Grants talk:IdeaLab/Zero Tolerance Policy

This seems to majorly go against Assume Good Faith, which I personally feel is a valuable tenant. I don't think that all harassers realize that they are perceived that way, and I would prefer working to reform them. I'm also generally opposed to Zero Tolerance or Strike policies, as they try to pigeonhole all problems into a single, definitive solution. Increasing civility is an admirable goals, but banning everyone who makes a mistake—rather than using a lesser or escalating punitive response—sounds like a recipe to increase hostility. As another consideration, I think that a certain amount of harassment is seen as BITEy responses coming from established editors and admins. These would likely be the ones enforcing this policy and it sounds like it could be used to block away complainers if, for instance, they hound a user to explain a revert or ban. —Ost316 (talk) 17:30, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

• Yeah... there's not a lot of wiggle room to this. As an admin, I do have some things that I have zero tolerance on, such as rape, violence, death, or legal threats. If someone is posting something that is out and out harassment (like creating a page that says John Smith is an *expletive*), that gets an insta block as well. However if someone is posting something that could potentially be construed as frustration, I warn instead of block. The reason for this is that sometime people say things in the heat of the moment or phrase things without realizing that you can't read inflection on the Internet - something posted in jest could be seen as harassment. We've all been guilty of that in some arena - texts, emails, or forum posts that someone misinterpreted or the like. Going for zero tolerance takes away that air of good faith and may cost us an editor that could actually be fairly beneficial in the long run - I know I've come across several that initially seemed bad, only for this to all be unintentional. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:12, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

What about when the abusers use the zero tolerance policy for their own purposes? Lucy346 (talk) 06:17, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I have to agree with Ost. This would only work if "harassment" were defined very very clearly, and there's just too much gray area. Tokyogirl points out that there is something like a zero-tolerance policy for legal threats, but those tend to be a lot more straightforward. They have all that specific terminology like "sue" and "libel" and "defamation." Even something ambiguous like "I feel like I need a lawyer" can be cleared up in a post or two. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:42, 23 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.

• Submit a grant request
• Learn from examples of completed Individual Engagement Grants or Project and Event Grants

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)