Talk:Global bans/Archives/2018

Approved by the community

The content page says the policy has been "elaborated and approved by the community", but no link is given. Can someone point out where this was done? These are actually "admin bans", no? You only need two admins to indef someone on two wikis to meet the requirements. Does the foundation vet these independently, and give the person a chance to respond, or do they just see if someone else appears to have checked all the boxes? —Neotarf (talk) 21:45, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Good question but you know they are never going to answer this right? Because the community had no input. The WMF does not do the right thing and engage the accused user, they take the recommendations of James Alexander and do whatever he wants. WMF legal gives it a cursory review just to say they saw it, but they don't really have any input other than a nod to go ahead and do whatever he wants. The whole process is a horrible joke because at the end of the day the community doesn't trust the WMF's judgement or decisions, the WMF doesn't trust or respect the community and the WMF does whatever it wants regardless of the competency of the decision. Unicorn Rescuer (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

All right, I have changed it to a proposed policy and linked it to the WMF Global Ban Policy. If there is an RfC at some point, someone can always add it later. Notifying the user of any proposed action should be basic to maintaining at least the appearance of fairness. I linked to Google's new code of conduct template on the WMF policy talk page, I should probably link to it here as well (they are using the contributor covenant). It says "We will notify the accused of the report and provide them an opportunity to discuss it before any action is taken." [1] If this is the type of language other platforms are adopting, Wikimedia should look into it. There is a huge amount of ill will generated by not assuming good faith; newcomers see this and find it off-putting. —Neotarf (talk) 23:29, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Trying to restore comment, sorry about the edit conflict. —N

See Requests for comment/Global bans. – Ajraddatz (talk) 23:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz, I have looked over the RfC and it looks like there was consensus to notify the user and give them a chance to respond, which I think was the main concern of the comments. In spot-checking some of the ban discussions, it looks like this is not being done consistently, or if it is, this is not being recorded, especially in some of the unsuccessful ban discussions, and some of the other older discussions.

Do you want to restore the policy template and add the link to the RFC or do you want me to do it? I would actually prefer you do it, since you were involved in the original discussion, but if you don't get around to it, I will check back in a few days. The other concern is proper notification of the user and giving them a chance to respond. This does not seem to be done consistently in spite of the consensus to do so. Is there some kind of template or format that can be provided for someone initiating a report, so that these steps aren't missed, or if the user does not participate, to indicate why not? Perhaps a checklist, and also one for the person closing the discussion? What would be easiest to implement? Neotarf (talk) 00:19, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

The workflow image already specifies notifying the user, so it might just be a case for admins/stewards to enforce the notification during discussion or before implementation. In some past cases, the user was indef. blocked on Meta and thus unable to comment, but we've lifted Meta blocks to allow them to participate in the discussion. If you're OK with me restoring the policy template then I will. – Ajraddatz (talk) 02:09, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I have enlarged the workflow image somewhat, so it is a little easier to read. You may be interested in a current discussion on a similar topic on Commons, the precipitating thread is here. —Neotarf (talk) 23:25, 12 July 2018 (UTC)