Wikipedia:Contentious topics/2021-22 review/Consultation

2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review

Status as of 13:56 (UTC), Thursday, 14 November 2024 (Purge)

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.

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).

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Thanks to everyone for participating. From this discussion we observe a consensus that Discretionary Sanctions serves a purpose and remains effective in creating conditions for high quality information to be presented to our readers. There was a minority but non-negligible number of number of editors who question whether DS is effective in quelling disruption, has no definable purpose, and who suggest DS may instead be effective at creating chilling effects which discourage editors from contributing in those areas. Several editors who felt this way note the lack of serious study (both qualitative and quantitative) about its impact on article content.

There was a consensus that the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard is effective, on the whole, in addressing issues. Reasons for this included word limits and sectioned discussions. A number of editors also specifically cited the ability to topic ban disruptive editors as one of the ways DS is effective. The same reasons cited for this effectiveness were also named by a number of editors as an issue in that it creates a barrier to participation and/or otherwise advantages editors who can understand its legalistic requirements. This fits with an overall consensus that the barrier to entry with DS is very high, for editors in those areas and for admin patrolling them. Clearer documentation is plainly called for. There was also a consensus that AWARENESS is broken with a variety of suggestions offered on how to fix it.

Finally we note that several editors suggested, in sentiments shared by the drafting arbitrators, that the BLP DS ends up working differently and perhaps has a different purpose than other DS. We also note that other pieces of feedback, which didn't rise to the level of consensus or significant minority viewpoint, were considered and may be included in our draft recommendations.

Based on this consultation, the drafting arbitrators expect that the following may be among what is presented to the community for feedback in Phase 2:

A stated purpose for DS
A revised name for DS
A LEAD section on the DS procedures page
A complete overhaul of AWARENESS and alerts
A lessening of first mover advantage
A change in individual administrator authority
Aligning the mechanism around indefinite sanctions across DS
Administrator instructions
A "DS basics" information page
Sub-pages for each DS topic area
A re-examination of a number of specific DS areas

This list remains subject to change and is also not a complete list of what will be presented for feedback.

Barkeep49 (talk) 20:55, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:01, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- I want to clarify that my references to Am Pol were not really about anything specific to those cases, but rather, about how, once ArbCom deals with a particular troubled topic area, it's best not to have repeated cases over the same topic area. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
The purpose of DS is to provide a way to keep a topic from spinning out of control after a case closes and to provide a way to sanction editors who flew under the radar during the initial. Without DS, we would have yearly cases about Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Poland, the Balkans, American Politics, Gender, BLPs, etc. The idea that the drama boards can solve these problems is laughable. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the purpose of Discretionary Sanctions is to restore order in topic areas where our normal rules lead to chaos.—S Marshall T/C 09:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Discretionary sanctions allow admins to act quickly in areas where disruption is rampant, and to use sanctions other than blocks. This is useful in cases where a complete block from editing would be excessive, yet blocks from editing particular articles would be insufficient to curb the disruption. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The intended purpose may indeed have been created with noble intentions, but it has failed. Even more convincing is the argument that DS doesn't allow for anything more than what normal admin actions can resolve, with the exception of making it more difficult to overturn, so I align with DGG in that regard. Atsme 💬 📧 20:26, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have had the term often invoked, but I still don't understand it well. While I am open to consideration that DS serve some purpose, from the perspective of non-admin who occasionally reads some AN(I)/AE discussions, it is a wiki-bureaucratize involved to 'scare' some people and creates a chilling effect ("you'd better stay away from this topic, there are scary arcane rules here so you may get easily blocked for something that would be ok in other topic areas"). I fail to see why normal rules are insufficient for some topic areas. Sure, they may be prone to much more disruption, but so what? What kind of behavior would be tolerated in an article about let's say some obscure, uncontroversial toy but not in the article about Israel-Palestine or whatever topics DS have crept in? Good and bad behavior are topic-irrelevant, and all DS seems to be doing IMHO is create areas where more and more editors, old and new, are scared to edit as they are afraid a slight misstep might have dire consequences, with DS throwing AGF and like to the wind. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Surely these areas lose more editors due to toxic behavior than the presence of DS, which does not usually impose restrictions on editors beyond what they should be doing on other articles but makes it easier for admins to deal with certain problems. (t · c) buidhe 15:18, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia exists in the real world, and because we are in the real world, external conflicts are imported onto Wikipedia. This causes serious problems for our editors and has the potential to harm the world at large. Despite the gravity of these conflicts, administrators are often hesitant to act unilaterally or with a firm hand in situations that are politically fraught and might open them up to accusations of abuse. From a systemic perspective, it is also important that we have a way to quickly and efficiently mitigate the harm of tendentious or bad faith editing, but our existing processes emphasize a much slower approach than is often needed. Discretionary sanctions, in my opinion, were created to address those two issues. Firstly, authorization helps to put administrators at ease so that they are less apprehensive in controlling disruption. Secondly, it expedites the process by replacing our usual process of multiple warnings and discussions with a single warning before allowing unilateral action. These goals are useful and important, but imo the bureaucracy has undermined the usefulness. — Wug·a·po·des 22:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Expressed far more eloquently than I could. I agree entirely with this comment. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:05, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please apologize for bumping into this, but I have a major concern, what to do if one cannot turn to the ArbCom because there is a COI, I keep asking myself. Who controls the controllers... As Wug· rightly states: Wikipedia exists in the real world, and because we are in the real world, external conflicts are imported onto Wikipedia. Lotje (talk) 06:36, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The goal of discretionary sanctions is to reduce disruption in troubled topic areas by delegating powers to individual administrators that are normally reserved for Arbcom or the community. In my mind, you are putting some extra tools in the admin toolbox. This is useful because many of our normal tools like blocks and page protection are fairly blunt. If an editor is only having trouble in one topic area but editing productively elsewhere, a topic ban is better than a block (which also blocks their productive contributions elsewhere) or page protection (which affects all other editors). Recognizing that some of these tools are easy to abuse, we ask admins to use them with discretion and log their actions for accountability. ~Awilley (talk) 17:45, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We should be using these guidelines to hold bigots accountable. I see rampant racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. all over the place. There is an ongoing revolt right now with regard to admins and the WMF in no small part because they told you to use the right pronouns when talking about people. (Yes, that includes neopronouns. Get over it.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Internetronic (talk • contribs)
I was not really active during their initial creation and implementation, so coming in more recently and seeing how they seem to work now compared to the situation prior to their implementation, discretionary sanctions seem to serve the purpose of providing clear tools and guidance for admins when dealing with highly problematic areas that suck up a lot of time. Even with the discretionary sanction system in place, there do seem to be too few admins active in or familiar with many of the areas covered by such sanctions, so these tools ease the burden on those admins who do choose to help out. CMD (talk) 17:18, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's consensus model is broken. The project is now too big for that model to be effective in making complex decisions and discussions are too easily derailed (usually with good intentions). That makes it almost impossible to evaluate a popular editor's contributions as a whole, as opposed to isolated diffs (something the community struggles with even without the peanut gallery, and which ArbCom does poorly), or to come to conclusions on questions of governance, or to solve intractable disputes. Of course, many of the disputes are intractable because of external factors (we will have POV pushing in the Arab-Israeli topic area for as long as the issue itself is in dispute, with peaks and troughs in disruptive edits in correlation to real-world events) and probably for many years after; the same applies to most other ethno-nationalist disputes). Discretionary sanctions make the required standards of conduct clearer, make it easier to report violations, and provide a certain amount of cover to admins who make unpopular decisions in a genuine effort to improve things. They're not supposed to be a spectre hanging over editors; they help bring some sense of order to our most troubled topic areas so that we can endeavour to write a neutral, verifiable encyclopaedia. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:18, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In our most contentious areas, content and behavioral disputes often get so messy that they are utterly intractable in our conventional dispute-resolution fora. When the number of participants is large, and they are entrenched in their positions, discussions at AN/ANI often go nowhere, and while mediated discussions are helpful, they have no ability to deal with sanctionable behavior. Discretionary sanctions provide a means for us to handle these disputes without weekly ANI threads or yearly cases before arbcom. As such they are a vital part of keeping contentious areas manageable. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would add that anyone who thinks we can obviate DS and properly handle these disputes through AN/ANI and ARBCOM has not read the AE archives or the AE log with sufficient care. The sheer volume of bad behavior that admins enforcing ARBCOM decisions have to deal with would tie up any body of 14 people for every waking minute for the rest of Wikipedia's existence. I do not think I am exaggerating in any way. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:16, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad that Vanamonde93 said those things about how AE/DS can work far better than AN/ANI do, because I agree with that very much. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is one editor's answer to a question from the ArbCom: "What do you see as the purpose of discretionary sanctions? What do you view as the problems that discretionary sanctions were designed to solve?" The purpose of discretionary sanctions is to provide an expedited technique for dealing with areas where persistent disruptive editing makes development and maintenance of the encyclopedia difficult. Discretionary sanctions, which should maybe be called expedited sanctions or accelerated sanctions, permit:
1. The blocking of disruptive editors via a procedure that will not be unilaterally lifted by another admin;
2. The imposition of topic-bans on disruptive editors by a single admin rather than requiring action by the community or the ArbCom;
3. The imposition of revert restrictions on pages and on editors.
  - As the plague essay explains, the plague of Wikipedia is nationalism. Nationalism too often causes editors to ignore both the second pillar of Wikipedia, which is neutral point of view and the fourth pillar of Wikipedia, which is civility. Many of the areas covered by discretionary sanctions are areas that have been subject to battleground editing because they have been historical battlegrounds. The area with the most ArbCom cases, four, has been Palestine and Israel. Other battleground areas that are subject to discretionary sanctions include India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, which is at least two war zones, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. World War One began in the Balkan region, and nationalist disputes in the Balkans continue to be troublesome. Eastern Europe was devastated by World War Two and then divided by the Cold War. A variant of battleground editing over nationalism is seen in American politics, a large and diverse nation that is split by competing visions of what the nation should be: One nation, two forms of nationalism.
  - There is one area in which discretionary sanctions have been used for a different, and in my opinion entirely valid, reason, and that is biographies of living persons, where discretionary sanctions are another tool in the tool box and another arrow in the quiver of administrators to deal with a few editors who might otherwise cause real harm to real people. Any reforms that are made to discretionary sanctions should be tailored so that they do not weaken their availability with regard to BLP violations.
  - Some of the areas other than nationalism and BLPs where discretionary sanctions have been used are areas where a few editors have a single-purpose persistence that resembles that of nationalists.
  - One of the original purposes of discretionary sanctions was to allow administrators to impose topic-bans and other limited sanctions on disruptive editors. Since discretionary sanctions have been introduced, there have been at least two further developments. The first is that the Arbitration Enforcement procedures have developed and evolved. They have made the use of discretionary sanctions more structured, which has advantages, but also makes them less rapid.
  - The second change, which may have reduced the need for discretionary sanctions by providing an alternate tool in the tool box and arrow in the quiver, is partial blocks. While a block and a ban are different, and a partial block and a topic-ban are different, both partial blocks and topic-bans can be used to restrict troublesome editors without excluding them from editing. If administrators are encouraged to impose partial blocks unilaterally, that may reduce the need for a special structured regime for dealing with disruption.
  - I have two possible ideas about the future of discretionary sanctions. The first would be to use the experience from discretionary sanctions in troubled editing areas to develop a structured approach to disruptive editing in general. If the structured handling of disruptive editing in battleground areas has been useful, can it be extended to other areas? Expansion would require community buy-in, since it is probably outside the scope of ArbCom. The second is, alternatively, that maybe discretionary sanctions are no longer needed in areas other than BLP violations, because administrators should be encouraged to partially block disruptive editors.

Robert McClenon (talk) 15:14, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Purpose)

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Also in agreement here, and with the positive Ymblanter mentioned below, in that cases get closed, and more specifically, that cases receive attention and are responded to (even if the result is no action). Such expected engagement is a really significant difference compared to other noticeboards. CMD (talk) 17:29, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I also 100% agree with this. The structure, limits, higher level of scrutiny and "clerking" of AE make it far more effective in keeping discussions on track and maintaining focus. I rarely bring things to ANI any more unless they are very straightforward, short-term and obviously egregious, because ANI is ineffective at addressing with the sort of insidious long-term POV pushing I deal with daily in the Balkans/Eastern Europe DS topic area. A lot more preparation is needed to get a positive result at AE, but if you do the evidence-gathering work up-front and the report is valid, it works, currently at least. The restrictions also mean you also don't get the interminable TLDR battlegrounding rambles, which is a massive bonus. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:58, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

Extended discussion of a related example

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)[reply]
Since I'm here termed unblockable, I'll just quote from one of our esteemed fellow editors in that discussion: In some cases "unblockable" has meant "behaves inappropriately but has too many supporters to keep blocked". But in some cases it may mean "repeatedly triggers others to behave with inappropriate authoritarianism and is unblocked when it becomes apparent that the authoritarianism was inappropriate". E Eng 01:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - @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)[reply]
    - 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)[reply]
      - 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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
I think AE is great and I would have no problem with also handing community-based GSs. The only problem with AE is that about 10 admins do most of the work. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:36, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My experience of this was in electronic cigarettes; I haven't extensively edited in other topic areas subject to DS. In that topic area, the discretionary sanctions were almost totally ineffective, but all the problems were completely resolved by topic banning one editor.—S Marshall T/C 09:58, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Discretionary sanctions do work, when applied properly, and AE provides a more structured format to help that happen. They are certainly not a perfect system, but I think they certainly are an improvement over taking a difficult dispute to ANI. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have two specific suggestions.
1. If there is a complaint on WP:AE, and it is sitting without closing for a prolonged period of time (let's say for a week), just close it automatically without action. If admins are not immediately certain what to do with a request, it means the request is too complex for WP:AE, a content dispute or generally something to be resolved by other means. That would also reduce the workload for admins.
2. I do agree the project needs WP:AE noticeboard. There are also many situations when an admin would issue a block or a ban as a "normal administrative action", i.e. regardless to DS. This is fine. What may be questionable is this. Consider several users who have a heated dispute and discussion about something in a DS area. None of them officially complain about anything on WP:AE or ANI. Perhaps they will be able to resolve their differences. But an admin suddenly appears to topic ban one or several of them for something that would not be sanctioned in other areas. For example, someone made a clearly unfriendly comment and behave in a passive aggressive manner, someone contacted his friends on another wiki, someone arguably followed edits by another contributor to discuss and correct his edits which arguably needed to be discussed and corrected, someone made a couple of reverts, but did not violate 3RR, etc. I think the individual and unsolicited admin actions in DS areas should be limited to only obvious and repeated violations, for example of 3RR or 1RR. Speaking on "solicitation", it does happen that a participant of such disputes approaches a carefully selected admin (who would be presumably friendly to their cause!) with complaints about other users. If that happens, such things should be ignored and the user be directed to a WP:Dispute resolution (rather than to AE or ANI), unless the admin can see a compelling a reason for an immediate block or the reported behavior is indeed so bad it justifies posting on AE or ANI.My very best wishes (talk) 14:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Administrators taking actions for obvious and repeated violations of policy and other restrictions authorized by the community or the arbitration committee already fall within normal administrative actions. With your suggestion, can you clarify if there is anything additional that an administrator can do for a topic for which discretionary sanctions has been authorized? isaacl (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, there is. For example, someone can be blocked for 3RR violations in any subject area. If that happens several times in a DS area, then issuing a topic ban (which is a remedy specific for DS) would be a proper action. And so on. I just do not think that individual admins should aggressively and proactively patrol the area and users looking for minor violations. My very best wishes (talk) 15:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so you're suggesting admins should still have the ability to apply remedies that aren't ordinarily available to them, but only in scenarios where they are already empowered to block as a normal admin action? isaacl (talk) 20:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

With this approach, I'm not sure there's a path to apply page-specific restrictions, since those by their nature apply to everyone, even those who did not violate any policies or other restrictions. This would of course simplify the whole framework, and thus awareness would no longer be an issue, without page-specific restrictions and with special remedies only available when a block can normally be done, which typically comes after warnings. isaacl (talk) 20:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking rather facetiously, the effectiveness of DS is 100% but only because it is an open door to WP:POV creep, and that in itself is a huge problem. Perhaps one of the contributing issues that tend to magnify the problem is that not all editors/admins admit to or perceive themselves as having a strong POV. In fact, if one truly believes in a cause or has an agenda, call it what you will, they cannot see their own biases, and there are few exceptions, short of focused career training to control it, or simply not caring enough about the topic to give a poop. Some believe their respective POV is the correct one, and that it is supported by facts, which brings up our sourcing issues in today's media environment - another issue that I see problematic relative to admin involvement because sources are a content issue. Journalistic and academic opinions that are laced with bias and presented to us in published sources disguised as or conflated with facts only add to the problems. When an admin considers their POV to be the only correct one, they can't help but see the opposition as being in the wrong and the reason for the disruption; therefore, it becomes validation for taking an AE action at their sole discretion. The topic itself really doesn't matter because it is widespread over many controversial topics, and it threatens NPOV.
DS inadvertently creates a micromanaged editing environment at controversial articles, which actually allows for POV creep; it's just that simple. Add to that, a combination of other issues, and a DS/AE action performed by a popular admin is highly unlikely to be challenged. Editors sometimes find themselves dealing with close-knit alliances, especially in topic areas that most admins tend to avoid, especially if they don't align with WP's systemic bias.
For example (and please keep in mind that my examples are focused on the action not whether it was right or wrong), the most recent case involving the recent block of EEng, which another editor mentioned above. It was overturned by Bishonen which could not have happened as easily if it was subject to DS/AE; some see that as a good thing, whereas others do not. In similar fashion, she could not have indef t-banned me at a newly opened ARCA case. She noted in her edit summary that she was "stepping into the firing line", which I think also speaks loudly to this issue. I grabbed those 2 diffs because I'm familiar with those 2 cases, and they were handy, but they also demonstrate two completely different incidents that need careful consideration by ArbCom. Atsme 💬 📧 22:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is very little evidence that the sanctions work; we need a study carried out in an academic fashion. I posit the following hypothesis, based on my observations: sanctions work according to admins who see them as lessening their burden and are criticized by content creators who feel it places an undue burden on them, and all of this happens through the chilling effects that make those topic areas less attractive to edit; the end result is while there might be less disruption, there is also less content creation/improvement in affected areas. It's like a curfew - it works for reducing crime, but hardly improves the affected society's happiness/economic outlook/etc. We need to try to quantify this, which can be done through both quantitative study (number of edits / articles created / nominated to DYK / improved to GA+ in those topic areas) as well as qualitative (interviews with editors active in this topic area, and dividing their opinions based on their primary role - admin, content creator, discussion participant, etc.). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:58, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My earliest experiences with DS were in the area of alternatives-to-medicine, most notably homeopathy. Use of DS has allowed the rapid closure of endless circular vexatious demands by True Believers that we reflect homeopaths' view of what they do, rather than that of the reality-based community. What DS did there, and in several other areas, was to take what would otherwise have been numerous substantially identical ArbCom cases and instead expedite them as "more of the same" via AE. That is how it should be, and we should be more careful to ensure that when something is brought to AE it genuinely is "more of the same" and not a novel or distinct case. DS threads the needle between due process and assumption of good faith, and wearing everybody out by continually rehashing the same points refuted a thousand times. It doesn't matter how many deeply and sincerely committed people come here to tell us that the Earth is 6,000 years old, creationism is a valid theory of the origins of life, homeopathy works, laetrile cures cancer, or 9/11 was an inside job, the result will be the same and expediting it is a material benefit to the project.

What is more difficult is the ARBPIA / AP2 type of sanctions, which are designed not to hold back obviously bogus claims, but attempts by the highly committed to use Wikipedia to Right Great Wrongs. These topic areas are difficult because much of the content is subject to interpretation (are the occupied territories subject to a form of apartheid? are they Israeli land by right of conquest or illegally occupied?). Here, many thoughtful Wikipedians have historically worked together to craft consensus descriptions of the world that reflect nuances and genuine differences, and the effect of DS has mainly been to remove bomb-throwers who disturb that fragile peace. This is a valid and desirable thing to do, but it requires more care, and probably a better appeals / probation process.

Probably the most effective sanction I have seen in use is the one on sourcing around Poland and the Holocaust. That enforcement of the highest standards of sourcing has the effect of forestalling most of the bad-faith arguments, and steering more editors into good-faith attempts to compromise on how to represent high quality scholarship. This is akin to MEDRS in its effect: dross is removed, and along with it, most of the obvious cranks. More of that, please. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:18, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As others have noted, DS applies in two extremely different contexts, at AE and "on patrol". AE, I think, is our best conduct dispute resolution forum, and I wish we would adopt some of its methods for dealing with problematic behavior outside of DS topics. "On patrol" is more difficult to assess, as while there is centralized reporting of sanctions, we don't have any way to measure the degree to which further sanctions deployed by patrolling admins are needed. There's also an uncomfortable tension when applying DS in the wild, since often what an article that gets sanctioned needs most is attention from experienced, impartial editors...but providing that attention makes one "involved" and then precludes the patrolling admin's ability to take action if the need arises. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 16:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with others above that the AE noticeboard works well. Its structured format prevents it from descending into the farce that conduct discussions at ANI become because diffs and serious analysis don't become overwhelmed by walls of text or off-topic comments and the dedicated section for discussing the result prevents it from becoming a vote where an editor's friends or well-meaning participants fail to pick out a subtle long-term pattern of disruption from thousands of edits. This makes it much more effective at removing editors from a topic areas where they have strong feelings that mean they can't edit neutrally, or at quickly removing single-purpose accounts in a drama-free way that isn't possible at other venues. The central logging also allows us to keep track of problems, including editors moving from one topic area to another. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:37, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: I'm not seeing that at all. As others have said, cohorts of editors routinely show up with cherrypicked diffs and tenuous arguments as to their significance. To the extent Admins have the time and attention to volunteer patrolling the article pages, the AE board is superfluous, as Admins are empowered to act on their individual authority. We have too few experienced Admins who volunteer time and attention to these difficult matters, and many participate only by waiting to review cases brought to AE. That introduces huge biases into the process. Most editors do not invest the time and attention to write what amounts to a legal brief documenting misconduct in sufficient detail to withstand deflections, rebuttals, and well-intentioned but uninformed evaluation by others who participate there. The best enforcement has been done by a small number of very experienced Admins familiar with the subject areas and the interpersonal dynamics of the editing, acting on their own observation and often with constructive warnings and advice before any sanction of the offending editor. Admins whose time commitment enables them only to sit and await cases at AE have been much less effective and much more erratic. SPECIFICO talk 14:56, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I entirely agree with Newslinger above; the structured format of AE in invaluable. In particular, the fact that decisions about sanctions are made by a body of admins rather than all editors is useful, because those discussions cannot be utterly derailed by parties to the dispute.
Additionally, DS has allowed some admins to familiarize themselves with certain topics, and thereby deal with poor conduct far more effectively than they would be if every behavioral issue required a consensus at ANI to resolve.
Speaking more generally, I'd like to echo HJMitchell's point from above; particularly with respect to behavior, our consensus model is quite broken; expecting AN/ANI to deal with all behavioral issues is completely unrealistic, and DS currently provide the most workable alternative in areas that they are authorized. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Effectiveness)

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Like. El_C 13:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let me may be make my point stronger. I believe that an ordinary user who has not been specially trained for AE and not spent years observing the process is incapable of submitting a good AE report. This is like it happens in real life - in court, if you have to defend yourself, you have zero chances against a professional lawyer. Yes, sure, if you are reporting someone who is under a topic ban, has been previously blocked for a topic ban violation, and made a clear violation of a topic ban again, you just provide one diff and this is probably it. But if you are reporting someone for persistently crossing the line - well, you need to have the diffs to start with (you do not have a personal collection of diffs, just in case someone has to be reported to AE, do you?), to present not everything you have - because this is too much, and not present too little - because then it is not convincing, make sure not to overstep the word limit (and good if you are aware of it), and, at the end of the day, compile the report in such a way that AE admins (and this is a large group of admins, who may appear randomly and in random topics) would be convinced by your explanation. This is something which people learn at universities for years. I recently had someone on my talk page, who interacted with an editor I happen to know as disruptive, and I suggested AE as a possible way forward - but I am pretty sure the user will not be able to file a good AE case. At least not without months spent for studying cases and policies.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:00, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure. I deal with a lot of persistent POV pushers in the Balkans/EE topic area, and for those that I think are long-term POV pushers operating just below the threshold I keep a record of diffs which I update as I go, and if I need to go over the limits by a bit because of the nature of the editing behaviour in question requires demonstrating a pattern across a range of areas, I ask first. For shorter-term more egregious violations, getting diffs together is a pretty simple task really if you just concentrate on the worst stuff and don't try to carpet-bomb AE with marginal diffs hoping some will hit the target. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:11, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
I'm not an admin, but as an editor, DS is extremely confusing. Maybe it's the newness on my part, but any written guidelines and policies we have on how DS works for an editor takes a while to comprehend; it's only clicking today for me after 3 days of thinking about it. I doubt I'm the only one who's confused. A lot of newer editors start because they are passionate about various topics; frequently said topics end up being sanctioned. Just throwing a sanctions notice or warning on their talk doesn't really ease the confusion due to how the resources on what DS/GS is being confusing in itself. I agree with @Dennis Brown: that a simplification needs to take place not just for admins but also for editors. Sennecaster (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I find DS quite seriously confusing and use it more as a sign that a given editing area is likely full of too much drama to involve myself with than anything. None of it has made particular sense to me -- I have a DS alert notice for an area I can't recall ever editing and take no interest in. Even as the sort of weirdo who reads the DS pages for fun, they're more inscrutable than edifying. Vaticidalprophet 00:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Implementing bans isn't generally a difficult call, I have no problem assessing diffs and following what applies where, but the amount of logging makes my head spin. It's why I'll comment but almost never close an AE anymore, I don't have the inclination to murder however many electrons would be necessary to figure out where the hell to log what. I don't know if there's a good solution to it, or I'd suggest it, but if anyone comes up with one I'll happily help to implement it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:47, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've never found discretionary sanctions confusing.—S Marshall T/C 10:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I find the process pretty straightforward. I have seen some editors confused by what topic and interaction bans mean, but generally some discussion with the admin who has imposed them can clear that up. In the remaining cases, I think the "confusion" is a result of willful ignorance rather than a genuine inability to understand. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:58, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

Confusion? Let me count the ways. There is far too much confusion relative to how far DS/AE reaches into content issues rather than behavior. And then we have the confusion created by some of the good faith attempts to zero-in on problem areas. Unfortunately, those attempts have resulted in micromanagement of DS in highly controversial topic areas, creating even more confusion as evidenced in the deprecation of a few DS that Awilley personally crafted. See User:Awilley/Discretionary_sanctions. As expected, the winning side of those arguments will approve those measures despite the issues they create because POV creep rids a topic area of opposing views but don't take my word for it, ~~read what two American academics had to say.~~ ^{Adding a few more diffs:} Also see Wired, this Stanford article, and Investor's Business Daily. An editor started keeping a record of admin actions that provide some insight, although after he left the project, the updates eventually stopped. Additionally, DS/AE POV creep issues are sometimes manifested as oblique admin involvement. We already know that admin involvement needs to be more clearly defined, completely eliminating the gray areas of admin action vs action based on prejudice against an editor, inadvertent or otherwise, especially in cases where we see the same 2 or 3 admins HOUNDING an editor or policing the same controversial topic areas over time. The problems tend to ebb and flow with the changing tide, particularly in the political arena, but somebody's gotta do it. We can't place all the blame on "unblockables" because there is so much more involved. And here is another example: User_talk:Awilley/Discretionary_sanctions#WP:INVOLVED. Atsme 💬 📧 23:43, 29 March 2021 (UTC) ^{Added a few more diffs in the body text 01:08, 30 March 2021 (UTC)}[reply]
I'm amused to see The Critic completely misunderstand my comment at the WMF statement. Since apparently an answer key is required, I noted that said statement made me think of a song called The Color Of Right; anyone who actually listened to that song would immediately recognize it was obviously not in support of the WMF saying anything and, instead, would much rather they let the community's editing speak for itself, i.e. Show Don't Tell. I mean come on, a Canadian trio that now has to be written about in past tense didn't tip people off? Don't people listen to good music anymore? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:44, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Agree that it was not the best example, so I struck it. Atsme 💬 📧 05:55, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I think Atsme's comments about User:Awilley/Discretionary_sanctions and "POV creep" (whatever that is) need to be taken with a grain of salt. When I introduced the custom sanctions, Atsme seemed to think they were an excellent idea. At the time, I was receiving some pushback for having sanctioned three high profile editors in the American Politics topic area who happened to be Atsme's ideological opponents. She went so far as to send me an encouraging message telling me I was doing the right thing and that I was a GOOD. ADMIN. (emphasis in original) I think the point when she reversed her opinion was much later, around the time that I sanctioned her, if memory serves. ~Awilley (talk) 22:51, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The irony in Awilley's attempt to discredit me goes beyond the pale. No, my comment wasn't inspired by what myself and others have perceived to be Awilley's unjust attempt to silence me from a particular topic area based on his own misunderstandings, but now that he's brought it up, it probably deserves scrutiny as a good case study, and why POV creep and prejudice is a serious issue. ArbCom and some admins do recognize that issues exist, or we wouldn't be here. For example this comment by TonyB speaks volumes; there are other criticisms by other admins. It appears to me that this ArbCom is not only aware that issues exist, they are actually trying to resolve them. Hopefully they realize that it extends far beyond Awilley's allegation, and includes editors whose POV may not align with my own, but who actually are willing to collaborate and appreciate civil discourse, and will consider different perspectives, regardless of how lengthy the discussion. That is how we achieve consensus in a collegial environment - it isn't a debate contest that requires a timer. Sometimes it simply takes more than several paragraphs, depending on the depth of the controversy. Trying to reach consensus should not result in allegations of bludgeoning or worse, a t-ban for trying to reach consensus, or asking someone to stop bullying you which results in an apology followed by collaboration and civil discourse. We're adults and able to work things out with outside influence. Bullying intensifies when an admin supports the bullies, and they get their way. If only one editor is providing a convincing argument vs 3 POV warriors, who wins the argument in DS like those Awilley has proposed (and since deprecated)?
I respectfully request that ArbCom analyze the User:Awilley/Discretionary_sanctions#Anti-filibuster sanction and tell me how that possibly encourages civil discussion to reach consensus. But even worse is the fact that he suggested it, which indicates that in his mind there should be a limit. DS + homemade ruminations are micromanagement of specific topic areas, and it opens the doors to POV creep, and allows for ideological and systemic biases to take precedent based on numbers of participants; thus, "the hegemony". I remain cautiously optimistic that our arbs will read the comments by various editors/admins at User_talk:Awilley/Discretionary_sanctions#WP:INVOLVED, and study that page - try walking in the shoes of veteran editors who are trying to achieve NPOV. Awilley even admitted to potential involvement in this response to DGG: If your position is the second statement, I would say that you're making a good point by highlighting a real potential problem. I've expressed similar concerns myself. It is difficult to see some problems without spending a lot of time in a topic area, and it is difficult to spend a lot of time without becoming involved. It is human nature to deny involvement, and there also exists the possibility it was inadvertent. All I ask is that ArbCom carefully review the evidence I've provided. Atsme 💬 📧 16:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vaticidalprophet has pretty much summed up how I feel about it. Deb (talk) 08:11, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The existence of edge cases doesn't mean confusion. Mostly it's pretty straightforward. An article on a settlement int he West Bank is under ARBPIA, and most of the times when I've seen people argue that a topic is not strictly in scope it's because they are nibbling at the edges of a topic ban - maybe not in a conscious breaching experiment, but certainly in the sense of trying to continue to edit in a hot-button topic where they have a restriction. It should also be noted that DS merely codify Wikipedia best practice, and enforce it via an expedited process. Nobody should be advancing bad sources, arguing long after consensus is established, endlessly repeating refuted claims, or whatever. DS shuts down things that people should not be doing anyway.

But there is one area of confusion that DS can't fix, and is probably not amenable to fixing, which is the situation where two editors do not argue from a shared body of fact. Consider, for example, someone whose media sources consist solely of Mother Jones and the like, versus someone who consumes only Fox, trying to edit on climate change. Both use partisan sources, but, as it happens, one set of partisan sources is based on fact and the other is not. DS acts as a tiebreaker. This causes endless distress to those who are absolutely convinced of counterfactual narratives with large, ideologically-motivated support. We find this easy with fake medicine, thanks to MEDRS. We exclude Natural News, Mercola, GreenMedInfo and the rest, and have little trouble doing so. But what do you do when a huge chunk of the media insists that the 2020 election was stolen, or that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election? This doesn't seem to fit easily within DS and it's unclear how we would fix the scenario where 40+ percent of a nation's population sincerely believes something that is objectively false, and refuses to countenance any presentation of it as anything other than fact. Take comfort from the fact that you are not Kevin McCarthy, I guess. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:34, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

when a huge chunk of the media insists that the 2020 election was stolen, or that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. Simply acknowledge on the page that such views exist and who supports them, but do not treat such claims as the truth, and explicitly say that something was a conspiracy theory if it was commonly described in RS as such. That is what WP:NPOV requires. Same would apply to other subjects. But I think that limiting the types of RS is not a DS business. If someone POV-push by consistenly using poor sources, then that would be a DS business with regard to the specific contributor who does that. My very best wishes (talk) 15:44, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who edited in EE area, I believe that sourcing restrictions for Poland are the most confusing, divisive and counterproductive restrictions I have ever seen in WP. My arguments can be found on ARCA page. Please do not rule on content and do not change the "five pillars". This is something for community. My very best wishes (talk) 03:55, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have never tried to figure out the rules, because I've never applied one or asked for one. When I've commented on one, I've always commented on the actual issue involved, not the process. There is no need for the entire complicated structure. There is no need for any "sticky" remedy--Admins these days do not lightly overturn each other , except when there's been an error. The basic problem is that the rules are complicated because they are dealing with situations which never should arise and almost never do: the only possible justification for DS is unresolvable conflict between admins, and arb com can and does handle that. (I'm not saying they necessarily handle it right, but they do definitively deal with each case by the only generally accepted fair method, voting.) To go even further, there's rarely a need for sanctions of any sort except for removing trolls. The way to deal with a disruptive ed. is to ignore them, or if they open vexatious processes, to speedy close. . There's no need for complicated rules for first/second mover advantage , because a disagreement should never get to that point--if it does, it should simply be ignored,. If two editors keep fighting each other, the rest of the community has a simple remedy, which is to pay no attention to them them, or move the discussion off the page. . The frequent problem of how to deal which an editor who is sometimes very constructive but sometimes causes problems, is to simply deal with hte problems. Despite. what various people may think of themselves, there is almost nobody here who is both skilled and unbiased in dealing with interpersonal relationships, and no one should be put in a position of doing what they are not trained to do well. DGG ( talk ) 05:36, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One area of confusion is awareness requirements, which I cover below. Another is interaction bans; while AE has levied site-wide IBANs, including in discussions I was party to, it isn't clear to me how the sanctions policies, as written, support that practice. I think they should support it, but clarification would be useful. I suspect, though I have no clear-cut evidence for this, that confusion over when AE can levy IBANs has led to their underuse, when a two-way IBAN may be the most effective remedy in a number of disputes. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Vanamonde93: This is not a kind of confusion I've heard about or seen before. Is there more you can say or example you can show where there was this confusion? Thanks and best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:56, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Barkeep49, There was a fairly recent AE discussion in which this came up, but I do not recall the editors in question. The basic question is whether administrators at AE can implement an IBAN over all of en.wiki, when the discretionary sanctions on which the sanction is based has a more limited scope. It is possible I am more concerned over this question than my colleagues, but it remains a point of confusion for me. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:10, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Confusion)

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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  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)[reply]
  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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
In electronic cigarettes the problem that I experienced was a lack of enforcement. I found the discretionary sanctions toothless and impotent because nobody was implementing them---and I suspect that this is because it would have been a colossal time-sink, working with a very active, very verbose, very dysfunctional long-term editor with entrenched behaviours and his own vocal group of supporters.—S Marshall T/C 10:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with enforcement issues. Perhaps not in American politics, but in other topic areas it is variant, and in some nearly non-existent. Good time to plug in this comment from Levivich: [1] ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:19, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Given that some AE threads become very complicated and very difficult to parse, I'll shamelessly promote WP:2WRONGS – not that it's a cure-all, but it can help in some cases. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
DS templates on talk pages - I don't know if this has been mentioned anywhere, but there is a sub-set of editors who simply spam DS-templates onto people's talk pages whenever those people are engaged in an editing dispute with them. This is very WP:BITE-y behaviour and makes Wiki seem like a very unfriendly place. To those unfamiliar with Wiki, it gives the (wrong) impression that those editors are empowered to sanction people directly without any further process. 1RR particularly causes this. FOARP (talk) 09:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Ymblanter about the diffs. If our Arbs are not already quite familiar with WP:POV railroad, I hope they will take the time to do so. When we're dealing with POV issues in highly controversial topic areas, editors wanting to rid themselves of productive opposition will resort to rather extreme measures. There have been instances when 50+/- diffs were presented and not one was a smoking gun. Inundating a noticeboard, AE, ARCA and ArbCom with lots of diffs is a strategy that works, even when most, if not all, are innocuous. Diffs taken out of context are a big problem, and so are diffs prepended with or followed by aspersions. There should be a limit on the number of diffs. One other point, admins who have repeatedly demonstrated their bias about a particular topic should not police that topic area, and if an admin has demonstrated prejudice against an editor, they should be considered involved. Atsme 💬 📧 01:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This probably isn't something that ArbCom should be responsible for fixing, but pain can arise when an educational institution gives a class an editing assignment that puts student editors working in areas that are under DS. There's a discussion about that right now, at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive 21#Students (and instructors) frequently choosing topic under discretionary sanctions. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Pain points)

I appreciate everyone's comments here so far and these comments will be especially helpful in drafting revisions. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Comments by community members (Definitions and terminology)

I suggested unilateral as a better word than discretionary. Another alternative is irrevocable. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Like many things in Wikipedia land, the name is sticky but the definition has drifted. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:40, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the term "discretionary" doesn't elucidate things. I suggest they be renamed "General Sanctions"; we will have "General Sanctions imposed by ARBCOM" and "General Sanctions imposed by the community". User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:25, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- How about "Double Scrutiny" so we can keep the DS abbreviation? (though the WP:DS shortcut is to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting) User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:19, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, the problem does not come from the discretionary part of the name (which I actually think fits its purpose as this process gives admins more discretion); the area I find most users get most confused by is the "sanctions". I'm mostly resigned to the idea that the name won't change (per Guerillero); but if arbcom were to rename it, I'd hope for something more neutral sounding like "Discretionary authorisation" or "Discretionary administrative authorizations" because that gives a better idea of the process here. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Definitions and terminology)

@Andrew Davidson: (and others): this comment isn't the first time I've seen confusion about the name expressed. Do you have any suggestions on an alternative? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:10, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to invite more comment and ideas on possible names that are more clear. Names I would float as possible additional options (with varying levels of seriousness) include "heightened scrutiny topics" and "special enforcement topic areas". Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
I would oppose an automatic sunset --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:42, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Arbitration Committee retains ownership of the sanctions, so it's up to the AC either to review them as and when necessary, or else (preferably) to establish an advisory body whose role is to review discretionary sanctions and offer draft decisions about them for the AC to endorse or reject.—S Marshall T/C 10:31, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Any editor can ask that the ArbCom review an area of discretionary sanctions if they feel they're no longer necessary. I in fact did that on one occasion, and found the Committee to be very reasonable in reviewing it and ultimately deciding that DS was no longer necessary there. Unfortunately, many areas where DS are currently imposed are likely to require them for a long time to come, so I would oppose any automatic "sunset". If someone thinks they're no longer necessary in some area, go to ARCA and make your case. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:05, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The only reason I don't support automatic sunset provisions for authorization is because Arbcom has historically done reviews like this to achieve the same effect. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Eliminate the bureaucracy and all this extra work which in turn eliminates the confusion, and one-sided advantage. DS are not needed, AE is not needed. If you haven't already done so, spend a little time quietly watching the TP discussions in some of the controversial topic areas before they get to AE or ANI. Use the edit war script and see if there is any edit warring taking place at a controversial article - check it out. An appropriate level of PP solves a lot of problems. PP is a better option than t-banning, unless there is blatant vandalism, PAs or troll-style behavior, etc. at which time any admin can use their tools to stop it. Slip over to the article TP and read some of the discussions before they become long and drawn out (and boring), and you'll see for yourself firsthand that 9 times out of 10 (or thereabouts) they are POV based arguments, and the simple solution is to strictly adhere to NPOV and/or BLP. Something as simple as a compromise to include a well-sourced significant view that others oppose works wonders - we need NPOV interpreters more than we need admins in controversial topic areas. If it applies to BLP, always opt for the safest solution - it's better to be safe than sorry. DS have been unfairly enforced from time to time, most likely because of prejudice and/or POV issues, and those types of admin actions encourage bad behavior among rank & file; all of which threatens NPOV. Atsme 💬 📧 16:12, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this is seriously being considered, but I too would advise against an automatic sunset on DS authorizations. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:11, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Authorisation)

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)[reply]
- The ability to appeal sanctions (except those made directly by ArbCom) directly to the community is important. The level of review by ArbCom I presume varies depending on the ArbCom of the year–the current one appears to hold the view that their job is assessing whether the admin acted within discretionary bounds rather than assessing whether the sanction is good or appropriate. And there's also the fact that some (many?) appeals at AE have low admin participation. Given also the widespread nature of DS, and how easy it is for it to be used, it's rather vital imho that the process not entirely be disconnected from community consensus. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:14, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - The problem I see with going directly to the community are the pile-ons by the opposition and lack of decorum. I agree with Ymblanter that AE is much more efficient, as is ARCA, provided we can prevent prejudiced/biased/involved admins and editors from hi-jacking the discussion and poisoning the well. That's when we tend to find ourselves facing the hegemony of the asshole consensus.
    Another point: 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. It's too vague, especially when dealing with DS involving 1RR/consensus required. If only 1 editor sees that there's an issue and 5 don't, then that single editor has to present their argument to 5 different editors who are making comments and asking questions. Of course that single editor will appear to be bludgeoning when in fact they are not - they are simply responding and presenting their argument. Each of the 5 editors will have made fewer comments than the single editor - it's a numbers game. There should not be any time or length restrictions when debating an issue in an effort to reach consensus or achieve NPOV. "Severely" or "persistently" can mean any number of things to an admin who is prejudiced and similar applies to POV warriors who may be dominating a discussion, and that's when a single editor is likely to be hearing a train whistle on the POV railroad. Atsme 💬 📧 01:42, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - I too, feel that ability to appeal directly to community is important - for two main reasons. One is that WP:AN uses a more rational burden of evidence for overturning than AN:AE does, and the other is that AN:AE using the consensus amongst admins, rather than of editors, when that isn't strictly necessary, is anathema to many. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:58, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Guidance for editors)

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)[reply]
"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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Like. El_C 10:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"attempting to wikilawyer about awareness should be regarded as evidence of awareness" Amen to that. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:22, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
    - 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)[reply]
      - 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)[reply]
        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)[reply]
(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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
The awareness system is a disaster --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:17, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just ditch it. We assume that the enforcers have good judgment (because that's inherent in the idea that sanctions are discretionary), so in cases where there's genuine doubt about awareness, they can decide whether to inform on first contact with a problem editor. Community members shouldn't be templating each other about this: the level of confrontation and automation involved is inimical to a productive editing environment.—S Marshall T/C 10:38, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just ditch it. We wouldn't need this at all if every admin always warned editors prior to blocking or otherwise sanctioning them (excepting obvious emergency cases, such as runaway vandals). If admins warned before sanctioning, then we wouldn't need any other alertness requirement. Perhaps replace the awareness requirement with a first-time-must-warn requirement (except for obvious emergency cases... but in those cases, DS isn't needed anyway, as regular blocks, etc., will do). The warning should be explicit ("If you do X again, you will be blocked/banned"). Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:12, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The newer awareness system is poor. As it currently stands, an editor is "aware" if given a notice 364 days before sanctions are requested against them, but becomes "unaware" if that notice was instead issued 366 days ago. I am not certain of the magic properties which cause editors to lose such awareness on the 365th day. Once aware, it is the responsibility of the editor who edits in the area in question to keep that in mind, and they should thereafter be considered to be "aware" after in any way showing themselves to be. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:17, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support the removal of the unnecessarily bureaucratic awareness system. At a minimum, awareness should not be a requirement for editors to be summoned to the arbitration enforcement (AE) noticeboard. The expectations for editors in areas covered by DS are exactly the same as in other areas, but with the addition of page restrictions. If a warning template were created for page restriction violations, there would be a full set of warning templates to cover all of the common conduct issues under DS. WP:ACDS § Sanctions and WP:ACDS § Role of administrators require AE sanctions to be "proportionate", which precludes administrators from issuing sanctions before editors are properly warned in all but the most egregious incidents (and even then, the most egregious incidents can simply be addressed with a standard indefinite block). — Newslinger talk 16:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if I would go as far as everyone else in this discussion and support removing the awareness system altogether. However, I do think reforms are needed, and the bare minimum should be the removal of sanction-specific awareness rules. If an editor knows (or is told) about discretionary sanctions in general, then they can take the time to annually check what topics are currently sanctioned. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 22:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support the elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy that results in further complications. Editors who misbehave, edit war, etc. need only an editor's warning to stop followed by an admin warning, and ultimately an admin action, in that order, if they persist. It doesn't require DS/AE to stop disruption. DS/AE has become a tool to eliminate editors and IDONTLIKEIT content stemming from POV, not behavioral disruption which can be eliminated without DS/AE as I've already evidenced in an earlier comment. Also of note, I personally have a custom DS aware notice at the top of my UTP, which I struggled to achieve at ARCA because of all the bureaucracy as evidenced here, but I persisted and it was finally approved User_talk:Atsme/Archive_32#Your request at ARCA. Such persistence would probably have resulted in a t-ban at a controversial article. Also keep in mind that whenever DS are active at an article, there is (or should be) an explanatory notice of that sanction when in edit view, so if an editor actually edits that article, they are aware it is under DS. There is also a notice at the top of the article TP. Perhaps it's time to stop coddling editors, and in particular IPs (who may be socks of blocked or t-banned editors). Is there a way to prevent IPs from editing in controversial topic areas until they have achieved at least a 1,000 edits and minimum of 6 mos. under their belt (which will help eliminate the bulk of dynamic IP socks, would it not)? Or perhaps create a welcome template that lists the controversial topic areas with a friendly caution to new editors making them aware from the moment their UTP is created? Atsme 💬 📧 12:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree awareness is broken, and suggest throwing the whole concept out. Editors should already be aware that disruptive behavior is not allowed on the project; whether they know the arcana of enforcement isn't relevant. A note that appeals from individuals new to the topic area will be more likely to be granted may or may not be necessary. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What BDD said. We can't just start blocking people for accidental violations of rules they didn't know existed. But the current system of mandatory template notifications and yearly refreshers is really annoying. Unfortunately I don't have any concrete ideas on how to solve this problem. ~Awilley (talk) 17:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
An authorization for discretionary sanctions isn't really a new rule that editors can violate accidentally, though. As I wrote in the discussion on alerts, the alert system only affects a very specific audience: editors 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. I think it may be enough to notify them once of the need to check talk pages to learn about any relevant areas for which discretionary sanctions has been authorized (see the "Alerts" section for a little more detail). isaacl (talk) 20:42, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point, Isaacl. The scenario I had in mind was an editor coming to a page that had a 1RR or similar restriction on the page, reverting twice, and getting blocked. 1RR isn't normal, so some kind of warning is necessary. (Typically in this scenario we post on the editor's talk page, telling them about the rule, and asking them to self-revert.) But I think you're largely right. We don't need to carpet bomb editors with general notifications that they can be sanctioned for failing to live up to behavioral standards. That's already the case everywhere. ~Awilley (talk) 22:38, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Barkeep49, when a specific sanction is put into place, such as a one-revert restriction for a given page, then editors do need to be made aware of it (as is currently done through methods like talk page notices, edit notices, and individual notifications). But the general awareness of the authorization for discretionary sanctions is something I feel we can tell editors how to determine for themselves. isaacl (talk) 00:02, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I personally don't see the value of the awareness system. Users should ideally not be blocked/otherwise sanctioned for violations of rules that they do not know exist, but this is the case for all administrative actions on Wikipedia. Assessment of awareness should be left to discretion, as it is in the rest of Wikipedia. In normal practice, even if a situation escalates to the point where a block occurs due to an issue an editor was not fully familiar with, editors are often unblocked once they understand the issue at hand. Such flexibility/rope for editors who may not have full awareness seems more effective than a mandatory templating system. CMD (talk) 17:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The awareness system is deeply flawed. To make an editor aware, we have to post a nasty template on their page, which looks like an act of aggression. When an admin is the person posting it, we have to make clear that we're involved and we're not the admin who will carry out the action, etc etc, which may or may not be understood. So the act of making "aware" becomes part of the trouble. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:03, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The issues about awareness remind me of a recent incident where a user was topic banned and blocked due to DS; then these two things were shortly repealed because the editor had not been informed of it; and then promptly went on with the same problematic behaviour, earning a near-instanteneous re-instatement of the sanctions (before being indeffed for off-wiki stuff, IIRC)... Agree that we should seek to remove opportunities for wikilawyering if there's a way to do so effectively. Disruptive editing is still disruptive even if a user is not aware of topic specific restrictions. Agree with the suggestion for a set of warning templates about restrictions specific to pages (with an edit notice to accompany this) - possible that one would miss the notice due to banner blindness, but after being politely warned about it that would be no excuse; and problematic editors wouldn't get to go away on technicalities. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Awareness)

The sentiment here is noble, to avoid "gotcha" moments and make sure good-faith mistakes aren't met with disproportionate punishment. I'd like to be able to preserve that without being too gameable or requiring a wiki-JD to comprehend. --BDD (talk) 18:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be some support in this section, and elsewhere, for a model of "notify once that DS exists" but not necessarily for every topic area. Are there downsides that people can think about in moving to that approach from our current model? For me I think it might work fine in any politics/nationalism oriented area and maybe BLP but if an editor gets blocked for violating 1RR in an area like Race & Intelligence (to pick an area that has a 2021 1rr logged) it might still cause angst at being unfairly sanctioned. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

I agree with this, I sometimes mention it when renewing one. —Paleo Neonate – 03:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(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)[reply]
This. My experience is frequently an increase in tensions after an alert has been placed. FemkeMilene (talk) 20:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
As someone who participates in pseudoscience areas I commonly issue the relevant ds/alert. It is true that it often coincides with a merited formal warning (WP:WARN) but that is simply because the editor was noticed editing in the area and found not to be aware yet. If a bot could issue those more systematically, it would be better, but this would also imply making sure that all relevant articles be tagged with the proper maintenance categories or included in maintenance lists, so manually issuing would still be needed at times... On the other hand, I don't think rewording the notice to be a warning implying misconduct would be a good idea, as it is certainly also issued only as a friendly reminder/notice. A technical alternative would be allowing AE reports and sanctions without prior notification, which may not be graceful. —Paleo Neonate – 01:38, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
I'm well aware of discretionary sanctions and I don't require to be told about them.—S Marshall T/C 10:33, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Awareness should be handled by common sense and the current system is overly bureaucratic. For example, as often as I handle AE requests, it would be ludicrous for me to claim lack of "awareness" of them in really any area. Yet under the current system, I actually could claim that. If it's clear an editor is genuinely unaware but has been behaving badly in a DS area, it's easy enough to close an AE request with a notice to them that DS covers the area, what that means, and what the possible consequences of further violations are. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Doug Weller, I was probably rather unclear. Certainly my participation in a particular case can be considered awareness of that one case, but I'm pretty well aware of all areas covered by DS. As things stand now, one would have to go through all the AE cases I touched on within the past twelve months to determine if I am currently "aware" in that case (well, not with me since I explicitly acknowledge awareness of all areas, but with someone similar to me.) There is nothing about a year and a day passing since I participated in a particular one that makes me forget about it. If I could change anything about it, it would be that time limit on awareness—what is it that makes someone "aware" 364 days from when they received the last alert or otherwise indicated awareness, but "unaware" if it happens to be 366 days instead? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:46, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See my comment in DS aware re: permanent notice at the top of my UTP. I have it linked so that it triggers a long list of sanctions and it updates with the sanction page. Atsme 💬 📧 12:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In practice, I use the American Politics ds-alert as an equivalent of uw-vandalism1 for disruptive edits in that topic area. I think having a templated warning that describes the discretionary sanctions area to new users is useful. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for mentioning DSAware in the alert. An explanation of discretionary sanctions for new editors sounds like a good idea as well. I can't agree with the idea that it's enough just to do that and ask people to look at talk page headers. @Seraphimblade:, your participation at AE makes you officially aware, criteria 4 is "In the last twelve months, the editor has participated in any process about the area of conflict at arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement;". "Common sense" would invite wikilawyering and I don't think would be fair to new editors. I'd welcome any changes to the alert message that can make it any clearer that it is a routine alert -- and I think that mentioning DSaware would help that. I also think it's only fair to new editors to give them specific alerts, and essential to do this for anyone entering the ARBPIA area. Doug Weller talk 18:41, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Alerts)

Reading through what has been written so far in this section and awareness I had started to ponder a solution similar to what isaacl suggests here. Essentially making editors aware one time with a (truly) non-threatening alert to the concept of DS (or whatever we may call it) and then empower people to consider lack of awareness as a mitigating factor when considering sanctions/appeals just as they may consider other mitigating factors now. Would love to hear what people think of this, especially if they think it's a bad idea. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:33, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

ProcrastinatingReader, I protected Jill Biden preemptively upon Joe Biden assuming the presidency. El_C 21:13, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Well said. AE isn't "above" or "below" AN/ANI, it just has a different purpose; a limited scope, but admin have a lot of leeway in acting, so it is somewhat more efficient. As far as I know, any sanction can be appealed at AN, or ANI, although AN tends to be a better venue due to the lower signal to noise ratio. Often, editors appeal at AE because they don't want a lot of other voices to pipe in, they feel the matter is straight forward and can be handled better and faster at AE. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The bulk of substantive DS enforcement (imposition of topic bans and sanctions for violating them) happens at AE, so the role of AE is certainly relevant here. In fact, almost all cases that come to AE now concern DS, and very few concern individual sanctions imposed directly in arbitration decisions. A crucial advantage (but also a potential weakness) of AE is that the decisions there are made only by uninvolved admins. That brings a much greater degree of sanity to the process since the dispitants themselves, whose participation usually quickly poisons relevant AN/ANI threads, are consigned to the shouting gallery. At the same time, the process gives the admins, specifically the AE admins, much greater power and influence over DS related areas. AE needs sufficiently active and broad admin participation in order to be effective and to be seen as legitimate, and that's where the greatest weakness of the process currently rests. Relatively few admins participate in AE on a regular basis, and there is insufficient admin rotation there. Both of these issues need to be addressed. AE work is difficult and labor intensive, and admins who choose to invest their time and efforts their deserve a great deal of credit. But rotation and greater admin participation are still needed. An admin who spends a lot of time at AE probably has (much) greater influence in arbitration areas than arbcom members themselves. The arbcom only hears a small number of cases per year, while AE deals with a great many of them, on a continuous basis. While arbcom members are elected, AE admins are not (beyond passing the RfA). I think ArbCom needs to institute some kind of a system which will ensure regular rotation at AE. For example, create a subpage, where an admin could specify their status as "AE active" for particular periods, and set a rule that an admin cannot be AE active for more than X months per calendar year (where X is, say, equal to 3 or 4). If admins are currently listed as "AE active", the clerks should be allowed to ping them in cases of AE backlog. Incidentally, AE needs a much better organized system of clerking too. Perhaps the arbcom clerks can be officially deputized to help out there. Nsk92 (talk) 02:15, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nsk92, I agree with the substance of what you are saying, particularly about what keeps AE sane. However, I don't think most DS enforcement happens at AE; just look at the logs. I mention this because your point about uninvolved admins making decisions is even more applicable elsewhere. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:25, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Appeals have got to be reviewed by a consensus of uninvolved admins, because DS are used where the normal community consensus method has broken down. This is one of the very few areas where adminship does need to be a big deal.—S Marshall T/C 10:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @S Marshall: A lot of the time though the reasoning is more that the Community is acting too slowly on the sanctioning side of things. DS doesn't get bought in because the normal community consensus method has broken down on the appeal side of things. With regard to @Nsk92:'s comment , one potential issue for this is that this could reduce the number of admins in AE without encouraging more in, and pinging them is likely to drive people out of the list. For this method to work, it needs to be paired with methods that will, effectively, triple the active AE group. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not forget ARCA. Please forgive the length of my comment, but much is needed to be said. We already know a problem exists when one group of editors has first advantage over another, and when absolute power has been granted to individual admins in the form of unilateral actions that cannot be overturned by another admin, but above all, when the remedies create more problems than the disputes they're intended to remedy. If all we can say is DS eliminated a single editor, well, that doesn't say much. My concern is that DS/AE is more focused on eliminating opposition which is not disruption. We need different perspectives from our polar opposites in order to achieve NPOV. Yet, DS has lowered the bar so much that it allows a targeted editor to be eliminated for violating the WP:Thicker skin sanction. Yep, that's what we've been reduced to thanks to DS/AE. In a nutshell, we are basically allowing single admins to do the job of an entire committee that was entrusted to do that job - at least, that's how I see it.
Sole discretion eliminates any hope of getting a fair evaluation by a more balanced panel of our peers, which requires at least 5 to 7 different arbs reviewing the case. DS/AE also tends to create an environment of fear and anxiety in controversial topic areas which is neither inviting, especially to female editors, nor conducive to a "friendly working environment" that inspires editors to write engaging prose or present all substantial views without concern of being reverted, or verbally attacked. Some, if not most, of the editors who prevail in DS/AE cases tend to be rather bold, some could even be considered aggressive. Others may be considered POV pushers or "unblockables" which is an advantage that comes when one aligns with the ideological bias on Wikipedia, and that makes achieving NPOV a bit more difficult. Most of us are aware of the double standards and strong partisan influences in certain topic areas. At least at ARCA, the ball bounces back into the court of ArbCom where it belongs, especially in light of the fact that ArbCom created DS/AE for cases that could not be resolved in any other DR venue. Ironic, isn't it? Think about that for a minute while taking into consideration ArbCom's transference of the resolution process to the sole discretion of individual admins who were also granted absolute power. The process eventually takes us back to square one for the appeal; ouroboros comes to mind.
Why on earth would unresolvable disputes be turned over to the sole discretion of a single admin, possibly even a prejudiced admin who has strong partisan views? I see no justification for creating DS/AE only to throw the ball back into the court of disruption. That's passing the buck without being able to say "the buck stops here", because it doesn't stop. And here we are today with a DS/AE process that is riddled with micromanagement pitfalls. Who validates an AE action or is it simply taken for granted? What about instances when an admin targets an editor or denies their direct appeal to remove their imposed t-ban based on POV reasoning, not to mention that the admin's status could possibly be considered INVOLVED? I'm not saying all admins behave improperly; in fact, I believe quite the opposite is true for the majority of our hard working sysops, many of whom have earned my utmost respect. Unfortunately, it only takes a few RGW advocates/POV warriors to disrupt the balance. When admins are known to aggressively defend their "pocket editors" and/or "admin allies" in topic areas subject to DS/AE, and go so far as to openly exhibit obvious prejudices toward certain editors by HOUNDING and issuing warnings or worse, t-banning or blocking an editor over an innocent tongue-in-cheek comment, or statement of fact about one of their pocket editors/allies they simply didn't like - well, it is undoubtedly a serious problem per HOUNDING, not to mention ToU and WMF's recent attempts to create a more welcoming environment for editors. Sole discretion and absolute power is one of the main reasons I supported the 10 year admin evaluation proposal. Something definitely needs to change. Atsme 💬 📧 18:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to clarify that nobody has ever been sanctioned for violating the "thicker skin" sanction mentioned above. Even if it were an active sanction (it's not) it still couldn't be used to "eliminate" editors, since the maximum penalty of someone violating it and then flat out refusing to remove/strike the violation is a week-long topic ban. All of those sanctions were crafted to give people maximum opportunity to resolve problems on their own before they escalate to admin intervention. But that's moot, since that sanction is currently nothing more than good advice in my userspace. ~Awilley (talk) 18:23, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"My concern is that DS/AE is more focused on eliminating opposition which is not disruption." That, I think, is POV creep. Actually, that's not "creep"--it's a pretty fast slide. Drmies (talk) 16:02, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: some of my comments above probably belong in the various sections below, so please feel free to apply them as applicable. I feel that I've covered the main points - but tomorrow is another day, right? Atsme 💬 📧 18:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that I've found occurs whenever I step in to apply sanctions or otherwise break apart a fight by means of the DS regime is that editors are often eager to continue to ping me to play arbiter over any future disputes in the topic matter. While this consultation sometimes does indeed help resolve disputes, I feel like it walks the line of both "involvement" and brushes up against our general norms of community consensus being the primary method for resolving disputes. If I had been so inclined, I probably could have effectively ghostwritten most of our content about Nagorno-Karabakh just based on the constant requests for input that I've received (and mostly turned down). I think we need to clarify the extent to which this is desirable and acceptable, either cautioning against it or fully sanctioning it as another type of action authorized by the DS regime. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 16:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree strongly with Nosebagbear above. Being able to listen to the opinions of all parties, without needing consensus among those parties, is what allows AE to be effective. Furthermore, administrators at AE aren't required to reach consensus, but we tend to do so anyway; and it's that process which has allowed for our most effective moments of dispute resolution. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:23, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Role of administrators)

I'd like to see some comments, either here or elsewhere, on how to increase the number of active enforcing administrators; as others have noted, there aren't that many right now. For administrators who have considered using DS but haven't, why not? Would you consider it if it was simpler? For current enforcing administrators, what can we do to make the process better for you? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:22, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Discretionary sanctions give administrators a lot of power to affect content through affecting participation. More scrutiny should be given to verify that an administrator's activities in a topic area, not just a particular article or dispute, demonstrate that they do not have a strong bias or opinion with regards to the topic. To ask a clarifying question, at what point does an administrators non-administrative activities in a topic area make an administrator involved with regards to that topic area? --Kyohyi (talk) 15:19, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think WP:INVOLVED should clarify the meaning of interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role. For example, an admin discussing something with contributor X on a content noticeboard (like WP:RSNB) - would that be an "involvement"? Or an admin discussing something related to content with X on an article talk page? I am not sure, but things like that should be clearly defined in rules. My very best wishes (talk) 16:29, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Without commenting on when or whether it is appropriate for an individual admin to issue a bespoke sanction, I like most of the ideas at User:Awilley/Discretionary sanctions as wikilawyer-proof ideas targeted at the root cause of conflict. It is good to hear Awilley give positive description to their consequences, as I have seen sanctions like IBANs fail because both participants are determined to wikilawyer the generality of the wording to get an inch, then two inches, and so on until they reach 63,360 inches. Introducing a too-broad sanction can even worsen an editor's behaviour, because it just gives the bad faith actor more fodder for argument and wikilawyering, and the admin feels somewhat obliged to respond in the name of accountability (even though accountability only means giving an adequate justification, not having to reply every time you are asked something you have already explained). It is better for someone to be sanctioned as specifically as possible, so that everyone is clear on what the exact issue is and knows that it will not be tolerated, as well as to avoid collateral in preventing them from making productive actions where they have been doing. — Bilorv (talk) 21:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Barkeep49, homemade ruminations by individual admins should not be allowed because, quite simply, they don't work, at least not always for the benefit of the encyclopedia. I won't say they don't work at all because on few occasions they do work, but mostly when prejudice is involved; i.e., they work famously to rid a topic area of its opposition. Some editors won't realize that it's an issue until they are on the receiving end, and their name is in a table listed as a problematic editor (to watch). How is that not HOUNDING based on prejudice? Worse yet, that dislike may well have materialized because of a simple misunderstanding or perhaps differences in ideological perspectives, or worse...gender. It's an invitation to POV creep with absolute power to use sole discretion that cannot be overturned by another editor. There's no feasible way that the creation of customized sanctions targeting a single editor's behavior does not equate into prejudice, inadvertent or otherwise, and such prejudice makes that admin involved. Sanctions are for ArbCom discretion as a committee, not for individual editors to create based on a single POV. In fact, allowing a single admin's homemade sanctions is, in and of itself, giving approval to a prejudiced POV, and that should not be allowed to happen. Atsme 💬 📧 21:04, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to ignore this (been less involved with AE recently), but I'd comment that custom sanctions tend to create more drama than they solve, even with the best of intentions. My first AE action in 2017 was to try to create a custom sanction that seemed to me staightforward topic banned for 1 month from articles about living and recently deceased American politicians, and related topics, broadly construed.
I intended this to be a less severe way of dealing with disruption on politician articles while allowing contributions about politics (the concern was with a scandal, iirc.) Anyway, it led confusion over whether Joe Scarborough was within the scope of the topic ban (I certainly believe he was both now and then), an expanded AP2 ban to clarify, an AN appeal, and a significantly less than fun ARCA where I eventually withdrew the sanction without forcing a committee vote.
I still think I was right to think Scarborough fell within the scope I outlined, but custom sanctions that don't use standardized language breed confusion and have the potential to create more unintentional disruption than they prevent, both through gaming and the appeals process: AN appeals are an absolute mess, and ARCA isn't fun either.
That being said, situations are fluid and the community evolves. My solution here would be to add language along the lines of Administrators should typically use sanctions or administrative actions that are already commonly used by the community or as a part of the Arbitration Enforcement process. If it is unclear whether a sanction has general support, an administrator should seek feedback at WP:AE from other administrators. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:25, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I had attempted to use or adapt Awilley's sanctions at the Flyer22 and WanderingWanda arbitration case workshop, but there was no consensus to use them unfortunately. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:05, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree with TonyBallioni above. Bespoke sanctions ought to be used only when there's a pressing need that isn't addressed by a TBAN, IBAN, or block. It's worth noting, though, that I think bespoke sanctions have caused the most trouble when applied to editors who are long-standing contributors to Wikipedia. As such the problem in many cases wasn't the bespoke sanction itself, but the manner in which Wikipedia handles the behavior of long-term contributors (short version; badly). When applied in other circumstances, particularly to pages rather than editors, custom sanctions have had a genuinely positive impact. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:33, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Vanamonde93: There's no question that you'll get less much complaining and pushback for placing broad page-level sanctions vs. sanctioning a couple long-standing contributors. But I don't think that necessarily means page-level sanctions are better. If you have a few editors who are driving a lot of the problems in the topic area, doing most of the edit warring, reporting each other to the noticeboards, derailing the talkpage discussions, etc., it's not really fair to punish the entire topic area with broad page-level sanctions. Yes, from an administrative perspective, it's a quick and easy solution because nobody will complain or challenge it. But I think a majority of regular editors would appreciate it more if we took some extra time to locate and address the root of the problem. Instead of placing 1RR restrictions on 5 pages, place 1RR restrictions on the 5 editors who were disruptively edit warring on those (and other) pages. ~Awilley (talk) 21:11, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Awilley, Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I thought I was. I'm not arguing that page-level sanctions are inherently superior to sanctions on editors, and I certainly don't believe that. I'm saying that custom sanctions specifically have been successful more often on pages than on editors. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:17, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  @Vanamonde93: Got it. May I ask if you have any specific examples in mind? I can only think of 4 custom sanctions I have seen applied at the page-level: 1, the "consensus required" sanction which has its pros and cons (I see it as a net-negative, others disagree); 2, the "BRD" sanction that I used to replace "consensus required" (I think it was a clear improvement, again there is disagreement); 3, "Civility" sanctions: the most recent was applied across American Politics articles around 2018 and was (AFAICT) almost completely ineffective (vacated here); and a zero-revert rule on Ayurveda (old example) that failed spectacularly. By contrast, I've seen a wide variety of custom sanctions applied to users. Some worked, some didn't. In a lot of cases where they didn't work the editors later got a full topic ban or block.
  I'd also argue that having a lot of different custom sanctions on articles is a bad thing for editors because we are effectively changing the rules on a page-to-page level. Can we really expect editors to be able to track which custom rules apply to each individual page they edit? For the individual editor, it's much easier to follow a single custom rule that applies everywhere instead of multiple custom rules that are applied to pages sporadically. ~Awilley (talk) 23:58, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Awilley, I'm chiefly thinking of the consensus-required provision and/or enforced BRD and/or 1RR. I feel like there have been more creative examples but I do not recall them off the top of my head. My point isn't that more creative sanctions should be applied to pages, because your argument against that is entirely valid. I was pointing out that what may be seen as a flaw with respect to custom sanctions is quite possibly a flaw with respect to how we deal with long-term editors who display behavioral issues. A custom sanction is often a theoretically good idea, but can be wiki-lawyered into the dirt. I don't especially want to name names here, but if you'd like, would be happy to continue the discussion over email. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We're currently debating its continued use now, but the sourcing requirement for Antisemitism in Poland started off as an article level innovation by a single admin. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:22, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Having looked through the logs to refresh my memory, I found a move-request moratorium [2] used by El_C, which is the sort of tool I would definitely consider using. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Vanamonde and Barkeep. @Vanamonde93:, I do hear you on custom sanctions getting wiki-lawered into the dirt. That said, on the subject of 1RR/CR/BRD, I have frequently seen the 1RR restriction successfully applied to editors, and it's usually successful. It's a bright-line rule that's fairly easy to follow and easy to enforce. I usually see people come out the other side of 1RR restrictions as better and more collaborative editors. In fact I recently got kind of a thank you note from an editor who I had kind of strong-armed into a 6-month "voluntary" self-imposed 1RR agreement. But aside from a different editor who I bullied into a similar "voluntary" unofficial BRD agreement, I don't recall ever seeing editors subjected to individual BRD or Consensus Required sanctions. But I think it's a good idea, and if those have been tried, I'd like to look into the results. I'll shoot you an email. I've said more than my fair share here. ~Awilley (talk) 03:25, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
    Just noting that as of November 2020, Donald Trump is not under a 1RR restriction [3] ~Awilley (talk) 22:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      @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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      
      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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Just spent another couple of hours today removing sanctions from another 28 pages. [4] The more I think about this, the more I support doing away with these kinds of page-level sanctions entirely. (I'm speaking of 1RR, BRD, and Consensus Required. Obviously we'd keep stuff like page protection.) We place these restrictions to slow down edit wars and uncollaborative editing, but they end up punishing everybody. A better approach would be to identify the editors who are edit warring uncollaboratively and put the 1RR, BRD, or Consensus Required sanction on the individual editors. Right now we don't do that very much, partly because there's usually a lot of resistance when you sanction a single editor. But if you think about it, when you place a page-level sanction, you are effectively sanctioning hundreds of editors, most of whom don't deserve it. ~Awilley (talk) 22:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Just wanted to say that 1RR page restrictions on "hot" topics like recent shootings, controversial election results, and the like, are a really bad idea. Topics about recent events tend to attract a large number of new and inexperienced editors with little agendas that are often poorly executed. Basically there's a flood of low quality edits that needs to be curated by more experienced editors. Slapping down a 1RR restriction severely hampers the work of the experienced editors, but has almost zero effect on the new editors who don't notice the talk page template, don't understand that edit warring isn't permitted, and can't be sanctioned unless they breach 3RR or receive the mandatory DS alert, are notified of the 1RR, and then continue edit warring. (Meanwhile they run roughshod over the people who are following 1RR.) Additionally, spotting 1RR violations is really hard when there are hundreds of edits per day. ~Awilley (talk) 14:40, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think page restrictions like 1RR ~~are fine~~ might be OK if they are used for a very 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)[reply]
But I doubt such restrictions should be used. "Sanctioning" pages rather than users reminds me Lashing the sea. My very best wishes (talk) 15:09, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There may need to be a new noticeboard separate from RFPP/AE/ARCA for discussion of page sanctions. It's not clear where I would ask for a sanction to be removed. RFPP works decently for ECP requests, but isn't great for the others; AE and ARCA feel too heavyweight and generally discuss other topics. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:34, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the sentiment that page restrictions should not be a "fire and forget" type of thing. How best to deal with this is however less obvious: a minimum length (I'd say 6 months) would be an option, with possibilities to revisit the sanctions if they are not needed any further via a discussion at some noticeboard (a dedicated one would be an option) equally acceptable (the status quo should obviously be the preferred option in case there is no clear outcome - better safe than sorry if a topic has been shown to be a disruption magnet at some point). Oppose any instruction creep as to what kinds of restrictions are acceptable and what kind are not: everything should be treated on a case by case basis and I think that we should trust ArbCom enough to come with appropriately tailored enforcements based on the often very lengthy walls of text they're faced with. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:14, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Page restrictions)

Thanks to all for the comments that have been raised here. My personal inclination right now is to (1) change the templates to provide for expiration times if desired by the enforcing administrator and (2) make it easier for uninvolved administrators to rescind old page restrictions. Comments on these would be very helpful. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:13, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Enforcement of discretionary sanctions actions

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

Comments by community members (Enforcement of discretionary sanctions actions)

Comments by arbitrators (Enforcement of discretionary sanctions actions)

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
While I didn't like the log at first, it is better than logging at each case. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:45, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unless someone is going to design a software change that the WMF would then need to implement, I don't see any improvements that can be made to logging. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:36, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The main annoyance I see with the log is that editors don't like the stigma of having their username listed in an online naughty list. (Basically the same complaint people have about block logs.) Not sure what, if anything, can be done about that other than try to empathize and not to make a big deal about it. The admin side of me finds the logs very helpful. ~Awilley (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Logging)

Dismissing an enforcement request

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

Comments by community members (Dismissing an enforcement request)

Comments by arbitrators (Dismissing an enforcement request)

Appeals

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

Comments by community members (Appeals)

Comments by arbitrators (Appeals)

Modifications

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

Comments by community members (Modifications)

"first-mover advantage" is oftentimes wikispeak for "I can't unblock my friends." I am skeptical that it is really a problem --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 15:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Guerillero. In addition: I think the requirement for "clear and substantial consensus to overturn" is a good thing. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:06, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

KevinL, advantages in general are influenced by the prevalence of a single POV, especially in group think situations. As I've previously explained, the prevalent POV becomes further influenced by sysop POV creep in controversial topic areas. Opposing views are what make a topic controversial in the first place but healthy debate allows for editors to reach consensus and a NPOV, provided they know they must, and that an admin is not going to support their position via unilateral actions against the opposition. Let's say a paragraph is controversial and there are heated debates over its inclusion based on varying views. Why not simply remove the paragraph all together, and protect the article until the involved editors can achieve a NPOV consensus? Let those editors debate, as long as it's civil, regardless of how long it takes. We are not Congress passing laws or spending money so terms like filibustering/stonewalling are more gaming terms than reality where there is no deadline. There is also the option of a NPOV panel that I suggested in another comment. Enough cases have been filed at AE, ARCA, and various noticeboards that support POV as the main area of contention, but you have to dig past the behavior issues to see it. Following is a slightly different perspective to consider: few admins and editors are willing to work in highly controversial topic areas - we know that to be a fact, which further explains why those topics are IP/SPA magnets. Some of the admins who choose to work in those areas tend to have strong opinions. When you couple strong personality traits with absolute power, it creates the ultimate advantage. DS/AE temporarily stops disruption but only on the premise that it takes 2 to tango, and if you eliminate one, the tango ends; it doesn't make the NPOV issues go away. It is also important to keep in mind WP's systemic biases because we all know they exist. Some of the gaming tactics used are covered in the essay WP:POV railroad. I thought some of the input by Piotrus throughout this review was spot-on, especially as it relates to the chilling effects that DS/AE create. That is not how WP is supposed to operate as an open platform that anyone can edit. No editor should be fearful of editing any topic. The only modification I can recommend is elimination of DS/AE or at the very least, provide more clarity to "involved" beginning with the ambiguous behavior of an admin action vs an action driven by prejudice (which can be established by patterned behavior toward that editor over time). They should not be warning or taking any unilateral actions against any editor they may be prejudiced against. It will certainly help but it won't cure the disease. Atsme 💬 📧 19:15, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not 100% sure on the history, but I think the whole "first-mover advantage" thing started as a reaction to the drama caused by admins blocking and unblocking popular editors. In fact, I think the question "How do you feel about Eric Corbett" would be an excellent predictor of how people feel about the first-mover advantage issue with Discretionary Sanctions. That said, I think the "admins unblocking friends" issue is small compared to the number of weird intractable situations DS can get us into.
Many problems mentioned in the sections above could be mitigated if discretionary sanctions could simply be treated like regular sanctions. Hundreds of pages languishing under stale 1RR restrictions, but the admin who placed them isn't available to reverse them? No problem. Treat page restrictions like normal page protection. Editors can request unprotection at a noticeboard, and a single admin can review it and remove the restriction. Editor under an indef topic ban, but doesn't want to subject herself to a weeks-long appeal at WP:AE? Just treat topic bans like normal blocks. An editor can write the appeal on their talk page or on the talk page of another admin, the reviewing admin can consult with the admin who placed the sanction, and they'll likely come to an agreement. If the admin who placed the sanction strongly objects, more admins can join the conversation, or it can escalate to AE until a consensus is reached. Still less paperwork than what we do now.
But most importantly, eliminating the "first mover advantage" would bring DS into harmony with the way the rest of the encyclopedia works. That kind of consistency has benefits that can't be measured in blocks, sanction logs, or word counts. A system of complex rules that seem unfair and arbitrary is bad for morale.
~Awilley (talk) 22:34, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Full disclosure: I've used, and some may even say abused, the first-mover advantage in my own DS work. I can use the tools provided me, even if I dislike them. ~Awilley (talk) 22:34, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
While AN is perhaps the proper place for an appeal, the boundary between AN and ANI is not always clear and sometimes a discussion just arises naturally at the latter (e.g. complaints about improper admin actions). Both are equally well-trafficked venues so I think either should be valid for overturning a sanction. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@King of Hearts, just so I'm clear but this comment seems about things (e.g. admin conduct) outside the scope of DS. Just confirming whether this is a general comment about AN/ANI or whether it's specifically about DS. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is specifically about DS. I am saying that someone might complain on ANI that an admin overstepped their authority in applying DS. If the consensus is to overturn, then it should be overturned even though ANI is not explicitly listed as one of the approved venues. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:29, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From my (limited) experience, such a discussion at ANI wouldn't get far without multiple people pointing out that it's the wrong venue. ~Awilley (talk) 03:40, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a fun puzzler for you involving the history of page-level sanctions at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
- Bishonen adds 1RR and Consensus Required sanctions to the article talk page
- Bishonen realizes the sanctions are more trouble than they're worth and removes them. [5]
- Meanwhile EdJohnston has created the edit notice with 1RR and Consensus Required [6]
- NeilN re-adds regular 1RR, removing the Consensus Required from EdJohnston's edit notice [7]
- Coffee re-adds Consensus Required and an additional Civility restriction [8]
- Awilley removes the Civility restriction [9] and changes Consensus Required to a BRD restriction [10]

Now I'd like to remove all the restrictions from the article because Russian interference in the 2016 election isn't a battleground anymore. I can remove the BRD restriction, which I placed, but who do I talk to about removing 1RR? And did NeilN and Coffee run afoul of our "Modifications" policy by reversing an AE action taken by Bishonen? (I'm not suggesting any wrongdoing here, and this is all ancient history anyway, but it illustrates how messy things can get.) ~Awilley (talk) 22:46, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While first mover advantage removes "I can't unblock my friends" it also introduces "I can ban my enemies". However both instances largely derive from a weakness in characterizing admins as involved. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:14, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

L235, to your question, the counter point to the first-mover advantage is that if it's a really bad action, the appeal process for the sanctions is just as much a hassle for an admin. Something you quickly learn if you work in AE is not to do things that won't stick on appeal. No one particularly wants to go through a drawn out AN thread or have their peers criticize them at AE for being draconian.
Compare this to the normal reversal of actions process which is basically an "undo and notify unless it might be controversial, and then talk first and if you undo take to AN to get review". That reversal policy gives a second mover advantage, but also incentives moving first since undoing it is pretty lightweight and (usually) drama free. DS appeal process incentives thinking out the precise wording of something since the review will be intensive if appealed.
Tl;dr: you have a first-mover advantage, but because the review component is a strong disincentive against overreach, you have a check in place that works pretty well. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:36, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is somewhat duplicated in another section, but it's the most specific on the consensus level so I'll briefly note here as well. I think the level of evidence needed to overturn remains far too high, especially as individual admins usually only back overturning in case of clear error, and then as a close it requires "clear and substantial consensus". Relying on awkwardness of process is a pretty poor defence, since any sufficiently irked admin could go through it, and, additionally, the same hassle applies to the appealing editor, so they are getting hit multiple times. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:40, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
- 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)[reply]
  - 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
(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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Strongly agree with ditching the nomenclature. Both words, "discretionary" and "sanctions" are vague and could mean multiple things, and don't really adequately describe what this is. Calling these "discretionary" sanctions implies that other sanctions are not discretionary, but in fact, all sanctions are discretionary: we're all volunteers, nobody is ever required to sanction anyone under any circumstances, which means every time a person presses the block button, they are choosing to do so, and therefore using their discretion. "Sanction" is problematic because it implies a penalty (when we try really hard to say it's not punitive), and also because the word can mean to prohibit or to allow, which is inherently very confusing. ("General" sanctions are also poorly named, because they're not general at all, they're specific to certain enumerated topic areas; it's the opposite of "general". Our editing policy is where the "general" sanctions, like 3RR, are actually laid out.) So what's a better name? I'm not sure either. Maybe something like "special restrictions" or "enhanced restrictions". Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:21, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an issue with changing the terminology. To clarify, though, it's not about discretion on the application of sanctions, but the type of sanction. Ordinarily, the only sanction an administrator can apply is a block for immediate disruption. Everything else needs community authorization (either ahead of time or through a new discussion), with arbitration remedies having community authorization through delegation to the arbitration committee.

Since general sanctions are rules that apply for topic areas, perhaps they can be called "topic-related restrictions". The subcategory "authorization of discretionary sanctions" could be called "authorization to prescribe rules", as in "The community has authorized administrators to prescribe rules to resolve disputes in specific topic areas." isaacl (talk) 18:36, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the terminology is a great idea and more than bikeshedding – I don't think we should underestimate how alienating jargon-filled, vaguely threatening messages about "discretionary sanctions" can be. With that in mind, I'd propose something very straightforward: contentious topics. This succinctly communicates the what and the why of the system to new users, without immediately getting bogged down in procedure and wiki-insider politics as we do now. The wording for templates etc. could be something along the lines of Topic has been identified as a contentious topic by the Arbitration Committee/editing community (link to case/discussion). In addition to the usual content and conduct policies, please be aware that administrators may place the following editing restrictions on this topic: .... – Joe (talk) 14:17, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Question. Why doesn't arbspace itself fall under discretionary sanctions in general? You'd think it would be, but it isn't. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Can you clarify what pages you are thinking of when you say "arbspace", and why you think it is desirable for discretionary sanctions to be authorized for them? isaacl (talk) 15:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would define arbspace as any page that primarily has to do with Wikipedia:Arbitration or the Arbitration Committee.
As for the benefit, I don't know. I know it's a general rule to be on your best behavoir when dealing with arbitration stuff. I also know that clerks have a lot of authority to sanction users in arbcom proceedings. Maybe this would let admins help, too? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The arbitration committee is empowered to set up rules and procedures to be followed on arbitration case pages. I don't think it would helpful to allow individual administrators to devise new rules for contributing to arbitration case pages, or other pages such as the arbitration committee noticeboard talk page, the arbitration committee talk page, and the arbitration request talk page (to which various pages such as Wikipedia talk:Arbitration redirect). isaacl (talk) 19:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing. I dislike the rigid ARBPIA 30/500 enforcement, and in particular the granting. Understand why the entire topic area is ECP'd, but that also reduces the contributions of less active editors who are familiar with the scholarship on relevant matters. In particular, I remember a user on El C's talk page who was eventually blocked for contravening the restriction on pages where it wasn't enforced using ECP. Edit count is a poor metric for experience (you can get 500 edits in a day doing AV, or in a year writing content with very little copyedits required). I feel like if editors ask for +extendedconfirmed somewhere, and their editing history shows reasonable competence in assessing sources and a civil manner, it should be granted. It isn't hard to revoke. It seems in the RfC that established +ECP a reason cited was Users who don't (yet) meet the autopromotion criteria can be manually promoted by admins when based on their history, they are expected to contribute positively to these areas. Hasn't happened though; WP:PERM/EC pretty much only allows it for alt accounts, and the protection is enforced rigidly. Would appreciate ArbCom opening the door to more flexibility in granting the right / making clear editors outside 30/500 can be permitted to edit at admin discretion. There are over 2500 pages protected in this topic area. Many are woefully inadequete (for example, 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers). More editors would help. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Right now, it seems that ARBs aren't particularly active at AE, presumably because of the possible need to act on appeals. Perhaps we should encourage sitting ARBs to participate more actively in the initial implementation of DS sanctions. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:17, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Other)

My thoughts right now:
- I really like the idea of a "lead section" for DS; I envision the revision will be a fundamental rewrite, not just changes to certain sections, so this is just the right opportunity to do so. I wonder what people would think of a simpler "guide to DS" as well, either part of the binding procedure or a separate page. (Perhaps it could be FAQ style?)
- ARCA archives are being actively discussed right now.
- The overlap with "general sanctions"/community-authorized discretionary sanctions (and the whole mess of terminology associated with that) is definitely on my mind during this revision process. I don't think ArbCom can change the community process, but we definitely can say in the procedure that if the community wishes to use ArbCom infrastructure (noticeboards, templates, terminology) to enforce its own sanctions, it can do so.
- On 500/30: it's not strictly a discretionary sanction, but I would be open to allowing editors to request and receive +extendedconfirmed from an administrator. Current ArbCom decisions do not allow this. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:19, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.^{[11][12][13][14]}

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
- Alternative medicine is not by definition pseudoscience; pseudoscience includes ideas and concepts purportedly based on "science" but aren't. Alternative medicine is medicine not based on science. While usually alternative medicine is backed by pseudoscience in that the practicioners claim their treatments are scientific when they aren't, this is not always the case such as for the many forms of "faith healing" or other supernatural healing methods. Faith healing doesn't claim to be backed by science (and therefore isn't pseudoscience) but is still a form of alternative medicine. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 08:07, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
The example that comes to mind for me for an area that seems to have grown past the DS need is Waldorf education, which seems to have been placed as a result of a 2007 dispute between a small group of editors. I can't see any logged actions since 2014, although I may be missing something. Vaticidalprophet 00:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Fundamentally Wikipedia has a double standard with respect to "shithole countries" (as DS treats them) compared to nice Western countries. Whenever there is an ethnic, religious, or political conflict in a "shithole country" such as Armenia vs. Azerbaijan or India vs Pakistan or the Horn of Africa, all articles on all the countries involved get discretionary sanctions. It doesn't matter if you are writing about an uncontroversial Bollywood movie; that's subject to discretionary sanctions. Meanwhile, the mostly Western disputes such as those on race/intelligence (because we all know it's about saying Black people are less smart than white people), September 11, post 1992 american politics, the troubles, etc etc get treated with very limited sanctions specific to the area of conflict. If America was a shithole country the second it had a political issue we'd get discretionary sanctions relating to the United States broadly construed.
You know what I'd love to see? All of these sanctions limited to the ACTUAL conflicts in question and potentially even split up into more granular topic areas. Because right now the system as applied is institutionalized racism and a double standard that sees non-Western countries smacked with broad sanctions at the first sign of trouble while Western countries actually have effort put into crafting limited sanctions tailored to the issues in question. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I also feel this sentiment. In particular, everything relating to India and Pakistan is under sanctions, as well as practically the entire Middle East. In comparison, only a few America-focused issues are under separate sanctions rather than the entire country (eg politics, gender, guns, 9/11). Whilst I appreciate the number of articles on the former perhaps, relatively speaking, don't add up to as many, the optics aren't particularly great imo. I do suspect they're used (possibly infrequently?) in the broader authorisation but that's not really an excuse; I suspect if you authorised a DS for everything and everyone America-related that too would end up being used, but that doesn't mean it's necessary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2021 (UTC) e: 16:36, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ProcrastinatingReader and Chess: The problem with India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine is that those conflicts leak into the most mundane articles within the topic area. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 16:44, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Guerillero: Then there's nothing wrong with just applying discretionary sanctions to just the parts of the articles related to that conflict. Again, the same arguments can be made for the USA. I see American politics constantly leak into "mundane" articles especially now that the Trump era has lead to the politicization of almost everything in the US (Home Alone 2 now has discretionary sanctions for instance). I don't see anyone arguing that we need sanctions on America related topics broadly construed though. There's no reason why administrators need broad discretionary sanction powers for all topics related to India or Pakistan (or Afghanistan) to deal with the India-Pakistan conflict; no Western country gets treated this way. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:59, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Chess: The sanctions of India-Pakistan are used to cover conflicts within Indian politics, Hinduism/Hindu nationalism, Indian-Pakistani relations, the Kashmir conflict specifically, Muslims in India, Bangladesh-Pakistani relations, Tamil nationalism, and several more subjects. The heart of the dispute is how life is lived in these countries for various groups. Yes, obviously the sanctions as written are broad enough to include every single Bollywood film (like Rampaat), but in practice sanctions really shouldn't ever really be applied there.
Also, it isn't true that no Western countries get this kind of treatment. Almost a third of Europe is under discretionary sanctions. Contrast that to South America or East Asia where there are few (if any) sanctions in place right now. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@MJL: How hard is it to create more than one area where discretionary sanctions apply? India along with many other countries has a multitude of topic areas that are controversial and probably need discretionary sanctions. But discretionary sanctions should be LIMITED to the areas in question. If Indian politics are a big enough issue in and of themselves I'd like to see discretionary sanctions (or better yet general sanctions determined by the community) on post-whatever year Indian politics. If Tamil nationalism is an issue I'd like to see separate sanctions limited to that issue. etc etc. We have several different sanctions for primarily US-oriented topics and there's no reason why we can't apply the same standard for other countries.

I'd disagree with the "third of Europe" example because the area under sanctions is Eastern europe and the balkans; traditionally not considered a past of the west. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:07, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Chess: To answer first question, it's rather difficult. Editors find it rather frustrating to deal with topics where there are overlapping sanctions, and that is a good reason why a lot of the previous sanctions were consolidated.
To phrase myself in another way, the sanctions effectively are meant to cover Indian/Pakistani/Afghani political, geographical, ethnic, religious, sociological, and cultural disputes. However, that's basically everything, is it not? The process of untangling it all would be incredibly difficult (and itself rife with controversy in determining what is actually in dispute).
Maybe you're right though, but in that case the best forum to bring this to would be a request for clarification regarding what the sanctions don't cover in these countries (since that might be easier to answer). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:40, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@MJL: There's a lot of stuff going on in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan unrelated to those disputes. You phrased it pretty well yourself what the sanctions are meant to apply to. Why not just limit the India/Pakistan sanctions to "political, geographic, ethnic, religious, sociological, and cultural disputes broadly construed" involving or within the region of those three countries? That would be a reasonable way of limiting potential sanctions to the actual problem areas. Admittedly there will be disputes over whether something is actually in those conflict areas but that would be far better than the current system of there being unwritten limitations to DS determined by vague notions of "intent" that might differ in interpretation by admins. On asking for clarification from arbcom, I'd have to look into whether this would be better suited as an amendment request and write something up first. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 18:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chess: I'm looking at it now, and I honestly have come around to your position on this. We have WP:GSCASTE (covers politics and the caste system in South Asia), WP:GS/IPAK (covers the India-Pakistan conflict), and WP:ARBIP (covers the entire countries). That really could use some reform and narrowing down to ensure it isn't redundant to the community authorised general sanctions.
The best format might be a review case on the matter rather than an ARCA, but either way it needs more looking into. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
BLP is the only area that I see that absolutely needs special treatment, but we already give it special treatment outside of DS. Incredible leeway is given to editors who break 3RR to remove contentious, unsourced info for example (which I agree with). Skimming through this page, I find myself agreeing more with DGG than anyone else, although I think I'm more willing to tolerate limited restrictions than he. I think we are better served with General Sanctions, determined by the community, that automatically sunset after a maximum of one year. Or if we are going to have DS, they need to sunset unless upheld by the community to be extended. As an admin, I can see the potential for DS (and to a lesser degree, GS) to be used as a hammer to smash minority opinions, even if unintentional. Regular admin actions can handle anything that DS is currently handling. DS has simply grown too large and too complicated, yet is handled by only a handful of admins. That is reason enough to reform the system. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:34, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The electronic cigarette discretionary sanctions can quite safely be lifted. Disruption there has entirely ceased.—S Marshall T/C 16:08, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the above comments, I agree that "India-Pakistan-Afghanistan" is too broad a topic area; it should probably be divided into several more focused areas. Beyond that, while a few of the obsolete DS can be revoked/merged, I don't see serious problems. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Specifically for India-Pakistan (I'm not entirely sure why Afghanistan is included; I would assume Myanmar would have more similar disruption): a general "international relations / nationalism / ethnic conflicts" area is needed, as well as a "caste system" area. I'm not sure what other areas have disruption that justifies DS. With domestic Indian politics, I don't think everything needs sanctions; anti-Muslim activism would be "nationalism" but a discussion of tax policy might not need DS. Cricket/railroad topics should only need sanctions if people are arguing over place names or the like. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:14, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is the Monty Hall problem still particularly problematic (beyond the usual means, that is)? Nosebagbear (talk) 10:50, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we can either keep it under DS or switch to GS. Do you want to switch? E Eng 11:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng and Nosebagbear: Monty Hall problem has not had active DS since 2014. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ach, second time I've done that - reading the list in edit mode since I wanted to copy something and I missed its section header. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I almost forgot about this. Occupation of Latvia still has active article probation that was never amended. I brought this up during the Antisemitism in Poland case, but no one has done anything about it yet.
Additionally, I did some more digging in previous cases, and I also found this remedy which should probably be vacated. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't stop myself from poking around even more. Here are a few more remedies which also probably require vacancy:
1. Remedy 2 of Shiloh;
2. Remedy 5 of Neuro-linguistic programming;
3. Remedy 14.3 of Obama articles; and
4. Remedies 6, 7, and 8 of Asmahan.

These are all problematic in different ways. Shiloh still has an article probation on the books. Neuro-linguistic programming places an article under the mentorship of 5 arbcom-designated admins (a provision not utilised in some time now). Obama articles gives admins the right to semi-protect any article related to Barack Obama for some pretty outdated reasons (nothing that now can't be handled by regular discretionary sanctions processes). Finally, Asmahan has an authorisation for discretionary sanctions that has fallen so out of use that it isn't even mentioned in Template:Ds/topics. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's a reason we have controversial topic areas, and the primary reason is simply that we've failed to achieve NPOV in the article. If it's a BLP, it is probably suffering from UNDUE, NOTNEWS and BALANCE issues, and appears more as a coatrack, or borderline attack page. Poorly achieved consensus (the hegemony of...) appeases one group and pisses-off the other, and it's a temporary fix to a serious issue. If you want to know what issues plague those articles, ask yourselves if it would pass an FA review, much less as a GAC, and you'll find your answers. I have a simple and easily enforceable alternative for hot topics: PP the article, and restrict it from IPs and obvious SPAs that are more than likely socks/recruited meatpuppets, or COI editors. Protecting articles while they are still hot topics will give the regulars a chance to stabilize it, and help somewhat with RECENTISM/NOTNEWS issues. I'm also of the mind that what we need most is not DS/AE, but ironically, a neutral process at NPOVN. For example, establish a panel of at least 5 neutral editors who have FAs under their belts (as reviewers & promoters), and their job is to review the controversial material and provide an analysis, which (if deemed necessary) can be followed-up by an RfC that is guided by the analysis. The same applies to BLPN. IOW, use the venues for resolving those issues. DR fails because it focuses on behavior rather than bad content that causes the behavior, and worse yet, while it may resolve the behavioral issue, it could possibly result in bad content remaining in the article, the latter being the root of the problem. Facts are facts, and if there are different opinions about factual material, we simply provide all significant views. The problems arises when one group of editors refuses to accept any other view but their own - it's that simple. NPOV "means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." There is no denying that many of our articles in controversial areas are unstable and have serious NPOV issues, most of which result from POV creep, or the work of POV warriors, RGW advocates and those few admins who, inadvertently or otherwise, abuse unilateral actions to support a particular POV and control the narrative by t-banning, blocking, or by creating a topic area few want to be involved in. I don't agree that by eliminating one POV to favor another actually stabilizes the article to a neutral state. Let's not conflate POV control of a narrative as encyclopedic stability resulting from neutrality. BLPs in the associated controversial topic areas face similar issues, only those areas are subject to US liable laws, yet we have our share of editors who are willing to wikilawyer UNDUE material into the BLP or other topic to push their POV and/or denigrate whatever it is they dislike, and it's usually politically motivated, or a COI. DS/AE is not the cure for it. Atsme 💬 📧 13:13, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Atsme, that's the wrong way round. We document things that are controversial, and over the years we have developed DS as a way of enforcing what should be routine policy in those areas, because there's nothing we can do to stop an endless succession of agenda editors from turning up and trying to rewrite carefully crafted consensus to reflect their dogmatic views.

DS offer a quick route to what would happen anyway, and protects the actual articles from obvious disruption. Consider WP:RANDY where a third of the entire population of a country had adopted, as an article of faith, the idea that sword-wielding skeletons were the victors in the Peloponnesian War, and their media tells them that any source downplaying the role of sword-wielding skeletons is part of a conspiracy to deny The Truth™. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:41, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Guy's ping: DS is an acronym for let a single admin control the narrative; i.e., WP:POV creep because that is what tends to happen, inadvertently or otherwise, and I don't expect admins to recognize it in themselves. I actually think it's better to keep admins away from controversial topic areas, and stop the ridiculous allegations of bludgeoning (which is being abused to rid an area of opposition) when editors are actually engaged in civil discourse to reach consensus & NPOV. Bludgeoning is the shortcut for Oh crap! My opposition is winning this debate. One way to stop a discussion is to simply stop replying; i.e., STFU - it's pretty simple. If one side has a clear majority advantage, we typically don't see long debates. They primarily occur when there is a close to equal divide among editors, and those are the types of discussions that need to play out on their own without any DS interference or restrictions. On the other hand, if there is clear misbehavior - edit warring, profanity, threats, basic PAs then we need admin action to stop the offending editor - after all, that is what sysops were created to do, not control the narratives by obliquely creating their own remedies, or taking the place of ArbCom which is responsible for the remedy in the first place. I'm of the mind that an article t-ban is a good start for a PA-type/3RR types of disruptive editor, rather than a full-blown t-ban or block. I don't like the idea of silencing voices in an entire topic area - no good can come of it relative to NPOV. Atsme 💬 📧 15:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes, "bludgeoning" really does mean bludgeoning. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I must agree with my friend @Atsme: here. Speaking only about AP2 -- in practice we've had a series of Admins who position themselves as the go-to's by taking ownership of page restrictions on dozens of articles in the space. As I've previously said, this is a problem with most volunteer organizations. Volunteers -- sometimes board members in real-life orgaizations, here Admins in our online community -- can take control of important functions and processes simply through self-selection and relieving others of the burden of those tasks. But this self selection in real life and here in DS is not based on experience, expertise, or competence. It is sustained simply because it takes on an onerous task with few other volunteers. On WP this does have the adverse effect that Atsme cites (and this is true notwithtanding her less evident conclusion that POV bias is at play). I can't believe that Arbcom intended the DS regime to promote supervoting by one Admin against the dissent of other Admins. As with editing in a controversial topic area, supervoting is only destructive. If there aren't other editors (or in this context Admins) willing to support a certain position (or sanction), then it should not prevail. If other Admins openly dissent and a single Admin acknowledges but ignore their dissent, that's very hard to justify. Does anyone think that's a good outcome? SPECIFICO talk 23:32, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm only going to specifically speak on India-Pakistan here (I see Chess and MJL have been discussing it, and people have mentioned it offhand as well), but I would actually really urge the committee not to split it up or be more specific. Part of the problem for anyone who has worked SPI or dealt with ethnic disputes related to these areas is that there are so many different areas where DS/General Sanactions would be needed in South Asia. Yes, you could have a list of 17 or so different areas that are subject to DS in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, but that'd be needlessly complex and you'd get wikilawyer based on awareness or some other such thing. Similar to Eastern Europe: you could make a list of every Eastern European ethnic or political dispute. But that'd be pretty significant.
While there is a benefit in being specific so that DS do not spread unnecessarily, there is also a downfall when you can reasonably predict that there will arise a need for more sanctions in a general area, but can't reasonably predict what they will be because most of the people designing the sanctions are not experts. The solution there is usually going to be having it be broader. That has its downfalls, but it makes managing the system easier when there's many conflicts going on and the people who determine what gets DS aren't really aware of the specifics of any of them. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is a false dichotomy though in that it assumes we need to list every single ethnic dispute in South Asia to limit the discretionary sanctions. Why don't we just limit the discretionary sanctions to "ethnic disputes broadly construed" then? Or as it was put earlier "political, geographical, ethnic, religious, sociological, and cultural disputes"?

Also, why do we have a standard where South Asia (supposedly just India Pakistan and Afghanistan) and Eastern Europe get broad sanctions because "there's so many different areas". I don't see this argument brought up over post-1932/1992 American politics, September 11 conspiracy theories or on the primarily American issue of gun control.

It's also ludicrous to claim that broad sanctions are necessary for South Asia because people enforcing DS aren't aware of the specifics of conflicts in those regions when an editor (Andrew Davidson) has been given a formal warning (it was logged in AE at least) for not understanding the nuances of the caste systems in that region. [15]

"Andrew Davidson is advised that before commenting further in the Caste system in India topic area (broadly interpreted), they need to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. They are warned to only offer comments or article edits supported by directly relevant sources judged to be reliable and of high quality. Sources without recent consensus must be presented for review first... Failure to comply with this warning will result in a topic ban or other sanction."

Can we see admemes holding themselves to the same standards as other editors? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Post-1992 American politics is extremely broad though and pretty much encompasses every aspect of controversy in the US these days. A lot of things can be tied to US politics. I would even put 9/11 and gun control under it (though gun control tends to have less-American centric pages where it's useful.) Post-1992 American politics is actually an example of how we treat the West similarly.

And yes, you are correct that there is a bias here that because we are less geographically diverse as arbitrators or administrators, we have less knowledge of where future flareups will be. Unfortunately the easiest solution to that is to give broad mandates and assume that administrators will act reasonably. That's how most organizations deal with things that are unknown at a higher level: give a lot of authority to people in the trenches and trust them to act well. Your list of potential areas political, geographical, ethnic, religious, sociological, and cultural disputes is essentially a list of anything that reasonably could be fought over in the topic area, and pretty much all of the arguments touch on one of there. I don't see a purpose for changing it other than to say we've changed it while not actually narrowing how it will be used. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:11, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of topics in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan that doesn't fall under those areas. Not everything in South Asia is related to a dispute over those topics (let's abbreviate as PCREGS). Much like any other country there's many mundane subjects and topics that exist there. India's cinema industry is one of the largest in the world for example and mostly deals with topics outside of the scope of PCREGS (see: the many romantic comedies). There's also sports such as cricket, field hockey, and football that would be freed from DS (unless one defines sports competitions as disputes). India has a very complex railway system too; should that entirely be under DS? Obviously there are going to be problems in the listed topics that are going to need discretionary sanctions (political movies e.g.) but I don't think it's necessary to put every single India/Pakistan/Afghanistan topic under DS. Additionally, looking at the AE log more closely there's a pattern of banning Indian editors who have made problem edits within areas they should probably be topic banned from (e.g. caste system or recent Indian politics) but receiving a blanket ban from all India related articles. Oftentimes those editors just stop editing since they've been banned from all articles about the country they live in. I don't really think this is proportionate or necessary.

Take User:Sanskari. This editor had a long history of productively contributing to uncontroversial mostly India-related articles and created many on Indian educational institutions. See [16] and User:Sanskari/contributions This person fucked up during a dispute over the 2020 Delhi Riots and filed a frivolous COIN request as well as assumed bad faith. Admittedly things got heated and Sanskari probably deserved some kind of limited topic ban. You know what they didn't deserve? A full indef topic ban from India-related articles. [17] Shockingly this editor proceeded to quit editing Wikipedia after being banned from pretty much all of the topics they were productively contributing to that weren't problem areas for them. This of course is incentivized by the current system which treats all of India as being equally controversial. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:34, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think broadly there are two competing factions of thought: that DS should be very broad and applied generously to topic areas and let admins discretion decide on when it should be used, or that DS (and its associated mechanisms, like AE) should be rare and tailored tightly to the area of dispute. I agree with the ideas of Chess above in regards to India/Pakistan/Afghanistan, for example, and urge the committee to narrow its authorisation. But it is not the only topic area with broad authorisation. More generally, I think DS is weird, ideologically speaking. The Arbitration Committee is a committee of 15 editors which resolves specific disputes heard by it, and its power stems from its decisions as an entity rather than from any single arbitrator. But it appears over the years it has significantly decreased its caseload, such that it doesn't hear disputes directly as much and instead authorises broad measures like DS, passing the buck to unilateral admin action. In ARCA reviews, it tends to review whether the AE sanction was appropriate use of discretion, rather than if they would've made the same remedy. This is strange when you consider that in an arbitration case it would've taken a majority of 15 admins – all of which are regularly elected, specifically for resolving conduct issues, by a large editor turnout – to agree to pass the same remedy. As I said earlier: the current disruption in Israel-Palestine probably has nothing to do with the 2015 dispute resulting in the authorisation, ditto for usage of American politics DS and the dispute with Collect et al in 2015. So the DS authorisation is generalised to deal with any future disputes arising in those topic areas, rather than whatever issues the Committee heard. Accordingly, I don't know if it's a good thing for the Committee to decrease its case workload to this point, and it should probably hear in full DS appeals that come before it.
If there should be exceptional, generalised and broad powers issued for certain topic areas, I think those should probably be done via community consensus and by establishing a relevant community policy to govern their usage and authorisation. It's worth noting that many DS actions are not exceptional uses of "admin discretion" (blocking for disruption is also rather discretionary), they're just an expanded range of tools (most commonly: topic banning and page restrictions/protections) which aren't valid elsewhere. These tools could be split up into a community policy that allows admins to make unilateral community bans, and establishes a structured community venue (such as AE) for intractable disputes (if I recall, this was discussed at AN last year and there was opposition to restructuring ANI itself, but some favourable response to establishing a new venue). If the Committee is making reforms, it would be nice for it to take steps to see the new ACDS document ratified by community consensus, and moved out of arbspace and turned into a community procedural policy, with ArbCom still being able to pass authorisations in remedies. (I know I've said some parts of this already above, but I've only now managed to make a connection between some of these separate thoughts.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:59, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On the topic of ARBIPA, I would urge the committee to think really hard about what it would be geting itself into, if it were to revise the scope of ARBIPA sanctions. I confess the idea is tempting; there's no denying the scope is broad, and revising it to encompass only those areas with severe disruption appeals to my sense of neatness. The trouble is that there's several related but distinct conflicts wrapped up in the ARBIPA bundle. There's caste-related conflicts, which span millennia. There's religious conflict, where the disruption on Wikipedia spans content covering nearly a thousand years of history, if not much more. There's nationalist conflict, which spans at least the last century of history. There's conflict between political idealogies, particularly between religious nationalism and liberalism (to grossly oversimplify a very messy subject). What's worse, each of these have bled into a far wider array of topics. Religious and political conflict has bled into cuisine; clothing; architecture; music; and, of course, history. Nationalist conflict has frequently bled into geography (I have lost all hope that maps depicting the Kashmir region, even in articles about geography or ecology, will ever reflect reality rather than one government or another's propagandistic conception of things), culture, even food (see Pitaya for evidence of a particularly silly example). The scope of historical revisionism, spurred by one or another of these conflicts, spans the entire history of South Asia. Political conflict frequently turns the biographies of mostly non-political public figures into battlegrounds.
I could go on at far greater length, and I will do so if we ever attempt to revise the scope of ARBIPA. Here, I'd like to highlight two pitfalls for any revision. First, the process itself is unavoidably going to become a massive timesink. Nobody wants DS in their stomping ground, disruptive editors least of all; and designing DS of appropriate scope is going to require examining any number of conflicts and topics to see if disputes there are serious enough to authorize DS. Second, there's the issue of edge cases. At AE, we thankfully have very little wiki-lawyering about the scope of ARBIPA sanctions. If, for instance, we limit DS to the Indo-Pakistani conflict, it will provoke dispute about content related to the conduct of the Indian army in what is Indian-held and administered territory; content about the Indian or Pakistani armed forces; and content about Kashmiri political activists. If we limit DS to religous conflict, it brings into dispute content about violent incidents where the role of religion is unclear or disputed; and content about ideologies or figures that have been linked in RS to religous violence, but where the link is disputed in the popular media, or vice versa. In each case, we probably want DS to cover the topics in question, but would need to design a scope that covers them unambiguously, which is tricky, to say the least. Furthermore, where multiple sanctions regimes are involved, there's the issue of awareness; currently, ARBIPA covers all these topics; but a tendentious editor writing about Kashmir would need a separate DS alert for communal violence within India, and implementing such a requirement is a truly dreadful idea. If I were held at knifepoint and told to narrow the scope of these sanctions, I would propose something like "history, religion, politics, ethnic strife, intergroup relations, and violent conflict in South Asia". Which narrows it a little, I suppose. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:17, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Consider the United States. "There's conflict between political idealogies, particularly between religious nationalism and liberalism". "Religious and political conflict has bled into cuisine; clothing; architecture; music; and, of course, history.", see Chick-fil-A or Starbucks or Ben and Jerry's or the conflicts over cultural appropriation and a billion other examples. Nike endorses Colin Kaepernick, it's alt-right to wear a white polo shirt, Trump neckties, and many other examples of clothes. Architecture too, don't forget the famous Trump border wall or the Fountainhead being entirely about political architecture. Trump also tried to mandate an official architectural style too last year. [18] And American musicians have quite frequently been political from Rage Against the Machine to the more explicit YG saying Fuck Donald Trump. History is also quite disputed with Civil War monuments or slavery or the founding fathers owning slaves or some historical figure that needs to be cancelled or just a lot of examples. If we're applying the same standard to the US as we do India, all America related topics should be under discretionary sanctions, full stop.

I do agree with you that "history, religion, politics, ethnic strife, intergroup relations, and violent conflict in South Asia" is a good potential wording but I would disagree that it only narrows DS by a little. There are many topics in South Asia that have nothing to do with the above; not everything of interest in South Asia is violent conflicts or religion or ethnicity or politics or history. India for example has one of the largest economies in the world. They have a massive automotive industry (Automotive industry in India) with a staggering amount of indigenous vehicle designs and manufacturers. Should all the cars and manufacturers featured in our article on India's automotive industry be under discretionary sanctions? What about Rail Transport in India? There's a huge amount of stations and routes on the national rail, many urban metros, etc etc. Almost all of them are uncontroversial. India also has the third largest post-secondary educational system in the world (Higher education in India) and all of those university articles are under DS too. and that's just india; there's many other countries. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 06:42, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm well aware that political conflicts bleed into other topics anywhere in the world. Nonetheless, it's appropriate to acknowledge that the extent to which historical ethnic, religious, and political conflicts have permeated other aspects of life is qualitatively different when those conflicts have run for millennia rather than decades. To take your examples; yes, absolutely, Rail Transport in India and related topics should be under discretionary sanctions. The Railways in India are largely state-run, and are a matter of constant political conflict; it would frequently fall within the scope of the scope I defined above. Education absolutely should be under discretionary sanctions; a very substantial portion of the political conflict in recent years has centered on education. See, for instance, NCERT textbook controversies, Saffronisation (which, now that I look at it, has been the subject of a white-washing effort in the last year), Jawaharlal Nehru University sedition row, 2020 Jawaharlal Nehru University attack, and many, many other pages. I challenge you to find a scope for sanctions that unambiguously covers all of this, without a) creating the potential for endless wikilawyering about where the sanctions apply, and b) without creating impossibly complicated scenarios for awareness. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:25, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But all of those specific cases where those topics intersect with political conflicts and would fall under any sanction that encompasses India-related topics. Again, for America-related topics it's entirely possible to edit railway related topics apolitically. Even though there are political controversies relating to Amtrak or cost-overruns on the NYC subway or California High Speed Rail or Fruitvale station it's entirely possible to spend your time creating uncontroversial articles on railway stations or rolling stock. Look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains#Good articles. Not many of those articles are political even though much of them are American train stations. The fact that trains can be political does not mean they are inherently political and our stance on America-related topics takes that into account.

The above arguments also apply to education. See Kanawha County textbook controversy, 2015–2016 University of Missouri protests, or the Kent State shootings. Again, American educational institutions are frequently embroiled in politics. Yet just because education can be political doesn't mean it's inherently political. Here's a specific example I was referring to earlier:User:Sanskari. They had an extensive history of contributing in mostly apolitical areas of education; see User:Sanskari/contributions. Most of this editor's contributions would not be covered by discretionary sanctions aimed at "history, religion, politics, ethnic strife, intergroup relations, and violent conflict in South Asia". But the current system caused User:Bishonen to slap them with a topic-ban covering ALL India-related topics and shockingly this editor decided to leave the project entirely.

Also, US politics are often based in conflicts that have run on for centuries. See the current racial tensions which date back to when slavery was first introduced in the 1600s or the politico-religious disputes w/r/t the status of Christianity. Those disputes might not be milennia, but it's a lot longer than decades. And yes, these conflicts do permeate into every aspect of life in the US. That's why the WMF put out a statement after George Floyd was killed stating that "Our work cannot be separated from the work of equality and freedom" more or less stating that Wikipedia editing cannot be separated from "racial justice in America".

In terms of actual wording of revising our sanctions, I'd like to see "history, religion, politics, ethnic strife, intergroup relations, and violent conflict in South Asia" or "political, geographical, ethnic, religious, sociological, and cultural disputes in South Asia" (I like the second more) as a starting point for narrowing sanctions. Will there be disputes by editors over the scope of these sanctions? Yes, but that's not inherently WikiLawyering. That can just be people trying to work out the grey areas of topics and that's why we have WP:ARCA (we hash out the grey areas to create less ambiguous sanctions). Expanding the scope of sanctions solely to prevent dispute is inane and logically should result in the entire Wiki being under DS (we should merge the alert into welcome templates). We need to consider that it's important to limit sanctions even if they can result in more ambiguity. I think the wording you proposed is a good tradeoff there (although intergroup relations could be more specific). Another possible solution would be to just create a new sanction covering race and ethnicity in general. Race and ethnicity (and the disputes regarding them) lead to extreme controversy (and inevitably disruptive editing) pretty much everywhere in the world. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:13, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That ethnic and religious disputes in South Asia span a far larger period of history should be rather obvious if you have extensive knowledge of them. Likewise, that they have bled into a far wider array of topics. "Expanding the scope of sanctions solely to prevent dispute is inane and logically should result in the entire Wiki being under DS" That's absurd. There will always be gray areas around a topic; the important thing is to ensure that topics that obviously need DS don't fall in grey areas. My non-proposal does not do that; yours leaves even more gaps (such as by not explicitly covering caste-based conflict, most legislation, most of history, and political biographies). I'm not interested in eliminating grey areas, only in making the sanctions regime genuinely enforceable. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:17, 25 April 2021 (UTC) As for the perceived injustice of Sanskari's TBAN; I skimmed their most recent 500 edits, and even in the supposedly noncontroversial aspects of their work, there's plenty to take issue with; unsourced content, OR, NPOV violations, and so forth. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:21, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Caste based conflict would have been hopefully be under GS-caste since the community has decided to "split that out" so to speak (but I can see why we might want to merge it in to reduce workload). The second wording (of the proposed sanction area) should be adjusted to include "politics" rather than "political disputes"; I agree with you there. I don't see why all legislation or all of history should be included by default in DS though (although laws presumably would be if we switched the wording to "politics"; this is something that would be hammered out during an actual discussion on revising the sanctions themselves). Not all of history is controversial and while far more "history" is controversial in South Asia than in other regions it's possible to distinguish the areas that do have problems with those that do not. Additionally, another problem I see with "history" on its own is that we'd have to define some kind of end-date where "history" ends and becomes "current". I'm not opposed to the idea but it's something to keep in mind. I also understand that the wordings I've suggested are likely flawed in some ways; but this is why discussion exists and the fact that brainstormed wordings to narrow DS are flawed now doesn't mean it's going to be impossible to create better and narrower sanctions. There's no pressure to immediately repeal the existing sanctions and replace them with hastily thought out ideas. But I do believe it is worth it here to narrow the sanctions here and I believe that it's entirely possible to create a sanctions regime that does controversial areas with as little ambiguity or overreach as possible. The current sanctions regime for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (not even South Asia despite the disruption in Bangladesh liberation war topics for example; this is an area where the sanctions should be widened), however, does not. I also now don't think we should be looking to create a hodge-podge of sanctions for every possible topic areas; the conflicts are very interrelated in ways that other places aren't.

In terms of enforceability though, I think we should consider the fact that narrowing sanctions could actually help with that. Judging from the input I've received from others here there seems to be widely varying ideas on what the sanctions are meant to be applied to and there's a vague consensus that sanctions in IPA are meant for some areas more than others; with not much clarity on what those areas actually are. This is an issue because it creates uneven enforcement and unclear expectations. Some admins go ahead and slap people with full tbans from all India-Pakistan-Afghanistan related articles, sometimes it's only a tban from the country they've been editing disruptively in, and other times it's a very narrow tban related to a specific topic. Narrowing the sanctions to a clearly defined area of what they're meant to apply to would help unify the tbans in this regard and reduce the broad discrepancies at the AE log. It might also allow admins in the topic area to more easily craft sanctions; some admins might not want to throw the book at someone and give a full sanction from IPA but find it a pain to draft unambiguous topic restrictions for every disruptive editor. If we give a well-written list of topics the sanctions are meant to apply to that might make it easier for admins to apply a tban; e.g. someone who edits productively on the Indian automobile industry and is interested in Bollywood romantic comedies but edits disruptively on current political situations, holy sites, and language disputes (the last is something the wordings we have could be more clear on). An admin might not want to full on India tban this person, but at the same time they can't really think of a good wording for a sanction that covers this editor's problem areas. If we limit the sanction authorization though, that admin will have the benefit of a well-written & tested wording that isn't ambiguous and will be able to give this user a limited topic ban. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:28, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Chess, I'm not declaring that crafting a reasonable sanctions scope is nigh-impossible based on this discussion alone; I'm saying this based on eight years of active editing and four years of adminning in this area. Fundamentally, DS is about conserving the community's most precious resource, which is editor time (else we could sort every dispute out at AN/ANI/ARBCOM). For that reason, sanctions scopes that will lead to wikilawyering are a bad idea, and sanctions scopes that don't allow for editors to be removed from areas they are being disruptive are a terrible idea. Sure, uncontroversial legislation occasionally exists (it's uncommon, let it be noted); but if an editor cannot be trusted to edit neutrally about politicians, or political disputes, how are they to be trusted to write about legislation? The issues with history are similar. With respect to Bangladesh, yes, absolutely, the sanctions regime should cover it; it was quite an oversight on ARBCOM's part. But I disagree that narrowing the scope of sanctions would help with even enforcement. There is considerable variation in where editors can be trusted to edit; the scope of levied sanctions needs to be flexible. If there is currently inequitable enforcement, that's an issue with enforcement, not with sanctions scope. "there's a vague consensus that sanctions in IPA are meant for some areas more than others" I'm not seeing that at all among those admins that actually levy sanctions in this area; only a recognition that some specific disputes are more likely to end up at the noticeboards. If that sentiment exists, it's among those that haven't dealt with any number of disputes. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:02, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The "vague consensus" I was referring to is what people here have discussed above. That's what I don't like; there's uneven expectations on what the sanctions actually apply to. I'd also disagree with you that "uncontroversial legislation" is uncommon. The vast majority of legislation is uncontroversial but that's generally why you don't hear about it. See List of acts of the 116th United States Congress (I'd use examples from South Asia but Wikipedia's coverage isn't nearly as good; wonder why). Most of these acts are boring uncontroversial legislative business that has to get done; like naming buildings or streets after important people. Other times it's correcting oversights in laws or doing obvious stuff. E.g. The CHARGE act, which clarifies that employees of the federal government can use a government charge card to pay for recharging of government electric vehicles. That being said, on a practical basis, I don't see how it's possible to separate "uncontroversial" from "controversial" legislation as that would require admins to take political stances themselves, as there's a lot of laws deemed uncontroversial (and apolitical) by some and very controversial (and political) by others. Any limited sanctions should explicitly include all legislation (or possibly "government") for this reason (maybe American politics should be amended see: [19]).

I also noticed that brought up your experience in adminning and editing in South Asia related topics and how others commenting haven't dealt with these disputes. From what I can see on the AE log and the GSCaste log you've only blocked someone once for violating a GS caste tban and haven't applied or enforced a sanction in the IPA DS area. Looking at the AE archives themselves, I've noticed you've been involved in many discussions at AE. Could you clarify as to whether your views on the IPA sanctions here are based on your experience as an administrator at AE or as an editor? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 02:19, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't often levy sanctions myself, but I have participated in the discussions that led to them very frequently, and I do take admin action in this area on a regular basis. As such I do not draw a distinction between my experience as an admin and as an editor when commenting here. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:11, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by arbitrators (Currently authorized discretionary sanctions topics)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.