Wikipedia talk:Contentious topics/2013 review/Archive 0

This content is from a smaller-scale review that took place in an arbitrator's userspace.

Thank you to everybody who has offered comments or suggestions. I do not think there are any more to offer, so I will take everything written by other people below into consideration, and work with my colleagues on a final draft. AGK [•] 23:08, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions are a type of sanction imposed by administrators with the authority of the Arbitration Committee. The committee will give administrators the authority ("authorise them") to impose discretionary sanctions for a particular set of articles or topic area in the final decision of an arbitration case (or in an arbitration motion).

Authorisation

Administrators may impose discretionary sanctions on an editor only if:

1. The editor has edited disruptively (see #Grounds);
2. The content that the editor has disruptively edited is related to an area of conflict for which discretionary sanctions have been authorised (see #List of affected areas);
3. The editor is aware that discretionary sanctions have been authorised for the pages on which they have disruptively edited (see #Notices);
4. The administrator has no bias for or against the editor being sanctioned or involvement with the article or dispute in question (see #Administrator involvedness); and
5. The sanction being imposed would not overrule or vacate a sanction previously imposed by an administrator if the previous sanction was also imposed as a discretionary sanction or arbitration enforcement action (see #Appeal and reversal).

The sanctions imposed may include: blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to a topic within the area of conflict or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; imposition of mandated external review (MER); or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.

Before imposing novel or unusual sanctions, administrators are expected to consult other administrators.

Sanctions may not be imposed for edits to content that are outside of the affected area. Administrators are expected to consult other, uninvolved administrators if a reasonable, uninvolved editor could argue the sanction is being imposed for edits to content that are outside the affected area.

Grounds

Any uninvolved administrator may, at his or her discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working on a page within the area of conflict (or for whom discretionary sanctions have otherwise been authorised) if, after being made aware that discretionary sanctions have been authorised, that editor edits disruptively or fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process.

Notices

Prior to any sanction being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a single notice that makes them aware discretionary sanctions have been authorised for the area of conflict. Such a notice must: (i) draw the editor's attention to the fact that discretionary sanctions have been authorised; (ii) contain a link to the arbitration decision that authorises sanctions for the affected area; and (iii) advise the editor that if they edit the affected area in a disruptive manner after receipt of the notice, they may have discretionary sanctions imposed on them. These notices may only be given by [an uninvolved administrator or an uninvolved editor or administrator or any editor] … [and may be given to any editor who edits a page in the affected area or and may be given to any editor who edits the affected area in a manner that could be disruptive].

Appeal

For more details, see Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Reversal of enforcement actions.

Discretionary sanctions imposed under these provisions may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate noticeboard (currently Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement), or to the Arbitration Committee. No administrator may reverse a discretionary sanction without being fully familiar with the situation, nor may any administrator reverse a sanction without a consensus of administrators. Some sanctions can be imposed without needing to resort to technical measures; for example, the imposition of a topic ban only requires an administrator to notify the sanctioned editor that they have been topic-banned, and no use of the block function is immediately necessary. However, the imposition of sanctions will be considered an administrative action that may not be undertaken or reversed by a non-administrator. Administrators may not reverse a discretionary sanction without obtaining a clear consensus of other administrators (or the consent of the imposing administrator), and may be subjected to appropriate remedies by the Arbitration Committee if they do so—including the revocation of their adminship.

Involvement

Administrators may not impose or overturn a discretionary sanction in a situation in which they have a conflict of interest. The community's broad definition of "involvement" will apply to the imposition of discretionary sanctions, and also to subsidiary functions. Subsidiary functions will be broadly construed, and may include such functions as making an administrator's recommendation (during an enforcement request) that a certain sanction be imposed, or having their recommendation in an appeal of another discretionary sanction being counted towards the "consensus of administrators" necessary to decide an appeal or and for the purposes of that definition, enforcement actions will be a "purely administrative role". Involved administrators are free to contribute to discussion related to enforcement requests and appeals, just like any non-administrator, but they must clearly state they are recused to avoid confusion.

Administrators who decide an enforcement request may not decide, or contribute to the consensus of uninvolved administrators, in a subsequent appeal of that action. Administrators who offer comment (in their capacity as uninvolved administrators) in an enforcement request that is subsequently decided by another administrator may or may not act in that same capacity in a subsequent appeal (unless they have subsequently acquired a conflict of interest).

Logging

All sanctions imposed under the provisions of a particular arbitration case are to be logged in the appropriate section of the case page, and in the conventional format.

Comments

• All comments welcome. AGK [•] 09:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"Authorisation"

Because the discussion with Gatoclass below indicates that it is not clear to all that AE sanctions are not imposed by consensus, but rather individually, I recommend the following clarification:

"Administrators are expected to consult other, uninvolved administrators if a reasonable, uninvolved editor could argue the sanction is being imposed for edits to content that are outside the affected area. Although they are allowed and, in complicated cases, encouraged to discuss the response to enforcement requests with other, uninvolved administrators, they are not required to seek consensus for any course of action."

Thanks for your consideration,  Sandstein  17:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"Appeal"

"Involvement"

• The entire concept of "involved" is difficult. The actual policy states "One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not speak to bias, is not involved". In other words, WP:INVOLVED does not require admins to continue to appear neutral as long as they have interacted with a user or topic in a purely administrative role. The reason for this language is that a long-term disruptive user could cycle through many, many admins if each one became "involved" just by leaving a warning or a comment on ANI. If the new language here is intended be more restrictive than the general policy, this should be stated very clearly. However, I would argue that the administrators who are in the best position to assess an AE remedy are often those who have already been interacting with the user in an administrative role (e.g. by responding to complaints on ANI) and who understand the full history of the situation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:02, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

• I've added an alternative clause to the draft, per your comments, and the draft will lead to a vote to select one clause over the other. Thanks, AGK [•] 15:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

• I oppose the following statement: Administrators who offer comment (in their capacity as uninvolved administrators) in an enforcement request that is subsequently decided by another administrator may act in that same capacity in a subsequent appeal (unless they have subsequently acquired a conflict of interest). The problem with this statement is that AE requests are decided by consensus of all participating admins, not by one admin alone except where only a single admin handles the request. Allowing the same admins to participate in the appeal of a request they adjudicated is, in effect, inviting them to judge the validity of their own previous conclusions. That is not a viable principle, any more than it's a viable notion in law for a court to handle an appeal of a decision made by that very court. Admins who participated in the imposition of a sanction being appealed can still give their point of view in the appeal, but they should do it in the "involved" section of the appeal because they were involved in the original decision. Admins independent of the original decision can then take their views into account when deciding upon the appeal.

With regard to the rest of this proposal, it seems excessively wordy to me and IMO liable to lead to more ambiguities. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure what problems it was designed to fix. Perhaps some sort of explanation as to that would be of assistance in assessing its usefulness. Gatoclass (talk) 13:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

• I've added an alternative clause to the draft, per your comments, and the draft will lead to a vote to select one clause over the other. Thanks, AGK [•] 15:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for that - and thank you, BTW, for your efforts in drafting these proposed changes. However, I still have concerns about the wordiness of the proposal, which IMO is likely to lead to more confusion rather than less. I actually think the existing discretionary sanctions wording is pretty straightforward and doesn't need a lot of additional explanation. I might discuss some of my concerns about the proposed rewording in more detail tomorrow, I'm not going to have the time to do so right now. Gatoclass (talk) 15:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks from me too for taking the time to do this. Gatoclass, I thought you had agreed at WP:ARCA that AE requests are not "decided by consensus of all participating admins"? This new revision of the rules would not change that. As such, an administrator who comments about the merits of a request is not, in my view, "participating in the imposition of a sanction". Only the sanctioning administrator is. For these reasons, I am of the view that the others can participate in an appeal as uninvolved administrators.  Sandstein  16:07, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I too find the proposed wording a bit difficult to understand. May I suggest the following alternate structure, which is based on existing policy and typical scenarios that have occurred at AE? Then the Committee can individually decide how it wants to treat each scenario.

"Administrators may not take enforcement actions if they are involved, as described in the administrators policy, in a conflict or dispute related to the parties to an enforcement request or the subject matter of the enforcement action.

Enforcement actions include imposing sanctions, voicing an opinion about whether or not to accept an appeal, and determining the consensus of a discussion about an appeal. Enforcement actions do not include giving notice that discretionary sanctions have been authorised, or voicing an opinion about the merits of an enforcement request or a proposed sanction.

An administrator is notably deemed involved:

• if they have made edits to pages related to the affected topic area in a way that reflects a bias for or against a contested point of view that is relevant to the enforcement action;
• in appeals discussions: if a sanction imposed by them is being appealed.

But because the policy provides that actions in a purely administrative role (which include enforcement actions) do not trigger involvement, an administrator is not deemed involved solely:

• for having taken previous enforcement actions (whether or not these have been appealed),
• for having taken part in discussions related to previous enforcement actions, such as enforcement requests, appeals of the same, or requests for clarification,
• for having voiced an opinion (in the context of the enforcement process) about whether an editor's conduct is sanctionable, for example in a discussion about an enforcement request, a proposed sanction, or an appeal."

(This reflects my opinion, but can of course be adjusted as desired.).  Sandstein  16:07, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Before I rewrite the section, do you understand that the draft above contains several different formulations of the "Involvement" section? The green text indicates mutually exclusive clauses, so for each set of green-coloured sentences or words only one option will make it into the final version (if my colleagues agree to adopt a new version of the standard discretionary sanctions). If you consider the formulations proposed as distinct entities, are they easier to understand? Viz.:

Administrators may not impose or overturn a discretionary sanction in a situation in which they have a conflict of interest. The community's broad definition of "involvement" will apply to the imposition of discretionary sanctions, and also to subsidiary functions. Subsidiary functions will be broadly construed, and may include such functions as making an administrator's recommendation (during an enforcement request) that a certain sanction be imposed, or having their recommendation in an appeal of another discretionary sanction being counted towards the "consensus of administrators" necessary to decide an appeal.

Administrators may not impose or overturn a discretionary sanction in a situation in which they have a conflict of interest. The community's broad definition of "involvement" will apply to the imposition of discretionary sanctions, and for the purposes of that definition, enforcement actions will be a "purely administrative role". Involved administrators are free to contribute to discussion related to enforcement requests and appeals, just like any non-administrator, but they must clearly state they are recused to avoid confusion.

And the second paragraph is also, of itself, two proposals:

Administrators who decide an enforcement request may not decide, or contribute to the consensus of uninvolved administrators, in a subsequent appeal of that action. Administrators who offer comment (in their capacity as uninvolved administrators) in an enforcement request that is subsequently decided by another administrator may act in that same capacity in a subsequent appeal (unless they have subsequently acquired a conflict of interest).

Administrators who decide an enforcement request may not decide, or contribute to the consensus of uninvolved administrators, in a subsequent appeal of that action. Administrators who offer comment (in their capacity as uninvolved administrators) in an enforcement request that is subsequently decided by another administrator may not act in that same capacity in a subsequent appeal.

AGK [•] 17:59, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that, but it is the first variant that I find hard to parse. Specifically, when you say that "The community's broad definition of "involvement" will apply to the imposition of discretionary sanctions, and also to subsidiary functions", do you mean to say that (a) administrators who are deemed involved per the community's definition may not impose sanctions or exercise discretionary functions, or (b) administrators who have imposed sanctions or exercised subsidiary functions are deemed involved for any (and if so, which?) subsequent actions?  Sandstein  18:23, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"Logging"

It's not clear who must or may do this, and the format should be prescribed. Notices and appeals, too, should be logged. Suggestion: "Whoever imposes or overturns discretionary sanctions, or gives notice about the possibility of discretionary sanctions, or determines the outcome of an appeal, must log this action – in the format prescribed at (...) – in the respective section on the appropriate case page."  Sandstein  16:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Commnet by NAEG (A) When you write "are to be" I think you are trying to control the location at which such actions get logged. However, the wikilawyers are going to conflate the word "are to be" into a twisted claim that "action X" "must be" logged, and actions only take effect after the logging has been properly recorded. The argument will go "My ban never took effect because the policy says it must be logged in manner X, but it was not logged at all at first, and later it was logged in manner Y. Since the absolutely-positively requirement that such actions must be followed for logging never took place, my ban never went into effect." This can be avoided by changing the text to read "sanctions are to may only be recorded at location X" NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:51, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that any serious administrator or arbitrator would give credence to the argument that an enforcement action is invalid because it was not logged on the case page. If that is a serious concern, a provision that "Omitting to log an action does not invalidate the action" would deal with it. But the proposed wording "may only be recorded at..." is false: such actions are also recorded on the respective user talk page, at WP:AE, and elsewhere. Also, logging should be mandatory, not optional.  Sandstein  21:55, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that any serious administrator or arbitrator would give credence to such an argument either, but I do think they have 'way too much work to do, so any super-simple wordsmithing that prevents lame arguments from simply being raised is worth doing, if only to express our appreciation to the admins & arbs for their service. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:55, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, I don't agree that "logging" in the narrow sense used here happens anywhere else. You've mentioned some places where a given editor's notice might be mentioned or reported but simply uttering something about the communication is not what "logging" means in this context. The goal is to make life easier on everyone by collecting a one-stop shop, listing diffs whereby various eds got the notice. That prevents them from being scattered hither and yon, and months or years down the road they can't be located. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:49, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Notices

Apologies that it's taken me a long time to pull my thoughts together on this. Regarding the opening sentence, I recommend that rather than "shall be given a single notice", the wording should be on the lines of "Prior to any sanction being imposed, the editor in question must have been given a notice that makes them aware that discretionary sanctions have been authorised for the area of conflict."

Of the various options as to who can give such notices, in my view "These notices may be given by any editor to anyone who edits a page in the affected area."

As KC noted in the discussion, notices need have no accusation or presumption of guilt: {{Uw-probation}} has a suitable approach, and a template on these lines could be used. Logging of such notices could be an option, but not required. There could also be a case for an uninvolved admin having the option of giving a formal notification, setting out the behaviour which merits a warning, and logging that notification on the log of sanctions. That's covered under Authorisation as "restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors" and so would not need to be restated under Notices. . . dave souza, talk 09:15, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  It seems to me there are two very different levels of "notice". First is that in certain areas (e.g., Climate Change) there are certain restrictions and possible sanctions. Second is the notice to an editor that s/he is subject to a specific complaint has been brought to ARBCOMM.

  Notice of the first level is given at an article's Talk page with a {{sanctions}} template. The intention is to advise editors to refrain from various general behaviors; no specific sanctioning is impending or contemplated. Where an editor forgets, perhaps misunderstands, or gets carried away, a gentle reminder from anyone else seems most appropriate.

  The second level is more on the order of a summons. While innocence may be presumed, filing a complaint with ARBCOMM is an accusation, and a step towards actual sanctioning. Specific behavior is cited, and the accused now must respond to avoid sanctioning. This is a critical difference.

  What concerns me is where an editor uses this process to harass others. Allowing (even encouraging) anyone to warn of a possible problem seems good, but informal and even casual warnings should not lead to immediate consideration of sanctions. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:37, 6 April 2013 (UTC)