Wikipedia talk:Review Board/Archive2

Current state of proposal

Given the extensive hashing out given this proposal (archived here), consensus has been reached for the version with the limited scope (CU and OS only). I'm going to insure the policy draft no longer has trace of the ArbCom oversight history, and move forward to policy. — Coren ^(talk) 02:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I rather disagree that there is consensus for this proposal. Prodego ^talk 03:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, Prodego. 2 yes and 5 no's is not a consensus for. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 17:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, I remember there being consensus for the Auditors' ability to do checkusers to follow up on reports or do random audits. When did that change? NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 05:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, you are correct there; I mistakenly assumed that the draft had been modified accordingly, and didn't double check. Good catch there. — Coren ^(talk) 06:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'm just finding out about this. Which thread in the archived discussion contains the consensus for this? Iceflow suggests that only seven editors participated. Is that right? The discussion seems to have started on December 21. If so, why the rush?   Will Beback  talk  01:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just to clear that up, Will, I was referring to the state of the "Creation of the board" !votes below, which at the time I posted that message stood at 2 supports and 5 opposes. I was not referring to the archived thread / !vote :) Thor Malmjursson (talk) 04:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• I've just reviewed the discussion of this. I see no real consensus at all. There's a few keen folk, but even among the supporters there's several different fundamental ideas. We can let this run for a bit I suppose, but I think it is pretty certain to be a non-starter.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Things left to decide (more community input needed)

Creation of a board

Do you support the creation of a board to review Check User and Oversight use as defined here?

Yes

• We don't have anything like this right now, despite claims below. ArbCom are not unbiased, so they're out. Ombudsmen only deals with privacy violations, not actual misuse, so they're out too. What are we left with? There isn't anything else. I suggest people read Thatcher's essay on the subject, if they don't understand this. Majorly talk 15:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom are not unbiased... - That's a pretty serious claim considering we've not long elected new members to it. You better be able to back that up with some proof that they are showing bias, or withdraw the comment. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 17:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever seen ArbCom admonish one of their own? I haven't. Majorly talk 17:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

If you haven't seen arbcom admonish an arbitrator, it can only be because you haven't looked closely enough. The most famous case is probably still the Giano case in which "Jdforrester is reminded to maintain decorum appropriate for an Arbitrator". Can I ask editors to please avoid making these broad-brush claims, because so often people will assume that you have examined the facts and know what you're talking about, and thus the debate becomes polluted with false impressions. --TS 17:11, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

That is not proof of bias. Has one of the ArbCom ever been bought up before them during their time in office? Find it happening and I'll take it as proof. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 17:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Not during office, but arbitrators never really leave office. They retain list access indefinitely, and CU and oversight tools. Majorly talk 18:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) - Ok then. Has an arbitrator, in term or not, ever been bought up before the ArbCom? I'm not trying to rub anyone up the wrong way, but if your claim is true, this needs to be looked at. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 18:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a number of sitting arbitrators have been arbcommed. This is a complete non-issue. I don't know why people make these false claims when they clearly haven't checked to see if they're true. --TS 19:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The issues have been looked at, but the problem is how do you know why ArbCom doesn't resolve an issue? At least to me, the question is more whether ArbCom is able to review this kind of thing at all. For one example, I might trust the U.S. Senate, but it still sets up an ethics committee, since open floor debate isn't always the best way to go or to deal with delicate problems. Large committees deal with big problems, but once a problem is that big then potentially it is too late. I think there is a desire to keep this general, though, rather than to make it about past cases that some may think should have gone differently. Mackan79 (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• Create per the Arbitration Committee who is pushing this through, which indicates a level of a problem that requires addressing. Since so many people seem to think the AC (today) does not require community support, then to be honest this poll isn't required by that same reasoning, and the AC can simply make the Review Board by fiat. rootology (C)(T) 17:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• We definitely need this. If you have an doubts, just read Thatcher's essay. NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 18:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• Of course Having checkusers watch checkusers is a recipe for lax enforcement and violation of policy (no offense meant for current CU's, but the nature of the beast is that you don't try hard to rat your friends out). Protonk (talk) 20:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• If we want to expand the Ombudsman position, fine, but if not then someone needs to do this. Right now, no one is authorized to ensure that the checkuser and oversight tools are used correctly, despite the complete operational independence and life terms of those given the tools. I don't see how that is consistent with the nature of the positions. Even a review committee within these communities would be something, but to have no review mechanism at all is to say that the relevant policies don't matter. Mackan79 (talk) 23:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• Weakly - This is good, but if arbcom and other CU/OS's are really unwilling to do what they're supposed to be doing (checking on each other) then this really isn't a solution. Mr.Z-man 05:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• Yes per thatcher's concerns in another essay. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. We've already had at least one arbitration case (SV-Lar) that included allegations of checkuser abuse, and there was considerable concern expressed by those alleging checkuser abuse that the ArbCom members at the time were not sufficiently independent to investigate. Whether these claims were fair or not, having an independent body empowered only to investigate and report on oversight and checkuser activity would help avoid the "no confidence in the system" sentiments expressed in that case. Additional bureaucracy is an understandable objection, but I note that very few people relative to the Wikipedian population are ever likely to have direct dealings with the proposed review board. I see it as somewhat similar to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which reports regularly on how the executive branch exercises its power and expends funds, but is not an office that the typical U.S. citizen has to worry about. A review board analogous to the GAO makes a lot of sense to me. alanyst ^/talk/ 19:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support - on principle that all users should wish to see higher standards procured. This will help. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
• Yes - Had this existed earlier it may have been a better way to resolve at least one case. ++Lar: t/c 07:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support, though I'd prefer a board chosen by the community alone, not by ArbCom. We need something truly independent. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support There are complaints sitting in wait of an independent body to look at Checkuser and Oversight problems.FloNight♥♥♥ 00:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. It would be best if the board members were people who didn't edit en.Wikipedia but this would be the next best thing as long as ArbCom or Jimbo isn't involved in the selection process. Cla68 (talk) 06:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Second choice - The linked version is out of date, there are still plenty of improvements to be made.--Tznkai (talk) 15:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

No

• Redundant to m:Ombudsman commission, no evidence is presented of a problem requiring a fix this complex. Guy (Help!) 10:51, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The Ombudsmen only deal with privacy violations, not actual misuse of the tools. Majorly talk 15:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Guy's reasoning is false and as are there all per Guy endroses. Only the AC, CUs, and OSs know if there is abuse to warrant a Review Board and the Ombudsman doesn't do this function. rootology (C)(T) 17:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The Ombudsman investigate issues of privacy policy violations for the checkuser tool, only. They neither investigate non-privacy policy violations nor do they investigate oversight abuse. Kylu (talk) 00:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• Per JzG, and as such little more than another opportunity to lavish arb-groupies with patronage (or at least to attempt to gravy some of their pies); for a board with the more substantial remit of acting as a balance to arbcom, this would need to be independent of arbcom, even if that meant the proposal for such came from ArbCom's source of actual power and authority, Jimbo Wales. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• Redundant to several other existing processes and boards, including Ombudsman, ArbCom, etc. etc. Yet another elected board that people wishing to spread Teh Drahmaz can accuse of abuse. Not really needed, existing processes already deal with this adequately. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:02, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• Per all above. Needless red tape that does not serve a function not already detailed in other processes. As I stated on AN; Five "highly trusted users" overseeing fourty "highly trusted users" does not change much. Resolute 16:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• Absolutely NO! What are you trying to do here? This site is so tied up with rules and policies that eventually you are gonna scare people off from editing cause they won't know who is doing what, which applies where, how and why! For Heaven's sake, enough with the red tape already! Thor Malmjursson (talk) 17:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
• No, let the sysadmins watch the Oversights (they have removed it when misused before) and the Ombudsmen watch the CheckUsers. For violations not in their purview, we have arbcom, and of course the other oversights / CheckUsers. Prodego ^talk 17:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• However, we have confirmation from checkusers and Arbcom that the system does not work as some CUs refuse to change their inappropriate ways: User:Thatcher/Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. rootology (C)(T) 18:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• So if Arbcom admits that an editor with CU rights is misusing the tools, why isn't Arbcom doing anything about it? Resolute 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

They could, they currently do not, at least, not effectively. I have some information regarding internal debates at Arbcom that sheds light on this that I am not permitted to share. It is proposed that Arbcom will delegate some of its authority to the Review Board to improve the efficiency and transparency with which these kinds of complaints are handled. Thatcher 15:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• Regarding Thatcher's concerns, we don't need another elected group to do this. It should be within ArbCom's jurisdiction to deal with those problems. Having another elected group will do nothing if our already elected group isn't. ArbCom should be dealing with it, and we should be coming up with ways of removing stuff from ArbCom, we should be encouraging ArbCom to do their job correctly. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• So Thatcher's essay really got me thinking. There are problems with these proposed soltions to losses of community trust, and it would take me WAY too much space to write them all out here. So, being the egotistical prick that I am, I wrote my own little self-serving essay which explains my position on this matter in detail. See User:Jayron32/On positions of authority at Wikipedia. Read it if you like. Make comments if you like. Think I'm an asshole for writing it in the first place if you like. Cheers. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• No per the above, especially the comment about 5 watching 40 and all being highly trusted. -Djsasso (talk) 02:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• No, redundant to existing processes and insufficient evidence that what we currently have doesn't work. Editors are granted access to checkuser and oversight because they are trusted by the community to exercise those functions. The proposed Review Board would therefore be other editors trusted by the community to watch over those trusted by the community? Will we then need a Review Board Review Board of trusted editors to watch over the trusted Review Board members watching over the trusted checkusers? Euryalus (talk) 03:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. More bureaucracy attempting to solve a problem that is not a problem. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 03:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• Let's keep our processes lightweight. On-wiki disputes are supposed to be settled by arbcom, and if they need to they're perfectly capable of devolving their powers. --TS 17:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

  Yes, that's the point here. Arbcom is delegating it's authority to monitor CU and OS to a panel, that will be as independent as practical from Arbcom. Thatcher 17:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

  If it wants to do that, it should probably get on with it. Treat this page as a consultation exercise, if you like. But any powers this subcommittee has should be strictly circumscribed and subject to arbcom. One ultimate dispute resolution body is okay, two would be a recipe for warfare. --TS 19:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• This proposal would obviously wither on the vine without Arbcom's support since Arbcom controls the keys to the kingdom, as it were. The arbitrators themselves desire the panel to be as independent as possible from outside influence. Arbcom itself has a poor track record of handling CU and OS complaints, likely due in part to the close relationships and overlapping responsibilities involved. I personally see this proposal as a request from Arbcom to the community to help it delegate its authority in a manner that the community is most likely to accept. As far as resolution of CU and OS disputes is concerned, the audit panel will dispose of minor cases with on-wiki notes, possibly including reprimands and such, while serious cases that result in recommendations to remove tools will have to be kicked up to Arbcom for final disposition. Thatcher 19:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No matter this proposal shakes out in the end, ArbCom will doubtlessly have the final say and responsibility as the route of appeal.--Tznkai (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the more I see of this proposal the more I come to the opinion that this is just another example of Wikipedia's apparatus pandering to rampant paranoia--an act that can only help to increase the level of that paranoia. Well once a ball like that has started rolling (and I'd say it had begun to roll pretty fast during the ridiculous fuss over the Carnildo RFA, well over two years ago) it's difficult to stop. I'd really like to see an incarnation of arbcom that grew a backbone and acted as if it had a mandate to settle disputes. --TS 10:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The new Arbiters were largely elected on a mandate of reform - including Checkuser and Oversight reform. The ArbCom is quite frankly (for various systemic reasons) too busy and otherwise incapable of handling its oversight duties. The Dispute resolution system was constructed in the magical Wikipedia of the past where people spent most of their time fighting over the color of templates or some other minutia and articles or an occasional intractable dispute over the use of the word "myth" in articles about religious figures. This proposal is a way for ArbCom to delegate the task (but not the ultimate authority). In otherwords, this is a display the very backbone you're talking about: trying something new to address a real problem (unless you think Thatcher is delusional or untrustworthy, for one example of who I think is a reliable source on this) --Tznkai (talk) 15:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Redundant to ArbCom, especially since members could be on this board. Completely pointless, as there is absolutely no evidence that something like this is actually needed. Just more bureaucracy. No thanks. --Pwnage8 (talk) 06:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• No. New job titles won't fixed the basic problem with people. --BozMo talk 11:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• This is a waste of time and energy. It is pandering to a small number of disgruntled vested users seeking personal vindication - and it will in the end not satisfy if they don't get the right verdict. We have an arbcom to arbitrate (and it is ridiculous to suggest that people will have more confidence in a smaller group of people making some calls - the paranoia will continue) - we also have an independent ombudsman for privacy violations. That's quite enough. If for workload reasons arbcom want to delegate some supervisory functions then they are quite free to do that. This is a non-solution to a problem that most people don't or shouldn't care about. To the arbs pushing this - have a little more confidence in your own judgement and stop wasting our time. You will never satisfy your critics, so don't try.--Scott Mac (Doc) 11:33, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Three points. First, your definition of vested user is getting a bit woolly there Scott, and I personally believe its more sensible to assume that this essay was written out of genuine and legitimate concerns and these people are genuinely reform minded and that these lunatics gave them a mandate to be so. Second point, related to the first, this board *is* a delegation - but we all know that will work better by community involvement instead of by fiat. Third point, I agree with you, ArbCom will never make their critics happy.--Tznkai (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You intent on harassing everyone who opposes this with empty rhetoric? 1) I haven't defined vested user, but actually it is only the people in the political goldfish bowl that seem to care about this. I didn't say there was "bad faith", just wrong-headed conclusions by people who have got sucked into this minority concern. If they stand back, they may see it's irrelevance and the disproportionality of contemplating a communitywide election and drama to create a group to police a problem that so few care about and is so peripheral to the running of the encyclopedia. 2) Fiat? When people who are elected to do something actually do something as minor as delegating, that's not fiat - it's action. Why can't arbcom just pick some people and delegate. It certainly does not need an election, or this type of profile. 3) The idea that the arbcom election somehow mandates this and thus if I oppose it I am opposing the community is the same vacuous nonsense that people reach for when they run out of arguments. I supported the majority of people elected to arbcom - and I'm in favour of "reforms" (who wouldn't be) - but that still leaves me feeling that this "reform" is a terrible needless one I want to oppose, and strongly suspecting that most of the electorate would either not support it, or would urge their reform arbcom to go reform something that matters to the encyclopedia. Oh, I've no idea what you mean by linking to my essay. Anyway, I'm not going to spend more time on this, if there's a real case for it, I'm open to being convinced, in the meantime I'll go and join the vast majority of wikipedians in ignoring a non-issue. If you can get a convincing consensus of the community excited about this, fine. But it looks like a dead duck to me consensus-wise.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

"You intent on harassing everyone who opposes this..." Excuse me? And I linked your essay to point out that you are among ArbCom's critics - and that they can't satisfy everyone - maybe anyone. If you want them to ignore their critics, that is going to have to include you too.--Tznkai (talk) 17:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Scott, I've heard about privacy concerns from a surprisingly broad swath of the community, not "only the people in the political goldfish bowl", and I've only been on the job for about two weeks. The privacy related jobs are getting done, but it's quickly become apparent to me that Arbcom needs some help in ensuring that they're getting done as effectively and appropriately as possible. This particular iteration of the committee has been appointed with expectations from many (going as far back as the RFC in June/July) to find more effective ways of doing things, and ensuring that things aren't left half-done. The committee does have a fiduciary duty here to ensure that those who are granted CheckUser and Oversight permissions act within the bounds established by the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as any additional requirements our own project puts forth; delegating this auditing and review function to an arms-length group is quite standard in most organisations of this size. Risker (talk) 16:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to delegate, then delegate. I've no problem with that. I've a huge problem with creating an election process because some obsessed people can't seem to trust the people we elect. We are not actually a huge organisation, and we are not a government body. If I use most websites, then I have to cope with the knowledge that my IP is known to the operators of the website and anyone else they choose to share it with. Indeed there's nothing to stop them posting it openly. Here we have checkusers data extremely restricted to a few, a privacy policy and an independent ombudsman/woman. On top of that we've got a community elected arbcom who can oversee or delegate overseeing. There's simply no justification for increasing the bureaucracy, process and drama and instructions by electing a second group. In my four years in wikipedia I've never encountered a suggestion that's gone so much against the grain of all we've built here. I see that there's a trendy perception that "trust is broken" but frankly if people won't trust arbcom to delegate to sane people, then they won't trust anything. We've got serious problems with BLPs, content, POV pushers and various other things pertinent to content and the lives of real people, this kneejerk on what is not of concern to most people is totally disproportionate and an election process will ensure that it remains to.--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Doc and I have latched onto the same thing, really. Arbcom can and does delegate and has done in the past without any fuss (I've been one of those specifically receiving delegated powers, it was a simple matter). Why is this new arbcom which supposedly has a specific mandate for change' being so cautious and creating this immense bureaucratic process with all the drama that entails if when all they need to do is consider a few good people? The logical thing to do would be to co-opt some of the more popular non-winners in the recent arbcom election. You could have them in place and working at the job by the weekend! Why make such a bloody huge mess out of this? --TS 17:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

So, is the problem for you two that Arbcom wants to give away this authority to a separate group, the method of the group's selection, or something else? If the AC just unilaterally said, "THIS IS HOW IT IS, HERE IS YOUR REVIEW BOARD, PICK THE MEMBERS," would that be better? Or is the fact that the AC is acknowledging things are, to paraphrase them and one of our best Checkusers, Thatcher, "busted"? rootology (C)(T) 17:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I trust them to pick just pick some people - but I also know that'd cause a massive and necessary uproar. Aside from simple expediency, this kind of delegation is an exercise in trust, and doing things by ArbCom fiat, while procedurally valid, is not the best way to keep trust.--Tznkai (talk) 17:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom has delegated in the past with barely a whimper. I see no reason to suppose that doing so again would cause an uproar. Instead of using its mandate and choosing a lightweight system, arbcom seems to be determined to maximize the drama by holding another election. And I'll say this once: fiat is not the correct word to use for exercising a mandate. --TS 17:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Whatever word we want to call it, it seems that there is even internal consensus among the arbs AND a Checkuser had the courage to be a whistleblower on potential abuses and concerns. Thatcher is to be lauded for that. Between the earlier AC RFC and the clear mandate from the elections this year for change and clean-up on Arbcom (remember, the sitting Arbs that ran were effectively rejected in the elections), it seems that there is an indisputable requirement for correction on how at least some of CU/OS are used. It's indisputable, as Thatcher's disclosures have been embraced it appears by the current AC, whose opinions on the subject as the gatekeepers to CU/OS are the only ones that ulimately matter. If the AC wants to delegate off their authority to oversee CU/OS to what is perceived in public as a body independent of them, kudos to them for being as equally concerned about the perception of wrongdoing as the actual wrongdoing itself. rootology (C)(T) 18:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there an "internal consensus" of arbcom? I don't know. Can you point to it? The elections give a general mandate to arbcom to arbitrate and delegate as they see fit, as all such elections do. However, they don't give any specific mandate for a new process and another round of elections. If arbcom want to appoint a bunch of people and delegate power to them they can, as Tony points out, do that this afternoon. I've no objections, even if they were asking me. Go for it. However, if there's a desire for removing power from arbcom and having a new round of community-wide elections with all the time, drama and CREEP that involved then that WOULD need a specific clear and durable community consensus. All I'm seeing on this page is a couple of dozen users at most supporting it (and I'm not even sure they are all supporting the same thing). That's nowhere near a consensus for the current process-bloated proposal.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. So what if the the arbitration committee decides, this afternoon that they want to delegate CU and OS issues to a five member panel, and they would like recommendations from the community?--Tznkai (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, if they want to do that. As I recall that's what they did when appointing checkusers and oversighters. Ask people to e-mail in suggestions for them to consider.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. We didn't elect a new arbitration committee for them to sit paralyzed while the community set about electing a new set of functionaries. They have the power, they can delegate, and they already know (from the arbcom elections) which members of the community are available and popular and likely to be amenable to doing the job. --TS 19:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

So... you guys have no problem with the review board itself, just the proposed selection method, yes, or principally with that? rootology (C)(T) 19:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom, could, this afternoon, impose this proposed policy by declaring it so as an extension of their own established power over CheckUser Oversight - and the way I read it, with the change of a few titles and some procedural magic, that would satisfy your major objection.--Tznkai (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - We need less, not more bureaucracy. Last time I checked, we are not bureaucracy. We are here to edit an encyclopedia, not to create slots so people can feel powerful without editing. The community has shown that it has been able to correctly handle all situations around this, so I see no problem: I wish we were faster and more desicive with some issues, but adding more sprokets to the machine won't solve that. I do, however, propose we clone Jimbo and have be back liek it was in 2002. :D--Cerejota (talk) 05:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment

As the Review Board represents a delegation by Arbcom of Arbcom's authority to review Checkuser and Oversight action, no community approval is required to create it. Naturally, it is often (but not always) best to consider the community's input as to whether new processes are needed, and if so, how they should function. I suggest to those whose response is "No, Arbcom should do it's job" that Arbcom is doing its job by delegating an important function so that it will be performed more efficiently. Members of Congress and Members of Parliament have enormous staffs to manage their workloads, and much authority is delegated to them. I think the Review Board is one response (several others seem to be pending) to the problem of Arbcom overload; there is so much work that only Arbcom can do that it gets overloaded and therefore does not do any of it well. Thatcher 15:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I must have missed something in the Christmas-New Year haze. Is it true to say then, that Arbcom has already decided to support the Review Board idea but this is posted here to gauge community feeling on it? Euryalus (talk) 19:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This proposal is made primarily by two arbitrators (FT2 and Coren), other arbitrators have commented favorably or made similar alternative proposals (FloNight, Risker, others; see the archived talk page and also see User talk:Thatcher/Quis custodiet ipsos custodes). No arbitrator that I know of has publicly opposed the board. More importantly, the Board can not function without the members have CU and OS, and Arbcom is the only way recognized by the Foundation to grant CU and OS. So this will never happen unless Arbcom agrees, making the board a de facto delegation of Arbcom's existing authority to review the use of CU and OS. Thatcher 20:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The proposal was under committee discussion; it was posted prior to that discussion being concluded. Coren proposed and framed the basic material, I re-drafted to catch loopholes and issues so that it could do the job in actual practice, others contributed. As such it's a communal proposal that various arbitrators support on an individual basis and that it probably has the general endorsement of the committee overall. I'm not aware of any arbitrator who has spoken other than to support or improve it, or to identify concerns in the older draft with a view to fixing them. Thatcher's analysis is fairly accurate. I think we need this and will benefit by it, but it's a "community proposal" at this point. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Selection process

Final appointment

Review board appointment in the same manner as arbitrators

• NB: Whether a review board would be appointed in the same manner as the Arbitration Committee, independent of election method (for which see below), elected by the community, confirmed by Jimbo Wales

Support

1. Whether or not this review board should come into existence, it should definitely be independent of those it is reviewing. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. This should obviously be fully community controlled. Mr.Z-man 05:29, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Take Jimbo out of it. The community's voice is good enough. Cla68 (talk) 02:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom selection from community elected short-list

• NB: Whether the Arbitration Committee should have the final say on reviewer appointments.

Support

1. I think the community should decide who should be trusted with this responsibility, but I maintain that there should be some safety mechanism to prevent someone inappropriate from automatically getting in. -- Avi (talk) 20:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Obviously, the reviewed shouldn't pick reviewers. Even assuming that the RB's remit would be static, which is about as likely as Scotland winning the next world cup, they wouldn't be independent of a significant proportion of the people whose actions (CUing and oversight) they'd be entrusted to consider. And if this means Jimbo Wales has to empower such a board, so be it. He is at least independent of this. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Per Deacon --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Perhaps give arbcom an/or Jimbo emergency veto power to address Avi's concerns, but the community should have as much control as possible. Mr.Z-man 05:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Oppose. The community should directly select these without ArbCom (or Jimbo) involvement. ++Lar: t/c 07:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Oppose any involvement from ArbCom or Jimbo. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Oppose. Needs to be independent as possible in order to do it's job well. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Needs to be independent of the ArbCom. Cla68 (talk) 01:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Direct Arbcom selection

Oppose

1. Oversight boards, for example for the police, do not have their membership decided by those same authorities. rootology (C)(T) 17:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Per root - both independence and perceived independence are important here. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
3. This would defeat the purpose. Mr.Z-man 05:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Oppose. The community should directly select these without ArbCom (or Jimbo) involvement. (that's right, I oppose both offered choices, since my preferred choice was not offered, although it was discussed during drafting of this proposal) ++Lar: t/c 07:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Oppose. We need this board to be independent of any of the individuals or groups it might be asked to review; otherwise there's no point in having it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Needs to be independent of the ArbCom. Cla68 (talk) 01:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Needs to be independent of the ArbCom which has a close relationship with many of the people with Oversight and Checkuser access. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Community pool

At this point, the selection process is left open. Ideas that have been put forward:

• An RfA-like process; probably handled like RfA and RfB and closed by crats

• An Arbcom-like election.

Any other suggestions? Preferences? — Coren ^(talk) 02:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

RfA-like requests

Support

1. Despite the (known) disadvantages, this is the process we are most used to for selecting editors to hold positions of community trust. It's simple and lightweight, and we already have all the required infrastructure in place. — Coren ^(talk) 03:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. I think this is the best. I have to disagree with Daniel in the section below; I think that rotating tranches with fixed term lengths are a poor idea - we've all seen the general dissatisfaction and burnout that this has caused in ArbCom (what with people going inactive or semi-inactive but continuing to hold seats), no need to duplicate that here. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC).
3. Preferred to elections. Protonk (talk) 21:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
4. A huge process that takes weeks to complete is far too much for this. Mr.Z-man 05:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Preferable to elections. NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 18:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Second choice. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Seems ok. Cla68 (talk) 02:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
8. This is my preference. Evaluate each candidate separately rather than en masse. Eluchil404 (talk) 14:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Not formal or controlled enough. -- Avi (talk) 21:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. All the known disadvantages. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
3. If this proposed board were to pass, it is my understanding that it would have access to confidential information. This board cannot be loosely selected. --TS 17:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Prefer an ArbCom style election. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
5. If we had to have this, this is the worst possible way.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom-like election

Support

1. It should be a fixed number of seats on rotating tranches, so yes, this is best. Maybe have February elections, two year terms, so first election x top place-getters into Tranche A (two years) and the next x top place-getters into B (one). Daniel (talk) 03:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Elections is preferable to RfA. Prefer Boardvote. - Mailer Diablo 15:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Boardvote. Immediately visible results. Less games and politics, forces all users to have equal weight of voice like it should be. rootology (C)(T) 17:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Per above and prior discussions. -- Avi (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
5. First choice. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
6. First choice. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
7. First choice. Cla68 (talk) 02:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
8. First choice. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
9. First choice. Appointments ideally made following a general election to the committee. Transparent and open. Lazulilasher (talk) 22:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
10. Closest to what I'm imagining: tranches yes, tranches organized by popularity no - panel make up should be designed to balance any actual or perceived conflicts of interests (no 5 member panels where 4/5 is fraternity brothers with CheckUser A) as well as skill sets (I'd like a technically competent user at all times. Short terms with a lot of overlap to control burnout and conflicts but maintain institutional memory. Personally, I'd be more comfortable with a cut off higher than the 50% eligibility mark in ArbCom, instead at least 70%.--Tznkai (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Unlike ArbCom, this doesn't merit creating a huge bureaucracy to maintain it. Mr.Z-man 05:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
2. No. I don't think you'd get many of the community interested in some body like this - so it would just be a political football for vested users. Cause more drama than ever. One elected group is enough - it is hard enough to get decent people to stand for arbcom.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment II

• The membership needs to be users seen by the community as trusted, and also seen by Arbcom as trusted. Both must concur. The easiest way to do this is to have one select a pool and name all users it would trust, from which those the second party would trust are then used. This way the needs of both are met, for nobody will be in the final selection who is not explicitly trusted by both. If there is a concern that the selection from a community-named pool by Arbcom would lead to users who are weak or otherwise untrustworthy, this is spurious: the community should not name any such users as "acceptable" in the first place. Fix the communal decision-making process if that happens. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
  • But if ArbCom does not trust someone the community does... is that a comment on ArbCom or the community? I favour a community-only process. I think the community can be trusted to make the right decision. ArbCom members and CUs could certainly comment during the process that "there are issues", or even (where it's not itself privacy violating to do so) explain what they are. ++Lar: t/c 17:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

During arb elections, points existed that were known to arbitrators, but which could not be stated easily to the community due to concerns of appearing to be trying to sway the election. This was mentioned on the ACE2008 talk page, but no real resolution was reached and the issues never broached. Being honest, 2 years down the line would serious concerns get traction? Or would that be felt by too many to be "too heavy duty" or "swaying" the process? Taking into account how it can be?

Secondly and more of a concern, at the risk of repetition, "Poetlister". The community can decide against Arbcom's clearest repeated statements in 2005 and again 2006 and again 2007 and again 2008, that a repeatedly confirmed abusive sockpupeteer actually wasn't socking and would make a fine bureaucrat and upstanding voice in the community. If we're asked to request WMF tool access for a user we feel there is a problem, can you imagine the scale of problem we'd have as a community? If Poetlister had been #2 in the nominations and Arbcom had stated "no, insufficient trust"? The bad faith that would have flown round, the conspiracy theorizing, and the scale of divisive argument? These are WMF tools identical to those given to checkusers and oversighters, this is access to users private emails including their personal matters, and Arbcom is no less responsible for the final decision to request their granting, than in any other checkuser/oversight appointment by the committee. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Poetlister, we all were fooled. I don't see ArbCom (in the case of a hypothetical PoetLister II situation) being a perfect check... ArbCom themselves were not unanimous. Raise the issues and let the community decide. You say that raising information would "sway the election". Well, I want ArbCom to do just that. To "sway" the community by making information available. I don't want it to "veto" the community after the fact. If there was material that should have been raised during ACE2008, why wasn't it? You have a bully pulpit. Use it. ++Lar: t/c 19:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

FT, two members of the arbcom unblocked Poetlister — first Charles Matthews, then FloNight — so I'd say they and the rest of the community were taken in by that person equally. I see no advantage to allowing arbcom to veto board candidates (which is what their involvement in the selection process would amount to), and lots of disadvantages. The board needs to be completely independent of the arbcom and checkusers in order to be trusted. Without that trust, we may as well not bother setting it up. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Poetlister, those who say "we were all fooled" had better be more specific about what they mean by "we" and "all". We were most emphatically not all fooled. If I recall correctly the Poetlister affair was a disinformation campaign run from an external site, and those taken in tended to be those who are often taken in by the campaigns on that site. --TS 19:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

While your views on a given external site are abundantly well known (along with the occasional "vermin" comments that are being directed at even sitting Arbitrators), Poetguy's biggest disinformation damage was on WikiQuote, not Wikipedia Review. rootology (C)(T) 22:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

What is this nonsense about me attacking arbitrators? Please withdraw that disgusting calumny. As far as I'm aware all Poetlister did on Wikiquote was edit nicely and be a good girl/boy. The really nasty work was done with the feces on the external website, which took in a lot of good people who should know better than to associate with them. --TS 22:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Further comment: something on point here, CU and Oversight permission still needs to be granted though the Arbitration Committee - no matter what, the ArbCom has a procedural (and some might say quasi-fiduciary responsibility) step in approving access to those permissions. This is a matter of Wikimedia policy as I understand it. To put it another way, there is no way we can expunge the responsibility of appointing reviewers from the Committee - we'd be asking them to collectively close their eyes and rubber stamp whatever the so called community comes up with - funny idea for a body elected to deal with disputes where the community has failed.--Tznkai (talk) 16:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• Arbs should not vote in the election because of potential COI, but I see no reason that they can not make a comment about a candidate if the have a serious concern. I know I would. I'm talking about an major issue that would show that a person is clearly unqualified for the position. For example, if a former checkuser ran for a seat stating they would provide technical guidance for the board, but I knew that they were prone to making error with the tool, then I would feel obligated to speak out. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure yet where else to put this comment, so I'm going to put it here: this is not a good place for Wikipedia dogma. Wikipedia was built and functions despite all of its faults, on the paradigm of collaborative creation of a reference source. Wikipedia policies have generally been built with that in mind - dispute resolution, conduct policies, consensus, all of these things are how we come up with content - and we have applied them to varying success to every problem we've faced - and when that failed we've applied the very direct problem solving of the internet: WHEELs and k-lines.

On rare occasion Wikipedia makes traction with real life: harassment, stalking, BLP issues, credential crisis, and now privacy problems. These are the domains where we see Wikipedia's policies and cultures show the most strain: and why should we be surprised? Where do methods of collaborative editing and methods for protecting yourself with a stalker meet? Where does an open threaded discussion system find common ground with privacy concerns?

The Arbitration system was designed for the encyclopedia writing, not for policing Checkusers and Oversighters, yet that is the task has been thrust upon them - who are we to take them to task for trying a different method? The problem with CheckUser and Oversight is that they exist at the very border between Wikipedia's internal concerns and the great big Ugly World out there - a world where Wikipedia has become both reporter and participant.

This is not a time for simplistic dogma - it is a time for solutions - this proposal isn't perfect by any means - but we need to accept that there are problems grave enough, and different enough, that we need to simply start trying things until we find something that works.--Tznkai (talk)15:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Operation

Day to day operation of the board is left open. It is likely that the selected candidates themselves are the best to pick this? Case pages; how cases are to be reported; etc. — Coren ^(talk) 02:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Points

1. Make the board members CUs and OSs who primarily work on other WMF projects
2. Under what circumstances can CU/OSs be compelled to divulge private info?
3. The Review Board doesn't need access to all the mailing lists, they only need to be given what they need from lists, logs, arbwiki, etc. This as written is a significant issue.
4. Situations may arise where arbcom can investigate cases

— Rlevse • Talk • 03:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that current CU and OS, even on other project, may be felt by the community to be too much insiders for the distance one would expect of a member of the Board to be appointed directly; but there is no reason that they cannot be candidates like others— the community may well feel their independence from enwp is sufficient. — Coren ^(talk) 04:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Final name

Review Board is the current name; this is not set in stone. Another suggestion is "Audit Board". Straw poll? — Coren ^(talk) 02:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I've separately suggested "Audit Panel" for a couple of reasons. First there is the visual of this page: Wikipedia:Review Board. Nothing against that site, but there is a psychological association that I don't think really works in this context. Secondly, in normal organizational hierarchy, a board ranks above a committee, yet this proposal has a board reporting to a committee. While Wikipedia is certainly not bound to follow real-world forms, it provides a structure that is familiar to many editors. I'm going to change the alternate title below, if you don't mind. Risker (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Support "Review Board"

1. — Coren ^(talk) 02:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Daniel (talk) 03:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Mailer Diablo 15:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Short and simple. rootology (C)(T) 17:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
5. I'm not to worried by either suggestion - but 'Panel' has too many connotations of Panel game to me. --Joopercoopers (talk) 16:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Support. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Either one is fine. Cla68 (talk) 06:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Support "Audit Panel"

1. Risker (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
2. As Risker says, the word "board" implies a higher authority than a committee. Not a big deal, but the role of this body as reporting to Arbcom should be made clearer in its title. Euryalus (talk) 03:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
3. --Tznkai (talk) 04:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Either one is fine. Cla68 (talk) 06:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Prefer Audit Panel because it gives a more specific sense of the job. The word "review" is more ambiguous. FloNight♥♥♥ 17:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Consensus

Coren's admin board note says that this "has consensus" - but it seems like the page has only been around for a few weeks, and edited by a fairly small number of people. So this new group and process has whose consensus, can I ask? ArbCom? Is that sufficient to create this sort of mechanism, with only the details open to some community review? Does this policy page, or some elements of it, have the status of arbitration policy in that they can only be changed by the committee? Avruch ^T 03:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the review (and appointment) of CU and OS right holders is the exclusive domain of the Committee, but we're moving towards opening that as far as practical. In particular, appointment of CU and OS is under discussion within the committee at this time for increasing the community participation in the selection.

This isn't a committee proposal, but it's done by one arbitrator (me) and with the imprimatur of at least one other (FT2). — Coren ^(talk) 04:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

So which group has come to the consensus you mentioned? The editors of the page and talkpage in the last three weeks? Avruch ^T 04:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I wish I could have dragged everyone who has expressed sentiment that there are problems with CU and OS oversighting to their keyboards for input into the matter. In practice, any consensus is limited to the self-selected subset of editors who have expressed an interest in the matter. Given that you are here, now, you might as well express yourself now.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 04:37, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I probably will before too long, once I've thought it all the way through, but your note seemed to present all but the selection details as fait accompli, so I wasn't sure it really mattered what I thought about the larger framework. ;-) Avruch ^T 04:51, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm also curious - before it was determined to have consensus, where was this proposal publicized? Avruch ^T 03:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

It was publicized on AN, on VP/N and has been on T:CENT for some time. You might want to read the (warning, long!) discussion at /Archive, as well as User:Thatcher/Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (and its talk page) which provided much of the impetus behind this proposal. — Coren ^(talk) 04:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

For implementation, something of this magnitude should get the full site-wide treatment, including one of those automatic messages (I forget what they are called) like the "dismiss donation banner" and a message posted to wikien-l when there is a reasonably stable final proposal. -- Avi (talk) 05:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Elections and access

First, the top of this page as structured isn't conducive to actual discussion.

Moving on: Elections for the Review Board will have, in some ways, the same issue as ArbCom elections wrt to final appointment. If the ArbCom picks 10 members out of 15 people participating in the election, but doesn't pick the top 10, should we assume that those passed over have some sort of confidential blot on their record? A reason why they can't be trusted with checkuser access? This was part of the reason, I think, that checkuser and oversight selection has been a private process.

As to Rlevse's point that review board members don't need mailing list access - I think any comprehensive investigation would require access to group correspondence, and in any case all members of the board need to be trusted to the same level as other checkusers. We'd essentially have 44 checkusers, instead of 34, with ten not active in checking itself - in that sense, there would be no reason to restrict access to the lists. Avruch ^T 03:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Having full access to read the OS and CU lists is fine, but they don't need full read access to all the Arbcom list. There's tons of private stuff there that does not apply to CU and OS. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a lot of private stuff on checkuser-l too, Rlevse, as you can now see. -- Avi (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Also pertinent to elections, the outline of process is proscribed in the meta checkuser policy (m:checkuser):

On a wiki without an Arbitration Committee that meets the criterion above, or where the community prefers independent elections, two options are possible:

The community must approve CheckUsers per consensus. The user requesting CheckUser status must request it within his local community and advertise this request properly (village pump, mailing list when available, ...). The editor must be familiar with the privacy policy. After gaining consensus (at least 70%-80%) in his local community, and with at least 25-30 editors' approval, the user should list himself under Steward requests/Permissions with a link to the page with the community's decision.

Avruch ^T 03:51, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

The process of actual appointment of CheckUsers and Oversighters is also under review; expect to see a proposal on the matter soon from the Committee. — Coren ^(talk) 04:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

The review board members will be able to see oversighted edits, see the CU log, and call up CU results themselves if pertinent. It does not seem sensible to exclude them from the CU and OS mailing lists. Certainly there is no rational privacy argument if they already have the access to the tools and logs that they will. Thatcher 04:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo should not be special

I recommend replacing Jimbo with "one or more persons designated by the arbitration committee who are not themselves arbitrators." If that's too much of a foxes-appointing-the-henhouse-guard scenario, then replace it with "one or more persons designated by Jimbo Wales, or in his absence, the Wikimedia Foundation" or better yet, "one or more persons designated by the oversight board, not necessarily a member of that board." With all due deference to Jimbo's value at Wikipedia, new roles and responsibilities should not automatically fall on his shoulders. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 11:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Strongly agree. --Alecmconroy (talk) 12:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Should means nothing. It is pure fact that Jimbo is special by nature of the actual power he possesses, which is a reality all realists on wiki just have to deal with. For the latter reason, Jimbo's presence should be encouraged by everyone who wants a real Arbcom review body. Arbcom derives its power from Jimbo/Board/Foundation and the partially resultant co-operation of stewards and the community; as an Arbcom review should obviously have similar status to an Arbcom (obviously!), in practice therefore it'd prolly have to come down a similar birth canal. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Eventually, Jimmy should have no more "power" than is available to any other non-elected editor, e.g. user, admin, and a few others. If appointed by arbcom, he can have powers that require arbcom appointments. If elected to a role like arbcom, he should of course have those powers. There's too much tradition to go to the village pump and recommend he relinquish the "I co-founded this project, so I'm keeping these powers as a symbol of my status," but I'd be thrilled if he did exactly like that tomorrow. By doing so, Jimbo would be taking the last steps of setting Wikipedia free from his person. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Too much Jimmy in the system already. His finger's presence would serve no beneficial purpose in this pie. rootology (C)(T) 17:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is Jimbo's name even being mentioned in connection with this proposal? I thought that this board was supposed to be independent from the top cheese, like an inspector general. Cla68 (talk) 06:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of a single governance system where the inspector general or equivalent isn't appointed by the head of state, government, or CEO equivalent.--Tznkai (talk) 06:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The equivalent for us would be the Foundation, but they wouldn't want to get involved in making appointments, so we can decide ourselves whether to leave it up to the community or whether we also want arbcom involvement. Jimbo has inherited certain roles as a matter of practice and tradition, but there's no need to award additional roles in a brand new policy. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough - I'm personally more concerned with the panel/board being protected after it is selected than the selection process itself.--Tznkai (talk) 06:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason practically to bring Jimbo would be, practically, to allow members of the RB/AB access to CU privileges and perhaps other rights creep might assign to them. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

note: added a nutshell

Here, based on confusion here expressed by ThuranX. rootology (C)(T) 19:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

What exactly do they want they community to rubber stamp? I mean, what's there now is one thing, but that can easily be creeped up. Whatever it's creeped up to can be declared to have had community support, and although this won't actually be true, when you get it that complicated the point is usually lost to all but a socially isolated few. Although I do think Arbcom, with the unlimited powers it has needs a balance for when the majority of arbs realise how much power they have, it has to be free of arbcom power. Selecting your own reviewers would be regarded as corruption in most systems, for obvious reasons. Proposing it seems disingenuous. Despite this, I'm pretty sure it is a sincere attempt to get the thing going and that there's nothing to worry about in terms of motives, but I'm just as sure most arbs don't know what they're doing when it comes to such things and it really could end up anywhere from where it is now. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I dislike comparing wikipedia to real life governance, but they illustrate very quickly the problem with your contention. Risk assessors are hired by a company's HR department - the top lawyer, law enforcement officer and judge are all appointed by the head of state/government in the United States (this will run true for other liberal democracies as well). Internal affairs is made entirely of policemen. Sheriffs are elected. Admins have a voice in ArbCom elections - you always select your own reviewers - the corruption part comes in the hows, whys, and protections your reviewers have.--Tznkai (talk) 06:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

And the hows and whys are the problem. No-one suggested the arbs should be disenfranchised in a community vote. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

What are arbitrators?

This proposal and the issues it purports to address brings a question to my mind - what are the arbitrators we have now? Who are they, and what do we intend them to do? Are they slightly untrustworthy people of inherent authority, who we hope to keep in check by creating a mechanism to govern them that is more efficient than the community of editors? Are they trusted and long-standing members of the editing community, who we hope and expect will hold each other to high standards in the areas where the community can't perform that role itself?

How will the members of this review board differ from the members of the arbitration committee? Will they be different sorts of people, elected or appointed for a purpose so at odds with the arbitration committee that we can expect the resulting tension to keep everyone on their best behavior? Will we be essentially adding ten more people to the roster of "trusted admins with access to privileged information" in the hopes that having a larger group of people will make misconduct of some sort less likely? And last question - have our arbitrators and checkusers performed poorly in a way that is likely to be rectified by this expanded cadre of reviewers?

Lots of questions, few answers. I ask because the premise of this proposal is that checkusers are untrustworthy, and arbitrators are similarly not trustworthy enough to perform effective oversight of the rogues gallery of CUs and OSers. This proposal is clearly not intended to provide a new method for monitoring the use of sensitive tools - the mechanism, review by trusted administrators, is exactly the same. The only difference is that we appear to have decided that 16 current arbitrators can't be trusted to do the job because arbcom-l has apparently become so clubby and incestuous.

My personal view is that what has galvanized the community against some members of the committee, and caused a flurry of proposals to govern it in new and exciting ways, is unrelated to the type of personal probity that a review board can be expected to ensure. What "we" have been upset about centers on issues of judgment and responsiveness. We want a committee of people that moves faster than geologic speed, that makes decisions that result in tangible improvements and don't unnecessarily burden individuals or the community. We pick arbitrator candidates who are committed to these goals, but the commitment is stronger in some than it is in others. I think that is because the voters and the candidates share a crucial flaw - they're human. I'm not sure we can review board that flaw away. Avruch ^T 04:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that it's not about trust, but transparency. For one, the committee has a surprisingly huge workload, and we couldn't possibly keep an eye on the large number of CU and oversights (the latter being, however, much less numerous). Secondly, it's as much about insuring the propriety as it is enforcing it. As Thatcher said, there is very little bad checkuser going on— but any amount is unacceptable. — Coren ^(talk) 05:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea how much work you really have to do. I think that if you can't manage it, you should have more arbitrators. I believe that Jimmy has in the past explicitly asked the arbitration committee to address the issue of their numbers and organization, but that request and others have gone ignored. What you have isn't a problem that requires another level of bureaucracy, with time consuming and inevitably acrimonious new processes. We have the review board already, that group just needs to find ways to manage its tasks effectively. Avruch ^T 05:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."[1] I realize the comparisons to government (or American government) are limited, but I think it's at least something to consider whether some separation of power/authority isn't healthy, and whether it doesn't actually promote the culture of trust and good faith. I believe that's more the idea here, similar to the idea with Wikipedia's transparency in general, e.g., you set up checks exactly to create faith in the system and so people can get along smoothly. Mackan79 (talk) 09:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's about transparency and a bunch of other things that can be summed up in the word "safety". We need to empower a select few to protect the encyclopedia against forces that cause great threat and disruption, but doing so endangers the integrity of wikipedia's original aims.

Atm, Arbcom is held back from extending its power somewhat by the restraint of some arbs (those that declare "Arbcom doesn't or can't do x"), but has nevertheless been extending its power and role in wikipedia gradually, e.g. presuming moral authority over the encyclopedia, declaring policy, launching motions on cases it isn't accepting, interfering in content disputes, etc, etc, though neither the arbs nor any of the community have been noticing or if they have objected that this has been happening. Recently it started enforcing its own "remedies", i.e. case of the Giano civility ruling, it punished Moreschi for ignoring its self-declared monopoly on such things, and doubtless the new arb-enforcement regulations that it will invent shortly following Piotrus 2 will extend its power and remit further and get then get meekly accepted by the tiny number of powerless people that take an interest in such things. People forget this bunch were elected as an arbitration committee, not as wikipedia's rulers; nowhere have I ever heard it said that wikipedia is or ought to be an oligarchy of pseudo-judges.

Jimbo Wales is the only restraint on their power, and for this reason it is to his credit or blame (depending on how you like it) that arbcom acts like this. However, Mr Wales' own interest is in keeping his own position and thus is unlikely to take on anything of any risk or otherwise risk this by making himself an "appeal court" in anything much more than name. So in that case ArbCom will do what it likes unless large sections of the community are prepared to fight it and take the consequences, or [much preferably we'd all agree] a credible review body of equal status and power is set up. You can call it an appeal court, an upper house, or plain rivals. :Not only should such a body check OS and CU, it should also be able to depose arbs or force them to resit an election, and make moralizing declarative "remedies" disapproving of incompetence, or abuse, or whatever they feel needs disapproved of. They should also have shorted terms to reduce the risk of forming personal bonds with those they're meant to review. It needs substantial power because otherwise no smart arb will ever listen to it, knowing his safety is guaranteed.

I do think wikipedia needs an authority centre capable of action to deal with troublesome users and admins; but such a centre, being composed of human beings, has its price. Give some people a big army to protect against barbarians and disorder, don't be surprised if the guys with that army turn it against you for their own benefit, even if only in minor ways. That, or the fear of it, is the price always paid for such things. A review body with actual powers to a cuts such a price considerably. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• Request to Redact - I ask you, Deacon of Pndapetzim, to redact this part of your comment above: "So in that case ArbCom will do what it likes unless large sections of the community are prepared to fight it and take the consequences, or [much preferably we'd all agree] a credible review body of equal status and power is set up."

• It is clear to me from the intensity of the debate going on at this page that we do NOT agree that this is preferable, or indeed welcome for that matter. I for one request that you do not speak on everybody else's behalf when what you posted is YOUR view and not everyone else's. I have a tongue, a brain and a keyboard. I can speak for myself. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 07:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrators are chosen by the community, based on an extremely involved and extended high-profile election, and have a very high level of communal endorsement for the role. The crux of their role is in two areas - deciding unilaterally how the worst disputes are to be resolved, and addressing issues where privacy means the wider community cannot be party to the full details. As part of that second role, they also patrol the access to, and use of, the privacy functions provided by the foundation. A second kind of check on usage is that such users are to cross-check each other.

In an ideal world, all usage would be right and appropriate, with no ambiguity or mistakes, no deliberate infringement. A realistic take is that we are not in such a world, and however carefully we check, there is the possibility of such issues, or even simply of good-faith slippage which needs attention drawn to it (so it doesn't repeat). I personally, as a checkuser and oversighter take immense care to avoid such, I use the log to carefully document why each check or oversighting was done, I reported to the community on usage and based on that check, I'm fairly sure that others with those tools do as well. However that does not change two overriding factors:

1. What I (or any given checkuser/oversighter) deem acceptable tool usage may actually be inappropriate, in some given cases
2. The community has no strong check independent of the main holders of the tools, ie that I (or others) am doing so, even if I am.

It is not a criticism to have an independent review and checking of usage, nor paranoid distrust. It's realistic commonsense, and a little more peace of mind. Higher standards are rarely a mistake. Because it's sensitive the remit and approach needs careful wording, but the basic point is valid, hence why Coren and I originally proposed it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Question of experience?

With the above responses in mind, and also Thatcher's comments recently about this being an extension of ArbCom as it tries to fulfill its responsibility, I have a bit more to say before I stop filling up this talkpage all by myself.

If the idea is that these new people are an extension of the committee, and not a body intended to provide review of arbitrators individually or as a whole but one that is subordinate to them... Then I can see the logic if its presented as "we're creating a subordinate body to help us manage our workload."

It seems like we'll end up with a problem, though - effectively we'll have a group of 10 people overseeing checkusers, including sitting arbitrators, who have never been checkusers and aren't allowed to be checkusers. They won't necessarily know how the tool works, how its normally used by checkusers, what types of actions have justifications that aren't obvious from the log. How will they learn these things? Well, they'll have to ask the working checkusers. Once they've been taught by the working checkusers how things ought to be, won't we in some sense be back to where we were before? Avruch ^T 17:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

If the Checkusers themselves are defining Checkuser usage policy, that's an entirely separately level of being fouled up that needs purging. rootology (C)(T) 17:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

In the now-archived discussions I argued that there should be an exception in the "never use the tools" rule to allow reviewers who have not been checkusers in the past to receive training, such as by assisting a regular checkuser in a couple of cases, or by using the tool to review some completed RFCU cases to see how the CU arrived at his/her conclusions. I also think the panel needs at least one experienced CU and OS, at least in the first tranche. Thatcher 19:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur. This training period would hopefully take place before the reviewers begin their arbitration role, and we definitely need an experienced CU (less convinced by OS) in the first flight/tranche/group/experimental group. Personally I think current CUs may be considered, but if and only if they're willing to cease using permissions in normal operation while on the board.--Tznkai (talk) 06:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur as well. I am very uncomfortable with the notion that being a CU or an OV bars you from eligibility for this board, or bars you for a very long time (a year, for example, is a VERY long time in wiki-time) and if that seems to be the way this is heading I will be moving from support to opposition. ++Lar: t/c 21:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

ARBCOM transparency, private cases, and the oversight committee

In general, transparency is a good thing. However, there are times when ARBCOM has to make decisions where being open would cause unnecessary harm to those involved and possibly to third parties, in some cases, parties who aren't even editors. This is particularly true in cases where "outing" would occur.

An oversight board that had complete visibility to their processes should also have the right to say "guys, you are being too secretive, at least let the parties involved see all of the evidence or at least exhibits a, b, and c" or "guys, there's no reason to keep this a secret, all of the parties involved want it out in the open, so open it up already."

Example: User A posts user B's home address and phone number. User B gets mad and attacks user A. Address and phone number get oversighted. User A asks for and receives oversight of the attack itself on the grounds that some information in the attack could hurt him off-wiki. ARBCOM opens a private action and orders both editors to avoid each other for a year. Editor C sees short-term blocks in the block log that say "per ARBCOM" and wants to know where the case is. An oversight committee could investigate and say "what you see in the block log is all that can be said publicly, sorry." On the other hand, of both editors A and B went to the committee and said "we think this should be public" then the committee could request or even demand the case be made public. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• The review board as currently proposed will not review arbcom actions, so issues like "too many private cases" is beyond its scope. I'm not sure in any case that if 18 arbitrators say "the reasons for this are private" that it will be much help to have 5 more people agree "yes this should be private." The purpose of the review board as currently proposed is to review complaints of checkuser and oversight misuse, an authority that is delegate by arbcom but where the reviewer process is independent (as much as is practical) from arbcom and the checkusers and oversighters. Thatcher 20:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments on current version

Assuming the remit is limited to checkuser and oversight, then a few minor points:

Disclosure/reporting:

• The Arbitration Committee should probably have sight of a matter before it's published, since they may need to take prior actions as a result, as opposed to merely hearing about a reported case.

1. A user that Arbcom will de-checkuser, needs to be de-flagged prior to public notification. This was the case for eg, Poetlister/Cato.
2. In general Arbcom will probably need to have a brief time to comment, discuss, or act.

• Jimbo likewise, since he too has the power to summarily take action and is at this time formally the project leader.
• "The board will then advise Jimbo Wales of their decision" - but not "just as it is published". The aim presumably is to give him time to discuss and address the report. So this should read more like, "The board will then advise Jimbo Wales of their decision and discuss points arising, prior to publication."

Other:

• What are "any other relevant official mailing lists" that users would subscribe to, at present?
• Although this isn't mainspace I'd like their duty to be to report "neutrally" and "specifically noting any ambiguities, good faith errors or mitigating factors". These should be implied but it's nowhere said. There's a very practical side to this: a lot of matters are ambiguous; if the miscommunications, or possibly mistaken beliefs are not explained, then it will often seem one-sided to an unfair degree and bad faith will be assumed by the community. "There was probably an honest mistake" or "It was a misjudgement that was addressed shortly after" is worth noting if a party will be criticized. Fairness says we should include these if they were an issue in the case.
• Initiating a case or noticing a concern should not by itself be grounds for recusal.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

• On mailing lists, perhaps unblock-L if a disputed checkuser involves an unblock request. A lot of the time the board members may want to set the mailing lists to digest or nomail mode so they can access the archives and participate when needed but not be overwhelmed by traffic. Not sure what other mailing lists might be involved. Generally the board members should be entitled to broad access and cooperation to review whatever information is relevant.
• On Arbcom involvement, I would think most cases will be kept non-public until a decision is reached. That is, there won't be a listing that says "Checkuser Smith is being investigated" until the investigation is closed. If so, then when a case is referred to Arbcom for action, there can certainly be a delay before the conclusions are reported. I think in general these housekeeping issues will work themselves out if you elect/appoint intelligent people. Thatcher 04:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo changed to board or staff members

I've just copy-edited to remove some wordiness and some unnecessary caps. I also changed one substantive point, namely under the section called Review board (changes in bold):

• "That the board has the right "To obtain a full explanation on every matter investigated, or (where there are overriding reasons why this is not practical) confirmation from a WMF staff or board member that full disclosure has been made to them, together with a rough description of the information disclosed; and

• "To consult with other users, and to report to the community or any WMF staff or board member as required, without breaching privacy or other applicable WMF policies."

Previously, this said that issues could be discussed with Jimbo, or that Jimbo should be reported to. I've changed this to WMF staff or board member, so that this policy is more focused on the Foundation as a whole and less on one individual.

I still disagree that the arbcom should play a role in selecting members of the board, but I left that in until we have consensus one way or the other. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I may be wrong about this, but I think Jimbo would approve of the change. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)In a way, the review power extends from the committee (or if we're going to get philosophical about it, from the office that the committee holds), not the community directly. It is the ultimate responsibility of ArbCom to deal with Checkusers and oversighters as a class, the audit panel/review board/what is a delegation of that power - or at least that is a fair way to interpret it.

Additionally the WMF board is the last place we want to go. Their job is to generate money and keep the ship floating - not run the actual wikis. Staff members (maybe counsel?) is a better place to go.--Tznkai (talk) 04:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Strong agreement with the change to a generic WMF staff or board member. And I doubt too Jimbo would disagree with the change. --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:57, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Eligible members

I think we need to put some kind of limitation on who may stand for the board. We currently allow anyone who isn't on the arbcom or a checkuser or oversighter. This means someone who was all of the above yesterday could stand for the board today. I think we need more distance than that.

I therefore propose either that eligible board members should never have been members of the arbcom, checkusers, or oversighters; or, if that's felt to be too restrictive, should not have been any of these for at least one year before the date of the board election. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Given that the pool of candidates is filled entirely by the community (regardless on the final selection method which is still being discussed), wouldn't that be a decision best left to the community? Certainly, if trust is lacking an a recent CU or ArbCom member, that would be reflected in the selection process, wouldn't it? I see a hard restriction as simply reducing the possibly excellent candidates with full community trust with no tangible benifit. — Coren ^(talk) 02:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see an entirely separate group of people stand for this, so that the community has a guarantee of independence no matter who ends up being elected. The thing about being on the checkuser mailing list, for example, is that you become friendly with the other people on it, entirely understandably. I know from the two occasions I myself was concerned about checkuser use, the first question — in fact, the only question — other checkusers asked me was how I knew I'd been checked. Given that situation, which is just a reflection of human nature, I'd like to see some clear blue water between the checkusers/arbcom and the people standing for the board.

What would you see as the problem with asking that candidates not have been on arbcom or had checkuser/oversight for 12 months before standing? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

As has been mentioned to me, and as I have expounded on at length, having a at least one experienced CU would be *very* useful. There is a certain technical competence that is required - and the ability with which the panel can run a CU properly has a lot to do with whether or not the panel will be able to provide little-o-oversight Checkusers. Other than that I sympathize with your position that we want a new batchuntainted even by association - if ArbCom has a stronger role is selecting, I want them to commit to looking far outside the CU, OS, and typical mentor high profile editor pool if at all possible. If however, the community has the stronger voice in selection, I'm not going to impose much, if anything on them. That would defeat the whole purpose.--Tznkai (talk) 05:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The board can request checkuser advice whenever it needs to, and members will quickly get up to speed themselves anyway. And if my suggestion of one year holds, editors who've previously had access to checkuser will be able to stand. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

12 months seems a bit long for the inaugural flight, that's a sizable fraction of the time CU has been around and an issue.--Tznkai (talk) 07:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be fine with six months, if you feel that's more appropriate. My concern is only to draw some kind of formal line between checkusers and board candidates, so that we can't have a situation where a checkuser resigns in order to stand a week later for the board. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and with rare exception (I can think of exactly one name) I would vote against any CU who did so but I again return to my previous argument. These kind of restrictions make sense when we're asking an appointed body to make the appointments with community blessing (via the creation of this policy) and restrictions. If however, we're going to "trust the community" and rely essentially on direct democracy, let them choose who they choose. We may not get what we need, true, but we'll get what we deserve.--Tznkai (talk) 07:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I definitely think you need at least one experienced CU on the panel at all times, because I think asking for technical help from the very people you are meant to be investigating is an unacceptable compromise of the panel's independence. Maybe you can find a CU who resigned at least a year ago, or maybe you put in a one year or 6 month limit that is waived for the first election. I would prefer no written limitations and allowing the selection process free rein. I think the people who are likely to participate are likely to have a good sense about who is too close and who is not. Thatcher 16:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Well Thatcher, since you're here, could you give us your opinion on how difficult it would be for the panel to function without an experienced CU?--Tznkai (talk) 16:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the nature of the individual complaints. In my "Adam and Eve" example, probably no CU experience would be needed to decide whether Adam had a legitimate suspicion of Eve or was just pissed off at him. On the other hand you could have a complaint involving shared or dynamic IP addresses where a novice, independently calling up the records, might be overwhelmed by the numbers of different users and user agents on overlapping IPs, trying to make sense of it. And obviously any complaint that "Checkuser Smith falsely called me a sockpuppet" will require a complete recheck of the data. Checkuser involves things like calculating and scanning IP ranges, performing whois, rdns and traceroute scans (and interpreting them), geolocation (and knowing when its probably wrong), knowing the difference between closed and open proxies, xff headers, user agents, and more. When Arbcom appoints checkusers they pick people who are both trustworthy and who have technical skills in this area. (Now, one checkuser is actually a network manager, while I am entirely self-taught, so the skills can be acquired in many ways.) The community could elect a bunch of people who are completely honest and hardworking but who have none of the knowledge or skills needed. I can't really guess how many complaints will actually require good checkuser skills, but I know that if the panel has to ask the CUs for help, they will be giving up a piece of their independence.

You might get a more useful answer by asking the newest-appointed checkusers how long it took them to be comfortable enough with their own skills to backstop or correct other checkusers. Thatcher 17:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Well that sure as hell brings up a problem, because unless you've done that sort of thing before, sounds like active experience is a major part of knowing what kind of searches is reasonable. I'd also point out that funneling panel CU needs through any number of CheckUsers will not only reduce independence, but it could significantly slow down

Ultimately, I think the concern Slim Virgin (and to an extent, the concern I have) is that the panel will be weighed down by CheckUsers who have made friendships - proper or otherwise - with the very CU's they should be investigating (along with groupthink problems). Thats both a substantive and a perception problem. If however, ArbCom rolled out some newly minted CUs tomorrow should they suffer the same stigma for election to the panel? Maybe the accusations of cronyism are inevitable. Can we, and do we, trust the community to make the correct choice in avoiding these problems? I'm honestly not sure.--Tznkai (talk) 17:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It's entirely possible that our systems have evolved to the point where things like WP:IAR and things like license for CUs/Oversighters to go as they "would" are more harmful than helpful now, and a firm (even inflexible) policy on usage is required now, something akin to the weight of "legal" on how it can be used. E.g.; comparable to police. The police cannot arbitrarily, for example, pull someone over and search them, without dealing with nasty reactions like police/oversight boards, discipline review, and even civil rights lawsuits. If the CU/OS tools are too freely used, then change the core policy to make it so that any non-approved usage or usage without a valid reason in the logs will be flagrant. If you're worried about the people running the machine, fix the machine so that misuse is easy to spot. rootology (C)(T) 17:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind that the number of actual CU abuse cases is very small. And not every auditor needs extensive experience, much of what they would need to know can be learned on the job. But the panel needs some experience. It either needs at least one experienced CU in every election, or it needs staggered tranches so that experience may be passed on to new auditors. It can also ask CUs for advisory technical help but it should not have to rely on that. And if you want to get Machiavellian, the panel can play off of known animosities among the checkusers. If Smith is an auditor and seems suspiciously unable to find fault with checkuser Jones, ask another checkuser who doesn't get along with Jones.

There is no ideal solution. Unlike public accounting, there is no school that teaches CU, no freelance independent CUs who can be put on retainer. No CU on enwiki will ever be truly independent since Arbcom controls access; even if Arbcom agrees to rubberstamp an election there is always the possibility for interference. You need honest people who will not be afraid to confront obstructions, even if that obstruction is a fellow panelist who is too friendly with some of the CUs or OSs. Thatcher 17:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

So we're looking for ethical, stubborn people with a well honed bullshit detector and at least one CU. I don't suppose we could borrow CUs from the German Wiki or something? Barring that, I think we're stuck with the (non enforced) need for a CU on deck - although how you engineer that from a standard election I'm not totally sure.--Tznkai (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Tznkai makes a good point. You need a couple CUs on here, don't take en.wp CUs. We have tons of CUs on other projects that can be neutral. rootology (C)(T) 18:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if thats possible or practical, to be clear, just spinning out ideas.--Tznkai (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If no experienced CU wants to be on the panel, then you do without and make the best of it. I just don't think it is wise to foreclose a large number of experienced people before you start. There are some checkusers, I think, who would make good auditors if they agreed to give up routine checking. Thatcher 18:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Why isn't it possible? The en.wp AC is no more special for private data than the WMF. If the WMF has vetted someone, that is good enough. Politics should have no place here; even if 3-4 arbs *HATE* a given user, that shouldn't count for, as they say in films, "jack and shit" for their placement on the review board. Politics with this sort of thing needs to be executed, literally. rootology (C)(T) 18:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Points of information. It should be noted that all WMF checkusers are eligible to subscribe to checkuser-L, and the few times that mailing list has become dominated by enwiki issues, the non-en CU's have politely told us to shut up and take our problems elsewhere. If membership to CU-L (and the resulting data sharing on cross-wiki vandalism cases) causes friendships that interfere with independence, how does this help. Second point to note, will non-en CUs be required to stop running checks on their home wikis? Don't expect any volunteers then. Third point, is that on wikis with CU elections, CUs can be elected with as few as 25 votes. Is that sufficient evidence of trustworthiness to audit enwiki checkusers? Note that one of Poetlister's socks got elected checkuser on Wikiquote, and Poetlister himself got elected bureaucrat. Final and most important point, some wikis have privacy concerns that are much more extreme than enwiki. At least one wiki requires that all proposed checks be publicly listed and must be approved by at least 5 editors or 2 admins and not opposed by more than 2 editors before even running them. Other wikis in languages with a history of problems with secret police (dewiki for example) have much different ideas of what constitutes "good reason" for checking. I believe that there is a "common law" principle of privacy on enwiki and people accept that they may be checked if there is a good enough reason. I think it would be a bad idea to bring in people from different cultures whose common law expectations of privacy are greatly different from ours. Thatcher 18:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Our (generally) Anglo-American cultural viewpoints are probably in large part responsible for the handwringing we're doing over this.--Tznkai (talk) 18:44, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I need to speak out against the notion that being a CU or OV should ban you from participation on this review/audit panel/board, either indefinitely, or for any significant period of time. I favour no requirement for dropping tools at all. Once empaneled (emboarded?.. embarked? :) ) stop using the tools for routine stuff, sure. But I prefer to place my trust in the community rather than in regulations. ++Lar: t/c 23:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) What do people think of the panel and the list generated for Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight appointments? Potential conflicts obviously, but another idea.--Tznkai (talk) 18:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting but tangential. Unless you think the list would be a pool for this panel?? ++Lar: t/c 23:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thats actually what I meant, yes. There are some obvious flaws, but maybe picking people from this list, but before they stand for a standard CU/OS election? Everyone gets their voice heard. --Tznkai (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Changes

I've made fairly significant changes to the "Cases" section, mostly by adding details, some stolen shamelessly from User:Risker/Audit Panel. Feel free to revert and discuss.--Tznkai (talk) 06:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not keen on the bit about board members having to behave properly at all times. :-) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:24, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

We could always make an exception for July 1st?--Tznkai (talk) 06:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Two significant changes made to the "removal section" (well 3, but one was reverted as overly wordy, which is probably true). First, I changed a single member's removal from the majority of the board to the unanimous vote of the remainder. If someone has fouled up enough that they should be booted out, they need to go, but the entirety of the board should be doing it. No one wants to deal with a 3-2 removal vote. Second, I added a clause that says ArbCom remedies still effect board members. While this probably raises some conflict of interest hackles, its intended to balance out the unanimity requirement of the above, its an accurate representation of reality (ArbCom pretty much has supreme authority over CU and OS permissions), and I specified a case remedy. No motions, but a (public) case.--Tznkai (talk) 07:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Teeth

As the proposal stands, the review board (still hoping for audit panel) is an essentially advisory body something like the Government Accountability Office. For those of you who follow U.S politics, the GAO puts out a lot of interesting and useful data that is subsequently ignored unless its used as ammunition in politics. I have plenty of hope that the GAO or our Wikipedia equivalent would fare better here, but maybe we should consider giving the panel some direct authority. Full disclosure, I've suggested this once or twice already.--Tznkai (talk) 07:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think they should have the authority to remove the tools directly, and not simply by making a recommendation to the arbcom. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think those trying to establish this body were doing so purely to get more arbitrator advice (arbs get enough of that already I'm sure ;)) but rather to supervise conduct. The body will serve little more function than serving as patronage gravy if it is arb-appointed and has no power. From the straw polls above, it is clear there is virtually no support for an arb-appointed body. So after that it'd have to have power. An arb should be forced to stand down or run again if the RB votes either in a majority or (if it's only 5 members perhaps) votes unanimously recommending such a course. This would be enough to make arbitrators and the community take it seriously. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 12:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

What I'm thinking, roughly:

• Panel, by private majority vote, can direct a CheckUser/Oversighter to suspend their use of permissions during an audit/investigation. Quite frankly, they should do this anyway, but lets write it out. This vote is private because this suspension shouldn't be taken as the panel's conclusion, but their pursuit of propriety.
• Panel, by public majority vote, can make recommendations to ArbCom . Panel recommendations should be fast tracked to a case (not enforcable, but highly recommended to Arbiters).
• Panel, by public unanimous vote, (or at least without opposition) can immediately direct a steward to remove permissions. This immediately fast tracks an ArbCom review of the panel's actions.

This gives the panel checked power. One note on unanimous votes, this is based on the assumption that the panel is between 3 and 7 members. If there are more (even seven for that matter) unanimous votes become unwieldy quickly.--Tznkai (talk) 17:45, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

This needs to happen

Referencing Doc and Tzn's discussion above, it seems all parties agree that if the AC wishes to delegate this, they can. As such, why don't they just do it? Some would be angry, but some will always be angry. If this body needs created, the AC should issue a directive, give a place for nominations, and it should happen straightaway. From these nominations, the arbcom would select five users, and that would be that. SDJ 19:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur. As to the election/appointment discussion, perhaps the discussion can be sidestepped. If I recall correctly, arbcom itself was initially appointed by the "fiat" of an unelected Godking. So let this new body be appointed by the elected arbcom. If in time the body becomes truly significant, and a consensus emerges that it would be better elected, then we can revisit that possibility. However, it may prove unnecessary to elect. The bottom line is that I'd say to fans of this proposal that you can have an appointed version NOW, whereas getting consensus for, and nailing down the details of, elections is going to at best slow you down and at worst never happen. Let arbcom (who have a fresh mandate right now) appoint a body and review later. I hate the idea of election, but if we end up with them, at least candidates and voters would have a much better idea of what's involved and how significant it is. K.I.S.S.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)If we could turn back the hands of time and the Arbitration Committee had come, made announcements, posted votes, and moved on, this may have gone off with barley a whimper - or maybe not.

Doing it now on the other hand, while procedurally within the Committee's power, could damage the public confidence within the panel. As a purely practical matter, a panel that goes around digging around non-public information making proclamations on whether or not CheckUsers were acting properly functions with less drama all around when that panel has explicit community endorsement and considerably worse when it appears to have been instituted without it.--Tznkai (talk) 23:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, you can fight for that ideal, which I regrettably will oppose. Maybe you'll get a demonstratable community consensus/endorsement for an election process eventually, or maybe not. I'm rather hoping others might be a little more pragmatic rather than purist. Or perhaps I just trust arbcom's judgement a little more. I mean if the community can't trust a newly elected arbcom to be capable of appointing a few clued people to do a job, then I think we're sunk. Furthermore, I see no evidence that the community does hold arbcom in such low regard as you think.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are misreading the message behind the appointments, Scott; most of the successful candidates proposed a wide range of changes in the way Arbcom did things, and increased transparency and community involvement in decision-making. This proposal is certainly a change from the past ways. Risker (talk) 23:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's just do it. There used to be, and I hope still is, a very strong suspicion of democracy on Wikipedia. We do things by consensus, and there is consensus that the arbcom has the power to delegate. We're in danger of succumbing to demagogery, wikipolitics and stupidity. Just go ahead and delegate. What are the mob-rule people going to do, fire you? Show some backbone! --TS 00:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Good question, Tony. I think, actually, we *are* showing some backbone - not succumbing to pressure to do things the same old way, showing strength and self-confidence by empowering the community, and seeking out best practices from outside the narrow confines of the wiki-world. And no, I don't think you or anyone else is going to fire us. Risker (talk) 00:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it. Sounds like the kind of backbone I'm looking for, and which had been absent from this discussion up to now. --TS 00:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If you all want ArbCom to establish this thing as a delegation and choose the election process, just go post a motion on the rfar page and see how many votes it gets. Cla68 (talk) 00:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Risker, you are slightly missing the point. If the arbcom has a mandate to do things, then do it. You don't need an election to chose clued people to do an important, but ultimately fairly peripheral job. You've got the power to do that. However, if you want an election based process system, with all the suck, innovation and drama that involves then you WILL need to get a wide community consensus for that. And "increased transparency and community involvement in decision-making" means that people like me and Tony can strongly oppose it. Now, going on a track record for getting consensus for new processes, and going on how few editors are actually engaging in this debate at the moment, I don't fancy your chances of getting that consensus - you are certainly no where near it. So, here's the choice - use your power that no-one is denying you have and delegate some oversight to some group of you choosing (and if you want community consensus, I think you have it to create such a group) OR join the queue of groups suggesting new processes and getting nowhere. We simply don't need a process-driven CREEPY pseudo-democratic drama-fest to choose a few folk to scrutinise checkusers. I've just re-read Thatcher's case study, and it seems to me that the basic problem is checkusers and oversighters who've been given too little guidence. An advisory group (more to give guidance, but if necessary to wield a stick) is not a bad idea, but if arbcom is bright enough to work out who gets checkuser, it is bright enough to chose some people to safeguard it. If such an informal group gets tried and fails (and I don't see why it should) then, and only then, should we consider more drastic, time consuming, and perhaps wholly unnecessary bureaucracy. (I strongly suspect that only if a less drastic solution is tried and fails, will you ever get consensus for anything else.)--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I suspect this will end up as a normal act of arbcom delegation, lightweight and sensible. I don't mind if the committee wants to try something else, but they should know what they're letting themselves in for. I have conflicting feelings about this. Commonsense says they should go ahead and do it, but there is also the possibility that by experimentation at this early stage the Committee could hit new ways of working that haven't been explored. Time to play. --TS 01:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Community support for this

Being that the AbrCom elections were very well participated, and that I found out about this discussion by accident, I think a real effort should be made to engage the community more. I see at most a dozen people participating, while the ArbCom elections had hundreds of people. Adding any structure is serious business that deserves serious attention. I do not think the community will take it well if a structure suddenly appeared. Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 05:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Rejected

I'm boldly tagging this as rejected as there is no consensus to implement, and in fact a reasonably high majority against implementation, as well as little to no recent activity. Stifle (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Er.... not by my count, but yes, activity is a little low.--Tznkai (talk) 22:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Someone needs to check "what links here" and see where it was advertised. A fresh round of advertising will likely bring more people to the proposal. Carcharoth (talk) 16:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest fresh advertising at WP:AN, WP:VP, moving back to the top of {{cent}}, and also on the talk pages of related policies (this wasn't done originally, I think). I'm suggesting to the ArbCom that it be mentioned at the new AC noticeboard, as it is in part related to what they do at the moment. Also, a mention at Signpost might help. Carcharoth (talk) 16:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

How about listing it at the top of the watchlist page? --TS 16:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it ever got the watchlist treatment. rootology (C)(T) 17:42, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It probably isn't quite ready for "prime time" just yet as far as watchlist adverts go - since that usually just turns into !voting all over the place. I think the policy still needs some hammering (I've made some suggestions and changes that have gone unanswered, for example, and its always good to get a sense of yes or no as appropriate)--Tznkai (talk) 17:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

<sigh> Thatcher 03:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I wish arbcom would just do it. They're tramping off in the wrong direction if they think the way to go is to let the community mull fiddling stuff like this over for months on end. If it needs doing, do it. Name some decent people who have popular trust, and get on with it. --TS 04:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:AC/N#Committee_agenda_as_of_January_20 (with minor formatting)

“ Decide on appointing CU & OS auditors

Finalize proposal by February 7
Finalize appointments by February 28

”

NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 04:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The next step

Strictly speaking, as TS has pointed out above, this is indeed an exercise in delegation that ArbCom could do strictly unilaterally. The point of the community consultation, however, is to make sure that nothing important was overlooked, that the focus was appropriate to address the community concerns, and to see if further improvements could reasonably be made before anything went "live", so to speak. Indeed, some of the fat from the original proposal was trimmed, many tweaks were made, and much productive discussion was had.

Now that we are settling in our respective seats, my intent is to revisit the discussion, make certain the proposal reflects and addresses the concerns that have been raised, and poke ArbCom with the aim of endorsing it as a committee. This can be simply viewed as a counterpart to the OS/CU selection that I felt was more delicate and intricate and needed some serious community input before it was put forth. — Coren ^(talk) 04:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, consultation is good. The yes/no thing is a dud. though. It took Wikipedia over two years to reach consensus on rollback permission on demand! --TS 05:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I should note that that was added by someone who felt the review board was objectionable because it was bureaucracy. — Coren ^(talk) 13:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

To flog a dead horse...

Firstly I'd like to take the opportunity to withdraw the opinion I expressed here. Upon further investigation and consideration, I now think that this is a necessary and constructive development. I would also like to reraise the question I asked in that thread, which is: would it be sensible to ask the stewards or developers to create a user group for the review board members that gives only 'read only' access where sensible? Both CheckUser and Oversight have two associated permissions: for CU they are checkuser-log, which allows users to view the CheckUser log, and checkuser, which allows actual requests to be made. For OS, hiderevision allows users to actually hide a revision, while (if I've read the code right) oversight only allows access to view the Oversight log and to view oversighted revisions. Although the chances are slim, there is nothing in this proposal which explicitly proscribes non-admins from being appointed to the board, so deletedhistory is also a permission that review board members need explicitly.

It is maintained that it will be necessary for review board members to run CheckUser queries themselves, but not to Oversight edits. Am I correct in saying that this is the case because viewing the checkuser log does not allow users to see the data that each query recovered, only that the query was made (unlike with oversight, where all oversighted revisions are accessible to everyone with log access)? Would there ever be a situation in which a review board member might need to perform a check that had not already been made? If the answers to those questions are "yes" and then "no", I believe it would be a fairly easy change to the extension to create a third permission, checkuser-recheck, which would only allow the user to rerun queries that had already been made; that is, the reviewer could only see data that had already been accessed by another checkuser. Although this would be returning new data, not the exact same information that the original checkuser saw, this is also a limitation of the current system.

More generally, in the "quis custodiet" philosophy, does it not make a lot of sense for the review board to be restrained from participating directly in CU/OS work by such entirely transparent and objective limitations, rather than merely by their good standing and the promise of severe penalties for misuse? If it were done in this way, review board members could quite correctly claim that they cannot do anything abusive with these permissions behind-the-scenes: while abuse is certainly still possible, it cannot take place out of sight. The only action they can actualy perform is their mandate: to audit the actions of the full CheckUsers and Oversighters. Otherwise, we are creating five more full CheckUsers and Oversighters, and relying on the other members of the CU/OS community to police the actions of the group that is supposed to be policing them. Checkusers and Oversighters are already supposed to police each other: that's why there must be a plurality of them on any wiki. Who is going to watch those who watch the watchers? :D Happy‑melon 12:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

With the disclaimer I do not have either permssion myself, I think I can answer most of your questions.

For oversight, there is no point where a panel member will need more than the ability to see hidden revisions and the log entry - the actually ability to hide the revision from history is unnecessarry in anyway. However, any use of the oversight ability will show up as a gigantic red flag to anyone watching (the other panel members for example) and will probably be answered by a steward within minutes.

As to the CheckUser permission, as I understand it, the logs do not report everything the CU did and saw - in part to prevent abuse by compartmentalizing information. Since CheckUser (and using the tool sockpuppet investigation) is a complex process with a lot of discretion involved, you need to be able to run a CheckUser yourself to see what results were gotten, and if it made any sense - retracing someone else's steps to see if there was a point in the decision making process where they stepped out of bounds. Now, the kinks havn't been worked out, but what it comes down to is any use of CheckUser by any panel member (outside of their training period) that isn't tightly mirroring a previous CheckUser request will throw up a red flag to anyone watching - and I assure you, people will be watching.

What I expect to happen, and urge the panel to do as a point of internal policy, is that Audits will be well documented - everything should be justified. In addition ArbCom will have to watch the audit panel, specifically for misuse of the CU function. While this all seems circular, since ArbCom was supposed to be watching CU in the first place, is that the audit panel will devote its energies solely to overseeing CU and OS permission use: unlike full CU/OS who are mandated to do their function first and oversee second, and ArbCom who quite frankly has plenty on their plate. The misuse of Audit Panel CU will be easier to find - considerably less volume for one, and very tight and bright boundaries.

As to your re-run suggestion, I'm not sure. I personally don't think its necessary, and it sounds somewhat complicated but I'll defer to an experienced CU as to how adequate of a replacement it would be.--Tznkai (talk) 14:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. My point is, who will be watching? The lay-editor, whom this process is primarily intended to protect, has no way of knowing what OS/CU actions are taking place - that's the whole reason we need this process in the first place. The CU and OS policies both state that CheckUsers and Oversighters are supposed to watch each other anyway; the fact that we need this extra audit process is evidence that that system is not considered adequate. Fundamentally we're fighting a "cabal" accusation: the suggestion that Bad Things can happen in these processes because Good People either don't notice, don't care, or don't dare action. Creating another five members of that group and relying on its existing members to police them doesn't fully resolve the fundamental issue, because the "circularity" that you admit to is not broken. The whole problem with the system is that it is insular and circular, and unless there is a link in the chain who is prepared to break that loop and make abuses public, things just go round and round and are never visible to the outside. By restricting the review board members technically, we force a break in that chain, we make it impossible for them to be complicit in the abuse that they're trying to prevent. Of course we should be able to trust the board members to do the Right Thing. But we thought we could trust the people we made CheckUser and Oversight, more than anyone else in this community. To create another process that relies on implicit trust is just another epicycle to the problem, where what we really need to do is anchor one end of the chain firmly to something absolutely transparent, which we can do here. Happy‑melon 14:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)