Community health initiative/User reporting system/Background discussions and research

The following are links to discussions and information pertinent to the WMF's Anti-Harassment Tools team 2018 project of building improved tools and workflows to report harassment.

2017 Insights survey

From the 2017 CE Insights survey:

• In the past six months, how often did you report to the following groups for being harassed or attacked:
  • Functionaries (117.01) — 32% yes
  • Other volunteers (117.02) — 36% yes
  • WMF staff (117.03) — 9% yes
  • Staff of chapters or affiliates (117.04) — 9% yes
• To what extent was the problem resolved the last time you reported it to:
  • Functionaries (119.01) — 60% not at all resolved
  • Other volunteers (119.02) — 56% not at all resolved
  • WMF staff (119.03) — 76% not at all resolved
  • Staff of chapters or affiliates (119.04) — 79% not at all resolved
• Overall, how useful was the response you received the last time you reported it to:
  • Functionaries (118.01) — 54% not at all useful
  • Other volunteers (118.02) — 48% not at all useful
  • WMF staff (118.03) — 77% not at all useful
  • Staff of chapters or affiliates (118.04) — 75% not at all useful
• The following community processes are used for dealing with user behavior. To what extent do they need improvement?
  • Tools and processes for reporting users (113.01) — 50% Quite a bit+
  • Noticeboards (113.02) — 43%
  • Blocking tools (113.03) — 43%
  • Admin selection and review process (113.04) — 48%
  • Policies (113.05) — 49%
  • Other (113.06) — 58%
  • Banning tools (113.07) — 43%

IdeaLab submissions

• Making it an option to 'flag' an editor, after which a moderator would come and see whether the user should be blocked
• Make it very easy to report harassment to an anti-harassment force
• Simplify ways to expose overly-subjective arguments violating WP:NPOV and WP:CIVIL, using "POV-.." and "UW-.." templates designed for discussion pages.
• Harassment of Editors of an Article (talk page templates as reporting)
• Stop It Now! Button
• The Protection of Collaborative Information (anonymous reporting)
• way of reporting harassment from an admin
• Simpler, more accessible, feedback options. (buttons to report or rate comments)
• Require notification first to encourage editors to attempt to resolve things amicably before reporting them for a ban discussion
• Prompt and Quick Response to Reporting
• Confidential harassment support 24-7
• Community discussion on harassment reporting

English Wikipedia Talk page comments

• Wikipedia_talk:Administrators’_noticeboard & Archives
  • Archiving issue?  — confusion on how archiving works (there are many similar sections)
  • A friendly reminder about WP:WALLOFTEXT might be helpful?
  • Discussion archived without closure — Confusion about archival, ‘Resolved’ template
  • Very unsatisfied with process. Could changed be made? (Better for Community Pump?) — proposes that only admins should participate, that participation is mandatory, reduce non-admin activity, and to better signify which users are admins
  • Minimum experience on thread closing — Proposes that only tenured users should be able to archive discussions
  • Please do not One-Click Archive threads until at least 24 hours after close
  • Closing - is it really always necessary? — discussion about making ‘closing’ of threads mandatory before archival
  • Usernames in ANI headings — what should reported cases by titled?
  • A guideline on what to do if an ANI report goes stale?
  • Page is reaching near 750KB and going towards 1MB as of how it is increasing now — performance and mobile data concerns

• Village Pump
  • ThePahntomBot reporting to noticeboards — a bot that automatically reports identifyable abuse. But why not just use filters?
  • ANI discussion structure and lack thereof — a few suggestions on how to add structure to ANI (limiting word count, use RFC/U’s form/template, limit scopecreep of discussions, separate admin and non-admin comments)
  • Organization of WP:AN, WP:ANI, and similar noticeboards (including this one!) — Use sub-pages
  • Formatted ANI Discussions — use strict forms. Heavily opposed
  • Proposing DRN for user conduct issues — alternative method for reporting and discussing user conduct issues
  • Classified index or subject-tagging for Village Pump discussions — System for tagging old sections for later retrieval.
  • Getting to more productive discussions at AN/I using encryption — using a clerk as an intermediary to keep the discussion civil
  • Automatic notification if a thread is started about an editor on AN/I
  • WP:ARBPOL, Harassment, and Private hearings — opposed proposal to keep more information private after a private ArbCom case.

• Other
  • en:Wikipedia talk:Volunteer Response Team § Validate OTRS tickets — discussion about displaying some private submission information publicly after closure
  • en:Wikipedia:Dispute resolution/2017 RfC — Discussion about calcifying some aspects of Mediation and dispute resolution. Overall rejected, but the discussion was engaging.
  • en:Wikipedia:2017 ANI reform RfC — Strongly opposed discussion about adding structure to ANI (word limits, templates, waiting period, clerks, and an edit filter)
  • Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Conflict Resolution — Discussion about how a WikiProject aimed at resolving conflict between users could operate. Seems to be mostly dormant.
  • en:Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution § Moderated Dispute Resolution vs. Formal Mediation — Discussion (amongst many others) about why there are so many different forms of dispute resolution
  • en:Wikipedia_talk:Harassment § Need for a better mechanism for private reporting — a designated address to email such private information in the case of COI or undisclosed paid editing
  • en:Wikipedia_talk:Harassment § Flowcharts — Making help/project page instructions more straightforward for all users involved