Wikipedia talk:Banning policy/Archive 9

Proposed wording change to WP:CBAN

WP:CBAN currently says, Community sanctions may be discussed on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. In a discussion that's happening now at WP:AN#Good Article ban proposal, there's confusion about what may means in this sentence. I propose the wording be changed to

Community sanctions must be discussed on either the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

which I believe is what was originally intended. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:28, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

WP:3X (bans for repeated block evasion) results in a community ban, but are not generally discussed on the noticeboard. Nor should they, in my opinion. It'd be a complete waste of time. I'd support your wording if you add an exception for WP:3X. --Yamla (talk) 13:30, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

This is a substantive change, which I oppose without an RfC. I also oppose limiting community sanctions to AN/ANI, both hostile and escalating places which there are many good reasons to avoid. As long as enough independent community attention is drawn to a discussion held at a venue with sufficiently broad scope, it should be able to gather consensus to impose community sanctions. — Bilorv (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

If "must" was intended, why was "may" written? It's quite clear what the difference in meaning is between the two words, so the suggested change is not a trivial one, it's perhaps a major change in intentions. I also think an RfC is necessary to make such a change, and this is not the proper venue. I would suggest WP:VPP. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

It was User:Jehochman who insered the paragraph in question here in 2009. @Jehochman: What did you intend? Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:06, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Just throwing some ideas around, to avoid future confusion, should we word any RfC something like this?

OPTION A: Community sanctions must be discussed on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

OPTION B: Community sanctions may be discussed on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred), on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, or on another page where a broad selection of community members will see the discussion.

OPTION C: Same as option B but ending with "...will see the discussion, with a neutrally worded notice at AN or ANI."

Or would that be instruction creep? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:19, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CREEP. The last thing this website needs is more centralization. The editors doing the work can decide for themselves as WikiProjects how that work is done and who is allowed to do it. Taking the decision away from the local editors disrespects them and their work, dis-incentivizing them from investing effort in editing when the same cabal will usurp them, anyway. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
• It's a community standard that local consensus is overriden by site procedures. I agree the case in question (good article nominations) is awkward because a general discussion would involve more Randys offering pious thoughts that everyone's efforts should be encouraged when those familiar with the issues know there should be a topic ban. I prefer must over may because I want documentation to document procedures, but may is often used as a polite "you might find an exception somewhere" social word. However, admins are required to enforce a ban and I would oppose any admin acting ex cathedra from a local consensus. Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

My impression was always that the "may be discussed on WP:AN or WP:ANI" was giving an exhaustive list of the places at which community sanctions may be discussed. I certainly would oppose any notion of community sanctions being imposed without a consensus at either of those noticeboards - nobody should be blocked because a group of editors at a random page decided they don't want them to edit some pages.

I think "Consensus for community sanctions must be obtained at either the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents." would make the sentence a lot clearer. Galobtter (pingó mió) 00:23, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

What is AN/ANI if not a random page? They're certainly not representative of the community, and rarely the people most experienced in whatever the particular topic at hand is. — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• As a clarification, my goal here is not to change policy, just to see that the wording here does indeed match policy. My proposal assumes that the policy is indeed that AN and ANI are the only two places such conversations should happen. If that is not, in fact, the policy, that's fine, but then we should change the wording in some other way to make that clear as well, say by adopting Guy Macon's option B, above. What we don't want is what's happening now, which is that different people are reading the same words and coming to different conclusions about what they mean. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed that we want clarity, but perhaps an RfC is the only way to fix this given that the wording is ambiguous and mutually exclusive meanings are preferred by different sets of editors. — Bilorv (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• The best way to word this may be “Community sanctions are discussed in a high visibility venue, such as the Adminstrators Noticeboard or ANI, where a broad cross section of community members have the opportunity to weigh in. We don’t need to specify the exact location but we do want to specify what sort of venue is appropriate. We don’t want somebody banned by six editors in some back corner of the wiki. Jehochman ^Talk 00:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• Like RoySmith, I am not looking to change policy, just to understand it. I have always read CBAN as meaning the same as Guy Macon's Option A above. I appreciate the difference between the words 'may' and 'must', but there is no other verbiage about the suitability of alternative venues - if we read AN/ANI as being entirely suggestive with no implied restriction, then any consensus at any talk page could result in a community site ban after 24 hours. I struggle to believe that's what was intended; if the meaning is different from Option A then the wording ought to be clarified. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:23, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  The current wording should be replaced with something that unambiguously says whatever the consensus of the community is.

Like Girth Summit, I don't think that a community ban decided on, say, Talk:Cockcroft–Walton generator or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mills should be enforced. I am not 100% convinced about allowing only discussions at AN or ANI. What would happen if arbcom decided to ask the community whether to ban someone and created a dedicated subpage for that discussion in the namespace they control? Or what if there was a discussion about an editor with a COI at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard with announcements at AN and ANI? Would that be invalid? Even if a hundred editors agreed with only a handful disagreeing? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• I think it's quite clear that an either/or meaning was intended, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. A clarification of this shouldn't need an RFC.-- P-K3 (talk) 15:32, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• I agree the current wording is clear and it already says what the proposed wording says. The construction, "may X or Y" means either X or Y, but not Z, because Z is not X or Y. To interpret it differently would remove all meaning from the written words. If "may X or Y" means "may X or Y or Z or anything else", then there is no reason to write just X or Y. The entire phrase loses all meaning if we interpret "may X or Y" to mean "may anything". It must be interpreted to be a restricted, and not an unrestricted, condition.
  This confusion about "may" arises because of the use of passive voice rather than active voice. If we want to clear up our policies, that's the first thing to fix IMO.
  Example 1: "You may enter through the front door" is clear: you don't have to enter, but if you enter, you may only enter through the front door, and not the back door or the window. Nobody would think "you may enter through the front door" means it's OK to enter through the back door. It's clear that "may" applies to "enter" and not "front door".
  Example 2: But the passive voice, "Entrance may be made through the front door", is less clear. It means the same (per my logic above, there's no reason to say "through the front door" if what is meant is "enter anywhere"), but it is not as clear to the reader that "may" (a modal verb) modifies the preceding noun "entrance" and not "front door".
  On another note, adding the word "either" before "or" also helps clarify that it's restricted.
  *deep breath* All of that said, as a general rule, if we mean "must", we should use that word (or "shall") rather than "may" (or the other common ambiguity, "should"). So I am supportive of the change but I'm more supportive of a change to active voice: Editors must request community sanctions at either the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:25, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

File:I Don't Always.jpg

• Levivich, <pedant mode>But, doesn't that impose a requirement on all editors to request sanctions? What we're looking for is, "You don't have to request a sanction, but if you do, this is how you do it".</pedant mode>. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:49, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  @RoySmith: Yes, but only in pedant mode :-) I think another problem with the policy as written is that it talks about the CBAN discussion but does not explicitly say who can start one or how. Perhaps the better way to go is something like: Any editor in good standing may propose a CBAN by starting a new thread at either the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. I would clarify that it needs to be a new thread (and not arising in the middle of another thread, which editors might not notice). I'd also clarify notice requirements (same as for any AN/ANI thread). Basically rewrite it to follow your clear structure: "If you want to do it, this is how you do it." Numbered steps would be even more helpful. IMO too many of our PAGs (though not all) are written in the form of dictates from on high (complete with passive voice), as opposed to easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, and I'd support any revisions that move us from the former to the latter. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  I suggest Community sanctions are discussed on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Rather than being an instruction, it is a description of what actually happens. Regarding holding the discussion on a subpage of the incidents or adminstrators' noticeboard, I think there should be a pointer to the discussion from the noticeboard, and so this would effectively make the subpage an extended part of the noticeboard. isaacl (talk) 19:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  If "may X or Y" means "may X or Y or Z or anything else", then there is no reason to write just X or Y. The entire phrase loses all meaning if we interpret "may X or Y" to mean "may anything". Language is rarely written with such boolean intentions. "may X or Y" often means "usually X or Y, but not necessarily", as in "A 2:1 grade may be achieved by scoring an overall average of 60% on assessed units [but in rare cases may but obtained in other ways, such as an average of 60% on a majority of assessed units plus evidence of mitigating circumstances]". — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per Yamla and Chris Troutman. Guy Macon's "Option B" is perhaps closest to actual practice, but I don't feel that being overly restrictive serves Wikipedia well here. --Jayron32 18:27, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Jayron32, can I probe your thinking a bit further here? I agree that Yamla and Chris Troutman make good points, and I don't want to change any established practices here (as I've already said, I'm not looking to change policy, only to understand it). Would you agree that the wording could be improved?

  I'm not trying to be a pedant about this - apologies to Levivich and RoySmith above - but seriously, I always read that policy as saying that community bans could only be dished out at AN/ANI. If that is not the agreed-on meaning, then without any additional verbiage, it seems to me that Guy Macon is correct - if a handful of editors at some random talk page all agree that EditorX should be community site-banned, then an uninvolved admin would be allowed to implement such a consensus after 24 hours. That seems, well, batshit-crazy to me. I know there's a load of grey area, and judgement, and all the rest of it - but the policy as worded mentions nothing of that.

  I'm not trying to codify everything - there needs to be wiggle room, and space for reasonable exceptions, etc. However, in my view, the policy as currently written either fails to reflect current practice (because it says that AN/ANI is the only venue), or it fails to provide any guidance that would allow for reasonable decisions to be made about alternative venues (if we allow the alternative reading).

  Surely a tweak in the wording would be justified, if not necessarily along the lines of that originally proposed? GirthSummit _(blether) 20:03, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  I have never heard of your scenario ever happening, in all of my years at Wikipedia, and I have been here for 14 years, and an admin for 12 of them. I'm not omniscient, so perhaps I missed something, can you please show me the evidence that EditorX exists? What is the precipitating event that led you to believe that a change in this page is necessary? I'm not opposed to clarification if needed, and I'm all for holding discussions to change policy if needed, and I'm also fully on board with following that policy exactly, my argument is thus: we don't need to change anything, but IF we do, we should not do so in a way that changes the language to be significantly more restrictive than it is (i.e. using must language in any way). If the current policy is inadequate, then surely, you have an example of it failing to mete out justice in a correct manner. If you have no such example, then the current policy is sufficient, and does not need changing. --Jayron32 20:15, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  For the record, I am also not opposed to Isaacl's more recent suggestion of changing may be to are. Descriptive language is always better than prescriptive language. I might add the word "usually" to his suggestion as well. Again, I've never heard of it not happening there, but it's always good to hedge, just in case someone produced a counterexample. --Jayron32 20:18, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Jayron32, the discussion linked at the top is what precipitated this. Numerous experienced editors have, in good faith, disagreed about what the policy actually says. It seems that people have conflicting views. GirthSummit _(blether) 20:19, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, that's why I said Option B best captures the meaning of the policy, and insofar as the policy needs updating to reflect that, I think that is the best option. I don't even really dislike option "C", recommending a notice to AN or ANI. The argument that policy should be changed to the restrictive "must" over the permissive "may" is what I oppose vehemently. Anything which retains flexibility while adding clarity is fine by me. I hope that clarifies my position. I'm all for clarity, but not if we sacrifice flexibility. --Jayron32 20:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  As I understand option C, it means go ahead and (for example) have the discussion on WP:GAN, and just drop a notice on WP:AN, Hey guys, we're having a TBAN discussion, come join us. One problem I can see with that is the discussion won't get into the AN or ANI archives. I'll often have some vague recollection of a past discussion and search the archives for specific words or phrases I remember. If some of the discussions are not in AN / ANI, that becomes harder to do. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  I would dispute the suggestion that GAN is "another page where a broad selection of community members will see the discussion", but that doesn't invalidate your point -- such pages do exist. I find the archive argument compelling. I am leaning towards thinking that that's a good enough reason to make it so that all such discussions happen at ANI or AN. (...Infomercial voice...) But wait! There's still more! Sometimes a lengthy AN/ANI thread gets moved to a subpage, leaving a link. Would that not also stop the discussion from getting into the AN or ANI archives? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Assuming we restrict this to AN or ANI, Why ANI or AN? It would be easy enough to decide "AN only" and move any discussions at ANI over, leaving a link. That would make searching the archives even easier. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, WP:ANI claims to be for chronic, intractable behavioral problems, so if there's going to be a single place (and I agree that makes sense), ANI would seem to be it. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:01, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I never understood why AN would be the place for a CBAN discussion. Obviously it's not just admin who decide CBANs. It ought to be only at ANI. I can't imagine a CBAN discussion that isn't about a chronic editor conduct problem, and that's what ANI is for. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:43, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Not really. The search box at the top of WP:AN or WP:ANI searches all subpages of WP:AN so it includes both AN and ANI archives and all other subpages (answering your question re: "Would that not also stop the discussion from getting into the AN or ANI archives?"). And any more radical change like that would necessitate quite a lot of moving of discussions. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:36, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Galobtter, Let me partially walk back my earlier comment. As I noted earlier, my goal here is to not change policy, but simply to make the wording unambigously describe what the current policy is. I agree that restricting CBAN discussions to just ANI would be a policy change, so that is out of scope for this discussion. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree that we should just be trying to clarify the current policy rather than trying to change it (and quite possibly fail at even a basic clarification of the policy). Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding adding "usually" to my proposed text, I do not support it. From Wikipedia:Editing restrictions § Placed by the Wikipedia community, I find just one listed restriction that was not discussed at the administrators' or incidents noticeboard, and frankly it should be listed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions § Final warnings / Unblock conditions instead: the reviewing administrator decided on unblock conditions based on discussion on the user talk page amongst its limited audience. isaacl (talk) 18:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Rewording

This was raised in 2019, but now we have partial blocks, so this sentences should be rewritten:

The MediaWiki software does not have the capability to prevent editing selectively.

--GZWDer (talk) 18:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I would perhaps phrase it something like: "The Mediawiki Software allows the ability to block editing of individual pages, known as a 'partial block', and sometimes this is used as a means of enforcing a specific set of ban conditions. However, bans such as topic bans or interaction bans still require human judgement to enforce and assess, and the presence or not of a partial block in furtherance of a topic ban or interaction ban should not be seen as a limitation on the scope of such a ban, which is defined by the wording of the ban and not of the presence or not of partial blocks." Just my idea. --Jayron32 18:48, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Interaction bans on Wikipedia - what has been discussed, and how does Wikipedia compare?

Many websites which feature socializing have casual features in which one user can block contact from others. For example, see any of the following documentation from various popular social websites.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Zoom
• reddit

Wikipedia is also a website where people socialize. However, whereas in most websites "blocking" refers to a user request to prevent contact from other users, in Wikipedia, "blocking" has the different meaning of temporarily disabling a user from engaging in almost all Wikipedia activities. The Wikipedia documentation on blocking is at Wikipedia:Blocking policy. The analogous Wikipedia term for what other websites call "block" is "interaction ban", described at WP:IBAN, and a subtype of ban. The differences seem a bit arbitrary to me, but in general in Wikipedia, blocks are temporary and for guidance and bans are an end to the guidance and for advancing without further discussion.

I want to ask for anyone's thoughts on how weighty or serious interaction bans in Wikipedia should be. For the other listed websites, any user can request and receive them instantly as a feature of the platform. I think this is great, because this empowers users to protect themselves without having to make filings in a bureaucracy. I recognize that Wikipedia has technology limitations, and consequently, cannot provide user separation as readily as those other platforms because Wikipedia is more of a shared space than personally generated feed of dynamic text.

IBANs in Wikipedia seem more serious to me because there are so few of them and they require multiple steps to receive. Also they are public. At Wikipedia:Editing_restrictions#Placed_by_the_Wikipedia_community I count 50 IBANs granted, which might be all of them in the history of Wikipedia. In comparison, my guess is that Twitter has 10,000,000+ comparable blocks active because they are easy for users to get and requesting them is an expected part of the user experience.

If two users on Wikipedia find themselves in conflict and one user simply wishes to cease receiving communication from another, can the user who wants peace and no contact simply request and receive the IBAN / social block of another user? What prior discussion exists on this?

I looked up and found the following past discussions.

• meta:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2017/Anti-harassment#Per-page_user_blocking, not the same, but with this feature, a user could request that another user not edit their user page
• meta:Community health initiative/Blocking tools and improvements, again, requesting a block by page.

Here are the features that I would expect from a Wikipedia block/ban of one user requesting it for the user they wish to avoid:

1. easier to implement
   1. blocked user unable to post on requesting user's talk page
   2. blocked user unable to ping requesting user
   3. requesting user gets a timestamp of the request
2. more challenging to implement
   1. blocked user unable to edit articles which the requesting user started
   2. blocked user unable to join talk page threads which the requesting user started (perhaps create a subthread in the same conversation instead)

I recognize that there are details to sort out. This could be a complicated topic, but for now, I have two more narrow questions.

1. Can anyone share links to previous discussions of this anywhere?
2. Can anyone please identify and name differences between (1) blocking of this sort in Wikipedia versus (2) blocking as described in the documentation for other platforms above. I want to know how comparable a need for social protection is in Wikipedia versus other community platforms.

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to be comprehensive, there are several kinds of "block" that are in common use on websites and in email. There is the kind where Bob makes it so that Alice can no longer post to Bob's page/feed/area -- often used on dating sites. There is the kind where Bob makes it so that Bob no longer sees Alices's posts - the traditional Usenet killfile. There is the kind where Alice makes it so that Bob can no longer see Alice's posts - I don't use twitter but I believe they have something like this. There is simply kicking people off the site -- Wikipedia's blocking (and now we have per-page blocking). There are per-post scoring methods as seen on Reddit and Slashdot, where people can downvote a comment and if it gets enough downvotes it becomes invisible to most readers. Then there is the "drinking out of a firehose" system used on YouTube, where 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute and YouTube's algorithms decide which ones to show you.

I really wish Wikipedia had killfiles. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Yes, these are all different concepts with different technical requirements and social consequences.

Of the ones you mention, I wish we had the dating site block, the killfile, and prevention of a logged in user from seeing another user's posts. Those all are customs in other platforms. Thanks for articulating this. Do you have memory of seeing any of this discussed on wiki? Even if you remember it, that is useful for me to know. I am going to look around for precedent. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:56, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The main issue I see with the killfile approach across all discussion threads is that it would make it hard for Bob to participate in any content-related discussion in which Alice has made comments. And since Bob doesn't readily know what threads are affected, it hampers them generally. If Bob is blocking interaction because of a personal dislike, you could say that's their choice, but if it's to avoid harassment, it's akin to giving Alice a way to block Bob's full participation in any thread. isaacl (talk) 18:24, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe that it does. If Bob Killfiles Alice, Alice can still post anything she wants. Bob and only Bob will be prevented from seeing those posts. Right now Bob can see Alice's signature at the bottom of a comment and skip to the next post without reading it. I do this with a handful of editors who I have determined will never write anything that I would be willing to read. (it is easier if they have an unusual signature that catches the eye). Nobody can make me read those posts. A killfile just automates what I am already doing. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:17, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

When the posts are still visible, you can choose to follow along their conversation if you want. If they are hidden, and they weigh in on a content-related matter, you would be unable to comment effectively, or understand other people's subsequent replies. Now this might not matter for many conversations, but if Alice is making significant contributions that others are referring to, you'll be at a disadvantage. isaacl (talk) 19:53, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "started" would be sufficient. For an interaction ban to be more effective and automated you might want the option to stop, or at least make an editor aware when they edit a page or a talkpage thread that the person who they are not supposed to interact with has edited. It may also be helpful to exclude "minor" edits from this. A pause mechanism could be as simple as a higlighter or a display of the edit summary and date. If anyone ever had an interaction ban with me it would be excessive to stop them editing every article where I had ever fixed a typo. ϢereSpielChequers 13:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers: Yes, it is hard to implement. I am not sure how it should work. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:56, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

What do you think of my suggestion of adding some software into the process? One option would be, as I suggested, some software that alerts people when they are about to edit a page that the other has edited (this would require new software). Another way would be to use page level protection, have each of the interaction banned editors blocked from editing a set of pages. Longer term this could even lead to an element of reconciliation, as both parties would have an incentive to offer a mutual reduction in the lists of pages they were blocked from. It also allows for more nuanced escalation, editors who skirt around their interaction ban could find more of the pages they want to edit closed to them, or even transferred from a page they can edit and their noninteractee can't to one that they can't edit but the other party now can. i would hope that the WMF would be willing to invest in new tools that allow for a more nuanced ban, but also clearer interaction bans. ϢereSpielChequers 20:15, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

No thanks. If A trolls B we want to learn about the problem so A can be sanctioned. However, most occurrences of "A is harassing me" come from misguided users who need to listen to A, not silence them. It is already possible for B to mute A so B does not receive pings or emails from A. By all means provide a means so B can learn that a post to WP:Teahouse would provide advice regarding whether interactions they were receiving were warranted. Johnuniq (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Interaction bans on Wikipedia - casually granted?

I posted in Wikipedia_talk:Banning_policy#Interaction_bans_on_Wikipedia_-_what_has_been_discussed,_and_how_does_Wikipedia_compare? about user interaction blocks in Wikipedia versus other platforms. One insight is that lots of other platforms freely and casually allow any use to block contact from other users.

How casual are interaction bans on English Wikipedia? Suppose that a person requests one.

1. Do they have to explain themselves?
2. Does this really have to be public, and potentially a spectacle?
3. Can someone simply receive an interaction ban on request?

The general circumstance that I am imagining is that one user claims to receive unwanted contact from another. From the discussion above, there are identified shortcomings in what Wikipedia is able to technically offer. I wish for improvements in the system, but for now, how are IBANs granted? Can a person get them on request causally with no questions asked? Alternatively, what is the established process for requesting and receiving one?

Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Our methods for handling spam, vandalism, copyvio and certain other issues would be somewhat disrupted if any account could block any other from interactions. But we could get some of what you want to achieve if we dust off an old proposal of mine that never quite made it to an RFC User:WereSpielChequers/Private Space RFC. What do you think? ϢereSpielChequers 22:15, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I like it. I would make a couple of changes. First, I would call it "private sandbox" and give the user one private sandbox page (plus as many subpages as he/she wishes). Second, I would make the approximate size visible. To avoid a watcher knowing when you edit your private sandbox, report zero to 64KB, 64 KB to 1MB, then the size rounded to the nearest MB. Or just give it a 1MB limit. That would help us to identify abuse. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: "One insight is that lots of other platforms freely and casually allow any use to block contact from other users. How casual are interaction bans on English Wikipedia?", I made such a request and was turned down. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive319#Interaction ban request. I am convinced that sooner or later he is going to have another unprovoked go at me. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2020

obviously helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand → changes that are obviously helpful, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand

The current wording is ambiguous between this and "obviously, helpful changes, such as fixing typos..." 82.31.123.56 (talk) 23:40, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:40, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Reprimands" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Wikipedia:Reprimands. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 14#Wikipedia:Reprimands until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm _Bacon 02:52, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

"at the direction of a banned or blocked editor"

For example:

• A user blocked or banned in English Wikipedia created a page User:XXX/errors in another Wikimedia project
• Another user that the banned user interacted with in another Wikimedia project read that page and fixed the article

Is it considered proxy editing? What if another user is uninvolved and drive-by?--GZWDer (talk) 04:18, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

That would not be considered as at the "direction" of a banned editor. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:03, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The issue is uncritical proxy editing. A user who edits at the behest of a banned or blocked editor takes on "responsibility" for the edit, including any problems with it adding the edit may cause, and is subject to the same sorts of sanctions the blocked editor had against them if the edit in question is problematic. This does not prevent good faith improvements to Wikipedia. No Wikipedia policy, guideline, essay, or best practice prohibits good faith improvements to Wikipedia by persons in good standing. That includes this one. --Jayron32 11:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Increase minimum length for site ban discussions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the minimum duration of 24 hours for site ban discussions be increased? — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• A 2018 RfC found consensus that site ban discussions must be kept open for a minimum 24 hours. The SashiRolls case request suggests that the community feels 24 hours is too short. If consensus has indeed changed, we should discuss what the community views as the appropriate minimum duration and modify WP:CBAN to reflect that. Personally, I think 24 hours is too short, and that we should have them run at least 3 days. I thought about a minimum of 1 week, but I think forcing discussions to be that long will lead to unnecessary stress for little gain. — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• It’s worth pointing out that many of these aren’t controversial, and that extending it to 72 hours minimum in some cases would be pretty unfair to the editor involved. See the Zawl/FWTH ban discussion. There’s no reason that unanimous consensus needed to last 72 hours—much less a week. Tough cases make bad law: there’s currently frustration because a high profile editor was banned (and yes, I proposed that ban), but I had been thinking about proposing this myself. I keep coming back to the Zawl example, and there are likely others more recent, where there was a clear consensus after 24 hours and extending it wouldn’t have helped either the community or the editor in question.
  So yeah, I guess I oppose this, but I would suggest adding an alternative such as Administrators are expected to ensure the community and any impacted editors have had sufficient time to comment before closing, even if the minimum time has been met. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:09, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• I suggest that all CBAN discussions, and, indeed, all discussions of any kind on en.wiki be mandated to run for a minimum of 90 days, just to make sure that every Wikipedian has their say. I offer this suggestion in the spirit of the pleasure and enjoyment that all Wikipedia discussions impart to all the participants, and in the desire that everyone should get every last scintilla of joy that these discussions offer.
  How about 48 hours? Two days seems more than sufficient in the majority of cases; perhaps with the caveat that if the subject requests it, an additional 24 hours can be added? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I think 48 hours plus a line similar to what I said above would work well. I don’t want it to be a “they can request and additional 24 hours” in cases where there’s no controversy and someone is just flailing. Put something in the policy saying not just to do the minimum if it seems unfair, and an extension to 48 hours to account for stuff like being filed on a Saturday night, etc. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:46, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
    • These both sound reasonable, and I especially like the idea of making it clear that the minimum is not the same as the recommended length. I'm not actually that tied to 3 days, but thought it a reasonable place to start discussion from. — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:57, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• I would vote that seven to ten days is a happy medium. We have longer waits for much more trivial things. PackMecEng (talk) 04:30, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
  • There is no functional difference between 7-10 days and thr 90 days I sarcastically suggested above. It's much too much time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:29, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Seems kind of subjective, I think 24-48 is too short. I would be okay with 72 if there are easy options for reasonable extensions. Shit happens and sometimes you just need time to go through everything and make a case. I would favor 7 in general, 10 might be a little long the more I think about it. PackMecEng (talk) 05:17, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
• I think the trick is that SNOW closes should be allowed after 24 hours. But otherwise 7 days seems reasonable. Hobit (talk) 04:34, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
  • That would effectively make this policy historical as threads get archived by the bot before then and many of them actually do die out. The other issue is that this would basically encourage admins just to indefinitely block without seeking consensus. A seven day high drama event to do something that’s functionally the same as a block and declined appeal to AN isn’t very attractive. In reality, getting an indefinite block overturned is very difficult, and if the admin insists that it not be lifted without consideration at AN, you have a site ban. You incentive shooting first by creating procedural requirements that in most cases aren’t needed. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:36, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
    • I am not sure that has anything to do with the length of time though. That scenario plays out right now with the 24 hour version. PackMecEng (talk) 04:51, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
      • Not really. If you want to use the current example: I could have easily indefinitely blocked Sashi, and requested that the reviewing admin take it to AN for review given the history of the block log, which I think would have been justified. That probably would have been granted. It would have been unlikely that there would have been a consensus to overturn the block, which would have resulted in a community site ban under this policy. I didn't, because I thought community input on such a matter would be important. You're less likely to see people do things like that if it's a guaranteed week of drama even when a clear consensus exists within 36-48 hours.
        The danger in making behavioural policies too burdensome to do is that policy, correctly, gives a lot of discretion on how to block. When you make it more difficult to avail to community based options, what that actually does is shift more power to individual admins to act without consensus, since people are less likely to go through a bureaucratic process when there's an easily available alternative that would usually result in the same thing in practice. The great irony of bureaucracies is that by increasing rules, they also increase decentralization as the centralized functions are unable to handle the growing ruleset, which in turn means that the increasing rules become dead-letter. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
        • Do you have an example of that or something similar? PackMecEng (talk) 05:06, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
          • I just gave a hypothetical for this process, but if you want an actual example, check the WP:AE archives. WP:AC/DS prohibits blocks under DS for more than a year. The current consensus is that you can still indefinitely block someone for an AE violation, but that only the first part has the special AE appeal restrictions. It's a word game: there's a policy that's burdensome in practice, so people find a way to make it work within the existing structures. When you try to write overly prescriptive rules for things like this, it usually backfires. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
            • I am not sure I agree with that. Perhaps we have just had different experiences, but thanks for explaining your view on it. PackMecEng (talk) 05:21, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
        • <ec>That's fair. And I don't like changing rules just to address a one-off problem. But if that closure is upheld because it technically didn't violate any rules, then we probably need to fix the rules. Hobit (talk) 05:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
          • (edit conflict) You can do that by emphasizing that the minimum time isn't mandatory/sufficient and fairness in a way that leaves discretion to individual admins, but gives a policy basis for reversing closures if there are concerns that not enough people have had time to comment. One that is open ended, and is subject to review by either the community or ArbCom. By doing that, you provide an avenue for review while also avoiding the issues raised by having a prescriptive time. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
            • Given the current language wasn't enough to stop a case that IMO shouldn't have happened, I think we need more prescriptive language. I don't like it, but I can't support language that lets what happened happen. I get the "bad cases make for bad caselaw" argument, and I agree with that in general. But abuses need to be addressed somehow. And given how rare ban discussions are, I just don't see it hurting that much. Hobit (talk) 06:06, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

              I find Hard cases make bad law#Hard cases make good law to be 100% applicable to this situation. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:19, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with emphasizing that the usual norms for letting a conversation take its course apply. Closers should not be in a rush to evaluate consensus while it is still in the process of forming, whether or not any minimum standard for discussion has elapsed. I do think that 48 hours is probably a better minimum length to ensure opportunity for the global community to comment. isaacl (talk) 05:24, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  Regarding 24 hours being enough to establish clear consensus: many discussions have a consensus among those who comment in the first 24 hours which then gets altered with subsequent discussion. Also, if we are truly treating discussions as not being votes, it is good to provide some time for responses, to allow for commenters to actually discuss. I do agree elaborate rules for governing the minimum time are unnecessary: just follow the usual procedure to let people talk about the situation for as long as it is productive. isaacl (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• I'd suggest 72 hours, possibly with the potential for SNOW if: 1) the usual SNOW conditions are met; 2) 24 hours have passed; 3) the accused has posted in the discussion or showed substantial activity elsewhere in that time span. A week is too long for a default, but I think we need to have a much stronger "no need for a quick close, even if conversation ceased for a few hours" - a close discussion that's getting a couple more participants each day wouldn't struggle from an extra 3 days activity. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:35, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot)I tend toward the TonyBallioni position that too many rules actually diminishes effectiveness - especially in a WP environment which is largely based around goodwill and reasonable judgement most of the time from editors and admins. However the 48 hours + some convention for extension + safeguards that this isn't simply a 'delay' tactic, seems a reasonable way forward. I don't know how that could work in practice though. Pincrete (talk) 09:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Quorum Per WP:CBAN, community bans are imposed in the name of the community. A handful of editors will not reasonably represent the entire community and so a quorum would be appropriate. For other community processes such as RfA, there is a general notification and we typically get about 200 editors responding over several days. So, if a community-level sanction is being proposed, I suggest that there be a general notification and a quorum of 100 editors. The notification might be made at WP:CENT, which is where I saw notification of this discussion that we're having here.

Of course, if there's some pressing need for a sanction then any admin can impose one immediately on their own authority. The point is that they shouldn't claim community consensus without substantial community involvement. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:51, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Almost no decisions receive 100 participants and many of them are still taken on behalf of the community, including almost all RfCs etc and implemented policies. If we got RfAs at the rate we got CBAN requests we'd have nowhere near 200 standard participants. We also get many RfA participants who just participate on basis of knowing the individual. We don't want that for a CBAN, so it's still not analogous. If a CBAN had 30 people all saying ban (and most are near-unianimous), why bother piling-on? This is just straight OTT. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

There have been over 2,500 RfAs but only about 1,000 banned Wikipedia users so such discussions are less common than RfAs. As RfAs are no big deal, the bans merit greater attention. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:49, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• Absolutely - minimum 3 full days if participation is at least 50 iVotes, up to 5 full days if not. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:29, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  Adding another important thought that just hit me...aside from the obvious, like vandalism and smelly socks...a minimum number must be reached as a good faith show of "the community". In other words, less than 20 participants with 12 approving a site ban is not representative of our community. This may be a case where the iVote should count in order to eliminate any chance of POV creep when closing and making the final determination. For example, the vote must reach 90% support for a siteban out of a minimum of 50 participants; if not, it goes to ArbCom. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• 48 hours should be sufficient. A week or a minimum number of votes is too much. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 14:18, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hours x 168 hours. The iprtant thing is to give everyone the opportunity to have a say; but it's also the most important discussion that an editor can ever face here (excepting, perhaps, the C-ban unblock request!) and I see nothing whatsoever damaging to the project in allowing a mandated period. However, WP:SNOW should definitely be noted: there's no point in a process for its own sake, although it should be followed to the letter and not just of the "well, lots of people think this, so I'll do it" vintage. ——Serial ^# 14:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Serial Number 54129: Either I'm losing my aptitude for humour or that really calculates to 21 days². 🤔 --qedk (t 愛 c) 15:06, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• 48 hours at most, there is no evidence that longer discussions relate to more accurate consensus - if anything, the drama is proportional to the period something is open (for e.g. see WP:RSN). Sanction discussions get a decent amount on consensus on the centralized noticeboards and there's not much evidence to increase it further than that. As an alternative preference of equal priority, I support maintaining status quo (basically oppose) - this also implies that I oppose all durations above 48 hours. If a new limit of 48 hours is held to be appropriate, then WP:SNOW closes after 24 hours should also be considered as valid. --qedk (t 愛 c) 15:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - 24 hours is long enough. From experience, if there's not clear consensus in favour of a site ban after 24 hours then it isn't happening: cooler heads prevail, discussion demonstrates the incidents leading to the proposal weren't that bad, or lesser sanctions are proposed and eventually adopted. The result of bureaucratically forcing such a discussion to go on longer is only unnecessary drama, it doesn't help anyone or improve anything, it just creates another way for disruptive users to wikilawyer their way out of sanctions. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:20, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
  • @Ivanvector: the case that prompted this is certainly an exception. Hobit (talk) 23:13, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - the encyclopedia is a workshop floor, not a bureaucracy, this is a solution in search of a problem, sometimes a speedy closure is necessary. We should generally rely on uninvolved admins' judgment; in the rare event of a seriously erroneous decision, there are ample avenues for appeal. I especially oppose any complex matrix of rules that would involve a sliding scale based on time open/number of votes/SNOW. Neutrality^talk 16:39, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support - 7 days, it shouldn't be less to delete an editor than it is to delete a page. Of course I'd also support any extension shorter than 7 days (48 hrs, 3 days, 5 days, all good). I also agree with a quorum requirement. Also, site bans should be advertised at CENT, or else done on a specific siteban-only board. One of the problems is that site bans are decided by the people who watch AN and ANI (myself included), and the editor-at-issue's TPWs, and not by the wider community. That means you get the editor's friends and enemies, plus the ANI regulars, decided site bans. We should do something so that site ban discussions attract more uninvolved editors who are not ANI regulars. Advertising at CENT would do that. Site ban discussions are really important; they're just as important as any other discussion we have. We should treat it as such. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:44, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  From my experience, most site-ban discussions have a clear consensus, SashiRolls' was one in a long time with a less-clear consensus - that's hardly the threshold of evidence necessary to prove your point that such clear-cut discussions need so much bureaucracy. It's a waste of community time and nothing more. And please, for the sake of all that is holy, don't make me see siteban discussions on CENT, they don't require the community's viewpoint "definitely" which is the requirement of RfCs that have wide-reaching effects on the community, a single most probably disruptive editor getting banned indefinitely is hardly a justifiable cause to rally. --qedk (t 愛 c) 18:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)r

  It's a fallacy that keeping a discussion open longer wastes time. Whether a discussion is open for one day or seven, the amount of time required from volunteers doesn't change. Keeping a discussion open just increases the opportunity for volunteering; it doesn't increase the time required of anyone. Keeping a discussion open longer costs absolutely nothing. And before anyone says, "but if it's open longer, more people will post!" Well, yeah, that's the point. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:53, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  What's fallacious is you labelling something a fallacy every time someone says something against your viewpoint. I was quite clear about my opinion arising out of information that is evidentiary in nature, the same does not apply to your opinion as far as I can tell. Keeping discussions open for longer "evidently" leads to more drama in most cases (per the law of entropy, Godwin's Law, qedk's ANI tips and tricks signed edition, et al.) and even in cases where it doesn't, there's no evidence that a shorter discussion would've been less effective. Since you are the one proposing a change, the onus is on you to provide evidence, and yes, Sashi's case is still an outlier which you'd have to prove to be the norm to actually count as a valid opinion. --qedk (t 愛 c) 08:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  The amount of time you (or I) spend in this thread will not change whether the thread is closed today, tomorrow, or next week. It's not like if this discussion were closed next week, more of your time is required, but if it's closed tomorrow, then less of your time will be required. If a !voter reads a thread and !votes, the amount of time that person spent would be the same regardless of how long after their !vote the thread is closed. Thus, keeping a thread open does not "waste time" because it doesn't require any additional time from anyone. It's about logic, not evidence. And as for evidence, look at the current case. If MastCell has waited until after the weekend to close it, much LESS time would have been spent than has been spent so far on this. By closing it early, MastCell thought he was saving time, but actually ended up like quintupling the amount of time. To the point we're considering a policy change to stop anyone else from doing what MastCell just did. Keeping site ban threads open (or any thread open) only provides opportunity for more to join the conversation. It doesn't waste time (but bad closes do). Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 13:30, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  I do agree that many contentious conversations that are closed early based on an ignore all rules/outcome is obvious rationale end up costing more of the community's time in the end. But the amount of time spent on a thread does depend on how long it is open, as participants will continue to read new comments, incorporate them into their thought processes, and judge if they wish to make additional comments. If the discussion becomes acrimonious, then experienced community members will spend time and effort trying to redirect the conversation to more productive paths. There are costs to keep a discussion open longer, which must be balanced against the effectiveness of new replies. isaacl (talk) 16:33, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  I consider additional participation in a discussion to be a benefit not a cost. Take a hypothetical discussion that gets 5 comments in the first day. If everyone has said all there is to say, then no one else will post in that discussion whether it's open for one day, or two, or twenty. The closer will still need to read the 5 comments regardless of the duration that the discussion is open. If, on the other hand, that discussion stays open and on the second day, 5 more comments are made, those additional 5 comments are a good thing (benefit), not a bad thing (cost). Those 5 comments are to be encouraged and valued. One has to take a pessimistic view of their colleagues to think that, chances are, the 5 comments during the second day in this hypothetical discussion are not valuable. If you look at the site ban re-opening proposal at AN now, you'll see editors refer to additional discussion using terms like "waste of time", "drama", "pointless". That's a very pessimistic view of the value of discussion. If a site ban discussion is open for, say, 72 hours instead of 24, and no one comments beyond the 24 (i.e., the extra time is unnecessary), then it will have cost nothing because the volume of discussion will be the same regardless of whether it's closed at 24 hours or at 72 hours. If, on the other hand, more comments come in on the second and third day, then that's still not an increased cost, that's a good thing, because it means we're discussing. It's not drama, it's not pointless, and it's not wasted time. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  Whether or not I make another comment, I have to incur an additional cost to read the subsequent comments, incorporate them into my thought processes, and decide if I want to make another comment. If I end up deciding I do not need to comment, I have incurred a cost without adding any benefit to the discussion. This gets multiplied by every single participant. The point is not that continuing a conversation has benefits, but that the amount of time I spend on a thread does depend on whether or not it stays open for longer, contrary to what you asserted. Of course there are benefits, but there are also costs, and once the costs outweigh the benefits, then discussions should be brought to a conclusion. isaacl (talk) 17:23, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support 7 days at a minimum. Levi makes some excellent points. A community ban is a drastic measure that should be based upon the input of a broad-range of community members rather than just the noticeboard regulars and editors who have a vested connection to the editor facing a ban. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose As said above, bad cases make bad law and making a new policy based on the SashiRolls CBAN is a definite example of that. There is no need to drag out the process for the vast majority of CBANS, most of which are incredibly obvious and occur after many previous discussions and attempts to modify the person's behavior. Putting hard requirements into place does not put actual protections into place and draws out the process unnecessarily. There have been two main reasons for a hard limit advanced so far: fairness and participation. Isaacl seems to advocate that letting the person proposed for the CBAN have their say is basic fairness and I understand that impulse. In practice, however, any serious (i.e., non-troll, non-battleground) CBAN comes after previous discussions at multiple venues and the person has had ample opportunity to be heard and their opposition to the proposed ban can be readily assumed. Setting a hard minimum length does not actually ensure they proposed banee gets their say. If the problem is, as Levivich and Atsme seem to state above, one of participation and notice, then again a hard minimum does not address the issue. Adding CBANs to notification mechanisms such as CENT might satisfy that concern but simple time limits do not. In both cases, a hard time limit assumes that the desired fairness/participation will automatically appear by the time of the close. This is optimistic, to say the least. Closing admins assessing consensus on serious issues can be expected to take both points into account without time limits. They are also allowed to have judgement on discussions, including bans. If an admin performed an obviously egregious close, it can be reversed and reopened but a hard time limit does not actually address the concerns addressed. At very best, it provides an opening for those concerns and at very worst it provides an opening for further abuse. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:23, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  I didn't use the word "fairness" or mention the person who is under scrutiny. I believe determining the consensus view of the community requires patience, and so time must be allowed for the community to participate in discussion. isaacl (talk) 19:59, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  I apologize for the misrepresentation of your position. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  I think a very important part of the process that needs closer consideration is the time required to find diffs, read them in context, and then deliberate those findings. We should not file a case against an editor one day, and then the next day make a decision to site ban him/her without looking carefully at the evidence presented by both the prosecution and the defense. Giving it 48 hours sounds more like a TV show, or a trial in Judge Roy Bean's court. Hang 'em! It takes time to craft a good defense and to collect diffs. No one should be site banned based on aspersions, preconceived notions, or one's popularity ranking, especially one who may be seen as "the opposition" and certainly not when considering the Systemic bias in Wikipedia that already exists. How fair is that? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:35, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  And how does three days, or five days, or 90 days, or whatever fixed standard anyone wants to pick, mean that such a careful consideration will happen? On the other hand, why go through such careful consideration on obvious cases? The number of !voters that comment in CBAN discussions who actually "...find diffs, read them in context, and then deliberate those findings" is already very likely a small minority and this won't be helped merely by a longer time limit. The point is: no issue with the process is a time problem. They are participation problems. Using time solutions to participation problems is a mismatch that only increases WP:BUREAU. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:05, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  The more time, the more participation, because the more opportunity for participation. Not everybody can comment in the first 24 or 48 hours; but some folks that might be busy on day 1 or 2 might free up on day 3, or 4, or 5. Like, for example, if they have to work, but then on the weekend, they have free time, but the weekend is three days away, they won't "get to it" until day 4. So if you close it on day 3, you don't get that person's participation. But if you leave it open for 5 days, then you will get that person's participation. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 23:20, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  WP:POV railroad comes to mind. What constitutes an obvious case? Are you referring to sock activity? If so, then absolutely - but if it involves site banning a veteran editor, I want to see solid proof, and that editor should be given a chance to defend him/herself - just like at arbcom but not as formal. Sitebanning is a pretty serious step, so if we're not seeing blatantly obvious, repeated incivility issues and non-stop disruption, it's possible that the targeted editor simply has a different POV which has pissed off the opposition who happens to be the majority at that time. Any editor who participates in a site banning and makes an allegation against another editor they need to support such a claim with diffs or they're casting aspersions. Site banning should be closer to a judicial process not a kangaroo court in a banana republic. That's a scary proposition. Of course, I'm just one voice among many but that's what I believe. Consensus rules. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:36, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  I hear what you're both saying but there's still this false equivalence between time and participation. More to the point, however, there's still unsupported assumptions about how people may or may not budget their time and how a specific limit is necessary to accommodate those assumptions. In SashiRolls's case, in the 2 days, 18 hours, and 1 minute it was open a full 69 editors managed to carve out the time to chime in, including Sashi himself 9 times. So where's the rush to judgement? That's as full and fair a hearing as any editor is likely to get for anything outside an RfA so it can't honestly be considered "too short". And even if we accept that there needs to be a longer time limit, why is 72 hours a magic number? Because I guarantee that, within a year of setting it at three days, there's going to be a potential banee that says: "this discussion was unfair because it took place over Labor Day weekend (or a bank holiday) and I was away with my family and there was a rush to judgement". And so we will have another discussion to make it four days, or five, or a week. and then within a year of that extension the same arguments will again be repeated. Let's stop the silly escalation at the start, let the closing admins exercise restrained judgement on when enough is enough. Avoid adding a rule that doesn't do what it claims and wasn't needed in the inciting incident and wouldn't have made any difference anyway. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  That's [2 days 18 hrs] as full and fair a hearing as any editor is likely to get for anything outside an RfA so it can't honestly be considered "too short" - I disagree. It's actually the shortest time for a site ban in the last two years for a veteran editor (except for the admin who was already blocked by arbcom for socking). QuackGuru got 7 days and Farmbrough got 4 IIRC, both opposed by wider margins than Sashi's. Also, if we give 7 days for an RFA, then why can't we give 7 days for a site ban discussion? Losing a veteran editor is more important than giving someone the bit, at least IMO. 72 hours isn't really a magic number; what's magic about 7 days is that it covers an entire week and all, well, 7 days of the week, so no matter what someone's work schedule, most people will have a day off somewhere in a week and thus have time to participate. For me this is about allowing non-daily editors to participate in these discussions as much as it's about giving "the accused" time to defend themselves. This rule -- keeping it open longer -- will increase participation. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. Look at any discussion and you'll see that the longer the discussion stays open, the more editors participate. At some point it slows down or stops, but until that point, the longer it stays open, the more people post. It's true of every discussion. Including this one. If we closed this thread 6 hours ago, there'd be fewer comments in this thread. Obviously, right? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:36, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  Normal standards for letting an ongoing discussion proceed remain in effect. Under most circumstances, a closer wouldn't close a discussion without hearing from the person under scrutiny, and this would continue to be the case, regardless if the minimum discussion period remains at 24 hours or is extended. isaacl (talk) 03:48, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  TMK, the only time in two years that this assumption (more time would be granted when necessary/requested) has been tested, it's been shown false. That's why we're here, right? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:25, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  Discussions are often held open beyond theoretical minimum standards when there is ongoing productive conversation. In this particular case, the editor in question was heard from, numerous times. It can definitely be argued that the conversation should have been left open for longer, but there is never a guarantee that discussions will be left to continue as long as the main subject wishes. isaacl (talk) 17:34, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  Levivich, by eliding a significant clause in your quotation of me you've (I assume inadvertently) misrepresented what I meant. The time of the AN/I thread was not the determinant of the fair hearing, the contributions was. That thread in fact belies the assumption that time=participation and a hard limit is necessary to create participation. 69 editors is a significant enough cross-section of the active editing population for an admin to judge consensus. I've closed many RfC's, often over less clear-cut proposals, with far fewer participants and any admin worth their salt has done the same. The idea that 72 hours, or any other fixed amount of time, would have resulted in a different result in that case is pure supposition and it is equally supposition that any other CBAN proposal needs a fixed amount of time to achieve "fairness".

Losing experienced content contributors is not a reason to give troublesome editors yet more space and time to bedevil other content contributors whose time should be valued equally. We lose content contributors literally every single day. That's life. We should be interested in promoting an environment where a new editor is encouraged to stay and become an experienced content contributor and value them just as highly. The latter is not helped by giving a pass to problematic editors who wave the "productive mainspace contributor" card. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support 24 hours is a 365 wikipediholic standard. You should consider that many active Wikipedians don't edit every day. You don't have to – WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. Yet you still should have a right to fair treatment. People have jobs and some mostly edit during the weekend etc. Someone who files the AN/I thread can collect diffs for a week if he wishes to, yet the accusee is supposed to write a defence during the day (assuming he has to sleep, 24 hrs is never full 24 hrs)? That is unfair and adds to the stress involved in the dramaboard environment. --Pudeo (talk) 20:52, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support a nuanced version: Objectors are right that when there's unanimity or near-unanimity to site-ban, after 24 hours, there is no need to keep it open longer. But if there's significant debate, or a low turn-out that isn't really sufficient to assess consensus, then keep it open longer. I don't care if it's 48 or 72 hours, but longer than 72 would be excessive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:47, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
  • We do have some editors that can really only edit on weekends, (or, for example, nurses that work 3 12s in a row on a regular basis). It's seems unfair to ban someone without giving them time to actually respond. Hobit (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Most closers wouldn't close a discussion without hearing from the person under scrutiny, barring exceptional circumstances. This would continue to be the community-expected norm. isaacl (talk) 03:48, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 7 days per Levivich with one caveat: a panel of at least 3 non-self-appointed, community-approved editors and/or admins to close. The community at large is best suited to decide whether a fellow editor deserves a site ban, and Lev correctly suggests 7 days with proper notification to give us ample time to investigate and weigh in. "Wikipediholics" describes a subset of the editing pool, but many of us have busy schedules and can volunteer only a few hours per week (even that is a squeeze). There is no reason our voices aren't as valid as the 'holics'. And there is no reason that a site ban discussion should not last as long as one for article deletion. Consensus cannot be formed in 48 hours; as has been noted, those who show up right away are friends and foes, with the noticeboard regulars thrown in. A consensus from those subsets does not represent community consensus, and is actually much more likely to be swayed by less than honorable motives. By the time I found out Sashi was being discussed, the thread was already closed. I disagree that "longer than 72 hours would be excessive" when a site ban is on the table, without giving the community at large a chance to weigh in, let alone whilst denying the accused an extension to the weekend (as was the case with Sashi, who was forced to continue replying, and ended up getting sick). petrarchan47คุก 23:19, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

  I like the panel idea, Petra - that's what they're doing now to close the RfC for Fox News - a 3 person panel, and I think all 3 are admins, but TonyBallioni or someone else may know for sure - the discussion was at AN. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:42, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  FWIW while we're spitballing ideas, I support a panel for a non-snow close. That is, let a single admin make a snow close if it's that clear. Otherwise, a panel. There are very few of these per year, it's not a huge burden, and editors are our most valuable resource, we should be as careful as we can be before we ban one in a non-obvious (e.g. non-snow) case. Also, since such closes will be stressful and contentious, it'll take the heat off any single admin. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:40, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  I do not like mandating a multi-person close; I don't think it is a good one-size-fits-all solution. If by non-self-appointed, community-approved closer you mean one the community suggests and approves, I fear that will just lead to a very small number of suitable candidates. Since no one can volunteer to close, the community is likely to only think of a few candidates who are able to gain consensus support. It also means that a whole additional discussion has to be held to do the selection. If the potential closer candidates at the time feel like more people will be of value, they should have the freedom to choose this option, but I don't think it should be required for all cases. isaacl (talk) 04:14, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  What isaacl said. It's a terrible idea, it's difficult to find closers as-is for discussions and mandating a panel when most of the cases have an obvious close is a waste of community time (in attempting to find a panel and otherwise). --qedk (t 愛 c) 08:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Truly an awful idea, requiring a panel, pure BURO for the sake of BURO. The vast majority of RfCs are closed by a single closer, only particularly difficult ones get panels, so using the occasional panel as a model fro CBANS in unwarranted. The peoeple supporting long or very long time periods seem to be assuming that everyone has a right to edit here. That's not the case. While anyone has the opportunity to edit here, no one has the right to do so, but the community has the right to protect itself and the encyclopedia from disruptive editors. All time spent spent discussing is time not spent editing articles or otherwise improving the encyclopedia, which is what we're here for. Seven days is appropriate for AfDs because it takes that long to get enough opinions to make a determination of consensus (and sometimes not even then). That is not the case with CBANs, which attract editors quickly.
  We're currently at a mandated 24 hours, if the consensus is for more time, 48 hours is more than enough, and if you add in Tony's "sufficient time" caveat, all bases are covered. We need to focus energy where it's need, on the encyclopedia, and not on bureeaucratic redtape. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:30, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• Since we cannot guarantee admins won't make bad calls, a panel close is a really good idea for site bans (except, as Lev notes, in the case of a Snow Close, determined only after 7 days).

Per Levivich

"It's not >2/3. Therefore, it's not inappropriate to close this some other way, such as "no consensus", under the closer's own logic. It's not me who's doing the counting, it's the closer. These are the only specific grounds given for the close. He makes no reference to any specific argument made by anyone, or to any specific incident, or to any specific diff, or to any specific policy. He just talks the numbers, and he gets the numbers wrong."

Per Springee

If this was a close based on the weight of the arguments then the closing shouldn't have said >2/3rds at all. It should have instead discussed why the arguments for were stronger than the arguments against... the closing admin specifically justified "consensus" based on claiming over 2/3rds were in favor. That wasn't true. I get that many feel "consensus" might start at 60% (assuming sound arguments on both sides) but when talking about a CBAN why wouldn't we want to have a higher standard? Would we accept the same weak consensusish result if this were a discussion to strip an admin of their authority? (emphasis mine)

Per Darouet, "what is lost by waiting a week to ban someone?" The goal of attaining community consensus is harmed by limiting discussion to <7 days. It is a fallacy that the majority of editors can donate time to examining a slew of diffs at any time during the week. petrarchan47คุก 19:02, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Even the most contentious site-ban sanction discussion close of all time could only garner a "no consensus" in its review after all opinions involved. While ...we cannot guarantee admins won't make bad calls is a technically correct statement, it's a baseless point in practicality. Anyone making bad closes is always subject to community review and panel closes have historically been a waste of time and only really required when it would be a further waste of time later on, in case of very contentious discussions and the point that you clearly don't realize is that most site-ban discussions are relatively uncontentious, so your idea is just WP:BURO for the sake of BURO. --qedk (t 愛 c) 08:30, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

WP does not have a robust way to deal with admin misbehavior. And when it results in a serious outcome like site ban, the best idea from a content creator's perpective is to prevent it in the first place. A team makes it far less likely that admins will ignore policy.

It’s nice you have the (ample) opportunity to attempt to poke holes in my argument. Since consensus is gleened from discussion, a longer period allowing for nuanced, deeper arguments with some back-and-forth from a wider group, ensures a better result. Two or three days is long enough to survey the views of a much smaller group, though not much beyond initial thoughts. Sashi’s was a bad close. It was abruptly cut short during an uptick in activity, with the most recent !votes leaning toward opposing the ban, but that’s not what makes it unequivocally bad, it’s this:

i: Policy is non negotiable; this is especially true for mop holders, for obvious reasons

ii: Policy states per WP:Not counting heads and WP:!VOTE: It is not the vote that matters, but the reasoning behind the vote

iii: In the Sashi case, policy was ignored

iv: Community consensus cannot override policy per WP:CONLIMITED; community consensus would only be relevant if used to modify policy

We tell new editors consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.

From WP:NHC:

[C]losers are expected and required to exercise their judgment to ensure the decision complies with the spirit of Wikipedia policy and with the project goal. A good closer will transparently explain how the decision was reached. Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but neither is it determined by the closer's own views about what is the most appropriate policy. The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue.

In the Sashi case, the above was ignored entirely and core policy was flipped on its head (read closing statement here). Levivich correctly summarizes it: He makes no reference to any specific argument made by anyone, or to any specific incident, or to any specific diff, or to any specific policy. He just talks the numbers. No one has disputed that this read is accurate. It was a head count, not a weighing of arguments. The culture at WP appears to hold admins as above the law, even when the law is the backbone of the encyclopedia. petrarchan47คุก 20:16, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm poking holes at your argument because it's fundamentally wrong, you keep throwing statements like ensures a better result with no evidence for the same. The only credible background for this entire RfC is literally one siteban discussion and that itself, was a disputed bad close, not a clear-cut bad close at all - so quit citing that over and over? Similarly, I don't have much sympathy for your perspective on administrators, I myself have not been comfortable with the status accorded to admins (even before I was one) and have raised it as a problem on multiple occassions, including when supporting unbundling of a tools. It's quite apparent that it's the community itself which set up this structure, making a very hard barrier for entry and easy barrier to exit, eventually making it harder and harder for less "exceptional" or "non-controversial" editors from becoming administrators. That is a completely separate issue and you seem to be conflating the two. --qedk (t 愛 c) 13:06, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

• I'd suggest a minimum of 72 hours, any more than that would seem excessive. There should be a couple caveats on that so that if the subject of the ban request has commented and SNOW conditions are met then it can be closed after 24 hours. As an alternative, I support Tony's suggestion that a sentence be added along the line of Administrators are expected to ensure the community and any impacted editors have had sufficient time to comment before closing, even if the minimum time has been met. I oppose a panel closure for the same reasons that Tony gives above as creating an untenable procedural requirement. Generally, ban discussions aren't too complicated to close, much less so than complicated RfCs in any case. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:59, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  I agree that "ban discussions aren't too complicated to close" primarily because it's status quo under the adopted process but I don't agree that's how it should be done for the following reasons: 2 sides, each with a different POV + a single admin closing a discussion = potential for POV creep, intentional or otherwise. It is not an easy task to leave one's biases at login, and that makes it a bit more difficult to AGF when we're dealing with anonymity. Veteran editors in a particular topic area can easily recognize admins with strong biases in that topic area, whereas admitting to one's bias and recusing is a different story. Admins with strong biases or who may be prejudiced against certain editors because of their POV should recuse from closing a community siteban discussion, and that includes any other unilateral action at sole discretion against that editor. Another important circumstance to consider is that the editor who filed the case had plenty of time to gather both support and diffs against their opposition, and that includes the time necessary to craft a strong argument. On the other hand, the accused was unaware that any of this was taking place, and probably surprised when they received notice. Do you not see that as an ambush? The accused will naturally be in a state of upheaval knowing they are ill-prepared. How would you feel? It's pretty obvious the accused will need at least 12 hrs. to calm down, especially if they believe the filing is a WP:POV railroad attempt. They will need time to read and evaluate the allegations with a clear head, which involves reading diffs in context to refresh one's memory, and then finding diffs of their own to present a strong argument and proper defense. As for participants, uninvolved editors deserve the most weight, and that does not include the few drama board regulars who have consistently demonstrated a strong POV at AN & ANI. Prejudice comes in all forms, including preconceived notions born of one's history/interactions with the accused. The uninvolved editors need time to conduct their own research, and will hopefully steer clear of groupthink and conformity. And that's why I support more time and a panel. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• I'd (also) suggest a minimum of 72 hours, and everthing else per Callanecc above. 24 hours is too short for such a serious event. Editors who are up for site banning may have enemies, and they may appear first before other independent/non-involved editors have considered the case. The additional wording suggested by Tony/Callanecc would also place a marker down against closing discussions too early, without making the process to cumbersome. Britishfinance (talk) 11:30, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I think a 24 minimum is sufficient. May I suggest a process similar to AFD, where borderline situations can be kept open longer as necessary to achieve an appropriate level of community involvement/consensus? -- Dolotta (talk) 13:28, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Just a note, AFD are kept open seven days. PackMecEng (talk) 16:49, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This does not only apply to site bans and site ban discussions are rare, and come after months and months of ongoing discussions and issues. 24 hours is fine, as a minimum, it does not prevent the matter from being open longer, and there is nothing about just longer that equates to fairer, certainly not the other numbers above, they are all just arbitrary -- longer does equate to more dragging-out, and likely small group fighting. If the concern is about fairness, create/enhance review process. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:02, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Isn't 24 hours just as arbitrary as any suggestion above? Longer also does equate to more time for people to sift though evidence to form an informed decision and for the subject to read through everything, reflect, and make a proper case. Whereas the person purposing the CBAN has had plenty of time to write up a rational and assemble diffs, why should the other person have similar opportunity? PackMecEng (talk) 16:49, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
    • As I said, flat hours are arbitrary. There is no way to know, let alone enforce, what editors do with their time. And, we have no way to know whether any amount of time will be enough for any one editor. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

      Sure we do. We can ask them, and if an editor says "give me through the weekend", then we know what amount of time will be enough for that editor. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

      • Not with the proposal in issue, if you want another proposal about different requirements, including asking, that will need a different RfC. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        I think this proposal is underpinned by the proposition that 24 hours is not enough time for any editor to respond to a site ban proposal. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        Then it is based on an entirely unsupported assumption about all editors. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:26, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        No it's the other way around. In order to believe that 24 hours is enough time, one must believe that every editor edits every day, and that an editor can respond to a site ban proposal on the same day it's made. That is the bad assumption. We aren't even giving enough time for someone to sleep on it before responding. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:29, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        • Entirely false. Nothing about the minimum requires that assumption. Nor does it account for the several different ways these proposals arise, which are often after long discussions. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:33, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        You do realize that the same editor (and literally your only example) who claimed to have no time made over 45 comments in the same period... basically a lie. Quit using this argument already. --qedk (t 愛 c) 18:55, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        QEDK, I quote SilkTork from the re-open discussion at AN, who put it better than I can: although the user had continued to comment in the thread, these do not appear to be considered posts, but quick emotional responses. I disagree this is "basically a lie". Fundamentally, that Sashi wasn't given until the weekend per his request, is the primary reason I support re-opening that discussion, and the primary reason I support a 7-day minimum. So, sorry, you'll be hearing me (and I think others) continue to "use this argument" ("use" it for what?), or, rather, continue to raise this concern. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

        If an editor claims they don't have time, they don't have time, their claims would be rendered valid if they truly made none or a very few in the period, a believable claim, with a possibility for lying - but when the very claim they used to push an argument is rendered invalid by their own actions, that's equivalent to incriminating themselves. You disagree that it's a lie but it still is, the fact that they responded multiple times is equivalent to the fact that they had time to respond, logical, no? (in your own words). The distinction between "posts" and "emotional responses" is not one that can be discerned by anyone other than SR and for that reason, we must accept that all responses are of the same nature. Secondly, I don't mind hearing from you, my statement was simply advice, one that you're free to not accede to. So yes, you're free to raise your concerns always, similar to how I am entitled to respond to those concerns. --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:08, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support 72 hours for making a site ban permanent. Any admin can feel free to block before the 72 hours, but then it will be considered a normal block which can be undone by any other administrator (of course, an informal discussion on the blocked user's talk page before unblocking would be best practice). Either the behavior is serious enough that it warrants a full 3-day period to allow busy people to respond, or it is run-of-the-mill indeffable behavior that should follow an "easy block, easy unblock" paradigm. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:36, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hours for making a site ban permanent per King of Hearts. -- Valjean (talk) 01:00, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
• But suppose the editor involved is a "weekend only" editor, shouldn't those 72 hours be mandated to contain a weekend day? and shouldn't that weekend day start the 72 hour clock rolling, because that's when the weekend editor would first see it? And what about if the 72 hour period contained a religious holiday which prevents the observant subject editor from being online? Should that day not count? And what if one weekend the editor went to visit their parents int he country, where there's no Internet, and came back to find that they've been banned? Maybe we should require all editors we contemplate having a banning discussion about to fill out a form which lays out their availability, and then we can negotiate the days on which discussions will take place. Or, better yet, let's have ALL Wikipedians fill out such a form, and we'll only CBAN those for whom a 72 hour ban discussion can be arranged for conveniently for all parties. Or maybe we should never ban anyone, and just let the project and the encyclopedia suffer from rampant disruption, that's really the easiest path. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:41, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  BMK, you articulate well the reasons why I support 7 days: it covers almost all of those situations: holiday, travel, weekend, whatever. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:14, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  WP:SARCASM --qedk (t 愛 c) 06:29, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  WP:SARCASM :-) Hobit (talk) 15:25, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  WP:SARCASM --qedk (t 愛 c) 15:56, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  You win! Tabularize sarcasm ;-) Hobit (talk) 17:41, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as unnecessary, per Tony et al. Most CBAN discussions are more of a formality than anything, so adding more BURO doesn't really help. Administrators should be encouraged to leave discussions open longer when necessary, but I see no reason to prohibit SNOW closures after 24h. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 05:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  Even if the initial !votes are WP:SNOWing, it is possible that someone who doesn't visit Wikipedia every 24 hours has a strong argument to make. We don't want to miss out on their voices, and when the the evidence in favor of the user "on trial" is not so easy to find, closing administrators would not know what "when necessary" even means; in fact, it is explicitly not their job to dig up new evidence. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:59, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• Of course, what remains undecided is how long a discussion about how long a CBAN discussion should remain open should remain open. I think that infinity days is the only reasonable course, that way we'll get the views of Wikipedians yet to be born, which is important because we know that different generations think differently, and we wouldn't want to decide how long a CBAN discussion should last without hearing the views of those who are currently fetuses, infants, or pre-cognitive, let alone our vast reservoir of sperm and eggs. This discussion is an attempt to maximize fairness, after all, and notions of what is fair are constantly changing, so it would be wrong to decide how long this discussion should last without allowing all future Wikipedian generations to have their say about it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:06, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

  Sorry, I oppose your discussion length proposal. It fails to consider editors who have left the site for good in the distant past, those who have never edited, and those who were active previously but are deceased. As a compromise I propose that all future ban discussions are required to have started on January 1, 1970. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:15, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

• 24 hours are sufficient as a hard limit. The burden not to close an exceptionally contentious discussion too early is on the closing administrator. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:08, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support Should be equal to, or longer than an AFD, assuming that whatever triggered the discussion isn't blatantly ongoing. Personally, when I'm not furloughed (4 months of Covid lockdown here now ...), I can easily go the entire work-week without even logging in, if it's busy ... and then there's family stuff on the weekends. Trying to rush a defence is probably going to fall flat, or come across as being defensive. I don't think many appreciate how stressful it is for a long-term editor to be in the middle of one of these processes, with real-life going on. (sigh ... looking forward to real-life again ...) Nfitz (talk) 00:12, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
• 72 hours minimum. Wikipedia editors shouldn't feel that they can't take a couple of days off without something being proposed, decided, and closed while they were out having fun. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:30, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
• 72 hours minimum with a strong preference for a week. We give articles a week minimum for discussion; it is absurd that such a serious measure as permanently removing someone from the project is considered as requiring less discussion. See also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard (second nomination). Stifle (talk) 13:59, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Stifle, Except putting a person (not an article) in the dock for extended criticism seems quite a bit crueler. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:47, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Alanscottwalker A ban proposal that is clearly failing can be closed early; 72 hours would only be required to find in favor of a ban. If the user under discussion no longer wants to take the criticism, they can self-request a ban. Otherwise, I can't imagine anyone who would rather be banned than continue to receive criticism for a few days. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:01, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  King of Hearts, Well, I was addressing the 7 day afd comparison, but even so under the 72, it seems certain that for 48 hours relentless criticism of the person won't be closed. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:13, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Again, regardless of length, a user under discussion can shut it down early if they consent to being banned. IMO "think of the defendant!" is not a good argument, because most people are willing to do almost anything to avoid being banned. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:17, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  King of Hearts, beating them into submission is the dynamic you describe. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:27, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Why would the length requirement be only to find in favour of a ban? We're saying it's likely a person's detractors will top-load the discussion early, but what's to say the opposite does not occur, that someone proposes a user be banned and all that user's allies top-load the discussion? If there's going to be a limit it should be for all ban discussions, not just the ones that are successful. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:19, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Ivanvector, Even votes that decide not to ban regularly have extended even biting criticism of the person. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:22, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  So let the discussions be snow-closed, then, in both directions. I'm not really sure I understand your point: I get that we don't want to leave subjects of ban discussions to be tarred and feathered longer than necessary, but this should apply equally to both successful and unsuccessful proposals. My fear is that setting a mandatory time only for successful proposals but allowing "obviously" unsuccessful ones to be closed at any time is how we end up with more unblockables, users who should be banned but all their friends always show up in defense to shut down any proposal. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:32, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Ivanvector, My comments do not promote a one-way snow close, that was King-of-Hearts. But friends can show-up at any hour, so no time limit addresses that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Because then anyone can, in bad faith, start a discussion on a user in good standing, and the discussion would have to remain open for 72 hours / a week simply because of that rule. There is inherent asymmetry in a ban discussion; banning a user requires a consensus to ban, but not banning them does not require a consensus not to ban. An additional asymmetry is that the ban proposer has all the time in the word to present the opening statement, but the user (or their defenders) may need more than 24 hours to prepare a defense.

  It is already current practice to speedy close (before 24 hours) a ban discussion that obviously will not succeed. To clarify: I believe that a ban discussion with less than ~20% support (i.e. a WP:SNOW no) may be closed early (even before 24 hours), and a ban discussion with more than that should run the full 72 hours (or 1 week). There are enough level-headed people on WP:AN/WP:ANI that even the most unblockable user cannot prevent an initial ~20% of people from agreeing with a ban when deserved. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:45, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  King of Hearts, First, all site-ban proposals are exceedingly rare. Second, no real ban proposal comes out-of-the-blue (if some hapless person makes such a magic proposal, they'll get their heads handed to them). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:55, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Well, if there are enough level-headed people monitoring ANI, and presumably being level-headed includes recognizing situations which compel a discussion to be kept open and/or closed early (as generally we do expect experienced closers to be able to sense, and among which "the accused user has not edited since before this discussion started" ought to be included) then why have a minimum duration at all? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:01, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  (after edit conflict) Perhaps I should suggest, if we are going to have a lengthy minimum duration to consider a ban proposal successful, that early closes be permitted only in the case of proposals which an experienced closer deems clearly frivolous, rather than just "not likely to succeed"? And also to ensure admins preserve the discretion to block users involved in the discussion, including the target, for unnecessarily disruptive behaviour (personal attacks in particular). I need to think about it but I would be more likely to support if we could move in that direction. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:01, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, I would agree with that. So a support ratio of ~20% of regular contributors is prima facie evidence that the request is not frivolous, but below that threshold an admin may use discretion to determine whether a request is frivolous. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:39, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support 72 hours. I think 24 hours is too short, but I'm also not convinced a full week is necessary. A week is appropriate for some discussions -- like XFD and requested moves, where some editors might wish to wait several days before commenting -- but most AN and ANI discussions seem to taper off after three days or so. Additionally, I do think we should codify somewhere that the "defendant" should be given the right to respond, but perhaps that is a discussion for another time. Calidum 16:35, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Edit: I have to oppose the suggestion made by several editors that a three-admin panel should be required to close all ban discussions. While there may be some instances where a three-person close is appropriate, I do not feel it is necessary in general. Calidum 17:57, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
• 72 hours minimum looks like a number which is gathering some support and it is, really a bare minimum. We are not professional editors, we do not have to be here every day. So if we get involved (the more so if unwillingly) in a discussion we should be granted a bare minimum time to participate. Closes should not be by a single admin. Obviously, no hard rule, a clear case may be close in minutes, a difficult kept over a week. Actually, this should be a *general rule* for *everything*. (it would need to be software aided to be practical, I guess) A system where a few people, even if trusted by the community, are self appointed judge, jury and executioner, is a society which lends itself to massive abuse of power. (Nothing against admins in general, I am one of them. Or of us. :-) - Nabla (talk) 17:49, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support but open to options. If the concern is an active editor will cause issues during the discussion I'm OK with blocking them assuming they are allowed to reply to the discussion. I think 3 days is probably the minimum we should require. I'm unsure about cases of SNOW since the SashiRolls case started as a SNOW and ended up in a dispute over the no-consensus vs consensus. It should also be understood that longer than minimum should be the default. If the discussion is remotely active then it shouldn't be closed. Springee (talk) 19:15, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hours per discussion above, with the caveats that admins have discretion to speedy close clearly frivolous ban proposals, and preserve discretion to sanction users being unreasonably disruptive in the discussion. Strongly oppose requiring multiple closers or a panel to close ban discussions: per WP:NOTBURO, because clearly incorrect closes can be challenged, because a ban discussion so close as to require analysis by three (or more?) people is one where there is clearly not consensus to ban, because there is simply no evidence that one person closes of ban discussions are an ongoing problem that needs solving, and because we have Arbcom for that; this is a recipe for very emotional discussions that never end. I propose (but do not require for my support) a "unanimity rule": that if a proposal is supported unanimously (excepting the target obviously) after 24 hours, a close per WP:SNOW is valid. This is to save editors obviously on their way out from two days of parting shots, which by that point would amount to gravedancing (or at least beating a dead horse). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:15, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Just so's I understand: Because of vociferous complaints on one editor's ban, we are now going to remove administrative discretion (the very discretion that every admin candidate gets entrusted with by passing RfA) and put into place multiple requirements and standards that....enshrine the actual practices already in place? And this is supposed to avoid WP:BURO? A discussion just short of 72 hours which was somehow so quick that a rigid 72 hour cutoff is needed but, wait, that's too rigid so we're going to put another policy on top of it for the exact standard of SNOW closes. I must be missing something. Instead of trying to exactly split that hair, why not just, you know, let admins do what they were entrusted in the first place to do? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  SNOW closes in favor of a ban are already prohibited, within 24 hours. This proposal simply raises the limit to 72 hours. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:34, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  @King of Hearts:, I understand that. What I don't understand is how it is not ludicrous to start adding rule upon rule upon rule to the already redundant process to bend over backwards so that every appearance of some unquantifiable notion of "fairness" is extended to individuals who already have a documented track record of not wanting to work together with the rest of the community. The amount of pixels spilt over SR's CBAN has not changed anything and these new rules won't prevent the same thing from happening the next time around. Adding these rules and pretending that they will proactively satisfy in the future is extremely optimistic. Far better to retain the current administrative discretion that has already been extended to users such as yourself, Ivanvector, MastCell, etc. I can understand the appeal of having a policy in place to point to but that policy already exists and by adding finer and finer gradations we only increase, not decrease, the potential for wikilawyering after the next CBAN. Bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake is bad enough but when it is not going to provide anything more than wishy-washy hoped-for benefits against a concrete and definite cost, it's not worth it. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:00, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

  The only change here (other than everything I wrote as a tack-on proposal, nobody has yet commented on it) is changing the already-established minimum duration of 24 hours to 72 hours. I wrote as much more as I did ("caveats") just to express that extending this time limit should not also come with weakening admin discretion to pacify unruly participants, which does occasionally happen when things like this are proposed, unintended consequences and such. I don't want to see ban discussions turn into a sanctioned three-day free-for-all where all of a person's enemies come out of the woodwork to say mean things with no consequences. We have RfA for that. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support 127 hours I'd give my right arm for that to happen. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:54, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

  Relieved to know it's just an arm you'd be giving up. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:57, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

  Allusion -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:25, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support minimum 72 hours (from initial talk page notice for the accused) we need to bear in mind that not everyone has the time to respond immediately. Accusers have pretty much unlimited time to collect evidence, improve wording on initial comments etc. The accused only has 24 hours to respond in cases which are closed quickly. Real life may effect how much time they can spend responding to the allegations / problems, and not giving the accused a chance to properly defend themselves for something as major as a CBAN is not right. CBANs are a big thing and shouldn't be rushed.

I'm unsure about SNOW closes being exempt from the 72 hour minimum, but perhaps a lower time minimum for SNOW closes seems appropriate (like 30 hours or 24 hours). Enough time for a user to provide an initial response and enough time to ensure that the discussion has been seen by many editors. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 22:18, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support minimum 72 hours - I recently participated in an un-topicban discussion at ARCA that took over three months to finally unban the editor in question. If it takes three months to unban, it should take at least three days to ban or topicban. Jusdafax (talk) 10:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hour minimum except in cases of copyvios, spamming, vandalism, socking, LTA etc., handled by one admin. But, the banned user (fired person) has a 7 day window to appeal (not 90 days or 3 years) IFF they did not have time to present their side of the story (to address the weekend warrior argument) OR if they can show the evidence does not agree with the consensus (i.e., the close was improper). Abusive use of the appeal should be shut down ASAP. This appeal would be handled by a 3 person panel, preferably with one of them being either a crat or arb (who had higher standards for election). Would prefer the panel present some sort of findings of fact and come to their own conclusion (not used as a supervote), then weigh that against the consensus. If the consensus (ban/no consen./not ban) agrees with their findings of the evidence presented and the accused's response, then the close is good. If their conclusion differs from the consensus, then the consensus must be properly weighted in their conclusion, based on policy/guidelines. (need to flush this out more, this is meant to prevent a whole discussion being over run by friends or foes.) I don't know, too much red tape and bureaucracy I guess, but firing someone is heavy. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 19:38, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
  • The exceptions you mention would all be handled as well by indef blocks (or other tools), to a first approximation. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC).
    
• Support 72 hour minimum per the good points made by Levivich and Andrew, the "minimum" part because of the issue raised that people don't have time to deal with this stuff in the week. Bear in mind that the "subject" can be blocked while the discussion takes place. Other important points made are the idea of some sort of quora, as discussion with minimal numbers of editors involved are not really community decisions, or if they are to be treated as such should be considered fragile and easy to overturn with a !re-vote. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC).
  
• For indef or long (6 month plus) blocks and bans, I think the least courtesy that should be offered is keep the discussion open for a reasonable duration. 72 hours at a bare minimum, to allow various editors to participate. Perhaps 7 days is appropriate, to accommodate for editors who only edit on certain days, weekends, etc. Yes, a small number of editors' votes probably won't change the result, but their comments could influence it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
• Unlike blocks, which can be enacted quickly to prevent ongoing damage or stop immediate behavior, bans can afford to be deliberative (i.e. we can discuss banning a user who is already blocked), and as such, I have no problem with support 72 hours as a reasonable minimum limit. --Jayron32 14:30, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hour minimum to offset first-mover advantage (per Atsme, Pudeo) and wider publication for more severe penalties (per, e.g., Levivich. Several mentioned issues re evidence. Related to that, Levivich and I been working a (still unfinished) {{diff table}} aka {{dtable}} to facilitate and encourage more complete collection and organized presentation of evidence. Suggestions welcome. Humanengr (talk) 04:48, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hours as the minimum: per Humanengr, Atsme, et al., with a strong preference for a week — I haven't been active recently, and that's due to work. I am certain that such circumstances also apply to others. The standard indefinite blocks aside, I cannot foresee any reasonable need to close a CBAN after only 24 hours. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 23:23, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: Regarding 72 hours vs. 1 week, I would say this: First off, a clearly frivolous request can be closed immediately. 72 hours is minimum for closing a (non-frivolous) ban discussion which is obviously succeeding or failing. If more time is needed to reach a consensus, then we can allow as much as a week. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:41, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose We are not a bureaucracy. If a discussion can be closed sooner, it can be closed sooner. There are plenty of times where WP:SNOW applies, and the result is obvious. No need to make the process even more complicated or arbitrary or drawn out. Also, the fact that this RfC stems from the SashiRolls case sours my stomach. Wikipedia is not SashiRoll's, or anyone's, personal appellate court. Attempts to make Wikipedia more court like only takes us down the road towards inefficiency and bureaucracy. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:42, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - 24 hours is simply a minimum window to allow for a fair review and ample participation, so that bans cannot be implemented by only a few users within the span of only a few hours. It is a sufficient timeframe to allow clear consensuses to be closed without excessive drama, and when a consensus is unclear, discussions can and do go on for as long as is necessary. It's a bit silly to hold up SashiRolls' ban as an example a failure of the 24 hour rule, because it was not closed even near to the 24 hour window, but after 66 hours, with a fairly strong consensus that is unlikely to have changed had the minimum rule been 72 hours instead, and an unusually high level of participation. Given that the discussion was more in line with with the OP's proposed 72 hours, and the fact that the 24 hour rule was not even observed, much less unfairly exploited, I fail to see how this is anything but a solution in search of a problem. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 16:43, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • @Swarm and CaptainEek: To be clear, I'm not using the SashiRolls case as an example of where the 24 hour issue failed. The point of mentioning the case is that the community opinions there suggested consensus had changed regarding a 24 hour minimum, and substantial discussion about what the minimum duration ought to be had occured there. Part of me regrets mentioning it, because I think this is a useful discussion regardless of the outcome regarding SashiRolls. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:44, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Why not optionally allow a provisional close if consensus is clear after 24 hours but require the discussions to run a full 7 days before formerly closing. For simple cases the final close could just affirm the provisional one. This would give discussions that need time to have it, without slowing down the process for routine cases. Blocking of course is still an option during the discussion, and especially if a provisional close of ban is reached, the subject should normally be indef banned until the final outcome. PaleAqua (talk) 17:10, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Observation: It appears to me that there's a change afoot. No less than 3 things contribute to my views. 1. Recent RfA comments and !votes. 2. Reducing the amount of time an admin may be inactive. and 3. This proposal. It seems to me that wiki is trying to do away with "administrator's discretion" and place more emphasis on "administrator activity". It seems we're trying to exchange "trust" for "activity". Just a recent/current thought experiment I've been engaged in, but perhaps after more thought I'll think differently - one never knows. — Ched (talk) 00:42, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support, for a CBAN, seven days minimum. Seven days minimum is the standard for any discussion that claims to hold the participation of the community. Shorter periods exclude a large part of the calmer section of the community that doesn’t watch and respond to the drama boards on a daily basis. Seven days for a CBAN in no way limited any admin from imposing a WP:BLOCK, and in fact, CBAN discussions should really presuppose that the user has just recently been blocked. One clear sign of over hasty closes is trial of highly related discussions that follow. A good timely close is evidenced by the respect for the finality of the closed discussion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• It's disappointing that nobody so far mentioned time zones. It is not reasonable to expect an accused editor to even notice a case in progress in less than 12 hours. That leaves little time to mount a defence even if the editor has nothing else going on in their lives. I support a minimum of 72 hours before a ban can be imposed. A frivolous case can be dismissed earlier. Zero^talk 09:47, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

  I referred to this: I do think that 48 hours is probably a better minimum length to ensure opportunity for the global community to comment. isaacl (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support 48 hours at a minimum. A week would not be unreasonable. Carrite (talk) 16:50, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• Weak support 2 or 3 days for the reasons given in the previous discussions at least for site bans which is clearly a serious matter, temporary injunctions can be imposed pending discussion if needed. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:23, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no evidence that more bureaucracy means better outcomes. In fact, the opposite seems true. There is nothing wrong with a ban discussion taking a few days, nor anything wrong with it taking 24 hours. Each case is different. Hamstringing the community, and admin, will not guarantee "better" outcomes. This ONE case is the basis for the RFC and as usual, basing a change due to ONE case is a bad idea. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support 72 hours minimum. I am entirely persuaded that yes, we shouldnt be able to remove a person in a day when it often takes a week to get rid of articles. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose 72 hours minimum - as Dennis Brown and others have pointed out, this is based on one case and that's not a good reason for such a major change, and would hamstring the community and Admins unnecessarily. I can't get my head around the argument relating to AfDs, a non-notable argument is no where near the problem a disruptive editor is. And if somehow a mistake is made, then surely it can and will be fixed on appeal. I'm happy with a 24 hour minimum with the caveat that that can be shortened in egregious cases. Doug Weller talk 14:04, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

  @Doug Weller: If an editor is really causing acute disruption, such that 48 hours are going to make a difference, then an admin should simply block them of their own accord. In general these kinds of ban discussions are for people who cause chronic disruption, and 48 more hours of them isn't the end of the world. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:01, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

  @King of Hearts: I suspect that any Admin who did that would be accused by someone of pre-judging the issue. Doug Weller talk 17:36, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

  We currently do hold ban discussions on users who are already blocked. So the typical sequence would be to block the user to stop the immediate disruption, and then start up a ban discussion. Increasing the length from 24 to 72 hours wouldn't change that. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:38, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

• I support a 72 hour minimum, eith a normal defualt of 7 days. The point about allowing editors whyo only can or normally dom edit on cetian daysn of the week a reasonable chance to participate in a potentially vital discussion has meerit. So does the point that the normal 7 dday minimum for AfD is comperable. Moreover, and rather more than in an AfD, back-and-foprth discussion, in which editors attempt to rebut or respond to points made by others is of value, and tht takes time. So does proper reading and analysis of multiple diffs in any complicted case. A 24 hour discussion is biased toward those editors who are active on a daily basis, and they are not a represenative subset. In caases that are at all contentious a panel close would be a good idea, but I don't see a need to mandate it. In cases of urgent disruption, a block need notr wait on a ban discussion, as mentioned by King of Hearts and others above. 24 hours is just as arbitrary a tiem persiod as 72 hours or 7 days, and changing from one arbitrary minimumn mto a different one is in no way an increase of BURO. There is still a limit. Note that in the SashiRolls case the early response looked significantly different than the discussion just befre it was closed. This i8s evidence that an early apparent consensus may not truly mean as wide a consensus as it seems. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. 24 hours is more than enough time for the vast majority of cases. As for the few exceptions, hard cases make bad law. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:28, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• More time is needed, also improvements to the process if it is to be regarded as legitimate. If it's urgent, a block can be used to prevent disruption. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case is limited to 500 words; using the word counter mentioned there, the proposal at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#CIR-based community-imposed site ban re: RTG is 5,042 words. It starts with a personal attack "CIR", incorrectly provides that as the only basis for a ban, and seems to have been structured so RTG would be expected to reply to everything and other editors to just support (or oppose) without reading properly. As expected, the replies by RTG are also long, and there is support for a ban just because people think it's a waste of their time having to read it. Because of this lack of structure, discussions are dominated by people with strong opinions for or against banning, who are involved in disputes with the editor, or to show support for the editor who is proposing the ban. Requests such as this should be rejected as they would be by the Arbitration Committee, instead they should be summarised, a valid reason should be provided and, it there is any opposition to a ban, alternatives proposed. If there is still no consensus (as in the SashiRolls discussion) then an arbitration case would be necessary. Peter James (talk) 22:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

  Your insinuation that people voting did not read the arguments and just picked a side is very misleading and more of an accusation than the claim of WP:CIR (not a personal attack, to clarify) which was very apparent from the thread and prior behaviour and the fact that you can't see it seems to be a problem on your part and not on the community's. That thread is probably the finest reasoning for why added bureaucracy is bad. --qedk (t 愛 c) 08:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for comment: Namespace ban

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This proposal is aimed at the addition of a namespace ban system, which prohibit users from editing a specific namespace, like project namespace. This can be a second-to-last resort before a site ban, since for extremely disruptive editors, a mainspace ban can be used before site ban. It is easy to implement since Mediawiki provides namespace blocks as well. --ThesenatorO5-2^{argue with me} 01:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments

• This already exists * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:01, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

  I think the proposal is aimed at creating a community mechanism for establishing bans from specific namespaces, not the already existing technical means to do so. But that too also exists: we already do topic bans in the form of "you are topic banned from editing the project namespace" or whatever is appropriate. I think it would be a truly exceptional case to ban someone entirely from editing articles without reason to simply site ban them, but we don't need a new policy to do so. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

  That would be true if the proposal was to ban someone from the article namespace, but I can see banning someone from File, Template, Help, Category, or Portal while allowing mainspace edits. That being said, I don't see why we need anything more that the existing "Hey ANI, I think we should ban User:Example from editing templates" method. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:27, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

  Generally agree, the community has already enacted namespaces bans in the past. No new policy is required to permit them. –xeno^talk 17:31, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

• I do think there may be value in discussing specifically main namespace bans, but neither in an RFC to begin without prior discussion nor in the context that we already do ban users from namespaces outside that one. I would encourage withdrawal and perhaps starting a discussion on that specific topic on WP:VPPOL. --Izno (talk) 21:28, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Votes

• Unnecessary. Namespace bans already exist, they are a special case of topic bans. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with King of Hearts. If the community or ArbCom wanted to institute a namespace ban, they may already do so in the form of a topic ban. I suggest this RfC be withdrawn as unnecessary. Mz7 (talk) 17:37, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• I agree we don't really need to explicitly list this since topic bans in general cover this. Also namespace bans are far easier to enforce than before due to partial blocks which could probably be used as opposed to bans. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:44, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Appeal of discretionary sanctions bans

So for ArbCom sanctions we have: Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Arbitration_enforcement_bans, and it's well codified into ArbCom guidance. We don't mention anything on appealing community DS bans, however.

General rule seems to be 'modern' community-authorised discretionary sanctions follow the same process as ArbCom sanctions (with remit/appeals changed to community boards instead). Thus, would it be fair to say that the current process for appealing a ban under community DS is something like: (a) appeal to enforcing administrator; (b) appeal to wider community at WP:AN. Clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved editors required to overturn ban. If such consensus does not exist, the status quo prevails. ArbCom may consider appeals if there have been serious procedural anamolies. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:20, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct

For those of you who do not know, the Wikimedia Foundation is organizing the drafting and adopting of a "Universal Code of Conduct" to apply to all Wikimedia projects.

Consider as you like. The first draft is now open for comments. I am unaware of a central place for discussing this on English Wikipedia.

• meta:Universal Code of Conduct/Draft review

Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:50, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

• @Guy Macon, Isaacl, WereSpielChequers, and Johnuniq: A few months ago on this board you joined me in a discussion about responding to harassment. Thanks for that conversation. I would like progress but I think the most productive way forward is to anticipate some consensus coming from this process.

I will share an opinion about this process: I feel like it is heavy on paid WMF staff input and very light on community participation, especially considering how weighty this policy is. I like the idea of a "code of conduct", but in my view, this particular one seems like it consumed US$200-500,000 in the WMF over several years and I am unaware of any funding allocation which encouraged any measurable or explicit community development of this proposal. I am a little anxious that increasingly, addressing a problem means the WMF dumping a large sum of money among their staff when I wish it were not a taboo to discuss the money and labor invested in these developments. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea how the draft will work out but I left a comment to make me feel better. It is obviously window dressing for the annual report to show how wonderful the WMF is. Any effect on editing is someone else's problem. Johnuniq (talk) 03:31, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, I do understand your concerns re the dollars invested in this process. I will note, however, that the ultimate push for a universal code of conduct came from the Strategy program, and (as I know you're aware) is only one of dozens of specific recommendations that came from that process. Without that push, I think the idea would still be treading water. When one reads it, almost every aspect is already covered in one way or another by English Wikipedia policies, but we sometimes forget that there are very, very few projects that have the policy infrastructure or policy development history that English Wikipedia has; probably fewer than 20 projects in total have policies that cover all of the major points, let alone the minor ones. This one isn't really about English Wikipedia, it's about supporting smaller and medium sized projects that don't have this infrastructure in place and either (a) have encountered serious problems and not been able to successfully resolve them or (b) they want to ensure that they have solutions to problems that are reasonably likely to occur at some point. In other words, there are a lot of other projects out there that can really use the structural "human resources" policies we've had in place, either to address existing issues or to prevent future ones. I'd like to think that our project can help them to grow and stabilize in this way, without them feeling that English Wikipedia is taking over their corner of the Wikimedia world, and having a neutral, centralized UCofC is workable. After all, we've invested literally hundreds of thousands of user hours to get to where our policies are today; that's as much of a real cost as the dollar value you've mentioned. Risker (talk) 03:57, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Risker, seems like this UCoC is centred around civility/harassment? If so, probably not that many hours. Besides, don't stewards/meta folks already deal with many of the issues in draft? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 06:48, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I don't think I'm wrong about the total volume of time of volunteers to identify issues, develop policies, discuss policies, maintain policies and interpret the policies in various places (such as noticeboards). I've spent a good 4000 or more hours on these issues in my tenure (including significant off-project work), I know many others who have spent a similar amount of time, and there are hundreds (and likely thousands) of users who have contributed in various ways over the course of 20 years.

And no, stewards and "meta folk" do not handle most of these situations; both are limited to applying the rules of the project they're "assisting", and if there's no rule, there's not much they can do. In fact, that's pretty much the reason for the call for a universal CoC; so that even for projects that haven't created such rules (or in a few cases, where such rules were either eliminated or deliberately not created), they will have a certain minimal standard that applies.

I think there are several good points being raised on the draft's talk page at Meta, particularly about whether the scope is too big, and/or the structure of the document is an unwieldy mix of negative ("you can't do this") and positive ("you must always do that") actions. Nonetheless, this isn't something that sprang from some "whiners" on enwiki. It has come from users on dozens of projects, many of which have little intersection with our own. There have been real issues on smaller and medium-sized projects that were extremely difficult to be addressed in the absence of a basic, universal, minimal set of rules have have definitely resulted in harm to one or more projects or the reputations of those projects. Risker (talk) 03:52, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Risker, interesting. So what is meta's remit in these cases? I mean, I know they've desysopped admins on smaller projects before for such issues, sometimes against the desires of the local community. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I think you'll find that those decisions were made by Trust & Safety (or their predecessor departments) rather than stewards or meta contributors. Risker (talk) 14:21, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of a "code of conduct".

Original announcement forming the W?F in June 2003:[1],

W?F Mission statement as of February 2006: [2] (earliest archive at the Wayback machine. Does anyone have a link to something from 2003 or 2004?)

W?F vision as of December 2008: [3] (earliest archive at the Wayback machine. Does anyone have a link to something from 2003 or 2004?)

W?F bylaws as of November 2004: [4]

Here is the job of the WMF:

• Keeping the servers running.
• Stopping that small subset of user behavior that can get the W?F fined or W?F employees arrested (stopping any attempts to use any W?F-controlled webpage for child pornography, pirating, software, publishing credit card numbers, doxing, that sort of thing) even if that community wants to do such a thing
• Maintaining the software.
• Doing the accounting and other functions that all US nonprofits are required to do by law.

Here are some optional things that are allowed and/or desirable but not strictly required:

• Fundraising
• Awarding grants
• Creating all manner of non-binding advice to individual W?F projects
• Stepping in when a W?F project has nobody to perform certain essential functions, then stepping back when the project no longer needs that kind of help
• Incubating new kinds of W?F wikis and new language versions of existing W?F wikis
• Having meetings in exotic vacation destinations and paying the favored few to attend

Here are things that are NOT the job of the W?F:

• Deciding what the content should be for any W?F Wiki that has people and procedures in place to do that without W?F "help"
• Deciding what the content should be for any W?F Wiki that has people and procedures in place to do that without help
• Resolving disputes between editors on any W?F Wiki that has people and procedures in place to do that
• Enforcing rules concerning user behavior (with the limited exceptions mentioned above) for any W?F Wiki that has people and procedures in place to do that

As currently designed, this Universal Code of Conduct is out of scope for the W?F and is yet another attempt to overrule the English Wikipedia (we all know that they aren't targeting the Icelandic Wictionary with this) in the area of user conduct. It isn't the W?F's job to do that.

This could easily become something that is within the range of acceptable W?F behavior: simply make the Code of Conduct purely advisory, provide translations of it, and encourage (but not require) the various W?F projects to adopt and enforce it. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:43, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, I think this is in line with their vision. You can't have an open editing community if people don't feel comfortable in the environment, thus you can't create a resource with the sum of all knowledge. aren't targeting the Icelandic Wictionary with this tbh, this is maybe aimed at the medium size projects / to aid in more routine meta tasks. I've seen such issues on those wikis discussed on meta not too uncommonly. This stuff isn't achieving the vision either, and so far meta has been unable to resolve. Maybe they think stuff like this code will help, or at least speed up the process. Is it a waste of money? Probably. But I don't think it's a bad concept fundamentally. I just think it's a lot of cost for probably not enough buck, but maybe it's worth seeing how it turns out before judgement. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 06:59, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

There is a basic logical fallacy in starting with an obviously true premise like "You can't have an open editing community if people don't feel comfortable in the environment" and then jumping to a conclusion that it has to be the W?F who is responsible for making that happen. Sort of like jumping from "people should have access to healthy food" to "the federal government should own all farms, grocery stores, and restaurants" The existance of a problem does not mean that a proposed solution is the right solution. I say that the existing system where administrators and arbitrators are in charge of insuring that people feel comfortable editing Wikipedia is not broken and does not need fixing. The fact that previous attempts by the W?F were hamhanded and resulted in a shitstorm of protests and the board stepping in and intervening is just icing on the "do your job and let us do our job" cake. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but that's a pretty enwiki centric view don't you think? Most other projects don't have arbitrators, and (if I'm to be completely blunt, based on meta discussions) the few problematic ones don't have good administrators either. I was only making a general point: I feel it's in line with WMF's vision, as you linked, to do something about cases like the one I linked, which meta has failed to resolve. I'm not saying the foundation should push down the solution and do mass enforcement, since we all know how that works out, but evidently meta isn't able to handle all such issues in a timely manner, if at all. It's also a pretty complex question, because I think the fine details of what's 'acceptable' is a very human construct, and WMF powers global wikis with cultural differences. Undoubtedly there will be issues in enforcement. I don't have a solution here, one that is both effective and politically acceptable, but I do think one is needed (said solution may not be this UCoC). Obviously a community-led approach (focusing on advice from stewards, global sysops, and those with experience in these issues) would be more likely to meet both those criteria, I think. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I will stop being enwiki centric when the W?F says that code enforcement by the W?F will be limited to those projects that do not have people and procedures in place that are doing a good job of controlling disruptive user behavior. Framban didn't happen on some small Wiki with few or no administrators. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

It strikes me as windy feelgood pap. Quite aside from predictably diminishing the role of content maintainers and elevating civility above, and to the detriment of, all other concerns I am really not a fan of section 2.2. It seems to want to compel everyone to sit around the campfire and sing kumbayah, even the solitary worker who just wants to be left alone to get on with their work. I agree with the above concerns that this is a scandalous waste of money, as well as being overreach. Reyk _YO! 07:21, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

It's windy feelgood pap until T&S starts enforcing it with an iron fist. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I would be more specific than windy feelgood pap. There are a number of self contradictory attempts to square various circles in this. Some I have pointed out on the meta talkpage. In some cases the WMF has clearly not thought things through, or checked them with a lawyer who has been briefed on the actual problem. For example the lawyers who insisted that certain volunteer roles such as Arbcom membership be restricted to 18 year olds or older, would probably not agree that the organisation should prohibit discrimination based on age. I tend to think that those problems will suddenly get fixed when the relevant people at the WMF clock what is going on or get trolled by a teenager. I am more troubled by the “no unsolicited sexual advances” bit. This is in itself progress from the previous “no fraternisation“ policy that seemed to have been borrowed from the founding document of a victorian ladies college. We absolutely need a policy that combats sexual harassment, but I am aware of a number of consensual relationships that have taken place between wikipedians.... On a brighter note, I would be happy to see a code that sets out that if you take part in this community you need to leave any homophobia, transphobia, racism etc at the door, and the code does have some good bits already in that regard. But if we ban hate speech and we also ban discrimination against political views you have to wonder which one applies re Nazis. ϢereSpielChequers 16:45, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that at the heart of this is a desire by some in the WMF to deal with some of the really nasty stuff that we, and especially our gay and or female community members, have to put up with from IP editors and throwaway accounts. We already block after the event for much of this stuff. Perhaps we could reject more by way of edit filters, and by allowing extended confirmed editors to semi protect their own userspace if they had been harassed. But not everyone at the WMF understands the difference between the parts of the community who care what is in this Code and the trolls and vandals who do much of the harassment. In a sense the WMF regards everyone who saves 5 edits as a member of the community, even if those 5 edits got them an indef block (their stats do count such accounts as editors). Members of the editing community probably don’t regard vandalism only accounts as being part of the community. Real progress would need the WMF to take the subject seriously and complain to Internet Providers and if necessary police when people use hate speech. In that sense the code of conduct is a distraction from an organisation that doesn’t want the cost of a solution. Yes if the WMF were to take a lead on this there would be countries where the police were not willing to take action, and even Internet Providers who didn’t want to stop their customers from writing racist and sexist stuff on the internet. But we would be in a much better situation if trolls thought that there was a risk to their real life finance and reputation if they said things online that they wouldn’t dare put on a bumper sticker on their car. →ϢereSpielChequers 17:56, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Community review of partial blocks?

Hi, all, a situation that was recently brought to AN (permalink; since moved to the user's talk page, so it's theoretical for now) raised a question in my mind: how does the "community review" clause interact with partial blocks? The line Editors who are or remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community" in WP:CBAN was obviously written before partial blocks were a thing. I'm personally in two minds about it; on the one hand, it would make sense that such a partial block would be converted to a kind of community-placed topic ban, based on the priciple that, if a group of editors reached a consensus to uphold a partial block, it should take a similar group consensus to remove it. But on the other hand, it seems like unfair wikilawyering to place sanctions based on rules that were written for a different context; basically, it doesn't seem entirely fair to allow rule creep in the direction of more sanctions. What do y'all think? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:14, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Given the smaller scope of a partial ban, generally I think I would be content leaving it within the discretion of administrators to lift when deemed appropriate. (This is presuming the partial ban was originally placed under one of the scopes already delegated to administrators to manage, such as immediate disruption.) isaacl (talk) 15:49, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Scope of IBAN

Would !voting on an RfA or commenting on an Arbcom case be considered a violation of an interaction ban? I don't think it should be as long as neither party directly responds to the other, but the policy is not clear on this. (I have no IBANs but have requested one at AN). --Guy Macon (talk) 16:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe it would be a violation, especially since the other individual could not reply or rebut your statement without violating the ban themselves. That places them in a situation where they are completely unable to respond to criticism or make a counterpoint, allowing one party to effectively "taunt" the other (even if that is not the intent). — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:53, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• I don't see any harm in it as long as neither comments about the other. I do not approve of a one-way iBan - they should be 2-way or none at all. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:33, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• So an ARBCOM case would seem likely to be a BANEX instance. Certainly I'd exclude it - we can't let our quasi-judicial proceedings not have full participation, that route lies lunacy. RfA - there's an issue here where the comments from the other IBANNED party, while no doubt biased, are fairly important for everyone else to hear. I suspect the current rules probably prohibit it, but should be tweaked to allow clerked participation. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:07, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
• To quote Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship#General advice for nominees: An RfA is open to everybody, including anyone you may have had disagreements with in the past, as well as new and inexperienced users you may be disagreeing with at the time. Voting in an RfA should be an exception interaction bans. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 23:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

RFC: BANEX exception for permissions requests

Should a WP:BANEX exception be added for discussing the ban itself in a request for advanced permissions (e.g. PERM, RFA, RFB, etc.)? RFC posted 22:47, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Notified: WP:VPP, WP:CENT. Lev!vich 22:51, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. If an editor is under a ban (e.g. tban, iban, etc.) and requests advanced permissions (e.g. requesting rollback, or runs for RFA, etc.), they may be asked about the ban in connection with the permissions request, and they should be allowed to answer such inquiries without it constituting a violation of the ban. Adding this to BANEX will avoid the bureaucracy of issuing exceptions on a case-by-case basis (such as the one that is currently was recently at WP:ARCA, where the suggestion for amending BANEX was made). Lev!vich 22:47, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Scope concern I haven't decided exactly how I feel about the concept, but I think the exception should only apply if someone else brings up the ban topic. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  Possible scopes/phraseology:

  1. Addressing the ban itself in an advanced permission request
  2. Addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an advanced permission request, which would match the current language at WP:BANEX #2: "addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum"
  3. Answering questions about the ban itself in an advanced permission request

  The first is my preference (so editors could proactively bring it up in the request/nomination acceptance, and no one has to decide if a concern is legitimate), but I'd support any scope. Lev!vich 23:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• I'm a bit concerned it would provide a new venue to relitigate the validity of the imposed sanctions, as surely others will seek to place the requestor's description into context. For now my current thinking is that it would be best to just point to the appropriate discussion and not provide an exemption. isaacl (talk) 23:31, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support unconditionally - Quite frankly, many times bans are poorly conceived or more limiting than they may seem from an outside perspective. Thus, it does not take much for me to support loosening them (even in very minor ways). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 23:36, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict)Ehh... Well, this wouldn't override ArbCom sanctions I'm thinking (?), which makes it moot for the case that I guess prompted this discussion. Guess it does. And for non-RfA/RfB I don't think it ever comes up. Questionable that a WP:PERM request would ever hinge on explaining a situation which you can't due to an interaction ban (nb: site ban, article ban and topic ban wouldn't really apply). I can only imagine it being 'helpful' for cases of community approval/consultation, so RfA/RfB/EF(M|H)/BAG/CUOS. In any of these cases, in most cases I'd think having an active interaction ban is a near de facto disqualifier from the get-go. So unless this observation is missing a detail (it probably is) it doesn't seem to really fix any issues, and it feels a bit of a rule creep, whilst opening a door to game? Re game, one could submit a page mover request and turn it into a loaded discussion for getting around the IBAN. WP:PERM perms can also be asked for on individual admin talks, which opens the door wider. If this is going to pass, I think it's best to limit to the community approval perms only (ie excluding WP:PERM), and only in the actual request itself on the noticeboard itself, specifically excluding any discussions leading up to it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:34, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support This is a hoop that folks have to jump through often enough that I think its reasonable to codify this exception. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:25, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Question Does this proposal also give permission for anyone else under the same ban to also comment on it? If the requestor is asked about a two-way IBAN, for example, does the other party have the right to respond? How do we ensure that all sides of the issue are fairly represented without allowing the discussion to devolve into the same behavior that resulted in the ban in the first place? CThomas³ (talk) 06:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Cthomas3: No, no, and we don't. Now that I've answered your questions, shall I put you down as supporting? I think only 2-way IBANs would be implicated, and I would support the proposal with or without having an exception for "the other editor". But I didn't intend to have one and I don't think that not having one is unfair; I think not having one is actually a good idea.
    Suppose you and I have a 2-way IBAN and you run for RFA, and someone asks you a question about the IBAN. The reason I shouldn't be getting involved, at all, is because that would turn it into a re-hashing of the IBAN and whether it's needed and who violated it first and so on. Meanwhile, the question/answer is actually between you and the questioner; it wouldn't involve me at all. Suppose, worst case scenario, your answer was like "I don't think the IBAN should have been 2-way, it should have been 1-way against Levivich, because he's very disruptive as seen here [diff] [diff] [diff]". Even still, why do I need to respond to that? It's not an ANI thread or an AE or something where I'm in jeopardy. I don't need to "set the record straight" in your RFA; if what you say is wrong/bad, it's up to the other editors to evaluate that. Allowing me to participate would just invite me to disagree with you and derail the discussion. I think in a request for permissions -- in that narrow setting -- an editor under a 2-way IBAN should be allowed to discuss the 2-way IBAN with whomever is evaluating the permissions request (the community, an admin patrolling PERM, arbcom, whomever) without having "the other editor" participate in the discussion. Because in that narrow setting, the focus or what's at issue is not the sanction, but the editor requesting the permissions.
    Separately, I've seen 2-way IBANs appealed to 1-way IBANs without the other editor being notified or allowed to participate, so if we don't have an "other editor" exception for those, we shouldn't have one for this.
    All that said if the community wanted an "other editor" exception, I would still support. It's better than not allowing the permissions-request-evaluator to ask questions about the sanction. I don't see this as a "rights of the accused" issue, but as a "let the request-evaluator have a full investigation" issue. Lev!vich 17:24, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Levivich, let's say you and I have a 2 way iBan and I'm at RfA. I say "Levivich was really aggressive towards me <diff 1> <diff 2> <diff 3> and I just agreed to a 2 way iban as a way to resolve the problem." You should have no right to respond? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
      • Barkeep49, yes that's correct, although I'd say: not giving me a right to respond is what's best for everyone in that situation. Take any 2-way IBAN: the two parties basically hate each other. If you ask either one of them to explain how the IBAN came about, the other party is 100% guaranteed to disagree. Once the IBAN is in place, everybody else has already heard from the parties about whatever led to the IBAN, so nobody wants really wants to hear from either party about the IBAN. Except in an appeal, and even then we don't want to hear either party re-litigate the IBAN itself. So apply that to RFA and your example: while I may want to respond and say I wasn't being aggressive, etc. etc., my response will not help anyone decide your suitability for adminship. Hearing your response in your RFA is of interest to RFA voters; hearing my rebuttal is of no interest to RFA voters (and someone else can provide a rebuttal if one is warranted, it wouldn't have to come from me). Balance that against the harm that can result: the obvious ensuing argument. So I say: in order to allow RFA !voters to hear what you have to say about our hypothetical 2-way IBAN, while not allowing the discussion to be derailed, we should sacrifice my "point of personal privilege", which won't help the !voters anyway, and say tough luck, Lev!vich! 22:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
        • In the interest of keeping the dispute out of the request for whichever privileges, I don't even think requesters should make a statement. Just let them point to the corresponding sanctioning discussion, where all of the relevant points have been covered extensively. No special exemption is required for this. isaacl (talk) 22:57, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
          • I don't know how widespread this feeling is, but as an RFA participant, for any candidate under sanctions, I'd want to hear what they had to say about the sanction (and whether/how it would affect their adminship) before casting my !vote. Linking to the discussion wouldn't give me the information I'd be seeking, which is what the candidate has to say about the matter at the time of the RFA. Lev!vich 23:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
            • If asked, people are allowed to mention they have a specific restriction that prevents them from discussing the topic. I can't think of any further explanation that can be given that isn't boilerplate. If candidates want to talk about how the restriction isn't going to affect their editing, I think it would be better to do so in an appeal to have the restriction lifted. (In the past, editors have sought to clear the decks of restrictions before requesting administrative privileges.) On an aside, you did include any request for permissions in this RfC; are you primarily concerned about requests for administrative privileges? isaacl (talk) 23:30, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support- I think this is a good idea. Reyk _YO! 08:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose in favour of a limited exception allowing stating the existence of the ban, if & only if questioned about the topic of the ban, in any forum - e.g. "I am under a ban which prevents me from discussing X" or similar. Per the question posed by Cthomas3, for which answers either way do not appear to lead to good, fair, results. - Ryk72 ^talk 08:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support, as otherwise we render it impossible to conduct the permissions request properly. I should note that any exception on instances such as an IBAN or parties bound by the same TBAN should also be exempted to the tune of making 1 question and casting 1 !vote. Otherwise, again, unfairness is risked. RfAs (et al) are some of the most watched venues, so I can't imagine it's wise of anyone to try and abuse this. I'd be happy to have a "good faith applications" aspect, to avoid people starting an RfA as a discussion forum exception, though that sounds like a rapid way to become despised. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:56, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support Seems like a reasonable exception. PackMecEng (talk) 16:00, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support I would say in general any discussion about the ban should be exempt but it should not normally be initiated by the banned user. Any attempt to game the ban would likely be taken as a ban violation anyway. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:29, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. This seems like a commonsense measure that should've been undertaken ages ago. Disclosure: This proposal would not effect me since I am not under any account restrictions. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:42, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support: seems reasonable. Double sharp (talk) 20:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Ambivalent I agree it seems reasonable and would not be upset if adopted. I worry, however, that the lack of precedent means we don't actually know how it will play out, and I share some concerns of Cthomas3 and Ryk72. I'd prefer we wait to see how RFA/BHG2 goes before committing ourselves to a blanket exemption. I don't care enough to actually prevent this though so I'm explicitly not opposing. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose We have yet to see how this ever works in practice. We should not be changing policy in this way. I would have hoped, had this been a community rather than ArbCom sanction, that the community too would have granted BHG what ArbCom is now doing. ArbCom having done it also provides a template for the community to do it in the future. Let's see how it works a couple of times before we write it into BANEX. Especially because we are now explicitly saying tough luck to the person on the other end of a 2 way iBAN. The person running for RfA invites comment on their behavior. The person on the other side of it did not and now we are creation conditions, at one of our most trafficked forums, for someone to be spoken poorly of with no right to respond. Maybe it'll be fine. But maybe it won't. So before we go writing it into BANEX let's try it out 2 or 3 times. If it works great. And if it doesn't, well that's fine too and then we don't need to go about the process of undoing a policy change with bitterness and acrimony in our mouths. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:51, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Barkeep49: If we tried it out first, should those trials include an "other editor" exception, and if so, how should it be phrased or what should the parameters be? Lev!vich 23:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't know. I don't think we know enough to be making blanet statements about the right way to handle it. Which is why I don't think it should be written into policy. I quite look forward to how it works at out BHG's RfA. There we have the chance to see how it works with a 1-way. That might give us insight into how, if at all, it should work with a 2 way iBAN. In any event we'll benefit by having ArbCom's motion as a starting point. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:39, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • The interesting thing is the exemption for this particular instance is basically moot now. The editor in question only wanted to make a perfunctory statement about the restriction, which has already been made during the request for amendment. So making the request has ironically made approving the request redundant. isaacl (talk) 21:01, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments above and Barkeep. For community bans anyway (not ArbCom ones, which the community can't control, so not including the current example) it seems like an impracticable scenario for the community to trust someone with adminship, but refuse to lift their interaction bans at AN (i.e. simultaneously not trusting them to control themselves without a ban). Feels too much like creating policy in reaction to a single, rare instance which is already being exempted. Not worth the potential trouble it could bring, imo; it would probably become the broadest WP:BANEX if it passed. OTOH, there is the argument that just creating an ARCA to appeal a restriction stirs up drama automatically (just look at the ARCA, and no fault of BHG's), so it may be preferable to not have to do it at all, and have the exemption automatic. So don't mind if this passes, but imo it shouldn't include WP:PERM perms and should be worded very narrowly. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:51, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Barkeep49. This is a not-very-good solution to a very infrequent problem. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose also. Upon further reflection I find myself thinking that we are creating more problems than we are solving here. My personal belief is that it is fundamentally unfair to allow one party to respond at length while muzzling the other party (currently someone under a two-way IBAN can't even !vote in an RFA, let alone respond), and allowing both to participate is just tempting fate with two editors who have already proven they can't interact productively. This should be a rare enough occurrence that I would prefer to handle it on a case-by-case basis. CThomas³ (talk) 01:39, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Question: Let's say we have an otherwise productive editor who really wants to talk about Gun Control, Abortion, Scientology, or whatever. They aren't trying to change any articles but they have spread their Very Important Message on so many talk pages and noticeboards that they were topic banned for being a pest. If this passes, could they nominate themselves for RfA and use that as a coatrack to get the message out? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:12, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Guy Macon: In my view the answer to your specific question is that the user would be sanctioned for WP:POINT and for inability to "get it", sidestepping the issue of whether they technically qualified for the exemption. The logic behind this, though, is the reason for my oppose. BANEX is intentionally very narrow and, to the extent possible, free from ambiguity. It poses no particular burden for this issue to be resolved in a case-by-case manner, given how rare this edge case is; in light of the nuance required to address this issue, it seems like adopting a general rule is counterproductive. Best, Kevin (alt of L235 · t · c) 06:06, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Barkeep49. Also, I think that this is unlikely to come into play for any advanced permissions short of RfA. For RfA, it should be handled on a case to case basis. Frankly, if a person cannot be trusted enough to withdraw the sanctions against them, I am not likely to support them for adminship. (t · c) buidhe 09:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  Also I'd note that if someone started being disruptive at their RFA involving something they otherwise weren't allowed to discuss that would speak for its self and their RFA would likely fail. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:52, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Different ban situations have different sets of demands, evidence, and decision makers, community bans go to the community, administrative bans go to admins, and arbitration bans go to Arbcom (and with varying processes of appeal). Req for perm also have different decision makers, interested in other evidence. When the decision makers are the same, the user could combine appeal and request. When they are different, the different evidentiary processes, decision makers, etc. need to be worked through, waivers granted, etc. case-by-case. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Barkeep49 and my belief that bans need to be handled on a case by case basis. OhKayeSierra (talk) 18:44, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. These permissions processes are a community examination and vetting procedure like noticeboards, so the same rules should apply. This is about the ability of community members to get answers, not about helping editors under restrictions. A possible counter-exception would be when the restriction pertains to the role/permission/process itself (and that counter-exception should apply to what is already in BANEX). It's clear that ArbCom near-unanimously supports this change, and we need not have them issue the same decision again and again. Just fix it in the policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm leaning towards there being a simple, standard way to apply for an exemption on a case-by-case basis, given that restrictions are imposed in many different forms for many different reasons I think it doesn't make sense to issue generic exemptions. Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - but then I adamantly oppose 1-way iBans, being of the mind that it forces us into choosing sides and opens the door to WP:POV creep. Hopefully, editors will simply learn how to conduct themselves without the need for an iBan, much less relaxation or modification of its intended scope. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Barkeep49 put it perfectly. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:21, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. It seems absolutely bizarre that someone would be forbidden from discussing, not just their object-level position on a banned subject, but the circumstances that led to the ban and their thoughts on it, in a request for permissions. Someone potentially becoming an admin who's subject to topic- or interaction-bans seems like a pretty significant deal, and I think that the actual events that went down in the course of that ban are absolutely pertinent to discussion -- or, at the very least, the person's explanation of why that isn't a disqualifying issue. I can't imagine there being a problem with people submitting specious RfAs for the sole purpose of having arguments about politics (and imagine that they'd be pretty quickly closed / the offender dealt with). If someone is going to use policies as an excuse to be a disruptive bellend, there's already rules against being a disruptive bellend. jp×g 06:42, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support, but only when someone else brings up the ban topic. It is unfair to restrict people from commenting on what they were asked about, but if no voter/commenter is interested in the ban topic, there should be no reason to bring it up. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 09:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Barkeep makes some good points, but with the exception of BHG wanting to run the gauntlet again, this is more of an answer to a question no one asked, and a bit of policy creep. In general, someone who is under a ban probably shouldn't be seeking advanced permissions anyway, and should work to get the restrictions lifted before asking the community for additional "trust". Since ibans and the like aren't handed out willy nilly, this should be obvious, imho. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:11, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, but support if this does not include interaction bans. Interaction bans could create a real problem, especially if the ban is two way, but even if it is one way. Article bans, page bans, or topic bans shouldn't be problematic I feel; I think questions about bans could crop up, and it seems pointless to prohibit them. The real problems would probably occur with interaction bans, and they should remain prohibited. Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Mrjulesd: - out of genuine interest, if your variant were used, what would you do if I wanted to ask about a user's IBAN at an RfA/perm request? Would they just not be able to respond under your preferences? Nosebagbear (talk) 09:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Nosebagbear: Well I think they could simply state that their under a IBAN with whoever, that they can't discuss, but they could refer to the discussion that caused it. I don't think personally that this would break their IBAN, but I suppose a very strict definition of an IBAN could see it otherwise. But I feel that simply stating you're under an IBAN should be allowed by everyone in all circumstances, but commenting on it shouldn't. Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:48, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

  My issue is that 3rd parties could state that they knew x about it, and others could disagree with y, and we'd never be able to get clarifications, rebuttals, etc from the relevant person. There are a number of individuals who view 2-way IBANs as not inherently bad, so they wouldn't just be able to go "has an IBAN, not perm-worthy". Nosebagbear (talk) 17:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

  But perhaps rebuttals could be made by someone other than who the IBAN applies to? I've seen that happen a lot at RfA. And rebuttals aren't necessarily required, in many cases its best just to accept contrarian views with a "no comment", and accept the consequences. But, in particular with 2-way bans, if one person has permission to comment on it, but not the other person, this would seem particularly unfair, and could open a can of worms. Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

  Actually, "they could simply state that [they're] under [an] IBAN with whoever" would be a violation, by bringing up that whoever. And "they could refer to the discussion that caused it" would also probably be a violation, depending on the exact wording of the IBAN, but it definitely would be under most of them. [I would know; the only person ever IBANed in relation to me did that "refer to old discussions without naming the other party" trick (by linking to them), and got administratively warned (which was kind), then did it again (by verbally referring to them without the links), and got yet another block.] In Mrjulesd's scenario, all the person could actual do is remain silent, or say something like "Due to a restriction, I can't discuss that.", or be faintly more specific with something like "Due to an interaction ban, I can't discuss that." The end. And this is the problem this proposal is trying to address: this problem denies the ability of the community get answers that we want/need/deserve, in a venue (RfA, RfB, or other requests for permissions) that is serving for the community the same behavior/judgment analysis function as ANI, ARCA, AE, or any other notice board which is covered already by BANEX. It's is simply a loophole/oversight to correct, along those WP:Policy writing is hard lines. No policy ever perfectly prefigures every scenario that may arise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:05, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  I have a couple of observations: (a) being unable to refer to a ban discussion, to explain any sort of ban someone is under, would seem to me to be exceptionally harsh. But surely they could link to a page like Wikipedia:Editing restrictions which would explain it? (b) I can see your point of view, but I'm not swayed by it. But I do feel that if IBANs were going to suspended during RfAs etc. then any 2-way IBAN should be suspended for both parties for the duration. Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  In reverse order of your points: I wouldn't object to that myself; if party A and party B have had such awful interactions that a 2-way i-ban was imposed, the community should be able to get concise and factual answers about it from candidate A, and editor B should be able to indicate their support or more probable opposition to the candidacy, as long as neither of them try to turn it into an excuse to reignite their interpersonal disputes at length or re-engage in the kinds of CIVL/NPA breaches that led to the ban in the first place. An editor subject to a topic or interaction ban can link to the decision that imposed it (i.e. a noticeboard or other process covered by BANEX), and to relevant WP:P&G material, but not to previous general discussions that fall within the boundaries of the ban, nor even name the proscribed topic or other party specifically (stating "I'm am topic-banned from underwater basketweaving, and interaction-banned from discussing or engaging with Editor1234" would be a double violation). It is harsh, but it is what the community imposed in policy, and it is what admins can and sometimes do enforce.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:43, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per Barkeep and Dennis Brown. The point of silencing discussion of the ban, as I understand it, is to remove any tendency to argue or re-litigate. Frankly, if you're under some sort of restriction, you're unfit for advanced permissions. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose fundamentally RfA and RfB aren't that different from other types of discussions where somebody isn't allowed to discuss a sanction, and I don't see a good reason to exempt them. I have to agree that people with this type of sanction shouldn't be applying for this type of permissions anyway. Hut 8.5 12:17, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Yet it is clear that they will. When it comes to lower permissions than admin (e.g. page-mover, file-mover, and template-editor) there are few watchlisters of these processes, and nominations (or more often self-nominations) for them are not "advertised" the way they are for RfA/RfB. What is the reasoning for us retaining a loophole that denies unrestricted community members from getting clear answers from candidates who're seeking advanced permissions (effectively life-time appointments unless the community or ArbCom actively take away the permission again later, which happens much less often than it should)? The risks inherent in of an accidental BANEX loophole enabling iffy candidates to wave away probing questions as something they're not allowed to answer (even as they're applying for permissions that require good judgment and community review of their competence), must surely be greater and more likely than the risk that a topic- or interaction-banned candidate is going to completely lose their shit and turn the proceeding into an excuse to wallow in that from which they were banned (a risk with no potential consequences, really, other than than said party sabotaging their own nomination and probably being more stringently restricted). I'll quote a old friend, John Perry Barlow: "Optimize for the probable, not the possible." There is no limit in the imagination to what is "possible", but most imagined outcomes are very unlikely. Cf. terriblizing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
    • If someone is subject to, say, a topic ban, then by definition they aren't trusted to edit in that topic area. So yes, we can't trust them to talk about the topic area in an RfA. If such a person even submits themselves to RfA then they would have one very difficult question to answer: why should we entrust you with these sensitive permissions, when we can't even trust you with the ability to make edits about X?. I for one would almost certainly oppose an RfA candidate who was subject to an active sanction which was due to their behaviour. Furthermore adding this type of exception could have repercussions for other editors. Imagine someone has been banned from interacting with you because they were harassing you. How would you feel if that person were to be allowed to talk about you, in a very public forum, at length, for a week? On the grounds that if they passed, then they would get the power to block people, and we want to make sure they can answer questions about you beforehand? That seems to me profoundly unfair. The real-world equivalent would be something like allowing someone to ignore a restraining order because they were running for an election, which just seems wrong. Hut 8.5 08:29, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
      • If such a person even submits themselves to RfA then they would have one very difficult question to answer: why should we entrust you with these sensitive permissions, when we can't even trust you with the ability to make edits about X? EXACTLY! And how is anyone supposed to answer that question if they can't talk about the sanction? This isn't like ignoring a restraining order because they were running for an election (that would be if we let a TBAN'd editor edit in the topic area, not just address the TBAN); there really isn't an applicable criminal-law analogy here because criminal law never has a "don't speak of your crime" prohibition. But reaching for an analogy, this is more like temporarily lifting a gag order for an election debate, so that the matter can be discussed in the debate. Lev!vich 18:05, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support - the claim that "banned users shouldn't get advanced permissions" should be judged by the community on a case-by-case basis. Abusing this right in order to bring up other discussions can be handled based on the principle that the spirit of the law counts, not the letter. And if a banned user goes overboard discussing the ban, that itself is n indication to the community. 217.132.248.209 (talk) 20:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

  If a user is sanctioned, it's generally because we have already decided that the user will not self-regulate to a sufficient extent to avoid venturing in problematic topic areas. That's the whole point of imposing a sanction, and that's why BANEX is so narrow to begin with. I agree that whether a user subject to an editing restriction should receive advanced permissions should be judged by the community on a case-by-case basis, but the proper way to ensure that while upholding the intent of the restriction to begin with is to require case-by-case decisions on relaxing bans for RfAs/etc., just as we've seen with the recent ARCA. Best, Kevin (alt of L235 · t · c) 20:55, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support per Levivich. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:21, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support - We're talking about allowing someone to address their sanction while their behavior and history is under scrutiny from either admins or the community. That's hardly unreasonable in my view. As a PERM admin, the notion of a sanctioned editor requesting an advanced permission and not being able to discuss their sanctions with us seems a bit bizarre. It seems like more of a catch 22 bug than a feature, that an editor can supposedly not address their own ban in good faith when under scrutiny via a formal process. At PERM we would probably just ignore this technicality and discuss the ban with the user, every day of the week. But at RfA, where this situation is rare if not unprecedented, you can't get away with that. I get that this is mostly about BHG, and BHG is controversial, but the underlying point is valid. Someone should not need a special dispensation from Arbcom simply to talk about a sanction where they're under formal scrutiny. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:50, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

3 strikes

What happens to users who have some or all of their 3 strikes before March 2018? Example, user's main account is blocked indefinitely in February 2018 and has checkuser confirmed accounts in May 2018 and June 2018 would they be banned under 3x? I think its reasonable to assume that if someone was indefinitely blocked prior to March 2018 but had 3 different occasions of checkuser confirmed socks would be eligible and a user who hadn't had any checkuser confirmed socks after March 2018 wouldn't be eligible. My understanding is that content on Wikipedia isn't generally grandfathered but user conduct generally is, @TonyBallioni: who proposed this part of the policy. This might not be much of a problem in December 2020 since its likely anyone problematic enough would have had 3 strikes after its enaction by now but I'm just wandering. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:50, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I had thought that it had become a moot point by now, but as I recall we treated this as "three strikes subsequent to the enactment of the policy" at the time. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

One-way Ibans

I partially undid this recent addition. Two-way to one-way is pretty straightforward (and maybe isn't needed), but potentially encouraging someone under a one-way Iban to continue to pursue an editor by seeking a two-way can get problematic quickly. If that is going to be mentioned at all, the language would need to be crafted with care.

Requesting 1-way to 2-way isn't appealing the ban, but requesting new sanctions, so that doesn't really belong at the line in question. Generally, someone under a 1-way should not be pursuing the other editor at all, and the language I removed leaves that too open. Only in extreme cases (e.g., WP:HOUNDING using the one-way) would a one-way to two-way request be valid; the person not under the sanction by nature has fairly wide latitude to discuss the sanctioned editor normally before it reaches that threshold. If there is going to be text on this specific scenario, there's going to need to be quite a bit of similar warning including that there is a high risk of WP:BOOMERANG for such a request. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:53, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

This was twice confirmed at AN this year. The exact argument you're making was rejected twice in appeals, which is what led to my clarification in the first place. I put it back to what I changed it to. If you want to remove the whole thing we can launch an RFC, but what I added has consensus from AN whereas what you added doesn't have consensus anywhere. The whole issue is 1-way to 2-way not the other way around. Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:49, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Please remember to gain consensus for significant policy changes like this rather than continuing to reinsert it. You claim consensus, but are only making broad generalizations about AN. If there was consensus for a specific change, it should not be hard to link what you keep referring to. That said, appeals do not make policy, and crafting specific carefully tailored language to implement policy should be done here even if a rough intent has been drawn out elsewhere.

On that note, it would also be odd and premature to suggest launching an RfC all of a sudden and seems to have missed what I said when I only partially removed the change. There were specific issues that needed to be addressed there and above. That's the purpose of this new section. I'm also confused as to why you now want your addition about 2 to 1-way bans removed even though no one was objecting to that part. Either way, an RfC wouldn't be warranted (read WP:RFCBEFORE) until well after if editors on this page could not agree on specific language.

A few technical notes just to reiterate them, but the bullet deals with appeals of a ban, not requesting new sanctions. Likewise, the language addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum already addresses at least in concept a case of where a one-way banned user might be hounded by the other, but those examples are going to be very case-by-case to the point crafting specific language on that would need to be careful of WP:CREEP. We're not going to have every example of that here, so care is needed for examples that are included. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:26, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm fine with you reverting it in whole. The two AN threads mentioned in my edit summaries are from May 2020 and Dec 2020. I'll consider launching an RFC. Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:28, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging with that addition. However after reading over those, there was no such mandate as claimed in either of those threads by far. While Wugapodes merely undid their block in the first, that one actually does outline exactly the kind of behavior we're trying to avoid where the 1-way editor takes potshots at the other under the mantle of discussing their own ban as Wugapodes explained to you there. The second just looks to be a continuation of that where the one-way editor did not help themselves in how they acted even though admins then saw issues with the unsanctioned party too. That's exactly the type of instance where carte blanche language I first removed would only encourage editors into messy situations like that, especially since interaction banned editors typically have already demonstrated they really can't handle addressing the other party appropriately.

Instead, requesting a 1-way to 2-way by the involved party requires both solid evidence and focus solely on continued inappropriate interaction by the other. It's not a "free pass" to air all grievances about the other party (e.g., WP:NOTTHEM), but must be specific to issues with the interaction sanction itself with a high risk of a boomerang if they deviate from that. Nothing has changed in that regard, so we can't add language that would even inadvertently circumvent that and possibly lead to more harassment. If someone wants to work on more appropriate guidance for I-banned editors, they are more than welcome to chime in on starting that process. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Please do not characterize my behavior as "potshots"; that feels like a potshot. Our policies document what we already do. I haven't looked everywhere, but at the WP:AELOG the only related example I see is where Tryptofish appealed a two-way IBAN which they received from a case which you filed against the other party. I think the purpose of many IBANs is to prevent users from engaging in personalized editing disputes or filing complaints which do not relate to themself. Requesting that a sanction be placed on another party makes sense as an exception to protect a sanctioned user. I am not sure why there would be different standards for requesting a 1-way to 2-way conversion by the involved party. A vexatious complaint against someone who has previously been the target of harassment would be virtually guaranteed a boomerang. I don't think we have any evidence demonstrating a reluctance from administrators to issue boomerangs.... I would expect that there would need to be new evidence of harassment against the subject of a one-way IBAN to show that there is still a problem, because any evidence of harassment would have been brought up at the initial case. (Unless IBANs are issued without a noticeboard discussion?) Old evidence would be appropriate to show a pattern with the new evidence, just like any other case. We shouldn't have to spell all of this out. We do actually have an Arbitration principle which seems applicable: Consideration of evidence. Maybe this language would work:

• appealing the ban, including requesting 1-way IBANs be converted into 2-way IBANs (or vice-versa). Certain considerations of evidence should be made for such conversion requests.

Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC) Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

And that was what I was talking about. Excluding ban appeals, you should not be getting involved or even be concerned about discussions of your interactions with Specifico.

For the rest, considering this discussion looks to be based more in a recent personal dispute, it's probably better to let this be since trying to change policy in such instances is generally discouraged. If you are still having troubles with your interaction ban, that shouldn't be hashed out here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Besides my complaint about your comment, I have not been discussing anything about myself. I have been discussing policy which applies to everyone. A request to change a one-way to a two-way is not an appeal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, Besides my complaint about your comment, is commenting on my summary of what other's have said about your interaction with Specifico. There is no way around that and should not have been done under an interaction ban. That isn't normally something we would need to add additional instructions on though since most editors understand that even tangential returning to the dispute like that is not ok. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm responding here because of the ping, although I don't want to get much involved in this discussion, if I can help it. I'll just state the way that I view this question.

As for requesting that a 2-way be changed to a 1-way, so as to appeal the part of the 2-way that applied to oneself, I believe that should be regarded as a permissible and rather routine kind of request.

When the request is to convert a 1-way to a 2-way, there are some matters of context that come into play. In other words, it may not be enough to simply say that 1-way to 2-way appeals are always acceptable. When the person making the request is the person not subject to the 1-way restriction, and they are in effect asking the ban to be extended to apply to themselves, that's a somewhat unusual situation (and not, I think, what has been discussed here), but it would generally be prudent to grant the request.

So that brings us to the more expected variant, which is where someone subject to a 1-way IBAN asks that it be made 2-way, to apply to the other person. If the context is that the other person has been following the restricted person around or baiting them, making it difficult for the restricted person to adhere to their own restrictions, there might be a case for such a request to be valid. We certainly don't want people abusing 1-way bans by taking advantage of the person under the 1-way restriction. But that requires that the restricted editor, the one requesting expansion of the IBAN, both have clear documentation that this is actually going on (with diffs) and simultaneously be absolutely clean in adhering to their restrictions (not doing anything to bait the problem, not simply doing opposition research). In those limited conditions, I think such an appeal is appropriate. But otherwise, it's not appropriate, because that would mean the person under the 1-way is indeed not respecting their 1-way restriction, and as KofA correctly said, it would be asking for a new sanction as opposed to an appeal.

What I think that means is that it may be a mistake to say that appeals to change 1-way to 2-way are always OK. It may be better to say that persons subject to a 1-way may make good-faith complaints about the other party, if the other party is unilaterally making the 1-way restriction untenable (leaving it to others to decide what to do regarding the other party, and with the possibility of a boomerang if the complaint is without merit).

I want to emphasize that I am not implying and not thinking that anything I said there applies to anyone in this discussion. Rather, that's how I would want the language of the policy to be thought about. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:48, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I would add that reasons to request expansion would be any forms of persistent incivility or major incivility towards the banned party, such as major grave dancing, personal attacks, etc. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:51, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I also want to add that nothing I have said here applies to anyone in particular. My focus is on what will be good for editors in the future. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

It's important to distinguish, however, between grave dancing and personal attacks that are aimed directly at the other person in ways that the other person cannot avoid even when trying to stay out of the way, versus those things happening where the other person would only be looking if doing "opposition research". In other words, someone placed on a 1-way IBAN should not be observing the other person to look for these things. I know that can sound unfair, as in why should that be happening behind someone's back, but I still believe that it is necessary if 1-way IBANs are to work. Banned means banned, or else it becomes meaningless. I'm OK with third parties raising complaints about such situations if the problem is genuinely serious, and the 1-way banned editor can be notified and allowed to comment when that happens, but I also see this as something that can be abused by third parties: a 1-way IBAN should not be weaponized against the editor it was supposed to protect. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the banned party should not be monitoring the person they're banned from. Certainly anything that directly interferes with editing is the most actionable, but persistently casting aspersions to harm someone's reputation, or unfairly criticizing the banned editor on talk pages they both are participating in, for example, should also be actionable. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

"Talk pages they both are participating in": there should be no such thing. As for reputation-harming, the unrestricted editor should not be, in effect, actively canvassing against the restricted editor, but again "you're harming their reputation" is weaponizing the 1-way in an inappropriate way. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I am referring to: "Although the interaction-banned users are generally allowed to edit the same pages or discussions so long as they avoid each other, they are not allowed to interact with each other" at WP:IBAN. Yes, there is risk of abuse. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:58, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

That's a good point, thanks. We're actually thinking the same things, and have just been saying them in different ways. An editor on a 1-way who is scrupulously following what you just quoted, but unavoidably sees the other editor badmouthing them or baiting them on the very same talk page, should have every right to object to that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• Responding because I was pinged---I had actually seen this change a few days ago when responding to some BANEX questions, and I thought it was an accurate summary of de facto practice seen this year so I left it alone. Do I think it is prudent to let editors under a 1-way IBAN ask that the other party also get an IBAN? No. Do I think it is established practice to allow it? Yes. As such it should be documented in some way until a widely publicized discussion comes to an explicit consensus on the matter. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:29, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm getting drawn into this discussion more than I had intended, sorry. But I disagree that we make changes to policy because something has been happening, as opposed to because something has gotten consensus. If it's been happening so widely and without dispute, that may be a de facto temporary consensus, but I'm not sure that has happened here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:34, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• I just posted this: [5]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Would this language for WP:BANEX work:

Unless stated otherwise, article, page, topic, or interaction bans do not apply to the following:

...

• appealing the ban, including requesting that 2-way IBANs be converted into 1-way IBANs

3. Requesting that 1-way IBANS be expanded to 2-way IBANs. Certain considerations of evidence should be made when the subject of a 1-way IBAN requests that the ban be applied to the other party.

Does this cover the concerns? Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

In one fish's opinion, I would support the addition to the bullet point, which is the same as what KofA tried to do in this edit: [6]. But I would probably not do the #3, because it tends towards WP:CREEP, and when I look back at the policy page, the first bullet point in the bullet point list really covers it: "asking an administrator to take action against a violation of an interaction ban by another user (but normally not more than once, and only by mentioning the fact of the violation)". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Wait, I made a mistake in saying that. The first bullet point deals with violations of an existing IBAN, not violating the spirit of the IBAN. I'd have to think about this some more. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:54, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll wait to see what you were thinking, but I'll chime in that #3 is still sort of a WP:BEANS invitation (e.g., opening up the non-sanctioned editor for further harassment, which is more a concern than a rarer case of gaming). That's especially since 1-ways are supposed to tell the other to leave the editor alone, full stop. It definitely needs to be much stronger language in that context given that it's already established a sanction was needed. Honestly, I think WP:CONDUCTTOBANNED already covers the spirit of the original concern, but there might be ways to make it harder for sanctioned editors to try to game that part of the policy. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

3. Misconduct towards the subject of a 1-way IBAN may permit that user to request that the ban be expanded to a 2-way IBAN to protect them from abuse by the other party. Certain considerations of evidence should be made.

This is kind of awkward, but it includes WP:CONDUCTTOBANNED which I had overlooked. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:02, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• I have to concur entirely with the post by Kingofaces43 at 22:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC). Also agree strongly with Tryptofish: "disagree that we make changes to policy because something has been happening, as opposed to because something has gotten consensus". If it's been happening so frequently that it looks like a consensus shift, then (as Levivich, I think, was suggesting) open an RfC about changing the policy. The implication above that if three or four editors here come to some agreement that this is consensus to change the policy is incorrect (see WP:PROPOSAL, WP:PGCHANGE). If a few editors fail to do so, that may be a good indication that consensus for such a change is unlikely to emerge. But a tiny handful of regulars on a policypage (who often agree with each other) are very likely to come to a "micro-consensus" amongst themselves that does not reflect broader views (i.e., a WP:FALSECONSENSUS). No substantive changes this major should be made without RfCing it, whether that is now or later. FWIW, I oppose any change that makes it easier for someone under a 1-way to make further trouble. They got put under that restriction for a reason. If the party not subject to that I-ban uses its 1-way nature to harass the banned party, this will become apparent to other editors, who are welcome to report the problem and suggest it be converted into a 2-way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• I have a question. In addition to the incidents that have already been linked to in this thread, have there been instances of an editor under a 1-way IBAN requesting that it be made 2-way (not third parties requesting it), where the request has been agreed to? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  I haven't been able to find any. We could go through the two-way IBANs at WP:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community to see if any had been converted by request...but it seems rare. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:17, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

If we can't find consensus would it make sense to just link to this discussion from the page? Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to simply give this discussion some more time, to see if more editors show up. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• First, I'm going to say sorry to Kolya B., who I think got caught up in this through no fault of their own. But I have now concluded that I oppose any change to the IBAN section unless there is a widely-announced RfC with a consensus to change it (and I don't think there is a good reason to take up the community's time with such an RfC). I think the existing wording is sufficient to allow appeals, and I've concluded that no good will come from inviting requests to make 1-way into 2-way. I've been led to this conclusion by events elsewhere on-site, that are separate from this discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Conversion to 2 way can easily be used as a soapbox for attacks disguised as an appeal, thus defeating the point of the ban. Contrast that with an appeal on the basis of the 1 way IBAN enabling harassment, with no suggestion as to whether to remove the IBAN or convert it to 2 way (allowing the community to decide itself on that particular). The latter, I’d think, is already permitted under existing policy? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, we've discussed the gaming issue. Appeals may work but due to WP:NOTTHEM they may be challenging. I think we need to separately discuss the consequences of the policy to the banned editor and the protected editor. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  The answer to what PR actually asked is that, yes, it's already adequately covered by the existing wording. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  NOTTHEM is not really applicable to IBANs, since, unlike topic bans which are all about the editor being banned, IBANs are entirely about interactions with another editor. I think the existing provision already covered such an appeal. The issue with the appeal leading up to this decision was the focus on getting the other editor ibanned, rather than appealing ones own IBAN which was causing difficulties. There’s a difference between the two. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:30, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  The main reason I don't think the appeal process adequately covers this is because appeals are limited and apply to past events. If the one-way protected editor was intent on perpetually harassing the banned editor, the banned editor may exhaust their appeals without their requested IBAN expansion being granted, and continue to experience harassment. I started a new section below to try to illustrate the potential experience of a banned user. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think IBAN harassment usually quite rare, but it could happen. I don’t think there’s any limit to appeals, as long as they’re reasonable. If it’s not reasonable, it could be seen as pushing an agenda. I think your appeals ran into misfortune partially due to heavy-handed admining (justified or not), and the fact that you worded your appeals as attempts to IBAN the other editor, rather than as appeals for your own IBAN (again, letting the community decide whether that’s dealt with by lifting or by converting to 2 way). One can also always have the option to contact a thoughtful admin privately with your evidence. If they’re convinced, they can raise an appeal in their own name, without involving the ibanned editor at all. You were just unlucky in that you chose an admin who has a stronger policy of transparency/stuff being onwiki (perfectly reasonable, and they did disclose it on their userpage). If you choose an admin more open to private conversation, what I just said might’ve worked. I don’t think any policy needs changing here, there are various options for 1-way ibanned editors to deal with harassment, all those mentioned plus private appeals directly to ArbCom. I think you were just really unlucky in your appeal in various ways. I’m not sure how much more we should elaborate on this page about it though, or if we should explicitly loosen the protections. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:48, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  I want to be clear that I have no skin in the game here. You may contact me by email if you would like to discuss anything to do with me personally. There are limits to appeals according to WP:AE:

  While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.

  And, "Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction...."[7] While this is all very rare, it shows the one-way IBAN as it is written is flawed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Consequences to banned editor

So, if we treat conversion to 2-way as an appeal that means the banned editor experiencing harassment can only complain to their blocking administrator and then post to WP:AN or WP:AE once, and then finally to ARCA. The banned user cannot complain on-wiki to administrators, cannot post at WP:ANI, and cannot post at WP:AN or WP:AE more than once. If I have that right, I would say that that would maybe be fair if Arbcom was more willing to hear such complaints by email than others? Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Listen, I'm undergoing the kind of abuse that results from gaming right now, in real time, and I'm losing patience here. The consequences to the banned editor are that they have to conform to the ban. What you say about "cannot complain on-wiki" is not what the existing language says ("and only by mentioning the fact of the violation"). Editors have the right to submit private evidence to ArbCom via email, and we cannot change ArbCom policy here. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I have been following your experience and I am sympathetic, but I feel that we have to consider scenarios of abuse in either direction. I'm not sure if I understand your interpretation of my words, but when I said "cannot complain on-wiki to administrators" what I meant was that a banned editor cannot complain on an administrator's talk page or ping them to their talk page to discuss the other editor. Editors who are protected by a one-way IBAN who are experiencing abuse have the privilege of being able to talk openly about it, but editors who are banned by a one-way do not have that privilege. While we cannot change ArbCom policy here, we can decide what changes we should pursue. The timing of all of this is odd, so maybe we should come back to it.... Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

What I tried to say, admittedly not at my best, was that one can contact an admin, but must do so "by mentioning the fact of the violation" and providing a link, without further commenting on the other, not-banned, party. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether that line applies; I don't know if the protected editor can technically violate a one-way IBAN against another party. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:25, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Possibility of asking topic-banned user about the rationale of an edit they made within that topic

Is it correctly understood that if an editor is topic-banned from a certain topic, they are prohibited from answering any questions regarding any edits they made in that area prior to the ban? The reason I'm asking is that I'm currently trying to find sourcing for a claim made in Quackery which was added by an editor who was topic banned as a result of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine. I have been unable to find a source to support the statement so far, and thought it would be easier to ask the person who originally added the statement, even if just to get pointers to guide me in the search, but found they were topic-banned now. If my assumption is correct, does this not create an issue whenever old edits need to be discussed, or is the rationale that any benefits of allowing such a discussion are outweighed by the interest in preventing whatever behavior led to the topic ban resurfacing? Sincerely, InsaneHacker (💬) 20:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Just my individual reading of the policy, but my inclination would be not to ask the editor, because it would put them in a difficult position, and they really would not be permitted to reply to you. My suggestion instead is to ask about the point in general (not in terms of that editor's particular edit) on the article talk page, or maybe at WT:MED. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

That was my inclination as well. Just wanted to get it confirmed. I will try to find answers elsewhere. Thanks! Sincerely, InsaneHacker (💬) 12:45, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

authority to ban

This statement is confusing: {{xt|Except as noted above, individual editors, including administrators, may not directly impose bans.}} That's not really correct, though -- individual admins can topic ban, for instance. Is this just maybe outdated? —valereee (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

It's covered under #3 of the list above the sentence. Admins can implement community consensus of topic bans, or can topic ban in certain topic areas where the community/ArbCom has delegated banning power. Otherwise, they can't ban editors unilaterally I believe. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

What that editor said. Administrators can block for disruption or policy-based reasons, but the greater sanction of a ban has to originate from the community's authorization, either directly or delegated (the arbitration committee derives its right to ban through the arbitration policy, whereby the community delegated authority to the committee). isaacl (talk) 01:33, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Topic ban evasion

Does WP:BANEVASION also applies to edits made in contravention of a topic ban? Does it cover all of the following: mainspace edits, comments, starting an RfC, nominating an article for GA etc.VR _talk 21:56, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it does. That's why topic bans typically include the phrase "broadly construed". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Tryptofish. So should we amend WP:BANEVASION to include topic ban too? Another question is how to determine if an edit violated TBAN? Its fairly easy to detect violations of site-bans but detecting violations of tbans are harder.VR _talk 00:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

You're very welcome! I've never thought that that was a problem. Is there a recent example that would indicate a need for clarification? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:15, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

New essay: Banning and duty of care

Banning and Duty of care has been created. Prolific editors often feel highly distressed after being banned. People feel bad after being fired from a job too, even if they are financially secure. But at least in the corporate world care is usually taken to minimise the pain of the rejection. ( Even in investment banking in the 90s, where we had lad culture, didn't benefit from many written rules or feminine influence, & only had to comply with a 2 line termination clause when firing contractors, we treated them with much greater care than is often the case on Wikipedia. ) No individual admin or editor is to blame for this, it's more a culture thing. In a tiny way, the new essay aims to act against this. Maybe I'm wrong, recent events suggest I may be in the minority on these things. But if anyone reads the essay and agrees it has value, please consider moving it to main space & adding it to the 'See also' of this policy. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:46, 23 May 2021 (UTC)