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Requests for comment/Ombuds Commission inactivity

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Statement by Rschen7754

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I believe that we need to bring more accountability to the Ombuds Commission (OC). Currently, it is the only body tasked with monitoring the use of the CheckUser and Oversight tools, which have implications on the privacy of all users on Wikimedia.

However, it is clear that the persistent inactivity of several members throughout several terms has resulted in cases not being handled in a timely manner, and potentially having negative implications on the privacy of all editors.

Examples
  • The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee and others raised concerns about Alex Shih using CU in August 2018, but the investigation was not handled as late as February 2019. The English Wikipedia ArbCom was forced to put out a statement because Alex Shih was running for steward at this time. Had they not done so, he would have been granted even more access to private data than he had in the past.
  • Concerns were raised onwiki about Vodomar CU actions in November 2020, but the OC only contacted Vodomar in February 2021 [1]
  • Former member AmandaNP (talk · contribs) left comments illustrating the situation [2]. Some relevant portions: In my first year that I was an Ombud, we had a very large activity problem among members. The Commission could not decide matters without a majority of the Commission voting. Beyond 1 other person, sometimes 2, we could never get the required show up at the meetings we did have to get action on items.... I wrote the supermajority of decisions in year 1, but I didn't want to be the single driving voice of the OC [in year 2] and just have everyone support my work as variety of opinion is needed.... So I honestly couldn't bring myself to participate as much knowing that very few people could be making OC decisions and not enough appropriate discussion was happening, and I didn't want my name on it.
  • During 2019, while 22 cases were opened, only 14 were closed (and some were likely from the previous term). This is not a sustainable state of affairs. (Ombuds commission/2019/Report Jan-Jun, Ombuds commission/2019/Report Jul-Sep, Ombuds commission/2019/Report Oct-Dec)
  • As of March 2020, there were 9 cases open that were over a year old. 9 were over 6 months old. Ombuds commission/2020/Report Jan-Mar
  • Recent months have seen no activity reports at all, as apparently that consumes too much time [3].

I believe that the selection process, which is currently done by the Wikimedia Foundation, needs to select individuals qualified for and committed to handling these investigations. Inactive members should be able to be removed and replaced rather than having to wait for another term. If the WMF cannot accomplish this through their own selection processes, then the community should take over the selection process. --Rschen7754 01:29, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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  • Hi, @Rschen7754:, thanks for your comment. We rarely hear about the commission and I think your message is important. This year the commission has had a renewal and now is made up of 12 members. This allows us to handle cases more quickly. I'm a new ombuds, and since I was appointed I have noticed that that almost all of us have started reducing the backlog. I also started drafting last year's activity report but I am missing some data that will be added shortly. We are closing some complex cases and for this reason it is not ready yet but, given the serious delay, it will certainly be completed as soon as possible. The commission this year is made up of very experienced members, at least I realize that all my colleagues are excellent policy experts. Delays blamed on the commission are often not the fault of the OC. Some cases are very complex and require months of discussions, perhaps comparisons or discussions with WMF, furthermore we are not facilitated by the fact that many users, when contacted, respond after months or ignore our messages and our e-mails (contacts usually take place in private). All this makes our job very difficult. I think 2020 has been a difficult year for everyone, so no wonder there have been some inactive users, we are all volunteers. With the new commission, a lot has changed, new internal policies have been approved in order to speed up resolutions, several reports have already been made and several cases have been closed (after only a single month and with the vote of almost all the ombuds). We also intend to clarify some aspects of the policy and be more communicative with the community! We are working towards this. The commission is close to the community and follows its dynamics but it is often thought that this does not happen. I can't judge the work of the previous commissions as each commission implements different methods of work, but I assure you that this current one is doing everything possible to reduce the backlog. The commission is chosen by WMF because it examines the cases on behalf of the Board of Trustees, so if it didn't exist, WMF would have to examine the cases directly, and I don't know if the processing times would be shorter considering all the work that WMF has to do. Then I had to provide data to WMF (including on my experiences in RL) that I wouldn't give to other wiki users. Personally I have significantly decreased my contribution to projects and I'm dedicating myself as much as possible to the commission! Finally, the commission judges very delicate cases and too much haste can leads to errors. The most urgent cases are still solved before the others, but they are rare. Vodomar was contacted on 1 February, as soon as we took office, as the case was not urgent (as they have already been deflagged) and other previous cases needed to be resolved. I ask you to evaluate our work in a few months, since now 8 components are new ombuds and the others are all very active users (otherwise they wouldn't have been reconfirmed), I'm sure your opinion will be different. Our work is behind the scenes, it will hardly be known what we do, but personally I believe that we are working hard! We are a compact and very active group and I am sure we'll work well throughout the year! The commission is always available for any questions! Regards :) --Superpes15 (talk) 03:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to complement the message of my fellow colleague. This is my three term on the OC and I acknowledge that in addition to the fact that some members are absent the vast majority of the time - not to say all the time - also that those from whom we request responses are reluctant to answer, causing delays in the resolution of many cases. As one member stated, apart from the incorrectness of the users, this can also be the fault of the commission, which has never made it clear to the community that it is close to them. And this year, I think many things will improve. Regards, --Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 04:22, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not just inactive, somewhat incompetent. I've heard from my some fellow CUs, that, OC told them "to reduce the number of checks performed, by sharing the CU details". It is even more dangerous to "reduce the number of CU"s because it will inevitably store the CU data in email, wiki, IRC log, which is lot more permanent than the CU interface (90 days). Well you know, this is quite expected when you appoint someone with no CU experiences: there's button but you don't know how people use it. OC should have requirements on CUOS experiences. — regards, Revi 05:40, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't speak to past commissions (pre-2020), but I've written or voted on every proposed resolution during my terms and none have offered guidance or recommendations contrary to established practices or policy like that. Definitely worth having people with CUOS experience on the commission and in a position to review decisions/resolutions before they go out. – Ajraddatz (talk) 05:51, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I am also in my first term on the OC and concur with my colleagues in their comments. In my first weeks I read many older cases in an effort to get up to speed. Although I by no means read all of them I also saw no recommendations that were contrary to policy. I agree with @-revi: that comments such as he mentioned would be of concern. I also agree that CU/OS tool and policy experience should be desirable in the selection process. The issue of responding by defendants is an issue in some cases. I think in this area we have the trap that not only are we volunteers but so are the defendants. Hence its difficult to make them respond. I would be interested in discussion on how long we give them before we can assume they will not. We lack leverage here I think at times. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 14:51, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    What worries me is a case like Alex Shih, where he resigned CU and OS but was able to run for steward and nothing stopped him because at the time he was still on IN. --Rschen7754 16:41, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I saw the case and I can only tell you that it was processed as quickly as possible, there were numerous discussions and emails exchanged and the case was resolved in just 6 months despite being complex! Ombuds are not a "political" control tool that allows to avoid unpleasant candidacies and the removal of names from the noticeboards occurs only for very serious violations of the policy after a recommendation to WMF, nor are a commission that decides immediately, cases often deal with discussions concerning violations to be carefully discussed with the user involved, with the commission and sometimes with WMF. The fact that they were able to run as steward is certainly not attributable to the commission, which worked as hard as possible to resolve this and (simultaneously) other cases (9 more cases were closed in that semester), and I think that 6 months was a fair time to process the complaint. The OC should not be seen as a body that decides immediately, few cases are immediate, the majority require more careful procedures. However, putting pressure on the commission could undermine the serenity of the judgment and investigation, I do not consider it fair. --Superpes15 (talk) 17:18, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are few enough CU/OS users here. And what's more, some users cannot logically obtain either of these rights (here at en.wb stewards are explicitly allowed to process non-emergency CU/OS rights, and some wikis are just not large enough to require dedicated CU/OS), so to impose such a requirement would be unfair to users of smaller wikis. Leaderboard (talk) 18:09, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with the comments from my colleagues. We have a backlog because of inactivity from some previous commission members. I think we are on a good way to reduce this backlog, so that we can work on new cases in the future in shorter time. A comment like reduce the number of checks performed, by sharing the CU details would be dangerous of cause, but I have never read a comment like this from an OC member. I have to disagree with @-revi:s comment: Of cause there should be some users with CU experience in the commission, but I believe that a group like the OC benefits from different members with different backgrounds and different experiences, because everyone can bring his own experiences into the work. And you can know the CU / OS policy without ever having used CU or OS. --Ameisenigel (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Questions: How many editors actually volunteer for OC? Can the WMF person responsible release some data? I mean, is the issue that not enough competent and active people are volunteering, or that the WMF is picking all the incompetent/inactive people? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:00, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Also: why exactly is the OC a community position? If it is meant to aid the BoT, or whatever, why isn't it part of T&S or legal and done by WMF employees? Surely privacy policy issues are a legal matter, not an issue for volunteers with no legal, and often no CUOS, experience? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:07, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I will say that in past years (but I don't think this year) some members were picked who were not even admins on any Wikimedia wiki. --Rschen7754 01:13, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not part of WMF so I don't think I can answer correctly. My feeling is that the number of candidates is still higher than the number of ombuds, they are not chosen because they are the only candidates, but a selection is made based on contributions, on experience in RL, on person's background and on what a ombuds thinks can be brought to the commission. Not being a CU or an OS is not a problem, the OC needs users with time to devote to cases and with an excellent knowledge of policies, even in their smallest details, rather than user who are excellent CheckUsers. Those who have doubts about the use of technical tools can easily test them or ask for help from other ombuds. Indeed, I think that having a commission composed of CheckUsers, former stewards, OS, non-CU/OS administrators and non-administrators is an excellent compromise. The decisions of the commission are only collegial therefore no ombuds can say "I ask as a member of the OC that you do this" unless there has been a commission decision before. If an ombuds misperceives policies, there are 11 other ombuds that will help them understand which solution is correct! Personally I think I evaluate cases in a totally objective way, and I don't think anyone can complain about my work this month even though I am not a CU or an OS, if so please my colleagues to tell me and I would have no problem resigning. Why does WMF need such a commission? IMHO because it doesn't want to go directly into community affairs, and it's right for other impartial users to decide on these matters. I have never read that Legal disagreed with a decision of the OC, also because we would not all be jurists, but all of us are policy experts (there are several ombuds who in RL do jobs - or studies - relate to privacy or legal matters), that's for sure. Furthermore, we are always in close contact with WMF so for any doubts regarding small details of the policies, we can always ask Legal for an opinion (although in most cases it's not necessary). However, I kindly ask that the use of the term "incompetent" be avoided in reference to the commission, I don't believe that this can be said about us and it's a lack of respect towards us and our work, thanks --Superpes15 (talk) 10:14, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure about this reasoning (above). It seems quite suspect (no offence).
  1. The Ombuds Commission should not even be a thing. As with any site, privacy concerns are sent to privacy@organisation.org, handled by lawyers or other appropriately trained individuals. Why is a volunteer team of non-experts responsible for: When legally necessary, the ombuds will assist the General Counsel, the Executive Director or the board in handling the case. + The ombuds commission, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, investigates complaints about infringements of the Privacy Policy, the Access to nonpublic personal data policy, the CheckUser policy and the Oversight policy, on any Wikimedia project. It makes no sense.
  2. Incidentally, I doubt the above is true. Are we seriously saying if the WMF gets sued for privacy issues the BoT and Legal are going to hand it off to the Ombuds?
  3. If volunteers are handling the above, they should be people who actually have access to CUOS and experience using the tools. Why or how exactly is someone who has never used the tools before going to advise an enwiki CU on how to use their tools? Why would an enwiki CU even respect their opinion anyway? Every other bloke has an opinion on every other thing. As a general note (about anything): unless someone been in the mud and has a track record of performance and achievement, I would not personally think it wise to take advice from them. See en:Dunning–Kruger effect (of course, with the Ombuds it's probably required to take their advice, but the question is whether advice from someone who has no experience using the tools is helpful or harmful, accurate or inaccurate, clueful or clueless?)
  4. Having access to private data (or not) in a real life occupation does not correlate with a thorough understanding of the privacy policy and applicable law (GDPR etc). For example: when you're visiting the doctors and the receptionist is speaking out loud about a patient and their medications, or leaving notes with sensitive info lying around. Incidentally, most experiences of private data handling given in CUOS applications tend to be tangential, at best, to the job of reviewing use of CUOS tools.
It seems, to me, the Ombuds should be disbanded and their duties relegated back to legal & T&S. In regards to incompetent, the current Ombuds have only been in place for a short period of time, and I don't know most, so I make no comment about them (or any Ombud for that matter, I'm sure they're all very nice people). But it does seem quite clear, from Rschen's original comments, that past Ombuds Commissions (as an entity) are of questionable activity and qualification for their jobs, and as such the value of the Ombuds Commission appears dubious. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:46, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's ironic that you say CU/OSs shouldn't take the advice of people who haven't worked in the area, and yet here you are giving strong opinions and comments about an area that you have no experience in. Would the Dunning-Kruger effect not also apply to you? I'll leave it to others to reply (or not) to your comments re: should the OC even exist, but in terms of the composition of the OC the diversity of experiences among members is a good thing. There are always going to be long-term CU/OS on the Commission to add that experience, but it's useful to have outside voices and perspectives when deciding how policies should apply to different situations. It also gives an element of independent review, since the CU/OS community is generally rather small. Similar institutions in the real world, such as government boards that operated at arms-length from the government, typically also have a combination of subject matter experts and those with other (but still relevant) experience to achieve similar ends. – Ajraddatz (talk) 18:03, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It might (hence, take my comments with all the value they are worth, which may be none). Although, I'm not advising anyone on how to use their CUOS tools. I'm saying, as I've said before (and before this RfC was written up) that privacy issues shouldn't be investigated by a team of volunteers. This seems to be a simple statement. If the point is to review compliance with [legal] policies, and since the data is held by the WMF, it should be handled by appropriately qualified people in the WMF. I do not think the current state of affairs is a responsible proposition. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:08, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I should make it explicit that my comments are about the OC as an entity in general, not about any particular members, whose hard work I don't mean to malign. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:31, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's a fair comment re: investigation of privacy issues. Most of the complaints we deal with relate to alleged misuse of advanced access rather than breaches of privacy. The OC allows the community to have a strong voice in how advanced access is monitored and in providing an oversight function independent of the local ArbCom/user body, and one that is able to fully review the cases and all of the relevant evidence while providing a Wikimedia-wide perspective and standard for behaviour. I certainly wouldn't want the WMF to be responsible for evaluating CU/OS actions against our community policies. I would not object to more general privacy complaints being handled by another group like WMF legal, though they are very rare and I have not seen one in my time on the commission, and ultimately they would be reviewing and deciding even with the OC around.
All of this said, I'm not a huge fan of how the Commission works. I think the points raised by AmandaNP are very valid, and I am similarly concerned about the lack of analysis and involvement of other commission members. Or at least was last year, this year has been a lot better. But we're making changes to internal procedures, the Foundation is making changes to how it selects members, and together I'm optimistic that cases will be dealt with faster and with more thorough analysis in the future. Apologies if my response doesn't make a lot of sense, this was a train of thought as I jump between meetings, but hopefully the core point is there. – Ajraddatz (talk) 19:00, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To ProcrastinatingReader's point about removing the community from the process of reviewing privacy policy concerns, I'm not so sure. Without going into private detail about cases, the Commission has a role in looking at certain processes or practices within Wikimedia Foundation as well. The Commission reports directly to the Board from the perspective of volunteers, in a way that the lawyers cannot do. Also, the community prefers to regulate itself wherever possible, and I think the same principle applies to investigating complaints about CU and OS. AGK ■ 08:11, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If it's a community self-regulation thing (and I'm not entirely convinced but I understand others may not agree with my perspective) shouldn't the people be elected by the community, not appointed by the WMF? And I still feel like at least half of the Ombuds should be made up of people with past experience with the tools or with reviewing usage of the tools (such as prior/current CUOS, prior ArbCom, or prior stewards). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:40, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rather than adding to what has been said so far, I will speak about the issue of inactivity. The single most important thing that Commission members can do is actively participate in cases. If members are participating, we can investigate complaints and resolve them. In recent years, that has simply not been happening. This year, it has been. The Commission now has a 'buddy' system for new members, so that they're trained to prepare reports and nobody feels unable to help with the backlog. The Commission now also has, I think, a better appetite to ask for inactive members to be replaced – something that seems never to have been done. Some of these changes will take time to come through, but I see hard-working volunteers who are starting to make a difference to our open cases. What may help going forward is if we try to include some words alongside the Commission's statistical quarterly updates. Some words about what's been happening and whether member inactivity is a problem might inspire problems to be caught early. It could even inspire community members to offer themselves up as interim Commission members, if the WMF will agree to appoint them. AGK ■ 08:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would like to make a couple of comparisons for context on why I think the way the OC is selected is actually a good thing. Over my years I have served as the chair of a school board, however I am a research biologist not a teacher. I have served on an animal ethics committee for a University (as student rep), was involved the drafting of Legislation in a state in Australia (Environment Act of the ACT) yet I am not a politician and this is now law. I am now the Secretary of the IUBS WG for the Governance of Global Species lists. All of these opportunities used a combination of experts involved directly in the process along with individuals trusted to bring perspective and independence to these decision making groups. This is important. I totally agree that there must be a percentage of these groups with CU/OS or Steward experience, but counterbalancing this with other perspectives is important. This is particularly the case for the Ombuds. We are examining breaches of the Privacy Policy and other CU/ OS policies by people who already have high level access. It creates a perception, if not reality, of self protectionism if that group is selected by the people it will be potentially investigating. Perceptions also matter. It is important that people with genuine complaints feel they can make a complaint that will be looked at seriously by an independent body. I think its also important to obtain members from a variety of Wikis, but it is preferable not to do this with some sort of quota system, the way a political senate is selected for example, as quotas do ted to backfire. A community vote would likely stack the membership from wikis with the largest voter block. Instead what I think could be productive is for CU/OS members and Stewards etc make recommendations to WMF on the types of balance they would like to see in the selection process. This would have some involvement for the community but maintain the independaence of the OC. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:42, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion has spiralled a bit, so this answer is going to have to be broader than when I read the title. Firstly, inactivity has been a major issue with ombuds - unacceptably so. Editors of the experience level appointed should be able to make better calls on activity levels. While obviously new events crop up, especially last year, the average drop rate is consistently far higher than in other equivalent roles, such as arbcoms. I would make a requirement that if an ombuds fails to participate actively in a case for, say, 2 months (subject there being open cases, obviously) then they should be removed, and should drop us below 9 ombuds, appoint more. Last year started very well - the closing of the cases was mainly them hammering the backlog, but then it fell apart and the case progress rate of cases arising became far slower. Nosebagbear (talk)
  • @Nosebagbear: Just for follow up on this, I asked about replacement members and was told it was really hard to source enough qualified people to begin with (in fact, I was almost asked to stay on this year - against my own wishes). So the feasability might not be there to replace. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 05:23, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@AmandaNP: I'm surprised to hear this. I applied to be a member of the commission in December 2019, at a time when I viewed myself as fully qualified, and was not appointed. I was assured that there was a large number of highly qualified applicants, that the Foundation received more highly qualified applicants than had seats available, and that the OC is deliberately kept small. It's possible that these reassurances were made for the benefit of my ego, but it seems like each of these statements indicates that replacement commissioners would not be difficult to source. KevinL (aka L235 · t) 21:43, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@L235: I was definitely speaking of this last appointment round, late 2020, with what I was talking about specifically. The other concern about selection is the commission can't be too enwiki based, especially since enwiki has by far the most checks out of any wiki (except maybe login - but that's another story). I don't/can't remember the 2019 situation given the length of time since, but if my general memory serves right, there was not too much concern around 2019 - I could be wrong though. I'm not sure I have much recorded communication on the matter either, but I can look if you wish. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 02:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, completely understand. I didn't realize that the pool of applicants changed so much year to year, but that does make sense. Is there a solution to the inactivity problem you can think of? KevinL (aka L235 · t) 09:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moving to speed of cases, they are complicated, but 6 months being viewed as a positive for complex cases is insane. If the waiting times are primarily because of slow responses by accused parties, then they need to be reminded that all CUOS rights come with an active need to communicate promptly. Each round of to and fro shouldn't be taking weeks. I do have some sympathy for the accused here - the backlog in processing is no doubt making their participation very tough - defending yourself on accusations a year old must be tough. If the delays are significantly on the Ombuds side, as I believe they must be (given how case time stretches) then that also needs to be resolved. Nosebagbear (talk)
    • If the OC asks you a question about your tool use and you don't respond and keep editing, your CU/OS access should be suspended until you respond. I thought in the latest privacy agreements that you were required to respond to such questions within a certain time period - though I am no longer identified and don't remember for sure. --Rschen7754 06:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the topic of "should they exist", I remain, for now, a supporter. Having the assessment chain of permissions should remain within the Community whenever possible. Personally I'd prefer to see ombuds being initially appointed by the WMF, subject to being vetoed by the Community, but it's low down my list of things I would want to lobby the WMF to change. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:52, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • On a less radical note, would there be any concerns if the WMF (or the Ombuds) released brief activity reports for its members, as well as the general activity reports? As in, similar to the 'active members' 'tracking' on enwiki's ArbCom. Simply a basic list of whether members have (meaningfully) engaged in Ombud business in the last 3 months? That way it'd be more transparent to see who isn't active. Further, perhaps the WMF would be more open to removing and replacing such members sooner than annually? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:41, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've discussed it informally with a single Ombuds, but could the broader group give their thoughts on why Ombuds (experienced editors all - well accustomed to knowing the levels of effort needed for long-running tasks and commitments) have such a high drop-off rate, not just in one year, but usually. The drop-off is usually seen (in my time) after a few months - it wouldn't appear to be a "the process is confusing, and some further help at the outset would resolve it" Nosebagbear (talk) 01:31, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I get that the Commission is a black box, and that we really can't expect to be privy to most of the details of what they do, but the turnaround time on cases is exceptionally long, and I can't see how preparing a bare-bones report that says almost nothing of substance is too time consuming to be expected once or twice a year. Something just seems ...broken... here but its near-impossible for an outsider to know exactly why that is. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment Why don't we apply AAR to em? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:09, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Because AAR only applies to people who have been completely inactive for two years, and presumably someone who has been inactive for one year won't get reselected to be on the Ombuds commission, so doing so would accomplish nothing. * Pppery * it has begun 15:49, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yup the OC is definitely a broken process, with unacceptable response time which severely hampers the right to defense of functionaries. Moreover it lacks any external scrutiny and being way too small for an efficient self-scrutiny. Also it apparently arrogate interpretation function which are not covered by the OC policy, which I'm pretty sure is dramatically time-consuming. It's time to rethink the OC from the scratch, breaking up existing customs which are out of OC mandate and, maybe, broaden the number of its members, for example including a local checkuser for each project with CUs in the OC. --Vituzzu (talk) 17:05, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fully agree with what has beed discussed till here: some policy have to be (quickly) put in place to force some reasonable behaviour into the OC. From the outside we do not have any guarantee that their decisions follow any written guideline, besides the advice form Legal (which is not public) that should be applied on any of the OC's recolution. Then, decisions take years, when a simple rule like "Voting is closed automatically after 15 days" could guarantee some timing in their activity. But maybe the issue is in its members and their inactivity, as said above, which, again, points to a lack of policies. Ruthven (msg) 06:51, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sounds reasonable; also perhaps allowing any subgroup of at least some size (3?) to resolve individual issues. Stewards too would get nothing done if actions required majority discussion. @Rschen7754: any update? –SJ talk  12:46, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe that people who hold positions of authority in WMF projects should be active in their roles. As for the OC I think it makes sense to have time periods in which cases need to be resolved. I have always loved the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms where it states that people have the right to a fair and speedy trial. So whether it is 3 months or 6 months I feel that there should be a time frame in which all cases under the OC's jurisdiction should be resolved. fr33kman 17:22, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I certainly shared this concern in 2021 when this was opened, it does feel like it has gotten better since the start of 2023. It still takes them a long while but it feels better than it did? Barkeep49 (talk) 19:48, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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