalbertine (talk) 09:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I feel that transparency and responsibility are a cornerstones of Wiki.--Lighter (talk) 11:54, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose It could foster anonymous harassment. Golmore (talk) 17:34, 15 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  •  Weak support Intriguing idea, but might need to carefully consider the implications. Pelagic (talk) 02:52, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Okimeolvx (talk) 12:31, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I do not instigate or (rarely, if ever) participate in Wiki dramas, but sometimes I needed to dig into wiki archives, including checking the full history of renamed or pseudo-vanished accounts, even resorting to external web archives (only "legit" ones, no wiki-crazies), to understand what it was all about, that is who is/was/will likely be who, to understand the what, where and whys. Most often, such "drama" accounts are subsequently globally banned after many years of wikilawyering, secret socking (and much worse) and winning individual admin BATTLEs for long-term POV pushing. Each of us has an agenda (see the essay), and the most obnoxious "dramatists" among us are the ones who claim that that we are free of it, cause we "fight for TRUTH". Thus no: the present system is too "sclerotic"/forgiving/idealistic enough, and I claim so as a (happily) indeffed user myself :) Zezen (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support Support Of course, in most cases you do want to see who's commented and this proposal will do nothing to take away your ability to do so. It's an optional gadget that you can just turn on. There are definitely cases where it will be beneficial to have it turned on (I certainly would!), and this won't affect anyone who doesn't want to use it. Uanfala (talk) 21:07, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose If you think your comment is okay, you should not care about your name being published. Right? WikiAviator (talk) 11:15, 20 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Your name would still be published. This proposal is "If you think you are fair and unbiased, and not just supporting a comment because you know it was written by an admin, then you should not care whether you know who posted which comment. Right?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Nachtbold (talk) 11:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Global semiprotection of user talk pages

  • Problem: There are certain crosswiki vandals who will go to a user's talk page and leave harassing comments. When they get blocked from that wiki, they will just go onto another wiki where an account exists for that user and leave more harassing comments. And on and on until a steward intervenes. Since these are done with throwaway accounts and proxies in many cases, this just repeats itself over and over.
  • Who would benefit: Those being harassed crosswiki
  • Proposed solution: Allow for a user's talk pages on every wiki to require autoconfirmed permission to be created/edited, using some sort of list hosted on Meta that only stewards can edit (similar to what we have for spam and titles).
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Rschen7754 01:47, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • Can't this just be done using a bot? (& if so, that'd be easier to do, too). It'd have to run under the account of someone authorised to semi-protect pages globally (a steward, I guess?). It'd be a diversion from the global bot policy and the steward policy, I guess, so maybe it needs an RfC to be permissible or whatever, dunno. But I think technically this may be more feasible than a software edit. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Even better, a user should be able to activate semi protection on their own pages themselves, and do it globally as well. No need to bother stewards or others with this - if I want to enable semi for my user talk pages on one or more wikis, I should be able to do it, easily. Just like we now have some enhanced options for who can send email to you. --Piotrus (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Piotrus, it comes to mind for me that such an option might be able to be abused by users trying to prevent others from having real discussions with them, but I don't know how likely or serious of a problem that could be. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:51, 20 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      • That would be a very likely problem. I'm definitely against this idea. Chaddy (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      • Yeah. If the harassed user semi-protect their user page, the harassing user would just edit their talk page or ping them on any page. Some users may also semi-protect their page to avoid having a discussion instead. RXerself (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I'm quite new on Wikipedia, I'm not sure whether crosswiki bots are common. I tend to agree with Piotrus' suggestion. --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 06:40, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • They are not, afaik there is no steward crosswiki bot that performs actions on local wikis (the proxy one takes actions on meta I think), but community consensus can probably change that for this limited usecase. I disagree with the suggestion that users can protect their own pages. Different wikis have different protection policies on this, so users shouldn't be able to protect their talk pages without having valid reason, and some wikis may only allow it for limited times. With a protected talk page, it's harder to get in touch with someone (give or take Echo notifications). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:58, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Can't you also have individual users block certain comments? I mean, I don't see a problem in making that happen.
    • Hi. User:Bédévore/Harassment I'm a target of LTA, made by vandalism-only accounts who leave me their insults and threats cross-wiki, including on wikis where I have never written a single word. I don't really see why an IP user or single-purpose account would contact me on hu. or ko. or az.: I never write there--I don't know the language. If I don't edit at all these wikis, why on earth would an IP choose to leave me a relevant message in russian or persian? Especially when my meta page is clear about the stuff. - Bédévore (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • By the proposed solution, will a new user still be able to edit their user page (since they won't be autoconfirmed)? Adding basic info on their user page by the new user is a common task in Wikipedia training events. RXerself (talk) 00:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • This proposal would only be used in severe cases of harassment, not to the 99% of other users. --Rschen7754 07:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I suggest renaming this from "Global semiprotection of user talk pages" to "Global semiprotection of specific user talk pages" to avoid the implication that this would be applied to all user pages. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Does "Allow for a user's talk pages on every wiki" not imply that this is for all user talk pages? —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 21:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    @Atcovi: Why would you semi-protect my userpage on all wikis for no reason? Mike Peel (talk) 22:33, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Fair point - I believe Rschen7754 has made it clear. —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 19:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • This could be done by a global abuse filter. Updating a user list inside an abuse filter is not a great experience; I wonder if some generic mechanism for having abuse filters which are restricted to some list of pages (with a mechanism for storing that list outside the filter logic) could fulfill this use case while being useful for other issues as well. --Tgr (talk) 04:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting

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