Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard

Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard

Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This page was created with the intent that it was to become a place for the community to come together and discuss matters similar to those that are normally discussed on the administrative and incident noticeboards. It was felt that because "administrators'" was used in the title of the other two pages, it excluded the rest of the community, which they truly did not.

This board was originally known as the "Community noticeboard". It has however become a board to get a vote on officially banning users. I had originally planned to send this board up for the miscellany for deletion when the board decided to discuss the merits of the original community ban on Daniel Brandt including some users who wished to lift the ban on the user (irrelevant of later actions by Jimbo concerning Brandt). This board is no longer used to discuss pressing issues for the community but rather a brand new version of Wikipedia:Quickpolls.

Such examples of abuse of the board include the discussion of Eagle 101's unblocking of Gen. von Klinkerhoffen and the extreme misunderstanding of what a community ban is, a request for more people to comment on a ban (not unlike an AfD discussion), as well as the previously stated Daniel Brandt discussion and discussing whether or not the original community bans are still in effect.

The decisions made on the community sanction noticeboard have also spread to other pages concerning the community ban, but those pages will have to come up at a later date. Deletion is my first choice here. Sending it the way of Esperanza is my second choice. We just need some sort of decision to eliminate this mess of bureaucracy before it becomes like WP:AfD or what has become WP:RFCN.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A community ban is one that "not one out of 1,200+ admins are willing to undo", not something that was "ratified" on a noticeboard. Check out this current request. Community bans are simple, something that nobody is willing to undo, not something that is ratified by a board. Also please note the board's original purpose was to be a place to post things visable to everyone, not a place to discuss users. I'm seeing cases where the board is being used for nothing but to attack other editors, without going through the dispute resolution process, or even attempting to open an request for comment on a user. See WP:CN#Request_for_blocking_of_user:Pdelongchamp_on_vlogging_article, that user has never had a Request for comment, or gone through the dispute resolution process, but rather just ran to get a ban. Misuse of this board (whose intent was never to be for bans to start with) are rampent, just check the archives here which shows 38 sections with a bolded endorse, support, or oppose. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 08:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - Maybe we should re-focuss what a community ban actually is then. There is no way to truely know if a user is community banned without ratifying it - this is the ideal place for it. Ryan Postlethwaite 08:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Sure we do, if not one out of 1200 admins are willing to undo it, then the user is banned. If the user has an indef block and appeals it, and no admin is willing to undo the block (because they have been so troublesome) then its a ban. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 08:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't agree, for long term users, a community ban should be ratified, so that it is clear the user is not welcome here, and any socks which they may create. It is also the only place that page bans can be given out without wasting ArbComs time. Ryan Postlethwaite 08:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
      • If you take it through the dispute resolution proccess then it will end up at arbcom, who will then do the ban after over 3 weeks of discussion, not just the quick "yea" or "na" stuff I'm seeing here. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 08:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Some things don't need the 3 weeks of discussion that ArbCom do - it just wastes time when the community can give the same action anyway. Ryan Postlethwaite 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
          • Really? Please show me a decent use of this board, of a user that was not already indef blocked by the time they showed up here for "ratification". Keep in mind a community ban is an indef block by an admin which no other admin will undo. I mean someone like User:Willy on wheels is dead obvious, but other cases where there is edit-disputes, and multiple users who did something wrong, its time to go to arbcom. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 08:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
            • Wikipedia:Community_sanction_noticeboard#Lovelight? Blocked for 2 weeks, turned into a quick discussion and his block was extended to a full community ban, no RfC needed, or ArbCom due to the fact that the community had already had enough and things were unlikely to change. Ryan Postlethwaite 08:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
              • Mmm had I noticed that I would have done a RFC, and had gone from there rather then the witchhunt and "supports" to ban a user from wikipedia. If the user asked for a request for comment, and was willing to stop his edits, then he should have been given the chance. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 09:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
          • If these bans do not need extensive weeks-long discussions, then why does there need to be a separate noticeboard for it, which has turned into a procedural and vindictive nightmare? If most of these users are already banned, there doesn't need to be any waste of time like this. If anyone wants to discuss it, the administrative noticeboards are both open and available for it, which have never had the problem of masquerading as some ratifying legislature. —Centrx→talk • 14:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Such strongly misinformed ideas like "There is no way to truely know if a user is community banned without ratifying it" which are promoted by this noticeboard a strong argument in favor of its disbandment. Dmcdevit·t 09:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, as useful (and while that's not a valid argument on AfD, it is on MfD!), even if some issues have needed ironing out. (When did SOFIXIT become SODELETEIT, anyway?) CN does not change the definition of old-style community bans, and discussion on the matter has been pretty clear that those need no ratification by any means other than no admin being willing to unblock. If its only purpose were to discuss community bans about which there might be some question, even that would be a useful purpose. However, the most useful purpose it has served is to provide a mechanism by which the community can propose and ratify sanctions short of a complete ban. This cannot be duplicated by old-style community bans, there is not a button an admin can hit to say "Block EditorX from editing foo-related articles," and see if any other admin undoes it. This aside, banning an editor is a serious enough step that something should be reserved for purpose of such discussions. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comment As an addendum to the last, I've asked more than once to be provided an example by those who object to CN, of when a decision made on CN was wrong or improper. Thus far, no such example has been forthcoming, so I leave the question open here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Request community ban on {{vandal|JB196}}; where the board was planned to solely be used to have a link on WP:LOBU—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I would also like to point out Consideration of block or ban for User:Just_H, where it was very obvious that no one would be unblocking him.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm asking for a decision you disagree with, not a listing you disagree with. Yes, sometimes things get listed that really don't need to be. If we're going to MfD for that, we'd better throw AN and ANI on this, a lot of useless threads get opened there! In this case, the banned user was obviously correctly banned, they stayed banned, no harm done. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
      • My issue with the board is that while good things evolve from it, the method by which these decisions are made is done in an entirely improper way. Most users listed there are already indefinitely blocked, and nearly all have never been unblocked under any circumstances.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Or, in other words, it does some good and no harm? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
          • You are setting up a false dichotomy. I could just as equally ask you to provide a bad decision made on another noticeboard that necessitates this one. However, your question doesn't address a major problem: this process is emphatically not how bans should be done. Bureaucracy is clunky, promotes technicalities over result, and serves no purpose in itself. So in defense of bureaucracy, the proper question is never "what harm does it do?" but "what essential purpose does it serve?" This one does do harm by attempting to constrain the ways in which a ban may be enacted. Dmcdevit·t 09:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
            • There is no "false dichotomy" in asking "What good does it do?", nor in asking "Has it actually done harm or led to a wrong conclusion, or is it just theoretical that it could?" Even Ryulong states that it has been useful. Apparently many other editors agree-they use it! Sometimes, process can have the harms you cite. On the other hand, having a degree of process is important. As you and I have discussed at length, I think most would pretty well agree that the old definition of a community ban (blocked indef and no one has any desire to unblock) still holds. On the other hand, it is useful to have some clarity for people. There's nothing wrong with having structure to making important decisions, and whether or not to ban an editor is a pretty big decision. (You're participating in a process right now, where we're deciding whether to delete that page. If we didn't have this process, the alternative would probably be endless wheel wars. Processes are not inherently bad.) I also find the continuous comparisons to the "quickpoll" process to be a complete straw man, that was obviously a bad idea. There's no "number counting" at CN, and it's pretty clearly stated that it is not a vote. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
              • People use it because it is listed there as the proper place to request a ban. That does not mean that they have made any sort of decision as to the special value of a separate noticeboard and this particular special noticeboard. In addition, if you are going to respond to these requests to ban, the only place to do so is where the issue was brought up, unless you move the whole discussion to the administrators noticeboard. —Centrx→talk • 14:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I must say that I find a bit of this unconvincing, and would prefer deletion at this point. First, I believe that the community sanction noticeboard does change the the definition of community bans, by turning them into a bureaucratic process. This is dangerous. We don't need yet another insular, self-serving community of people reporting on others and "enforcing". See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Personal attack intervention noticeboard. This is also instruction creep that gives rise to the misconception that all bans must be discussed and ratified on CSN (even arbcom bans a year old) and tht is being spread to other places where such threads are directed to CSN as inappropriate at WP:AN. Furthermore, this promotes the misconception that discussion is necessary for any and all bans, since bans are now some "formal" process which require "ratification." Discussions are a matter of judgment: necessary when there is a valid question, but a waste of time when an issue is obvious to all, and not contested. Excessive rules and bureaucracy with no functional benefit are the treats for trolls and ruleslawyers, who will seek to avoid bans because procedures like this were not followed. There is no reason that proposals for bans cannot be brought up at other, better fora, with more traffic and less procedural hoops. This is a wiki; that page is the same as all the rest except for what you write at the top of the page. The discussions you are talking about, like "provid[ing] a mechanism by which the community can propose and ratify sanctions short of a complete ban" can take place just as easily on WP:AN or elsewhere. Deleting the CSN is not suggesting in any way that discussions about bans shouldn't take place, but that the way they do there is unhelpful, usually. CSN doesn't give anyone a "Block EditorX from editing foo-related articles" button either, so it's not any more necessary for such decisions. The concern about voting is a very valid one. Despite the page's header, discussions there have often devolved into simple votes, where rationale is unimportant, and worse, admins have even been "closing" such discussions as if it were a vote to be read and decided, not a discussion with an organic conclusion. We need to avoid the quickpollization of community bans at all costs, and based on its history, I think the community sanction noticeboard is counterproductive in that regard, and serves no necessary enough role that isn't already covered elsewhere that it is worth saving. Dmcdevit·t 09:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you don't support quickpolls at all, then how do you suggest we interpret non-poll discussions. Polls are only used to make concensus measurable. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Reasons? Dmcdevit·t 09:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Consensus between reasonable people is typically pretty obvious without polls. In addition, no matter how many bogus polls you make, the user can still be unbanned by any administrator if the ban is unreasonable, which is the exact same situation as without polls. —Centrx→talk • 14:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• This page has never produced any helpful/productive/useful/constructive/etc. discussion on anything. Most posts are either a waste of time or are just being used as an unofficial step in dispute resolution. John Reaves (talk) 08:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. A lot of pages get abused, but that's not necessarily a reason to drop them. In this case it takes a lot of the load of very busy pages like WP:ANI and Arbcom. Making those a little less busy is something I consider a good thing. As for a "community ban". I think that is a ban the community supports as the name suggests. This means most admins will support it to, but that shouldn't be the primary reason, or it would be called an "admin-supported ban". -Mgm|^(talk) 09:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Admins act on behalf of the users. The amount of load taken off is very little, and the instruction creep is very high. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 09:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • If you are going to set up some fallacious dichotomy between conducting things teh way they are done at CSN, and having "admin-supported ban," then I think you've missed a lot of history. CSn didn't invent community bans, thank you very much; we had them before and and will have them after it. The community is also not the Form of the community, it just calls itself that, and in fact is much less trafficked by the "community" than better noticeboards. Dmcdevit·t 09:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Fnord. This is a protest against excess process wonkery – Gurch 09:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, largely per Dmcdevit. This noticeboard is not proving a useful sounding board and is not solving disputes; it is acting as a meeting ground for groups of editors to see how many people they can get to join their banning campaign. It is unfriendly and unhelpful. Sam Blacketer 10:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as above, largely per Dmcdevit. This board is heading the same way as WP:PAIN. It is being used as a first stop in a dispute, an attempt to get another user banned. Despite a very strong header and many refactorings, it is also being treated as vote by far too many people. It is overly beuracratic. Viridae^Talk 11:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

D'ye mean "beerocratic"? *hic* -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 12:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Delete as nominator and per excellent reasoning by Dmcdevit, who has thankfully spared me the need to present my own case. Polls are not a valid method of dispute resolution. Mackensen (talk) 11:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Nuke it. per nom and Dmcdevit. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 11:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• keep - there is a very real issue that, if we continue to say that "no admin is willing to unblock" is a "community ban", admins who otherwise would have been willing to will be afraid to unblock someone who has been called "community banned" for fear of defying the "community ban" - the situation where no admin has unblocked a user is, at best, a de facto community ban, not a real one. --Random832 12:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Err, really? I just recently unblocked an editor that was community banned. Heck it was even "ratified" by this board. You can see the questioning of my ablitly to do so here. Please do note that I was also questioned on ANI, and one of the editors not liking the result of ANI, took it to this board. Nothing but process wonkery. If it blows up on the unblocking admin then it blows up, my exeriance with unblocking gen. von klinkerhoffen has been good, as he has gone to doing decent edits. :) —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 12:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think anyone is "afraid" of the community sanction noticeboard, though if your reason for keeping it is to cause fear that's not a good reason. —Centrx→talk • 14:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Question. Does anyone object if this MfD is announced at WP:VPP and WT:COI/N? EdJohnston 12:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep: Sometimes what the "community consensus" will be isn't clear unless you actually ask the community. Why not do so in a forum clearly marked for that purpose, rather than scattered around other noticeboards and/or talk pages, email-lists or IRC channels? This way there's an archive and the opportunity of watchlisting this specific topic -- so if it's done wrong (voting, quickpolling, "lynch-mobbing", whatever) all the concerned wikicitizens can intervene. How could you watchlist and monitor such discussions if they were scattered all over (and off) Wikipedia? Notice also that problem-solving can benefit from community discussion; sometimes topic or article bans have been imposed instead of general editing bans, allowing an editor to stay productive instead of being lost altogether. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 12:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • All of these purposes are served by the Administrators noticeboard, which you can rename to the Administrative noticeboard if you want, and which worked just fine for several years to propose an idea of whether someone should be banned. —Centrx→talk • 14:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Nuke the sucker; I've always questioned its existence, but hadn't really paid much attention to it in the last month or so. Ryulong's examples are interesting, and Dmcdevit's point is sound. Ral315 » 13:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This is far from ideal, I admit. But discussion between five people on ANI was not better, nor was the old "nobody will unblock" standard. I will support deletion if and only if someone actually comes up with a better process for community banning first. -Amarkov moo! 13:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • This noticeboard does not replace "nobody will unblock", which is still true, and ban discussions on ANI where necessary have many discussants. —Centrx→talk • 14:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - I would never block someone based on the discussions present on the Community sanction noticeboard, I resent a few editors behaving quite uncivilly and trying to force administrators into blocking users. The people requesting the sanctions aren't going to be liable for any fallout from a Community ban, it's going to be administrators, and unless we have an overwhelming majority of administrators here who are happy to (in my view, recklessly) block a user per a request here, then it's totally useless. Now, why wouldn't I carry out a block/ban request from this board - Simple - The board doesn't disregard conflict of interest, it doesn't find all the evidence, it can and frequently is very one sided and it's often used to carry out vendettas against certain editors. There's enough little cliques on Wikipedia that would like to cause trouble and would like to be able to ban certain users, this board tries to give them ability to do so. For that reason, it must be deleted and any future board that works in a similar manner should be blocked. If we need an enhanced capability to ban users, an extra few arbitrators would be my preferred solution and a streamlined arbitration process for users behaving unsuitably. If a user is to be banned, they are at least entitled to a fair and impartial investigation into their behaviour. -- Nick ^t 13:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. God forbid the community have a say in the processes regarding removing people's editing privs. How dare we infringe on the power of administrators? I really hate to be sarcastic in an important discussion, but I'm seeing absolutely no way to take this nomination seriously. If anything, this is not the forum to discuss this - it's akin to nominating DRV for MfD. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • If CSN were not around, admins would not have any more power than previously...the discussions would just take place at AN or ANI, with an invite for everyone. --Iamunknown 13:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The "community" has no more or less say because of this noticeboard. The problem is the bizarre parliamentary environment created by this noticeboard, a noticeboard which is unnecessary. Also, there would be nothing wrong with nominating DRV for MfD. —Centrx→talk • 15:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• keep - Largely as per Random832, but with some reservations Whether you like it or not, Wikipedia is getting bigger, and the primary justification for bureaucracy is that it runs large things better than anarchy. When you have over a thousand administrators, obvious cliques that DO exist, though they may not be as influential and conspiratorial as the kookier among us would have you believe, and the current moderately subjective policy net, if you don't have a mechanism for enacting a "ban," you get into that situation where "blocks" and "bans" become synonymous because administrators won't overturn blocks for fear of stepping on the wrong toes. Adding process in this case serves to make the decision to block or unblock a lot more secure by giving you a decision to point to and not requiring the piles of exposition and investigation implicit in the alternative. Keep in mind that these discussions were already going on when the board was created - they were just taking place on the Administrators' boards (though I'm not the most prolific contributor by a long stretch, I do observe a lot). I'd be just as happy if some alternative community sanction process were defined, but given the choice between the Community board and nothing, I'd rather have something. Cool moe dee 345 14:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The discussions can still happen on the administrators noticeboard, as they always have, which still serve as a place to point to in order to support an unblock. —Centrx→talk • 15:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Close page or Delete per nom and my argument at the last MfD. The name is better, but that's about the only thing that's improved. IronGargoyle 14:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. 'The consensus' may be up in the air somewhere, but occasionally people have the urge to make it tangible. The CSN helps make Wikipedia less Kafkaesque, in the sense that people want to know where to turn or how decisions get made. Do you need to be an insider-insider before you have any idea what is going on? The CSN receives some amateurish attempts to ban somebody based on inadequate evidence, but if experienced editors can reasonably respond and point out the inadequacy, those who come there will learn something. EdJohnston 14:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep. This board is the venue for community ratification of voluntary restrictions from community enforceable mediation. To add to the note about this being the only location for establishing non-siteban community sanctions such as article banning, this is the only venue where such discussions get archived in a coherent manner for later reference. The current firestorm began when a few sysops seriously misunderstood the discussion on Daniel Brandt: it was initiated as a preventative measure to protect certain Wikipedians from a potential lawsuit based upon how a court of law might misunderstand this site's practices. There was never a serious possibility that he would be unbanned or that Wikipedians considered his previous ban invalid. Likewise, another citation of a thread I started has been badly misconstrued. Neither I nor anyone else suggested that older community bans are invalid. I do think it would be a good idea to discuss longstanding indef blocks before unblocking so that relevant issues get handled proactively. The Nathanrdotcom arbitration case could have been avoided if such discussions had been standard practice a few months ago. Regardless of how any editor prefers to define a community siteban, this board serves useful functions that would otherwise land in ArbCom's overburdened laps. Durova^Charge! 14:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Close it down. Basically this is a new process for lynching and it has no consensus. So unless there is a consensus to keep it it should be regarded as rejected.--Doc^g 14:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I'll ask the same question as above, then. Might you point to one case, just one, in which a "lynching" (an improper decision to ban) actually took place? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:CSN isn't a new proposal to be "accepted" or "rejected", it's the status quo -- it's been up and running for a couple of months already, and its policy basis was stable for five months. If there's no consensus, the default outcome is the status quo. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 15:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comment If 'no admin will unblock' is the definition of a community ban, what happened here? - These discussions can be had on the current page, or some other page, but clearly there will still be a need for them to take place somewhere. Ehheh 14:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • • Comment I've devoted half a year of volunteer work to making sure community sanctions don't degenerate into lynching. It's rather disappointing to see people who've had minimal involvement and who cannot cite one negative example attempt to summarily dismantle so much careful effort. The only lynching I see is the one at this MFD. Durova^Charge! 15:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Unless you want all this to descend back on AN and ANI again (you know, one of the reasons that the board was created in the first place). And agreed, the only Lynching that's taken place is the one to attempt to remove this board. In EVERY case where someone used the CSN board as a lever in an ongoing dispute, the community saw through it and did not fall for it. Give the community some credit. SirFozzie 15:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)