Wikipedia:Contentious topics/2021-22 review/Consultation

2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review

Status as of 09:58 (UTC), Friday, 1 November 2024 ()

• The final decision has been posted and announced.
• The initial implementation period has concluded and the updated procedure has come into effect.
• Any editors interested in the ongoing implementation process are invited to assist at the implementation talk page.
• To be notified about updates, subscribe to the update list.

Timeline

The revision process will be conducted in four phases: Phase I community consultation (March – April 2021) (closed) Closing statement posted (May 2021) (closed) Discretionary sanctions topic amendments (February 2022) (closed) Phase II community consultation (September – October 2022) (closed) Proposed decision (November – December 2022) Public review (November 13 – 18, 2022) Final decision (December 2022) Implementation: The drafting arbitrators will implement the Committee's decision in conjunction with the Committee's clerks and interested volunteers designated by the Committee. The revision process was managed by drafting arbitrators designated by the Arbitration Committee (CaptainEek, L235, Wugapodes).

All community members are encouraged to participate in this consultation, which is the first step of the Arbitration Committee's 2021 discretionary sanctions revision process. The first section of this consultation asks general questions about discretionary sanctions and editors' experiences with them, and the second section asks for feedback on more specific elements of the discretionary sanctions system. Please participate in either or both of the sections, but do not duplicate your comments in multiple sections; the Committee will fully consider feedback whether it occurs in the open-ended section or the specific feedback section. Comments may be moved between sections by a clerk or arbitrator when appropriate.

Open-ended feedback

Purpose

What do you see as the purpose of discretionary sanctions? What do you view as the problems that discretionary sanctions were designed to solve?

Comments by community members (Purpose)

• If you ask me, Discretionary sanctions provide two pretty important purposes: structure and expediency. There's a lot that can be said for both, but I honestly think that the expediency part is the aspect the current regime find itself lacking of. I think that's what I want to talk about the most during this consultation, so expect to hear more from me on that topic. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Discretionary sanctions have a misleading name which took me some time to puzzle out. All admins have discretion which they use when applying any routine sanctions such as blocking an editor for vandalism. These special sanctions might be better described as unilateral sanctions as their key feature is that they may not be lightly reverted or changed by another admin. They were designed to make arbcom rulings effective by giving the advantage to the first-mover in the case of a controversial sanction. Previously, there was a second-mover advantage due to the way that edit wars between admins have traditionally been ruled per WP:WHEEL and this tended to make rulings such as civility paroles ineffective. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• It's pretty common that when there is a multi-party ArbCom case, the disruption in the topic area does not end after the case is closed. To be blunt, ArbCom actually has a pretty bad track record in that regard. There are almost always users who should be removed from a topic area, who are not removed as the result of a case remedy. On the other hand, it need not be ArbCom's fault. And that's where DS can genuinely do some good. Problems can be dealt with as they arise, and that's a lot better than having multiple repetitive ArbCom cases over the same topic. (We have had Am Pol 1 and 2, but just imagine Am Pol 26.) --Tryptofish (talk) 18:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• There is no valid purpose, except to deal with admins protecting each other. At the time DS were adopted, the way some admins approached their responsibilities dic make them justified, as there were indeed cases of unblockables. I do not think the arb com of the period made an error is using them. The error was in continuing to use them, for everything else can be dealt with by the ordinary sanctions on disruptive editing. The immediately above argument is invalid for this reason. AP was not preceded by conflicts between admins, but rather by ordinary sanctions not dealing adequately, and some sort of special intervention was needed. if it was needed against individuals, arb com needed to take the reponsibility itself, not delegate it to any admin who cared to express themselves particularly strongly. It can, for example, be appropriate to set 1RR on an area, but the resulting blocks don't need DS. DGG ( talk ) 01:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with DGG's opinion above. I see the main purpose of DS in helping the community to deal with the areas of entrenched intractable POV disputes. AP2 is a prime example here, but other examples include various areas of nationalistic POV editing, see WP:PLAGUE. Other existing venues (ANI, AN, General Sanctions) proved to be much less effective in dealing with conduct violations in those settings. ANI and AN threads on these kinds of topics quickly degenerate into train wrecks because they get poisoned by the participation of involved disputants from both sides and because it is hard to conduct a careful discussion of the evidence in those venues, particularly for editors unfamiliar with the subject matter at hand. By comparison, AE provides a much more structured venue for considering such reports, with a more careful and saner process for reaching the decisions. It is entirely unreasonable and inrealistic to expect that ArbCom itself will be able to handle all the workload related to the affected areas directly. There are too many pages and too many editors who are involved here and too many cases. The only reasonable option is to delegate. Prior to the introduction of DS the community has been notoriously bad at handling entrenched POV disputes. The community remains notoriously and ruefully bad at doing that outside of DS. The DS process is far, far from perfect but it provides an invaluable tool that should be retained and improved. Nsk92 (talk) 08:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Effectiveness

What problems have discretionary sanctions been used to address? What uses have been more or less effective? What problems do you wish discretionary sanctions would better address, but are not currently suited to addressing?

Comments by community members (Effectiveness)

• In my opinion, the best feature of discretionary sanctions is the arbitration enforcement (AE) noticeboard. The sectioned format of AE is significantly more effective than the incidents noticeboard (ANI) for resolving complex disputes involving many editors, as it requires editors to supply evidence in the form of explained diffs, is resistant to disruptive editing (such as bludgeoning), and encourages involved editors to direct comments to uninvolved reviewers instead of arguing against each other. If discretionary sanctions were to be significantly overhauled, there should still be some dispute resolution venue that allows editors to opt in to using a sectioned format like AE. — Newslinger talk 00:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  I second this. The structured format of AE is probably the greatest thing to come from the DS system. Thryduulf (talk) 01:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Thirding this. AE is so much better than ANI, which is often a mess and often creates endless bickering. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Like. Been saying this for years, but thought it best if someone else were to raise the matter here. El_C 11:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Why not move the DS usage of AE into a new community venue? AE is managed mostly/entirely by admins, not ArbCom, right? So why not make a community version of AE and have all DS (ArbCom or community authorised 'GS', and also other contentious disputes that turn into a mess at ANI and appear intractable) go there? It links back into Rosguill's idea at AN a few months ago. Whilst there was opposition to adding structure to ANI, there didn't seem to be much opposition to creating a new venue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I personally would support creating a community-based (rather than arbcom-based) AE-type venue, but I am not at all sure that such a proposal would garner enough support to be approved. In any case a large-scale RfC would be required. I anticipate the same kind of objections being raised there as were raised to making AN or ANI more structured, namely that it would make the process more bureaucratic and difficult to use, particularly for less experienced users. Also, many people would object on the grounds that the process gives admins too much power. There actually are people who think that ANI works just fine, or at least that it provides a better venue than AE. Nsk92 (talk) 12:36, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I do not particularly like AE, since it suffers from the same problems as arbitration cases, namely if a bunch of people have issues with a user they can uncover so many diffs in no time, that the user has no chance to respond in a comprehensive way; it is also very different to get anybody sanctioned for long-term continuous violations just below the bright line. However, there is one feature of AE which makes it much better than AN/ANI: every case there have to be concluded somehow, it can not go archived without being closed. (Technically, it can and sometimes does, but in practice cases always get closed, even if they need to be returned from the archive).--Ymblanter (talk) 12:00, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I mean, nobody likes WP:AE, but what's the alternative? I'm open to ideas. El_C 12:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• There is no alternative as such. However, the question is (this is still being discussed at the proposed decision page of the arb case about to be closed) whether the system is good. For example, instead of merely evaluating presented diffs, admins could go and search for their own diffs. I am not necessarily saying that this would be a better system (and certainly it would be more time consuming), but this is clearly something different. I mean, users (I guess) go to AE with two ideas: (i) I will explain my business, and wise admins would figure out what to do; (ii) I will get as many diffs so that the accused party will not have a chance. (ii) is more or less how the US legal system works; (i) is not how we operate but ideally - well, AE admins are supposed to be users with more experience and better ability to figure out what to do.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Sackerson loose at the beargarden

• Discretionary sanctions cover most of the English-speaking world, including America, the British Isles and SE Asia. By being extended to the pandemic and topics like the Holocaust, they now cover most of the globe and modern history too. It's not clear to me that they have had any effect in dealing with controversial topics which seem as intractable and as fraught as ever. We'd need to see some detailed statistics and analysis to establish whether they make any real improvement or whether they are just another layer of complexity per WP:CREEP. My personal experience is that they tend to chill topics when applied so that prudent editors will walk away rather than risk rough justice. For example, I mostly stopped working on pandemic topics when it became clear that RexxS was using such sanctions to police them in a draconian way.

RexxS' style of vigorous patrolling seemed to be the original intent of such sanctions – giving an admin the power to clean up a trouble-spot in the style of a Federal marshal. The AE noticeboard seems to have subverted this as it's a beargarden like ANI in which partisans feud and wikilawyer to try to influence the result. The admins act collectively at AE rather than individually and so it's a political process which returns to the original problem – some admins won't uphold arbcom rulings that they don't agree with. For example, I wrote an article about a BLM activist – Erica Garner. An AP partisan took exception to this and tried to delete it. I noticed that they seemed to be violating a topic ban and reported them at the AE noticeboard. This seemed to be a straightforward matter but there was much noise and confusion and the outcome seemed weak. I'm not an AP regular as I'm British and again the experience seemed chilling – such topics are best avoided and so will be left to the extremists.

Andrew🐉(talk) 12:51, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• For a fresh example of the ineffectiveness of DS, see ANI where an unblockable has just had a DS block lifted by a mob of supporters. It's the usual highly-politicised drama and nobody seems to come well out of it. It's a storm-in-a-teacup but is now being fed into the partisan press by people with axes to grind. Respectable and sensible editors are likely to regard the proceedings with horror and walk rapidly away from them and the related issues. So, once again, all you're left with are the extremists and fanatics. The main procedural question to be asked here is why was this not taken to AE instead of ANI? Andrew🐉(talk) 11:13, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• Andrew, that block was not logged at WP:AEL#BLP, so probably was a normal admin enforcement of WP:BLP rather than an WP:ARBBLP action...(?) But then the (text-only) block notice was immediately followed by an ARBBLP DS alert. Confusing, I know. El_C 12:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

  The idea was to give out an AE block, but the problem was that EEng did not have a Ds alert for more than a yer (or may be even never), and in the end it was an ordinary block, which was overturned, well, by a mob of supporters.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:23, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, I submit that calling myself and others a "mob" isn't to your credit and actually diminishes your underlying point. El_C 12:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, and I have striken this out, though my underlying point has been already flushed down the toilet in that discussion.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• EEng's talk page is on my watchlist and so I noticed the DS warning and block. If I didn't correctly understand the technical niceties then this demonstrates the complexity of the process. Until this discussion, I wasn't aware that such warnings expire after a year and I still have no idea how people keep track of this. El C may recall another recent incident in which I pointed out potential violation of a DS topic ban and the resulting confusion about whether it had expired or not. My general point is to illustrate, by example, how these things work, or don't work in practice. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Andrew, I often can't even tell what day it is, not to mention month! Will just keep going forward through time, I guess, at least until the backwards time machine arrives — hopefully, minus a blood-thirsty shrimp (afraid). El_C 13:12, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I have no objections to editors being allowed to opt-in to the structured form, but I actually prefer ANI as I find things like AE force me to bounce up and down and disrupts my understanding of the case. Requirement for diffs etc is of course a clear positive, but I'd say that either is/functionally is/should be the case on any conduct board. With regard to opting-in @Newslinger: this would seem to further enhance the first-mover advantage in multi-disputant (I was amazed to find out that was a word) cases. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Yeah, you said that before, but what's the actual basis in fact for that assertion? My experience, and I think it is shared by many others, is that outside of the really simple AE-at-ANI threads, the tendency is toward a dead-end downward spiral that only topic area regulars are able to follow. Then, there's the extra chaos brought by a no word/diff limit freeflow threaded discussion... No, structure (including word/diff limit) is better for AE matters that aren't immediately digestible. El_C 14:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• @El C: I mean of course I've said it before, but logically I'd say it again at the DS review page? In terms of having to bounce up and down - that seems to be a fairly obvious conclusion - if individuals only make a single statement it's fine, but where they're replying to comments made below them, obviously it has that effect. In terms of disruption, it's actually an opinion, "my understanding", but a look through the last 6 months of WT:ACN and Case Request (talk) and Evidence (talk) pages at ArbCom see similar views being raised. I couldn't answer as to what the majority view of the Community is on that particular facet - maybe I am in the minority, maybe I'm in the majority, hence why I was fine with editors requesting it. If you meant the last part of my comment, apologies for dragging you through all of the above! But if the first individual to post gets to set it as "AE-style" or "ANI style", while the other parties to a dispute would disagree, and feel it places them at a disadvantage, that seems to me to be inherently a first-mover case. I didn't mention the (no) word/diff limits, as my comment was primarily meant to be an ANI style with relevance to the facets discussed. I'd be open to further discussion on those particular areas. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Right, but I meant that I had challenged your position (substantively, I felt) when you did assert this before, but you never responded. Sorry, I'm still not seeing how ANI is anything but a recipe for disaster for most AE disputes that aren't of the simple (immediately parsable) variety — and even then, it often still turns quite chaotic by virtue of the format alone + an un/healthy dose of partisanship. El_C 14:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I may have missed that, but to answer yours, I'm not blind to the negatives of ANI and how separating aggressively disputing parties can ease the process. I would also say that AE is not immune to partisanship, but avoids some of that not merely by form but just by lesser numbers participating. That is partly because of its status as not the primary conduct dispute board and partly because of the complex difficulty of AE. Those are not the only factors, I'm well aware. There are likely areas where even I would say that the benefits of the AE split outweigh the negatives of it being harder to read through the whole case and understand how comments, rebuttals, and diffs apply to each other. I'd also say some of the benefits don't belong to the non-threaded style but just due to the other factors that are at ANI but not AE. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:22, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: I'm not sure how having the option to start a sectioned discussion about a conduct dispute (whether in AE or another venue) would increase the first-mover advantage for an involved editor. It's true that the first editor to start a noticeboard discussion about any type of dispute gets to select the venue and write the initial comment, which influences the direction of the conversation. However, this advantage is not exclusive to sectioned venues like AE. The notice at the top of AE states, "If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it", which limits the advantage. — Newslinger talk 23:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Coming at this from a non-admin angle, I think there is a huge disparity between the tools an admin has available to them under DS versus regular users. For example, let's say hypothetically there was an arbitration remedy that said something weirdly specific like An uninvolved admin may remove any comments in violation of this remedy, and may enforce it with blocks if necessary. Okay, so that's pretty nice for admins and all, but how can a regular user get that enforced? Well, they have to go to WP:AE. That's a ton of drama for really no reason if we are going to be honest with ourselves. Yes, I am referring to a specific incident.
Then you got some stupidly simple matters that need to be taken care of. You have here like BorchePetkovski not following to their topic ban. Honestly, I didn't file that because I figured it would be a waste of time more than anything. At that point, I would've loved for some sort of arbitration-equivalent to WP:AIV that I can just report BorchePetkovski to without needing that much discussion (since it was just so obvious to everyone involved this user was violating their topic ban). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:03, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I'm going to comment about stuff other than AE. Sometimes, authorizing admins to do things that they could not do without DS works well, and sometimes it doesn't, and that should get a close look. I think one lesson from experience has been that when individual admins fashion complex restrictions on specific users, it frequently does not work very well. Simple TBANS and IBANS that reflect accumulated community experience about what works or doesn't work, are fine, but it gets kludgy when an admin says you can come to me about this but not about that. On the other hand, the availability of DS has made possible some really important good results when admins feel empowered to do things that are not otherwise available to them under the admin policy. I strongly urge ArbCom to examine the background that led to the opening of WP:GMORFC, some time after the GMO case at ArbCom was closed. At the end of the ArbCom case, the GMO topic area remained a nightmare. It took nearly a year for AE to clear out all the remaining disruptive editors, and there were a lot of AE cases, again and again. But I was able to convince an admin (The Wordsmith) to do something that was out-of-the-box, but which did a world of good. Authorized only by DS, we created a community RfC about content (about the safety of eating foods made from GM crops, which was an intense and intractable content dispute even after the ArbCom case), whose consensus would be enforceable as a DS. And the community reached a clear consensus that could be made to stick. And that consensus has actually stood until the present day, and ever since the GMO topic area has been mostly conflict-free! (The source material hasn't changed, so the text has held up, and the only change to the agreed-upon language has been an easy fix of some linter errors in the text.) This was an extreme case of using DS in an unconventional way, but I mean it very seriously when I say that it is one of the most successful examples in en-wiki history, of taking a nasty topic area and making it peaceful. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Confusion

Have you had confusing experiences with discretionary sanctions, or with editors or templates referencing discretionary sanctions? What were those experiences? What problems have resulted from DS confusion – either your own confusion or someone else's?

Comments by community members (Confusion)

• Every time I think DS is the right tool, I re-read the instructions. I typically get a bunch into it when my eyes glaze over and I realize I don't understand how it works well enough to try using it. So I back away and either use some other tool or just leave the mess for another admin with stronger DS-fu than I possess. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:25, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• Finding any manuals is a nightmare. I still do not know which template I must put on the talk page of the editor I sanction. Many administrators are unaware that all admin actions related to DS must be logged at WP:ACDSLOG, this includes a few arbitrators from the committee which made this mandatory. I can imagine that for an ordinary user using DS (for example, to report another user) seems similar to, I do not know, operating a submarine.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:04, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Essentially, there's the stuff at T:DSA, and there's {{AE sanction}} and {{uw-aeblock}}. Just have these links prominently displayed at the top of key AE pages (or in some FAQ), and I think we're good, no? El_C 12:39, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, it would be a good starting point (though I remember I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what goes to the article talk pages, and what goes to the user talk pages), but a comprehensive FAQ would be much better. The problem is usually nobody is willing to invest time to document such stuff (in particular, writing a FAQ).--Ymblanter (talk) 12:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, this is explained at the bottom of T:DSA — maybe also refactor it to the top...? El_C 12:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Even this would help (I guess many users do not make it to the bottom), but a visible link in all templates would be even better.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Like. El_C 13:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I avoid using DS or handling DS for the reasons stated above. We have so many layers of sanction, if I can't just use standard admin discretion, I tend to let someone else handle it. We desperately need some simplification, not just for admin who are supposed to know all this, but for the editors on both sides of DS. I think the main issue is we have expanded "sanction" in so many areas over the years, it's hard to keep up unless you devote a lot of time to it. Not everyone wants to do that, which is why only a small subset of admin want to mess with it. No one's fault, it's just time to reorganize how we do special sanctions on the whole. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

My only time were there was some serious confusion with DS should no longer be an issue. That time I am referring to was my filing against CatCafe. However, with the recent Gender and sexuality motion, this concern has already been addressed. Therefore, I just want to take the time to say thank you to Barkeep49 (for bringing it up), KevinL (for drafting the motion), and the rest of arbcom for getting that done! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Pain points

Have there been any other pain points in your experience with discretionary sanctions? What, and where, were they?

Comments by community members (Pain points)

• For some really hot topics, or for some high-profile editors, AE really turns into a bloodbath with hundreds of diffs, some relevant, some not, which no admin is willing to wade through.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Sorry, what is a "pain point"? I don't think I've ever seen that word combination. Anyway, wrt to Ymblanter's point above: a more proactive enforcement of the word/diff limit is what's required here (and doing away with the practice of adding these through the back door via collapsed comments). El_C 12:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

    El C, it's a buzzword, refers to a recurring problem that impacts your business and/or drives away customers, my understanding is usually that it's a process issue. For example, if your ecommerce website were set up such that an employee had to manually update the in-stock counts after a customer made a purchase, that would be a pain point for everybody - employees are spending time on an easily automated task, the in-stock counts might be wrong since an employee forgot to update them...that kind of thing. In this context, it's basically asking "what parts of DS are unnecessarily complicated?" ^{SubjectiveNotability} _{a GN franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

    Ah, I learned something new. Thanks! El_C 14:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC) And now I encounter it in passing — that is quite the happenstance! El_C 07:27, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I find that the burden of evidence on trying to appeal AE sanctions is insane. It's functionally "clear and present error by the sanctioning admin" - I find this unacceptably high. Particularly non-experienced editors have to clear a very tough hill to reduce sanctions. The methodology also has the perverse incentive of making an editor have to concede fault if they want to request an easing six months down the line, even if that requires them to lie. That's not just AE, but for other things (like, say, siteblocks applied under normal sanctions) getting there required a better burden of evidence. Here, if a sanction was questionable but not clearly overturned, the odds of an editor having to fake guilt are significantly higher. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • As you yourself note, this may be more of a WP:GAB spillover than an AE-specific matter (but with AE's extra complexity attached). El_C 14:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    • On the latter point, that may well be the case. It is an issue, but I would say it is secondary to the first point (and if that was addressed, as a side effect, I'd mind less about it). It's not relevant here, but a discussion on how to handle Sock cases where someone is blocked on a "probable" and this exact issue is another minor bug bear of mine. One injustice at a time, though ;) Nosebagbear (talk) 14:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Indef blocked as a regular admin action kills me every time I see it at WP:AE. To me, that means there is a significant gap with how DS works that needs to be addressed. If admins can't indef block (without banning) a user under the DS regime, we got some serious problems in my opinion. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:48, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators can issue an indefinite block as a discretionary sanction. They can still, however, issue blocks that fall under the normal operating procedure for any page. So if someone persistently vandalizes a page for which discretionary sanctions has been authorized, an administrator can issue an indefinite block without it being a discretionary sanction. Noting that it was done as a regular admin action clarifies that the block can be reversed following normal procedures, and doesn't require following the discretionary sanctions rules to be undone. isaacl (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:ACDS § Sanctions allows for "blocks of up to one year in duration". Blocks exceeding one year can be issued as standard administrative actions. The strongest available sanction in the current version of this system is an indefinite block, in which the first year is an arbitration enforcement action and the remaining duration is a standard administrative action. — Newslinger talk 02:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

My apologies; I clearly blanked on this limit. It's basically a sunset clause to allow for review after a year. Though perhaps the normal discretionary sanctions appeal route should be sufficient. isaacl (talk) 04:36, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• The DS awareness requirements are arcane, as ARBCOM members themselves have noted. As a general principle, it's perfectly reasonable to say that an editor should not be sanctioned under a set of rules they are genuinely unaware of. As regular participants at AE know, though, this idea has been codified in ways that have been gamed. The awareness requirements have also made it particularly challenging to deal with sporadic editors; see for instance this request, which was unactionable because 15 months had elapsed since the last notification, but where it was quite implausible that the editor was unaware of the DS regime. Furthermore, since DS notifications themselves may be perceived as threatening, we're advised to not use them more than once a year: but they expire after a year, which makes it very difficult for a sporadic editor to be made continuously "aware" of the DS regimes. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:16, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• 1RR. A separate comment, since this is a separate point; endless wikilawyering around 1RR, and to a lesser extent around the consensus required/enforced BRD sanctions is a serious problem particularly in ARBAP2 and ARBPIA. I don't think I need to elaborate further; there's reams of evidence in the archives. With this endless wikilawyering comes confusion for enforcing admins, because of the need for consistency with one's colleagues. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I'll just note that the CR/EBRD enhancements are almost entirely confined to AP2. I've added one to ARBPIA, ever I think (to Palestinian enclaves a month or so ago). And I'm pretty sure that's it. All the rest were AP2 — which makes sense, due to the much greater traffic attributed to Americans making up the majority of our editorial pool (as well as overall readership). El_C 21:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oh, and of course, also CR for the MEK, one of the most intractable pages on the project for some reason, and probably the main reason WP:GS/IRANPOL exists. Though, there I did so with the expressed consensus of both sides, after I had proposed (rather than having unilaterally imposed) it. Weird, though, how I would forget about it after responding to Vanamonde — seeing as him and myself have been responsible for 90 percent of all admin work for that page in the last few years (and both also having had enough of it). Sorry for the digression! El_C 04:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Section-by-section feedback on current procedure

In this section, please provide thoughts on individual sections and aspects of the discretionary sanctions procedure. Comments can include, but are not limited to: (a) support for the current section, (b) problems arising from the current section, (c) suggestions for improvements to the section, specific or general, and (d) provisions that should be addressed in the section, but are not currently included.

The fact that a section is included below does not mean that the Committee expects feedback on it; some sections that are likely to be uncontroversial are included for completeness.

Definitions and terminology

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Definitions as well as any other terminology-related feedback.

Authorisation

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Authorisation.

Comments by community members (Authorisation)

• All authorisations should be reviewed periodically to see if they are still required. Reviews should have a lightweight first step that can produce one of three outcomes relatively quickly without the need for much Committee effort - obviously still required (→ no further action), obviously no longer required (→ authorisation withdrawn), (lack of) need is not obvious (→ more detailed review). The more detailed review would lead to possible outcomes of keeping, withdrawing or modifying. Thryduulf (talk) 01:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd agree with this. Timeline for an initial review should perhaps be custom in the originating motion/case, with a standard timeline after then (some DS has specific reasons that trigger it that may indicate a logical review period). We'd need an initial run-through over a period of a few months, so as to avoid killing off the arbs, but that would also mean they were spaced out in the future, which would be good. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• There is never any justification for them. They do nothing ordinary sanctions cannot do, and the stickiness is an invitation to prejudice, either with respect to the topic or the editor. Iif special sanctions are needed, they can be only fairly placed by consensus's of a group of experienced editors after open discussion--that is, by arb com itself. This doesn't eliminate the possibility o prejudice, but it greatly reduces it. If we make the error of continuing them at all, I agree with the above comments for how to deal with them , as I detail below with respect to some existing topics. DGG ( talk ) 01:47, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Guidance for editors

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Guidance for editors.

Comments by community members (Guidance for editors)

• I do not understand why AN is a permitted venue for DS requests/appeals. AE is so much superior in all respects.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Awareness

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Awareness.

Comments by community members (Awareness)

• The principal problem with WP:AWARE is all the wikilawyering over DS alert updates, with these often involving a loophole for topic area regulars, who, ironically, themselves may be more familiar with the respective arcane rules of this or that arbitration case than even yours truly (which says a lot!). Note, for example, my March 2021 ARCA, which involved an AE decision on my part being questioned because the annual DS alert update was 10 days overdue! El_C 03:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• "In the last twelve months, the editor has successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict." - sanctions already expired can not be appealed, but #2 still includes them.--GZWDer (talk) 03:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• The intent of the awareness system is good, but it has become overly burocratic and isn't achieving it's goals - I think reform rather than abandonment is the ideal here. It should be extremely hard to wikilawyer out of awareness, so go with approximates, examples and ranges rather than absolute limits. If you were alerted three years ago and haven't had a break from the topic area then you are still aware, even without a formal reminder but if you made a handful of edits 8 months ago and haven't been back you might not still be - attempting to wikilawyer about awareness should be regarded as evidence of awareness. Thryduulf (talk) 04:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Like. El_C 10:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  "attempting to wikilawyer about awareness should be regarded as evidence of awareness" Amen to that. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:22, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• The awareness system is broken. Discretionary sanctions are more frequent/regular currently than when implemented, I'd guess. It should change to an editnotice based system. The Committee should use its leverage, along with Jimbo's endorsement, to get the WMF to fix the editnotice issues in User:Suffusion of Yellow/Mobile communication bugs (in particular the fact that mobile editors can't see them). Then move to a system where DS is announced in page editnotices instead. Most people see editnotices, some might naturally skip over them due to banner blindness perhaps, but DS awareness isn't really (anymore) the kinda thing that absolutely needs user talk page acknowledgement via alerts. Some technical quirks of making sure they display would have to be worked out, but relatively minor detail. For example, for BLPs you'd probably want to add a sentence into Template:BLP editintro rather than add a new notice. Admins should still generally give warnings for conduct regardless, as they (probably) do now, as rectification is always better than sanctions, but it would cut through this bureaucracy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Don't disagree with much of this proposed expansion, except its key assertion: not sure getting rid of user talk page DS alerts is the way to go here, actually. El_C 12:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I don't feel user talk page alerts can be reformed. People can genuinely forget about DS authorisations in topic areas so reminders are appropriate. To fix the "10 days overdue" issue you'd have to add more exceptions/awareness criteria that includes topic regulars but somehow excludes irregular editors, and that would add even more 'awareness law' and complexity. In contrast, editnotices are always on pages so it's impossible to say you can't see them (unless using mobile atm, or using some kinda script to hide them). I dislike the ideology behind ds/alert in general; most times I see editors seeing them for the first time they're either confused or offended. I think informational non-fault alerts is an unintuitive concept. And given many DS sanctions would probably be made as normal actions if DS didn't exist (compared to just allowing the conduct to persist) I also don't think it's entirely necessary. But just my views on it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:18, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Sure, but it doesn't seem that practical to me, to start picking and choosing which user requires a DS alert for extra emphasis. And needing to customize these here and there, if the entire set up were to be removed, is likely to prove to be a lot of work — maybe not for you so much, but for me, certainly. El_C 12:30, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
        • To clarify: in my suggestion above no editor would need a DS alert for extra emphasis. But the idea has a gap in cases where DS sanctions extend to 'edits relating to' (for example, WP:GENSEX could presumably apply all the way to userspace, which wouldn't have relevant page notices). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
          • I dunno, I think there's many users, new or just new to DS, that would benefit from a user talk page DS alert, which would also give them a chance to query about this or that DS-related matter (i.e. prompted by the "extra-emphasis," which may lead to quicker resolutions). El_C 12:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Agreed with those above that the issue is that wikilawyering is easy. I would simply extend the period for which the awareness lasts from one year to three or five years. If someone is genuinely not aware of something because they received a template four years ago and forgot then discretionary sanctions against them don't have to be used, and already shouldn't be unless there's a threat of them repeating the behaviour (sanctions are preventative, not punitive). This does give admins additional discretionary power, but not power in a different direction/scope to the power they already have, and I would deem it worth it for the reduction in bureacuracy and book-keeping needed. — Bilorv (talk) 12:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• My separate concern is how exactly does awareness help? In theory, if you're doing nothing wrong (as the alert would lead you to believe), what are you meant to do now that you've gotten the alert? Stop editing in the topic area entirely to avoid sanctions? If, instead, you are doing something wrong, surely it would be better to be told exactly what you're doing wrong so you can improve (rather than being told there's no issue with your editing)? In some ways discovering a lack of alert is a 'second chance' if you weren't aware when an admin wanted to sanction, but this seems arbitrary (as, perhaps, you might have a random alert from 9 months ago so now you're sanctionable?) And how is any of this distinct to normal policies enacted by the community, or even essays/info pages at times, which you're not expected to be 'aware' of before editing but are blockable? The logic/purpose of awareness has never quite made sense to me. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• Per my comment above, awareness requirements are a disaster; we need a way to protect editors genuinely unaware of sanctions regimes, but prevent any other wikilawyering. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:22, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Alerts

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Alerts and related templates.

Comments by community members (Alerts)

• If the alerting system is to remain in place, the {{Ds/alert}} template should have a note indicating that editors can opt out of receiving alerts by placing the {{Ds/aware}} template on their user talk page. — Newslinger talk 00:34, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Like. El_C 03:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this, I sometimes mention it when renewing one. —PaleoNeonate – 03:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Aware.alert wrongly says that an alert template "is purely informational and neither implies nor expresses a finding of fault". It implies and expresses a finding of fault because of the way it is used in practice. Someone wants to report you but you're not DS/aware so they can't, and instead they give the template. Someone you're arguing with gets angry and gives you an alert template mostly to be rude and off-putting (... but you're the troublemaker if you tell someone else that they're doing that as the template ostensibly does not imply fault). The template needs to be redesigned in visual style, prose content and usage so that it is genuinely not a warning/threat. I think of this 2018 proposal regularly, as it hit the nail on the head, but as far as I am aware no substantive change came from it. Bot delivery would be just one solution, but it's not healthy to continue a system where your "enemy" will tell you "better watch out, you can be sanctioned if you do any amorphously-defined 'disruption'". To pre-empt the reply "it already says in the template it doesn't imply bad behaviour, it's worded fine already", in almost every case I have seen a user receiving an alert with no further context does not sit down and read every word in detail emotionlessly, but sees the big scary template and reads "past disruption" and "sanctions" and goes "this user is threatening me".
  Rewording is needed to make the tone actively positive (as the 2018 proposal gives good suggestions for). For instance, rather than "Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.", say "Discussions in this topic area often become heated, so to keep people on-topic and maintain a positive atmosphere, users who violate Wikipedia's policies can be given discretionary sanctions by an administrator. Page-specific restrictions put limits on the number or type of changes that can be made without discussion" (just there to get the gist of tone across, not suggesting literally this wording). — Bilorv (talk) 12:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  This. My experience is frequently an increase in tensions after an alert has been placed. FemkeMilene (talk) 20:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure how measurable of a thing that is. Sometime, no alert can lead to even greater tension in the long run. But, at its heart, this may be simply counter-factual in nature. El_C 21:21, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with mentioning {{Ds/aware}} opt out in alert banners, proposed by Newslinger above. If my talk page were to be dominated by annual alert banners for every topic it would make me look like a perennial problem editor. The banner should contain instructions on opting-out. -- M.boli (talk) 13:24, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• As I mentioned in the "Other" section, the {{Ds/alert}} template should handle multiple topic areas in a single banner, and display them as a bulleted list (like {{Ds/aware}}). There are many articles that are covered by multiple topic areas under discretionary sanctions, and sending two or more alerts at the same time generates a lot of redundant text on the alerted editor's user talk page. It would also be helpful to fold general sanctions topic areas into the {{Ds/alert}} template, instead of requiring a separate {{Gs/alert}} template. — Newslinger talk 00:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
• Regarding alerting editors that discretionary sanctions has been authorized for a given page: the audience for which this is useful is those who know the usual bounds on sanctions an administrator can impose, and who are choosing to act uncollaboratively in some way, while feeling justified in doing so (for example, an editor might feel justified in edit warring to counteract a certain type of edit being made repeatedly). The first condition excludes most newcomers, including single purpose accounts, and the second excludes the collaborative editors involved.
• Given that this audience already has a certain familiarity with the procedures of English Wikipedia, perhaps it is sufficient to post a one-time, single alert message on their talk page, telling them about how the authorization for discretionary sanctions works in general, and that they should check the associated talk page for pages they edit for any appropriate notice regarding any area under discretionary sanctions. If they edit a page within an affected area for which there is a corresponding talk page notice, they will be deemed to be aware of the authorization for that area, even when editing other related pages that don't have an explicit talk page notice. Admins can continue to use their own discretion to evaluate the editor's awareness of the authorization when deciding on whether or not to impose sanctions. isaacl (talk) 16:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Role of administrators

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Role of administrators.

Comments by community members (Role of administrators)

• This may just belong in another section, but I think is the most logical section. I would say that at a minimum we should discuss whether appeals should be purely judged by a consensus (the issues with a "clear and substantial" consensus I raise elsewhere) of the administrators at AE. That's very rare on Wikipedia. It makes sense for the original sanction, but I'm unsure how firm the benefits are of making the appeal process use that, rather than "uninvolved editors", as is the case at ANI. While AE specialists are mostly admins, it's certainly not ubiquitous. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

AE sanctions don't require a consensus, any admin can act unilaterally. As for appeals, I think the reason for appeals being heard by admin only has to do with the expertise needed to wade through the diffs. Most admin don't even try to participate because they feel they don't fully understand the underlying Arb case that the sanction is based upon. Trying to read consensus of random editors would be tricky, as even fewer would understand the original Arb case the sanction is applied under. Trying to copy ANI would be a mistake, where it is often more of a popularity contest than a system for finding the Truth®. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Does the original arb case have much to do with enforcing DS? I mean, surely the specific issues of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2 are irrelevant to what problematic conduct in the American politics topic area looks like? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

If we are talking about AE, then you should be at least familiar with the final outcome of the case, yes. How can you be enforcing (the E in AE) an Arbcom ruling if you aren't at least somewhat familiar with it? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:13, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

As I understood it, it's only "arbitration enforcement" because it's enforcement of a remedy (DS) by ArbCom in a case. But I feel like the specific issues of the case have little to do with how the DS of that case is used. For example, I'm guessing the protection of Jill Biden (under AP2 DS) is probably unrelated to the dispute or issues between MrX et al and Collect back in the AP2 case, similar for gender and sexuality DS usage (pre-shell-case) having little to do with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#Locus_of_the_dispute and the disputes in that case, and most WP:ARBKURDS enforcement will probably have little to do with the Syrian Kurdistan dispute and the particular parties/incidents of that case. I may be wrong, though, as I admit I haven't read any of those cases closely. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:08, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

The merits may not be related, but the restriction and authority granted by Arb matters. Never will the merits be the same what was in the original case, but admin still need to be aware of the original case when they are enforcing a restriction that was granted under it. That is the sole authority for the sanction. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I protected Jill Biden preemptively upon Joe Biden assuming the presidency. El_C 21:13, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown:, much (as you say) only a small proportion of admins participate in AE (and thus those that do generally have knowledge of the field), why would the same not apply to, say, EC users (EC would make sense to avoid those who might not be aware of how much there is to know). There are hyper-experienced users who are not admins, and would definitely have something to add to the actual decision-making of appeals beyond a pure-admin process. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:30, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you are going with this, this isn't an RFC on who gets to !vote in AE appeals. Because it is enforcing, on behalf of Arbcom, it was set up with admin hearing the appeals. Do you have any examples of this not working properly? If not, this is academic, and out of scope for this section on "Alerts". Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:55, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown: - it would indeed be out of scope for "alerts", but it's in a "Role of administrators" section, afaict? I'm not sure why it enforcing on behalf of arbcom inherently means it has to be admins (obviously the actual emplacing of DS sanctions is individual admins, but that doesn't logically obligate that the appeal process must be). The project should, and usually does, auto-default to Community decision, assessed by consensus unless there are very firm reasons why not. The burden of evidence is to show that allowing experienced non-admins to not just comment but have their comments considered as part of the closing assessment would be a negative, not the other way around. In terms of "this isn't an RFC on who gets to !vote in AE appeals", it's a discussion to review all the facets of DS, of which AE appeals are a significant component. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

My 2c: Unlike AN, which has a diverse range of participation from editors, I don't think AE is such a venue and I dunno if there's non-admin AE regulars (if there are, I have a feeling they'd tend to not be neutral/unbiased on the issues). If one wants the community to assess their appeal, there is always the option of appealing to AN rather than AE (which is probably the route I would want to use, personally). IMO: It's not a good thing to dress up AE as a community consensus venue when, by design really, it isn't. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Expectations of administrators

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Expectations of administrators.

Comments by community members (Expectations of administrators)

• Barkeep49 I am not quite sure what you mean. Uninvolved admin, as opposed to what? Involved admin?--Ymblanter (talk) 17:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Sorry, I still do not understand. Currently, all threads are closed by an uninvolved admin implementing consensus (if it is possible to determine consensus). The exceptions are threads closed prematurely, and these are closed as a non-AE action (for example, if one of the sides is WP:NOTHERE it usually does not make sense to go through the whole AE circle). If you mean that this is not currently formalized and should be formalized, I agree.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:48, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Barkeep49: In some way, it is a direct application of WP:CONSENSUS, but, yes, we can benefit from writing this down directly.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I do not have issues with the text, but an elephant in the room is of course WP:INVOLVED which currently is not aligned with the text.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:39, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• Perhaps WP:INVOLVED should be improved or supplemented by a "code of conduct". For example, I think an admin should generally avoid sanctioning users in a subject area where she/he has a strong opinion, even if his specific actions could be supported by other admins. They should also avoid making an impression that they single out specific contributors (with whom they philosophically disagree on issues in such subject area) to sanction them. Consider the following hypothetical example. An admin A has a strong personal opinion in DS area X as follows from his comments. He takes a part in RSNB discussion where he happened to strongly disagree with user U on something from this DS-covered area. He then advise another user to submit an AE request about user U, which results in no action. He then warns U about his alleged misbehavior. While every single action by A may be justifiable (and he is probably not "involved"?), this whole story does not look good, and I would argue that A must leave user U alone. There are other admins around who are very much capable. My very best wishes (talk) 15:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Comments by arbitrators (Expectations of administrators)

• One thing that has been on my mind is what kind of responsibility to admin have around consensus once something has reached AE. There has been a trend towards uninvolved admin finding consensus in more complicated cases. Should this be formalized? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:16, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Ymblanter: as opposed to an admin just closing it as an individual. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Ymblanter: you write Currently, all threads are closed by an uninvolved admin implementing consensus (if it is possible to determine consensus). My point is that is a norm but it isn't actually written in the policy. My question is, should it be? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Editor restrictions

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Sanctions and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Broadly construed, and related templates.

Comments by community members (Editor restrictions)

• Responding to ping by Barkeep: for what it's worth, I think my list of custom sanctions got a lot of attention due to me actually codifying them in my userspace, but I only ever applied them to a handful of editors (maybe 7). And I haven't applied any since 2019, so there are no editors currently under sanction. (I used a duration of 1 year.) My sanctions weren't exactly original either. Looking through the logs I have found examples of similar sanctions applied by other admins or by the community. That said, I'm fairly happy with how they worked in most of the cases where I applied them. In the majority of cases I saw a noticeable change in behavior without any further admin intervention required. In two cases I didn't notice significant behavior change, but those two editors were soon after topic-banned or site-banned. ~Awilley (talk) 21:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I understand this as saying in effect that Awilley intends not to use them again. I'm glad to hear it, but they should still be deprecated because of the possibility of someone else trying them. And without any reflections on anyone in particular, they are making things really susceptible to prejudice or dislike of a particular person by a particular admin. , DGG ( talk ) 01:42, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say that. If I see a need I may use some of them again, probably the "no personal comments" sanction as it was the most successful in helping editors avoid or resolve unnecessary conflict that would otherwise derail talk page discussions and waste time at WP:AE. As for other admins, I trust them to use their own discretion. ~Awilley (talk) 02:20, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Comments by arbitrators (Editor restrictions)

• This also applies to page restrictions, but something on my mind has been the role bespoke/custom/unusual sanctions play. There has been a lot of discussion at various times about Awilley's list of sanctions. I wanted to note this for possible comment by people who have thoughts on the topic. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Page restrictions

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Page restrictions and related templates.

Comments by community members (Page restrictions)

• In many cases a page restriction (or protection) is applied like candy and never revisited again. It might've been appropriate for the time it was applied, but I'm not a fan of indefinite restrictions or protections. They should all be expiring (1 yr max?) and reinstated if there continues to be a need for the action. I suspect many DS protections or 1RRs are currently unnecessary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem is that for many pages, a year will not do it, so unless there is a system that alerts about annual AE protection expiration, the level of disruption (including for BLPs) could prove taxing, at best, and disastrous, at worst. El_C 12:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    • In what way? So on one page perhaps another edit war happens a few months after it's loosened, so the 1RR is reinstated for another year (or up to that). Maybe Donald Trump will, realistically, always need 1RR. But what about Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign, or 2020 United States Senate elections 1RR and consensus required due to edit warring over the order of images in infoboxes. Nov 2020 (unlikely still needed), 2020 United States presidential election in New Hampshire Semi-protected, 1RR, Consensus Required, due to edit warring over early results. Nov 2020 (early results were many months ago, unlikely still needed). Yet they're all indefinite, even though the rationale was time-based. The log is packed with such examples. Antithetical to "Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." imo. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

      Just noting that as of November 2020, Donald Trump is not under a 1RR restriction [1] ~Awilley (talk) 22:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

      • ProcrastinatingReader, my view is that there's too many perennial examples to even list, for multiple AE topic areas. You cite examples that bolster your proposal, but I don't think they're representative enough for such a drastic change. Certainly, a reminder to be more judicious about setting a realistic expiration, rather than defaulting to setting page-level restrictions not to expire, would be a good thing. But, again, I don't think your universal 1-year limit proposal would be beneficial. Too much hammer in search of a nail. El_C 12:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        I like speaking in terms of concrete examples (in part so everyone's on the same page wrt what's being discussed, but also so vague concerns which may be addressable can be addressed rather than giving up & throwing in the towel). Perhaps an enforced 1 year maximum is too extreme (not imo but your, and the arbs', mileage may vary). But it's a starting point to a solution. There's a real problem with temporary issues being slapped with indefinite restrictions and protections which this review should address. And ideally in a retroactive manner, because there's a lot of pages with these currently. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        It's a problematic approach (to use selective examples that bolster one's proposal), again, because of the sheer number of perennial examples involved. But I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. Anyway, bottom line: to me, the risks outweigh the benefits. Of course, this does not preclude setting up a review mechanism, if it can be put into practice. El_C 13:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        I think the key thing here is that indefinate != infinite. If you (or anyone) feel there are restrictions that are no longer needed there should be a simple, low-drama way of reviewing their continued applicability. Maybe to make it very light weight, have a place where any page restrictions that have been in place for more than one year since implementation (or >6 months since most recent review) can be listed. After say 7 days the restriction will be lifted unless there is a consensus that it is still required (i.e. no consensus or no comments = no more restriction). There will need to be a way of noting on the talk page that a restriction was reviewed on <date> and determined to still be required but that shouldn't be difficult. Notification of the listing would just be to the admin who placed the restriction and the talk page of the article concerned. Ideally the article alerts bot would highlight the request to other potential interested parties. Any restriction ineligible for this light-weight review would just be appealed with a full AE review. Thryduulf (talk) 18:24, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        @Thryduulf: That approach would work, but I would prefer pages after one year be automatically added (by a bot?) to that noticeboard, pinging the admin and leaving a talk page notice. Requiring people to submit requests themselves will just be as much of a failure as all those unnecessarily full-protected redirects/salted titles that are a lost cause. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        Hmm, that risks wasting time with pages that very clearly still need a restriction and overwhelming the process if there is no phased introduction. I suppose one way for a phased introduction would be for automatic nomination on the anniversary of the restriction being placed rather than just "it's been greater than 12 months". Manual review requests should also be permitted. Thryduulf (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        This would require the date a restriction was placed being bot readable. For a restriction like page protection that's easy (at least mostly - cases of indef semiprotection temporarily upgraded to full and then returned back to semi might be tricky, I'm not sure), but for something like consensus required I don't know. Making the talkpage template indicating a review that determined continued need for restriction machine readable is something that can be designed in from the start so not a big issue. The bot would also need to know the nature of the restriction and who placed it - I honestly don't know if this is going to an issue or not. Thryduulf (talk) 18:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

        The role consensus, or no consensus, plays is something I would love to see more written about. I touched on one piece above in terms of AE but the change Thryduulf presentes would be a shift in how we review consensus as up until now no consensus has defaulted to the initial decision (in this case protection). Barkeep49 (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• There needs to be a more clear and well defined procedure for where and how editors can request that some pages be placed under DS restrictions (or even just to have talk page notices placed of pages being subject to DS). It's unclear at the moment if one needs to file an actual AE report for doing that, or just make a request at WT:AE or do something else. Nsk92 (talk) 13:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think that for simple AE protection requests, WP:RFPP works well enough, but for some more complex ones, it's a bit too fast-pace of a venue. Still, most of the time, RfPP AE requests are of a simple nature (well, to me at least, which may well not be representative for others). Anyway, a new request mechanism for 1RR (etc.) + complex AE protection requests could prove useful. El_C 13:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  I've found RfPP to be useless at downgrading even normal protections, given admins are so scared of the spectre of wheel warring even for uncontroversial requests where the protection is blatantly overreaching and the admin is AWOL, never mind AE ones (which, if I understand correctly require either agreement of the enforcing admin or a consensus at AE). So I'm not sure RfPP actually works here? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:40, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

What? We're talking about protection requests. I don't understand what downgrading (rare) has to do with anything. Very confused. El_C 21:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• I would prefer an easier method to have these reviewed, and quite possibly an automatic one. The list of pages it applies to is gigantic, and I think it's (much) more than a few selected examples that shouldn't be under the page limitations anymore. Perhaps one option would be to review instances where the edit count is under a certain number (say, 60 edits a year (5/month avg)). In more active pages, there should be enough editors so that if there is a general thinking that a change would be beneficial, there will be someone around confident enough to ask for it. Likewise, the likelihood of issues is higher on those pages (in absolute terms, if not per edit). Having the default restriction length set to a year might also help without preventing setting indef where needed - nudge theory can work well. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:51, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• There absolutely needs to be some way to set an expiration time on page-level sanctions. And it wouldn't be that difficult to implement. Just add date parameters for expiration in the sanctions templates that go on the talk page and edit notice, and specify that if no expiration is set then any admin can remove the sanction one year after it was placed. Trying to track down the original admin who placed the sanction is too cumbersome, and even when I do, I find that half the time the admin is inactive or too busy to respond to my messages or emails asking them to change something. Just 3 days ago I spent nearly 2 hours reviewing and removing unnecessary 1RR restrictions from 24 articles that had been sanctioned in 2015-2016. And I'm maybe halfway through my list of articles with stale sanctions placed by a former admin that I have the authority to clean up. ~Awilley (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• As with individual sanctions, I hold to the basic opinion that the time in WP where DS are needed is over--the original and only real justification was contending admins, resulting in reversal of blocks without consensus. I don't see the current admins as prone to do this. The problem with page sanctions in addition to this is their possibility of use for biasing discussion. Therefore, DS should never be needed, and we should instead be discussing how to do orginary sanctions. (I may expands on this later) DGG ( talk ) 01:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with your line of thinking on this. I think page restrictions might have a place, but only as temporary measures and much more limited in scope, such as when a shooting happens or while a topic is "hot", such as during the past election, or after the storming of the Capital. 30-90 days seems the right range most of the time, IF you are going to use it at all. DS and page restrictions are used all too often and it does seem to choke off healthy debate. My own history at AE shows I'm way more likely to sanction "as a normal admin action" than under DS, which simplifies appealing or modification of the sanction, without losing anything in the effectiveness of the sanction. I think DS is being used as a sledgehammer right now, and this isn't healthy. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think page restrictions like 1RR are fine if they are used for a limited period of time (agree with Dennis). However, they must be very simple and understandable for every user. No "consensus required" restrictions, please, and no restrictions on the types of RS to be used on a page. My very best wishes (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Enforcement of discretionary sanctions actions

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Enforcement.

Logging

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Logging.

Comments by community members (Logging)

• Just an observation: If one wants to check if an editor is sanctioned (eg, tbanned somewhere), as far as I can tell they need to check Wikipedia:Editing restrictions for direct ArbCom or community sanctions, then (for DS actions) WP:AELOG and a dozen WP:GS subpages. I'm not entirely sure this is ideal. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:01, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Spamming my proposal at AN#No log to record non-AE restriction violations. A dedicated, overarching search function could prove useful, in any case. El_C 14:15, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Dismissing an enforcement request

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Dismissing an enforcement request.

Appeals

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Appeals by sanctioned editors.

Modifications

This includes feedback on Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Modifications by administrators.

Comments by arbitrators (Modifications)

• One thing I'd like to see discussed is the "first-mover advantage". Most of Wikipedia has a second-mover advantage for admin actions: if an action is taken and then reversed, it cannot be reinstated without strong consensus. DS (intentionally) shifts this: if an AE action is taken, it cannot be reversed without strong consensus. What are the pros and cons of this system? Is it too strong? Too weak? What is the justification for having this in DS topics but not in other topics? I have my thoughts on the matter, but I'd like to see some community comment first. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:21, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Other

This includes feedback on any other sections of the discretionary sanctions procedure, any other Arbitration Committee procedures that impact discretionary sanctions, any other templates and miscellaneous pages related to discretionary sanctions, and any sections that should be added to the discretionary sanctions procedure that do not relate to one of the above sections.

Comments by community members (Other)

• The Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions page (WP:ACDS) is in need of a lead section that summarizes the system without requiring the reader to skim the entire page to understand it. The "nutshell" template at the top tells the reader what DS is, but does not inform the reader about how DS works. Without a lead section, the WP:ACDS page can be intimidating, especially since it starts with a list of definitions and is written in a more formal tone than many policies and guidelines. — Newslinger talk 00:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• The templates contain a lot of nonsense words that don't seem relevant or make sense. They should be rewritten from scratch. Additionally, some of them just aren't intuitive imo. The alerts, for example, always seem to catch people off (in particular "It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.") probably because people aren't naturally used to the idea of informational notices to alert people to sanctions whilst (supposedly) no-fault implied. (links back to why {{ds/alert}} should be scrapped) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Also, this or this feels like banner blindness. Could we condense down talk notices where there's an overlap of multiple topic areas? On Bill Gates there's also a community GS (COVID), which leads me to suggesting if it may be a good idea to combine the fragmented {{Gs}} and {{Ds}} template sets? They're near identical at this point, and it would be a convenience improvement in other regards too (eg being able to use {{alert|covid}} rather than remebering to use {{gs/alert}} not {{ds/alert}} because it happens to be community-authorised). There's various other template changes I'd suggest but I don't have a cohesive list (+ if I did start writing it all out this page will have too many words from just me). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Ideally, there would be one article talk notice template that handles both discretionary sanctions ({{Ds/talk notice}}) and general sanctions ({{Gs/talk notice}}), and allows multiple topic areas to be specified and displayed as a bulleted list. {{Ds/aware}} works this way (but does not handle GS topic areas). Template consolidation would benefit the {{Ds/alert}} and {{Gs/alert}} user talk page alerts as well. — Newslinger talk 00:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
• A bit OT, but can we please refactor WP:ARCA threads into a dedicated archive? (Sorry for the bold, but I've raised this multiple times, though granted, more as an aside.) El_C 12:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  El C, this has been discussed recently on the list on your suggestion, but no conclusion was reached. I'll post on the list about your suggestion and see if I can get it going again. As there is the PD for RexxS, the open ARCA and this going on it might be a while before a decision is made on what to do. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, cool, Dreamy Jazz, that's good to know. I'll just stress that sometime I end up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to locate this or that relevant ARCA, so an extra- the sooner the better nudge. El_C 13:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• (Not really sure where to put this comment) There are multiple comments about the overlap with general sanctions, the unfriendliness of templates, confusion among new users about what "discretionary sanctions" means and there being a stigma of getting a template. I'm wondering if as part of the reform a new system with a different name into which both DS and GS could be folded would work with authorisations being able to be made by either Arbcom or the Community. Obviously merging is not something the committee can do on its own, but setting up a structure that the Community could merge/move GS into if it chooses is. The name should not include the word "sanctions" and should not imply any wrongdoing on the part of someone receiving an alert (assuming that alerts will still be a thing). "Additional" is a word I keep coming back to, as that also has the clear meaning that it doesn't replace the normal tools or requirements. "Additional scrutiny areas" is the best I've come up with but I really don't think it's actually very good. "Additional rules for contentious topic areas" is terrible, but sort of gets at what they are. Thryduulf (talk) 02:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

  I agree it could do with some kind of a merge with GS, but I also (now) feel like the system benefits better from Committee oversight and control. At least with the Committee there will always be a determination one way or the other as to clarification or changes (like this review), whereas with the community I've often gotten the feel that few editors are interested and it's hard to reach consensus on issues. (if it's helpful at all: I drafted this earlier this year, a possible proposal to keep the two in sync at least, together with changes like a single AE-like venue for both).

  I feel like 'rules' is not quite the right descriptor, as they're mostly tools for admins and a set of procedural mechanisms (even more-so than 'procedural policies' like WP:BOTPOL), rather than restrictions or guidelines for editors. I mean, yes, editors shouldn't engage in conduct problems, but that's true of any editing area. Something like 'heightened scrutiny' is accurate in the same sense I guess, but not very informative imo. But I agree it could do with a rename. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Currently authorized discretionary sanctions topics

This includes feedback on any specific authorizations of discretionary sanctions, including housekeeping arguments that a particular discretionary sanctions authorization should be rescinded.

Comments by community members (Currently authorized discretionary sanctions topics)

• The Acupuncture DS ("Complementary and Alternative Medicine") doesn't entirely make sense (vs the Psuedoscience DS) and seems to just cause a split log at WP:AEL. Alternative medicine is, by definition, psuedoscience. Reading over Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture it feels like the concern was that "psuedoscience" is derogatary. In that case, it may be better to merge the two together and just expand the scope to "pseudoscience, fringe science, or complementary/alternative medicine" and merge the two logs together. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, there are few categories DS on the books generally fall into: ethnic disputes, fringe science pushing, new religious movements, Wikipedia-specific disputes, and political/sociological controversies. Some good work has been placed in re-organizing the various ethnic dispute sanctions such as the merging of Balkans with Eastern Europe while separating out Antisemitism in Poland. Speaking generally, the sanctions related to fringe science need pruning, the new religious movement ones need consolidation, and the ethnic disputes need some pruning as well.

Ethnic disputes

I have already mentioned the most useless of the DS is probably Liancourt Rocks (detail can be found here). In a similar vein to Liancourt Rocks is Senkaku Islands. While I am a little hesitant to say arbcom should axe Senkaku Islands, it's just too narrow to be significantly helpful. Ethnic dispute sanctions generally work best with a clearly define (albeit broad) scope, and while my guess some part of Southeast Asia will eventually find itself back WP:ARC in the future... I haven't seen the community unable to address it so far.

Fringe science pushing

There is some more room here to prune some rather useless s ds authorizations which are pretty much only used occasionally (if at all). You can generally tell that's the case because their headings don't even consistently really appear in the AE log much anymore. If you were to cut some DS regarding fringe sciences, I would suggest: Shakespeare authorship question – main article isn't even semi-protected. Ancient Egyptian race controversy – major articles like Cleopatra race controversy aren't even tagged with the arbcom notice on their talk. No mention in the log. Longevity – This one is practically done already. Template:Ds/topics lists it as inactive, but no motion has been made to that effect (in fact the opposite). Electronic Cigarettes – this one is a bit of a hot take, and I hope this suggestion doesn't detract from my other suggestions here... However, in the six years this ds has been on the books, it's barely been used. That's pretty sad considering this FoF. Though, to be honest, I am rather a fan of this remedy against SPAs since that is the biggest issue with the topic area. I will be honest by saying I don't know for sure what should happen here, but a conversation should probably be held at some point.

New religious movements

The main issue with these DS are that they need consolidation. First you need a catch-all case, and I think Landmark Worldwide would probably be the perfect one to do that with since it was actually about whether Landmark Worldwide was a New religious movement or not. You can then bring Transcendental Meditation movement, Falun Gong, Prem Rawat, Prem Rawat 2, and maybe Waldorf education (I'm wary about that last one being consolidated since there is some COI stuff there as well). It also naturally expands the scope to include topics like Ahmadiyya which saw a ton of disruption a few months ago.[2][3][4][5] While Scientology could also be covered here, I'd rather see it kept it separated for historical reasons. It's one of the few DS where I think its lack of use is a sign it's working.

I have no idea how to even approach the last category (the Wikipedia/meta ones). The ones in this category include BLP, Medicine, ATC, and Infobox 2. Their sanctions are incredibly unlike the other topics under DS (except maybe Electronic Cigarettes), so I can't really suggest any changes to them (especially because they are the ones I have the least experience in project-side). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:25, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• Alternative medicine is not necessarily pseudoscience, though they overlap./ I do not think we are entitled to make the judgment required by calling something pseudoscience except in the most obvious cases,, and even then I'm not sure. I 've generally urged that its sufficient to describe the status in text, without using a judgmental word in at the lead. But the arb com decision here attempted to clarify the use of the terms. It's not for them to do so, but the community. Therefore all DS resulting from any of these cases are invalid, regardess of ones views on DS

In addition, the DS in these cases have sometimes been used to advance the views of the person doing the sanctions, thus making use of the power of arb com to make specific subject decisions (the fact that I almost always agree with the decisions here isn't relevant to my view about how we should decide on these. ). This is Arb com's well-intentioned use of DS resulting in supporting bias.

• • Other fringe science topics--- I agree with MJL. None of the existing ones are actually all that active.
  • The Ancient Egyptian cases fields have become less actitve. DS is not needed.
  • Longevity is I think also settled into a consensus position--there seem to no longer ber the unceasing attacks on the guidelines there were originally. DS even if it was once justified is no longer necessary.
  • New Religious movements tend to have the key controversy time-limited. DS is only justified if there are admins with sharply divergent viewpoints prepared to use sanction to express them. I don't see DS in this area as currently necessary, but it remains possible. Keeping it in the background without an immediate current problem is however not appropriate even if DS were sometimes needed--its much too broad. I think Scientology is dead issue. Landmark mgiht be still live, but DS here amountto making a judgement (a judgment with which I agree quite strongly), but is nonetheless outside the scope of arbcom.
  • Ethnic disputes is where the remaining problems exist. I still don't like DS, but in some of these, there is at least the possibility that it actually still be needed. The limitation here is bias, and the possibility of contending biases from different admins does exist in this area.
  • Electronic cigarettes -- this is a possible use for DS, because the accepted standard consensus viewpoint in the two largest English-speaking counties is opposite, and there are admins in each. I see no indication they are howeverl ikely now to get into situations which would need them.
  • Meta:
    • BLP is not meta in the same sense as the others. Its an area where drastic action is considered justified, and where here will always be new problems that fall within the area. My personal view is that our restrictions can be over-limiting, but I think hte community consensus is otherwise. But I do not see admins reversing each other at BLP to the extentt here used to be. But I can also see theview that its necessary to keep this in reserve.
    • I don't consider medicine as meta. I consider it arb com invovling itself in a valid dispute about hte appropriate contents of a WP article. The result, which I presume unintended, was to bias the decision--which, again, should not be the concern of arb com.
    • ATC and Infoboxes are pretty much the definition of meta, and the type of problems where WP is capable of going in circles. They are fields where sanctions might well be necessary, but I see no evidence that the special provisions of DS are needed. I think existing admins have enoughsense to not require them

so , even if we take the position that the use of DS may sometimes be necessary and appropriate, which I do not agree with, we end up with 3 possible use cases only: Ethnic disputes, NRM, and BLP. DGG ( talk ) 01:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

This comment doesn't address discretionary sanctions in any of the contentious political topic areas – including post-1992 American politics (which was determined to be necessary earlier this year); India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan; and Eastern Europe or the Balkans – yet still dismisses them as unnecessary. Having seen the disruption in all three of these topic areas in the past year, I agree with the arbitrators who authorized discretionary sanctions in these areas that they are necessary. — Newslinger talk 02:43, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think all subject areas under DS which did not receive any new blocks, bans and restrictions (in log) during last one or two years should be automatically void/discontinued. Consider Senakiku islands as an example. My very best wishes (talk) 15:02, 27 March 2021 (UTC)