Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:36, 26 March 2021

2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review

Status as of 00:49 (UTC), Wednesday, 22 January 2025 (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.

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

Open-ended feedback

Purpose

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

Comments by community members (Purpose)

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

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

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)

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

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

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)

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)

Comments by arbitrators (Pain points)

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 Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Definitions as well as any other terminology-related feedback.

Comments by community members (Definitions and terminology)

Comments by arbitrators (Definitions and terminology)

Authorisation

This includes feedback on Misplaced Pages: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)

Comments by arbitrators (Authorisation)

Guidance for editors

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

Comments by community members (Guidance for editors)

Comments by arbitrators (Guidance for editors)

Awareness

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

Comments by community members (Awareness)

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

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

Comments by arbitrators (Awareness)

Alerts

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

Comments by community members (Alerts)

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

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

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

Comments by arbitrators (Alerts)

Role of administrators

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

Comments by community members (Role of administrators)

Comments by arbitrators (Role of administrators)

Expectations of administrators

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

Comments by community members (Expectations of administrators)

Comments by arbitrators (Expectations of administrators)

Editor restrictions

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

Comments by community members (Editor restrictions)

Comments by arbitrators (Editor restrictions)

Page restrictions

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

Comments by community members (Page restrictions)

Comments by arbitrators (Page restrictions)

Enforcement of discretionary sanctions actions

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

Comments by community members (Logging)

Comments by arbitrators (Logging)

Dismissing an enforcement request

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

Comments by community members (Appeals)

Comments by arbitrators (Appeals)

Modifications

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

Comments by community members (Modifications)

Comments by arbitrators (Modifications)

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 Misplaced Pages: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)

Comments by arbitrators (Other)

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)

Comments by arbitrators (Currently authorized discretionary sanctions topics)