Grants talk:IdeaLab/Severe punishments for harassers

Questions

I'd like to ask how this would expand on the current policies on harassment. For example, here's how I typically hand out blocks:

1. Indefinite blocks are given when the user has made completely unacceptable comments towards another editor. These types of comments would be things like threats of sexual or physical harm, death threats, libelous allegations (rape, pedophilia, murder, etc.), legal threats, and the like - things that would merit an indefinite block upon first sight.

1. Indefinite blocks are handed out when a user has repeatedly posted content and/or acted in a way that could be seen as harassment and have received several temporary blocks for the same behavior. In other words, they know that their actions are inappropriate and just don't care.

1. Temporary blocks are given out when the user has made several inappropriate comments but there's the potential that the editor could improve or would otherwise be fine with other editors. This would be in situations where the interaction could be the result of two specific people working together and restricting them (via block or an interaction ban) would help resolve the situation. In this situation the user would ideally have been given at least 1-3 warnings that their behavior was problematic and given the opportunity to resolve the issue.

1. Temporary blocks given out to editors who have made several comments that can be seen as inappropriate and/or have been hounding a specific editor or area despite several clear cut warnings that their conduct has been seen as harassment by one or more people, some of whom were uninvolved. What makes this different from the former is that this would be a situation where the editor's actions could be seen as non-harassment and the block is meant to be more of a cooling off period since things have grown heated and the user in question is not heeding requests to step away for the time being and/or discuss things neutrally.

My basic thought process is that there are very few things that would merit an indefinite or extremely long block on first sight. There can be temporary blocks for long or short periods of time, but ideally the user needs to have received one or more warnings about their behavior and given the opportunity to improve. The main reason for this is that harassment tends to be in the eye of the beholder and there have been multiple occasions where someone didn't intend for their actions to be seen as harassment. There have also been situations where there actually hasn't been any harassment and the person is being overly sensitive to someone trying to help point out guidelines.

I'm just curious as to how this would expand on current guidelines and practices. I think that the main thing standing in the way of this is the question of what would be construed as harassment and once that's defined, what's the cutoff for assuming good will or trying to mediate, and how this differs from what's currently in practice. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:48, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Grants to improve your project

Greetings! The Project Grants program is currently accepting proposals for funding. The deadline for draft submissions is tommorrow. If you have ideas for software, offline outreach, research, online community organizing, or other projects that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers, start your proposal today! Please encourage others who have great ideas to apply as well. Support is available if you want help turning your idea into a grant request.

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The next open call for Project Grants will be in October 2016. You can also consider applying for a Rapid Grant, if your project does not require a large amount of funding, as applications can be submitted anytime. Feel free to ping me if you need help getting your proposal started. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 22:49, 1 August 2016 (UTC)