Talk:Office actions/Community consultation on partial and temporary office actions/draft/Archive 2

Invalid/premature

Editors cannot reasonably be expected to comment on potential inadequacies of the draft-consultation when we still have no outcome or answer what happened with the Framban. Trying to drive this process forwards before we are able to constructively comment on it will not be viewed favorably, it is not helpful, and you risk the entire process getting derailed. It's better to get this done right rather than done fast. I strongly advise that you defer the draft discussion until EnWiki-Arbcom publishes their result on the case. The expected timeline is a proposed decision posted by 7 September.

P.S. in this diff I recommend some formatting changes to make the page more clear. Alsee (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Alsee, I've implemented your double-boxing idea but am keeping the TOC for now. As far as your comment about the timing, I guess I'm not clear on how discussing what questions we should be asking is dependent on the Fram case? Certainly for the actual consultation where we'd be asking people to tell us whether they wanted us to use partial/temporary actions, I can understand not wanting to weigh in on that until you know what Arbcom says, but making a list of questions we want to ask people to discuss seems a lot less dependent on that. Whether Arbcom affirms the ban, changes the ban, or vacates the ban, "Should T&S use partial and temporary office actions going forward" is still a question people will want to answer, for example. Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 10:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Kbrown (WMF) in short, we don't yet know what we will learn when Arbcom releases info about the case. How can I suggest the draft-questions need to be revised to discuss X, when I don't yet know X?

An attempt at a longer answer, it seems to me that the proposed consultation questions aren't addressing the actual issue. I don't think the issue here is really about "partial" or "temporary" actions per se. I believe the issue is which kinds of cases the Foundation should or shouldn't be getting involved in. There is a widespread concern that the kinds of cases that would result in a temporary or partial ban do not appear to overlap with the kinds of cases where the Foundation should be getting involved. The Foundation has thus far refused to provide any useful clarification on what kind of case the Framban was, we don't know what he was sanctioned for.

Once we understand what kind of case the Foundation wants to use these actions for, once we understand what kind of case the Framban was, we may agree that the Foundation can and should handle those kinds of cases in the future. Or we may try to explain to the Foundation why we don't think the Foundation should be handling that kind of case. It's not really about "partial" or "temporary", other than that "permanent-global-bans" appear to provide a clear and correct line defining the kinds of cases the Foundation should handle.

How can we ensure good consultation-questions when we don't yet know what the discussion is going to look like? The entire conversation is going to radically evolve once we get a better picture what the Foundation did use these kind of office actions for, once we better understand what the Foundation would use these kinds of office actions for in the future. Alsee (talk) 13:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you were saying. My reply will probably not satisfy, but here it is: this consultation will be about, and limited to, partial and temporary Foundation office actions. Issues like the types of cases we take, due process concerns, and many of the other things people raised in "Fram" discussions are outside the scope of this consultation (though they will probably be in scope in some of the future consultations we'll be running - this isn't the only one). So I would encourage you to think here about what the questions that need to be answered are specifically in relation to whether and how the Foundation uses partial/temporary office actions in the future, and hold other questions in abeyance (or discuss them elsewhere) for the moment. I get that you're saying that you don't have enough information to necessarily form those questions, but please do your best and give us what you can.

Also, if it helps: for Fram's ban, the Foundation did say that "the issues reported to us [about Fram] fell under section 4 of the terms of use [...], specifically under the first provision entitled 'harassing and abusing others.'" I don't know if that gives you any clarity, but hopefully it does. Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Kbrown (WMF): how do you reconcile your scope restriction with the Board's instruction to, "identify the shortcomings of current processes"? If a community member believes that T&S actions should be limited to child protection issues and threats, and that those issues should not involve consideration of temporary sanctions, will you disregard their opinion because you have determined in advance that such opinions are out of scope? EllenCT (talk) 05:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: I think we may be sort of agreeing while thinking we're disagreeing here? That is, shortcomings of partial and temporary bans is totally a topic that can be covered by this consultation when it launches, though it's not a question we thought to include in our initial draft and we'd appreciate your help crafting such a question. Believing that partial and temporary bans shouldn't be used, no matter the situation, is also covered by this consultation. What's not covered - and my understanding is that it's not covered here because we'll be covering it in other future consultations, rather than because we don't want to hear about it - is the extent to which community members believe that any T&S action should only happen in cases of child protection and threats. So basically what I'm saying is that "current processes" is a really big umbrella, and we don't think we can cover all of it (which is to say, find out all relevant information without the talk page descending into cross-topic confusion) in one consultation, so we're breaking it down into sub-parts. This consultation, about partial/temporary actions, is the first of those sub-parts, but to the best of my understanding will not be the last. Edited 16:23, 15 August 2019 (UTC): I double-checked this to be sure I was giving accurate information and it looks like I misunderstood our future-consultation plans. We're going to be running consultations about future changes to Office Action policy, but we don't have any further consultations planned about the current version of policy. Really sorry for giving misleading information! Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 09:24, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Kbrown (WMF): Issues like the types of cases we take, due process concerns, and many of the other things people raised in "Fram" discussions are outside the scope of this consultation. I think I spotted a miscommunication here. In regard to temporary and partial actions, all of those concerns are in-scope under Q2. I don't think anyone is asking for changes in how criminal-type-cases are handled. I also think editors assume/expect the Foundation NOT to toss around global-permabans based on "Someone is harassing me, they stalked me to three of my articles and said my work was bullshit and deleted it all and they called me incompetent".

I'd like to note that there have been poor outcomes in the past when past when the Foundation tried to constrain scope of discussion. If a person or two goes off-topic, that can be ignored or gently discouraged. However if many people consider a particular aspect to be important to the discussion then it's not a good idea to battle against the discussion itself. If people feel that you're refusing to allow discussion on types of cases or other issues they consider important then the likely result is to drive them to a simple "No" on Q1.

if it helps: for Fram's ban, the Foundation did say that "the issues reported to us [about Fram] fell under section 4 of the terms of use [...], specifically under the first provision entitled 'harassing and abusing others', we know. That's why we are here. A lot of people either don't trust the Foundation to handle this case and similar cases, or do trust and still think it's inappropriate. In the past our understanding was that the Foundation handled things like legal issues, threats of violence, cross-wiki abuse, and child protection issues, and no one had concerns about that. That list of case-types is quoted from what Board said T&S should be limited to handling until agreement between T&S and the community are achieved to expand the list. The community has extensive experience and expertise dealing with the kinds of complaints of harassment, bullying, stalking, and abuse that routinely arise out of content-disputes. A significant percentage of those complaints are filed by disruptive policy-violating editors, who are often on the verge of being blocked themselves. The complainant believes or claims harassment because other editors are properly trying to enforce policies against them. The Foundation must stay far away from passing judgement on content disputes or the routine squabbles arising out of content disputes. This topic may be drifting away from the intended "draft-discussion", but it may be exactly on-topic if it helps you understand some of the concerns that people want considered and resolved by this consultation. It's not about partial or temporary actions, it's about the kinds of cases. What kind of case is minor enough to only warrant a partial or temporary sanction, and simultaneously appropriate for an Office Action? Alsee (talk) 15:30, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Shall we ask the board?

Alsee wrote:

"I don't think the issue here is really about "partial" or "temporary" actions per se. I believe the issue is which kinds of cases the Foundation should or shouldn't be getting involved in. There is a widespread concern that the kinds of cases that would result in a temporary or partial ban do not appear to overlap with the kinds of cases where the Foundation should be getting involved."

Kbrown (WMF) responded:

"My reply will probably not satisfy, but here it is: this consultation will be about, and limited to, partial and temporary Foundation office actions... So I would encourage you to think here about what the questions that need to be answered are specifically in relation to whether and how the Foundation uses partial/temporary office actions in the future."

The board ordered this consultation. Should we ask the board whether they wish to order T&S to consult with the community regarding the narrow scope that Kbrown insists we limit ourselves to or the wider scope that Alsee advocates?

Now I can certainly see limiting the scope to exclude things that T&S has no power to change, but I can assure Kbrown that we didn't have multiple administrators resign over "how the Foundation uses partial/temporary office actions". They resigned over T&S one day, without any consultation or warning, taking over a basic function of running Wikipedia that has traditionally been handled by ANI or Arbcom. Limiting the discussion to exclude talking about that is pretty sure to result in the shit hitting the fan once again.

Just as an aside, I would support T&S temporarily blocking a user for any reason or for no reason at all with the case then sent to Arbcom to decide whether to vacate it or decide on how long it should last. We don't want something that violates a person to slip through the cracks while we wait for Arbcom to respond, and temporary blocks while we ("we" meaning the English Wikipedia community, not T&S) look into a potentially bad situation really don't hurt anyone other than causing a minor inconvenience. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

1 very large question

Trying to stick to the actual theme of this page (that is, discussing questions, not giving answers)

Question 2 is the one that is going to get all the long, long answers. I'm concerned that on consultations with long answers, the WMF is less than perfect at picking out all the particulars each user might make. E.g. I might go "Yes, on projects which agree" to Q1, then for Q2 say "No to old version, and here are 7 points of change, each with an explanation".

As such, I think breaking down the "if no, what changes" part of Q2 into several other questions is beneficial. I'd suggest things like "Types of Conduct they'd be used for", "Permissible duration(s) of bans", "Appealability status" (and an "other" category, of course) Nosebagbear (talk) 15:47, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Nosebagbear, this is a great suggestion. I'll take it back to the rest of the team and we'll see about rewording along these lines. Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 09:28, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Questions submitted here

What, if any, is the downside of returning to (or establishing) a protocol where the foundation has no authority to discipline any editor?Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC) Revised question is below, preceded by a title in bold. Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:45, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I know that we really shouldn't try to answer questions here, but I have an answer that might help you to refine the question.

In the short term, huge harm. Let's say that T&S is notified of someone posting links to child pornography. Everyone agrees that they should immediately delete the edit, remove it from the history, and block the user.

And, BTW, the WMF has been able to do that from the beginning. So "returning to" isn't accurate. it would be "establishing".

In the long term, the downside is mass resignations of admins and the board telling the CEO to tell T&S to knock it off.

So how do we reconcile the short and long terms? I say T&S should (if the edit was on a project that has something like Arbcom which can deal with something like this without revealing where those links went to) turn it over to Arbcom to either vacate the decision or make it an Arbcom ban. In smaller projects that don't have the resources to handle it, I say let T&S's immediate decision stand.

I also say that T&S should tell the person making the complaint that they will share the full details with Arbcom, and that Arbcom has a spotless record of not revealing this sort of thing to the public. The two go hand in hand: turning over the decision to Arbcom requires turning over all of the evidence to Arbcom.

Could you please refine the question so that it doesn't imply stopping T&S from responding to kiddy porn with at least a short term deletion/block? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:38, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, I know why some of the permanent San Fran Bans were placed. (Well, technically I don't "know"; the WMF never explicitly provides a reason for such a ban, but I was aware of the incidents that occurred right before they were placed, so for all intents and purposes I know.) I'm not going to go into detail, but I will say that there are some truly bad people out there, ones who do far worse than edit war or insult ArbCom. And I do not want those people anywhere near Wikimedia projects. Remember that the matters WMF have traditionally handled are ones like child protection and threats of violence; cases where it might be necessary to contact law enforcement. Imagine a case where someone's done something of a magnitude that necessitates literally calling the cops, but WMF cannot remove them from the project.

Now, I tend to think matters of that level of seriousness are the only ones WMF ought to be directly handling; "Fram was mean to me" does not necessitate calling the police. But prohibiting them from doing anything about even the most serious, urgent situations would be ludicrous, and those situations, while fortunately rather rare, really do happen. Seraphimblade (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Broadly, I agree with Seraphimblade. I'm not seeing any compelling reason for T&S to deal with anything except legal issues, threats of violence, cross-wiki abuse, and child protection issues, with the addition of harassment and civility issues in relation to projects with no equivalent of en.wiki's ArbCom. For any project with an ArbCom or equivalent, though, T&S needs to stay away and allow the project to regulate itself. If the project manifests a history of not being able to do that, then a public hearing of some sort can be mounted to determine if that project needs to be put under some sort of outside control, in which case T&S would be the obvious agency to do that -- but that decision cannot be made privately and without direct input from the communities. This can be done in a way that protects privacy; it's more difficult, but it can be managed. What cannot be allowed is any further interference in community self-policing based on unchecked, non-public, private bureaucratic decisions. T&S needs to stick to its core remit in regard to self-regulating communities. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:13, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Revised question per above comments: What, if any, is the downside of establishing a protocol where the foundation has no authority, regarding a project with the equivalent of en.wiki's ArbCom, to discipline any editor except in regard to legal issues, threats of violence, cross-wiki abuse, and child protection issues; with the understanding that the foundation may have said authority regarding harassment or civility issues in relation to projects with no equivalent of en.wiki's ArbCom ? Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:39, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Misleading to refer to a "policy" which was never approved

The early June 2019 policy as shown was imposed by the Foundation without approval by any community rule-making processes, and the consultation should say so. Referring to it as a policy could mislead respondents into thinking it was discussed among the community like approved, longstanding policies. EllenCT (talk) 22:51, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Ain't it the truth; but this is the new normal; the majority of communication coming out of the USA is now either misleading or downright false; and the worse thing is, I believe its by habit as opposed to being by intent. Once the misleading crap is out there its damn near impossible to correct it. There's a major spiral downwards in terms of the quality of communication originating anywhere in the USA, so why should it be any different here?

Its a "policy" because someone with some (could be just a teeny, weeny bit) authority says it is. Full stop. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:07, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Consultation charter should be quoted

The consultation should tell potential respondents why it is taking place; specifically, it should include this quote from the Board of Trustees resolution of July 2nd:

We have asked Katherine Maher, CEO of Wikimedia Foundation, to work closely with staff in support of our communities to identify the shortcomings of current processes and to propose solutions. This could include current and upcoming initiatives, as well as re-evaluating or adding community input to the two new office action policy tools (temporary and partial Foundation bans).

We recognize that T&S has established a track record for managing highly complex situations. While the aforementioned conversations between T&S and our communities take place, we recommend T&S focus on the most severe cases, for instance: the handling of legal issues, threats of violence, cross-wiki abuse, and child protection issues until consultation and agreement between T&S and the community are achieved.

Any changes in the long-established practices of dealing with toxic behavior within the communities should be introduced carefully and only following close collaboration with the communities.

EllenCT (talk) 23:06, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone else here think that the above constitutes an answer to my question Shall we ask the board above? Anyone think it doesn't? Please comment in that section either way. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:18, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I think so. The stated desire to make a no answer to Question 1 "out of scope" if its rationale depends on issues, "like the types of cases we take, due process concerns, and many of the other things people raised in 'Fram' discussions" is manipulative and should be rejected by the community. EllenCT (talk) 05:48, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: The consultation already says

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees requested that staff hold this consultation to "re-evaluat[e] or add community input to the two new office action policy tools (temporary and partial Foundation bans)", and the executive director subsequently affirmed that "[the Foundation] will seek further community feedback on those [partial/temporary tools] changes".

Are you saying you think we should quote more of the Board resolution? Because I'm not sure the entirety of what you quote here is relevant (for instance, I think including the paragraph about "We recognize that T&S has established [...]" would take up space but not really contribute to people's understanding of the consultation topic). Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 09:35, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@Kbrown (WMF): I'm primarily interested in conveying (1) that "re-evaluation" is on the table, as opposed to simply an endorsement campaign; (2) T&S work on non-severe issues has been suspended until this is resolved; and (3) that the proposed changes won't be re-introduced without the community's approval. EllenCT (talk) 17:25, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Question 2

I think Question 2 (which as of this writing reads Can the Office Actions policy on partial and temporary bans, as written (circa June 2019), be used? If not, what changes need to be made to its text?), may be a bit too broad. It might be better to break that out into more focused queries, like "For what types of behavior (if any) should partial and temporary bans be considered?" "How serious or pervasive should the behavior need to be before use of such a ban is considered?" "What steps, if any, should be taken to contact the person who may be subject to such a ban to hear their side prior to a final determination?" (This one is especially crucial if the decision would be final and unappealable.) Following those, there could then be a catch-all "What other considerations should be taken into account when use of a ban is being considered?". Seraphimblade (talk) 02:55, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Seraphimblade. Nosebagbear made a similar suggestion a few sections up, so I'm going to take both your suggestions back to the team and we'll work on rewording the question along these lines. Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 09:30, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

"not appealable" / "final and non-negotiable"

I'd like to remind everyone that it is my long established view that all bans are appealable to me.

-- Jimbo Wales, 11 June 2019

EllenCT (talk) 05:41, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I have concerns about Jimbo's traditional role of being the final arbiter, but, putting those aside, it's obvious to anyone who followed FRAMGATE that "not appealable" and "final and non-negotiable" were a core part of the problem. Unless T&S can assure us that everyone is -- literally -- a saint and never, ever makes a mistake, bans must have an appeal process. I'd be much less concerned about this if T&S would simply stick to its original remit, dealing with legal issues and pedophiles and so forth, but their attempt to step into Office Actions which effect normal, non-criminal editors means that we should never see "not appealable" and "final and non-negotiable" in relation to these bans, ever again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:21, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

(+1) Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 18:38, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Agree with BMK, actually. I don't think that Jimmy should have any role in ban appeals, but all bans should be appealable - even if the answer is going to be no in particularly egregious cases. Just because other websites have unappealable bans should not be a reason for us to have them. – Ajraddatz (talk) 19:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I fully agree, it's nonsense and highly counterproductive having terms like "not appealable" / "final and non-negotiable" in a policy, specially when it is not evident at all which purpose they would serve. All bans should be appealable by principle. If the WMF has that policy of "not appealability" at its core, it's way past the time to scrap it for good.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 00:36, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

That was my point above -- which was ruled as "irrelevant". Mistakes happen. While common sense admits there are cases where any sanction must be final for it to work, to insist that any decision must stand regardless what subsequent investigations show. My suggestion -- "rarely altered" -- avoids this conflict. (And "appeal to Jimbo" is something unique to the English Wikipedia, based on his act of transferring his authority to the English Arbcom; there is no basis to conclude he has/had similar authority over other language Wikipedias. And one could further reason that even if he retains this right in en.wikipedia, he has no power to enforce it.) -- Llywrch (talk) 18:35, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

WMF research staff on the necessity of transparency

From Anti-Harassment Tools Team Design Researcher Claudia Lo's November 2018 "Reporting systems on English Wikipedia," written for the Community Health Initiative:

The Wikimedia community highly prizes transparency. For reporting systems, this is interpreted as publicly-viewable processes, outcomes, and the identities of the involved users. Transparency in this case is not just a design consideration put into place to achieve a certain kind of efficiency or mode of operation, but a value to be strived for in the way the entire system operates.... whatever changes we recommend, it must adhere to these values even as we change key features, otherwise it will not be trustworthy.

EllenCT (talk) 05:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)