Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Callanecc (talk | contribs) at 02:09, 20 January 2015 (→‎Motion to establish a central log for discretionary sanctions and associated amendments: Motion enacted). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Motion name Date posted
Motion to establish a central log for discretionary sanctions and associated amendments 3 May 2014

Motions

Motion to establish a central log for discretionary sanctions and associated amendments

For this motion there are 13 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Motion text

Establishment of a central log

A central log ("log") of all sanctions placed under the discretionary sanctions procedure is to be established by the Arbitration clerks on a page designated for that purpose (Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log). The log transcludes annual log sub-pages (e.g. [/Log/2015], [/Log/2014]) in reverse chronological order, with the sub-pages arranged by topic, then by month within each topic. An annual log sub-page shall be courtesy blanked once five years have elapsed since the date of the imposition of the last sanction recorded on it, though any active sanctions remain in force. Notifications and warnings issued prior to the introduction of the current procedure on 3 May 2014 are not sanctions and remain on the individual case page logs.

Associated amendments to the discretionary sanctions procedure

1. Additional section to be added

The "Establishment of a central log" text above is to be added to the foot of procedure page, with a heading of "Motion <date>", with the date being the date of enactment.

2. The "Authorisation" section is amended with the following addition:

"Where there is a conflict between any individual provision authorising standard discretionary sanctions for an area of conflict and any provision in the standard discretionary sanctions procedure, the provision in the standard procedure will control."

3. The "Guidance for editors" section is amended with the following addition:

"The availability of discretionary sanctions is not intended to prevent free and candid discussion, but sanctions may be imposed if an editor severely or persistently disrupts discussion."

4. The "Alerts" subsection is amended with the following addition:

"An editor who has an unexpired alert in one area under discretionary sanctions may be sanctioned for edits in another separate but related topic, which is also under discretionary sanctions, provided the nature or the content of the edits – broadly but reasonably construed – in the two topics are similar."

5. The "Logging" subsection is amended with the following replacements:

Replace: "All sanctions and page restrictions must be logged on the pages specified for the purpose in the authorising motion or decision."
With: "All sanctions and page restrictions must be logged on the central log, currently /Log."
Replace: "The log location may not be changed without the consent of the committee."
With: "The log location may not be changed without the explicit consent of the committee."

Enacted - Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support
  1. Overdue housekeeping/reform,  Roger Davies talk 09:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Removed "calendar" per discussion in community section. Revert if you disagree,  Roger Davies talk 17:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agreed, will bring order into present situation. Dougweller (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:40, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Thryduulf (talk) 11:17, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  5. --Guerillero | My Talk 19:27, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  6. DGG ( talk ) 17:30, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Courcelles 19:52, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:55, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  9. GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:42, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  10. NativeForeigner Talk 10:44, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain
Recuse

Discussion by arbitrators

One thing that has occurred to me regarding the five year rule, is that some sanctions, usually topic or interaction bans, are placed indefinitely. Is the intent of blanking the logs such that ALL DS placed this year would expire on 1 January 2021, or just the log be blanked but that any remaining sanctions remain in effect? Personally, I like the former, if an editor who is not indefinitely blocked is still around in five+ years, there is a good chance the sanction isn't useful anymore, and if by chance it is, it could be re-imposed. But one way or another, this question should be settled. Courcelles 18:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also, "may be blanked" should be replaced with "shall be blanked", or "may be blanked at the Committee's discretion" (I prefer "shall"). The may language is too open-ended, it'll be blanked if someone (who?) feels like it? Courcelles 18:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Roger Davies:. My second point is uncontroversial enough that I've just done it, but my first, I think, needs to be clarified before this passes. Courcelles 19:23, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Courcelles: Thanks for sorting out may>shall, it slipped my mind. Otherwise, it's not the intention that all DS expire with the blanking of the Log page. We can clarify that by adding "though active sanctions remain in force". There's a discussion to be had about expiry but probably not on the hoof. For instance, i-bans certainly shouldn't just fold in. Plus some sanctions get pretty complex; example: the same editor being topic-banned for BLP in one area in 2011; but a fresh topic ban also for BLP in another in 2014. Or another editor being t-banned in 2011, then blocked for breaching it in 2017. What are the implications of that?  Roger Davies talk 19:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Roger Davies:, you're right about not doing this too quickly. I've added the language to codify that the blanking does not remove any active sanctions. That said, I think we should have that discussion, that all DS have a sunset clause, sometime in the future, but that's not the purpose of this motion. It just needed to be not ambigious for now. Courcelles 19:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Courcelles: I agree with you about sunset clauses. We also need to look hard at the "awareness" provisions, they're too complicated.  Roger Davies talk 19:59, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Community comments

Suggested edits:

"Where there is a conflict between any individual provision enacted prior to 2015 authorising standard discretionary sanctions for an area of conflict and any provision in the standard procedure, the provision in the standard procedure will control." because no committee can constrain future versions of the same committee, but it can make taking a desired action an unnecessary hassle. With the phrase, a future committee that comes upon circumstances such that they wish to tailor discretionary sanctions (DS) can easily do so. Without it, they can still do so, they just have to #1) pass a motion modifying the standards DS and #2) then pass the custom DS. Other than hand, if ya'll insert the phrase now "worst case" scenario is it's never invoked. NE Ent 10:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's no constraint on any committee issuing any restriction it feels like but if they're customised DS then they're not standard.  Roger Davies talk 11:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Change "broadly but reasonably construed" to the long-standing traditional "broadly construed." The trouble with "broadly but reasonably construed" is that it doesn't actually mean anything, or, perhaps more precisely, it's never going mean the same thing to multiple editors, including those who with administrator WP:UAL responding to requests at WP:AE. While well-intentioned, such a phrase is more likely to provide a "nucleation" site for wiki-lawyering than useful guidance to the community. NE Ent 11:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And equally if the thing is too broadly construed then simply the action of making an edit on a talk page can be construed as similar in nature ...  Roger Davies talk 11:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason for "five calendar years" and not just "five years"? The result is that the theoretical average for "five calendar years" is about "five years and six months from date of last use" -- which seems a rather arcane system unless one really wants all such requests for blanking to be made in January <g>. Collect (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there's a reason. We don't want to be selectively blanking so, it's five complete years from the end of the year of sanction.If you can think of a succinct way of phrasing this, I'm all ears,  Roger Davies talk 15:26, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Answering my own question, it could just say "five years has elapsed since the date of the imposition of the last sanction recorded on it".  Roger Davies talk 15:34, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite at a NYB level of "succinctness" Spartaz Humbug! 15:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Why not just drop "calendar"? (succinct and likely to be quite sufficient) Collect (talk) 16:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that makes sense. The 2015 page should be blanked on 1 January 2021, the 2016 page on 1 January 2022. (The intent is that whole years be blanked at once, not the January 2015 stuff be removed on 1 February 2020.) Maybe it should be four years, not five, come to think of it. Courcelles 18:14, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whichever way you guys do this, I think it is long overdue and will help the committee, the clerks, and the broader community keep track of what areas are under active DS, where there are current problems, etc. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:33, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Roger that this is overdue housekeeping. There shouldn't be anything controversial in this, and as far as it changes anything in theory, it brings it into line with practice and it will make it much easier to pick up problematic editors who move from one controversial topic to the next as they accumulate sanctions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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