Grants talk:IdeaLab/group or gang action against an editor needs more time-efficient final remedies

Severe

@Nick Levinson: I say this as someone who was targeted by false complaints myself: These punishments are too severe. There are going to be cases in which a complaint is unmerited but the accuser sincerely thought it wasn't. It sounds like you were the target of the false complaint, and it sounds like...

1. Someone tried to hide evidence that would have exonerated you while the complaint was being discussed.
2. While the initial complaint was being discussed, someone else added more complaints.
3. Your accuser's little friends showed up in the peanut gallery but the people who'd have defended you didn't even know you'd been accused—and you'd have been accused of canvassing if you'd told them.
4. You wrote a rebuttal but feel that no one read it or that they didn't read it thoroughly.
5. Either your accuser deliberately wrote a too-big-to-fail complaint or the admins said "This is too long to read, so I will assume it's merited and punish the accused without examining it closely."
6. You believe or suspect that your accuser promoted the complaint in secret.
7. You created some content for which there was consensus, but then someone waited 13 months until the crowd died down and reversed it.
8. Someone who was fairly blocked got unblocked and you don't think they should have been.

Hm... Most of this is pretty messed up, and I can say that if this did happen, you're not the only one. Some of these have straightforward solutions.

1. Allow the accused to counter-file for any misconduct that the accuser may perform during the process, such as hiding exonerating evidence or any lying, misrepresentation or other impropriety in the complaint and allow sufficient time for the accused to do so.
2. Qualitatively different complaints should be filed separately. Someone who is guilty of POV-pushing may not be guilty of harassment, etc. Often, editors frustrated with edit warring or even aggressive but acceptable editing imagine hostility on the part of their opponents.
3. Develop an acceptable notification policy along the lines of WP:CANVASSING. For example, allow the accused to post a neutral notice that the proceeding is taking place on the talk page of the article in question. Punish votestacking regardless of whether it is the accuser or accused who votestacks.
4. To avoid the appearance of favoritism, admins are encouraged to make it clear that they read the rebuttal, such as by quoting or reacting to part of it in their statements. (Flat-out requiring this would invite gaming.)
5. Enforce length limits. Any admin who does not feel that they have time to thoroughly examine both the complaint and a rebuttal 1.5 times its length should not participate in the process. If the complaint is too long, tell the complainant to come back with something shorter. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't want to use this page for specific matters involving articles, an essay, etc., lest I be accused of not using proper channels for dispute resolution. But what I wrote about on the Grants page were not imagined. On the solutions:

Pretty much any solutions that will likely help are fine with me.

Solution 1, supporting counterfiling, I think is allowed now. Maybe it's not, but, if it is, it tends to look bad for the countercomplainer unless the merit is overwhelming and it tends to lead deciders to think both sides are at fault and should both be told to go away. It begins to look personal rather than like something affecting a Wikimedia project.

Solution 2, that qualitative complaints should be separate, yes, or at least that the respondent should be allowed to treat them as each requiring its own response, with other people following accordingly.

Solution 3, partly for a neutral notice: That's already allowed. I think the prohibition on canvassing says so. We can post a neutral invitation to a WikiProject, for example.

Solution 3, against votestacking: It's already discouraged by a guideline in Wikipedia.

Solution 4, for recognition of a rebuttal's content: Yes, and quoting is not needed. Complete nonrecognition is kind of obvious and disturbing.

Solution 5, for a length limit: I'm said to write replies that are too long. But what happens is that someone says something like "the article is a POV OR coatrack BLP mess." That contains four charges and it's not enough to reply, "it's neutral, topical, sourced, and the person wrote the content herself in a source." But given the nine words and the fourteen-word reply I'd have exceeded the 1.5x limit, and, if the original post seemed believable (and we should usually assume it does), that reply would not have been persuasive. Packing charges like sardines is common. Replying densely for concision can reduce accessibility by readers, so drafting is difficult enough, but the ratio may not work, either.

Maybe we're onto something. Allowing what most people do is consistent with the whole philosophy of Wikimedia but trimming the extremes would help; and if we need to educate the mainstream that'll take more effort but could help, too.

The ping didn't notify me across Wikimedia projects, so I just saw this tonight when I did my near-monthly check of watchlists. Thank you for helping.

Nick Levinson (talk) 00:08, 31 July 2016 (UTC) (Further indented for visual clarity and corrected punctuation: 00:19, 31 July 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)