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Revision as of 04:50, 6 October 2007

Misplaced Pages:Community sanction noticeboard

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

The community sanction noticeboard (CSN) was split off from Misplaced Pages:administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (ANI) in February of this year in response to the imaginary problem of lack of a centralized discussion page for community-related issues. It seemed like a good idea at the time, though, and I was one of the initial supporters of the page. As the page focused in on behavioral sanctions, it was moved to the current name.

Since that point it has, well, deteriorated: some CSN bans are discussed for less than a day; many are assented to with simple "support" votes (no wonder "votes for banning" is a common nickname); discussions have less than a half dozen participants (how this could possibly be construed as consensus for something as major as revoking a user's editing privileges, indefinitely, escapes me); discussions to ban are started by people who are in editwarring with the person they propose the banning of, and this isn't even noted (AN/I reports get a lot more research going into them, especially regarding the involvement of the user making the complaint).

This page was first nominated for deletion for much the same reasons in May, and we ended up with a no-consensus close. The closer, Phaedriel, recognized that the page had issues (as did all those in favor of deletion and many of those in favor of keeping), and suggested reform to address these. It was a completely reasonable suggestion, and some reform was attempted, as can be seen in the archives; similar to the Esperanza issue, however, reform-minded discussion largely tapered off, and I don't think there have been any changes. The following issues are present, and are my basis for nominating this for deletion again:

• Excessive speed in the banning of users. In many cases the end result is the right one, so no harm is done by rushing it. But this is not always the case. Let's not forget that bans proposed in the East Asian and Australian morning and closed by night there miss out on nearly everybody in North America, and vice versa. One amazing example: to , or five hours and eleven minutes. I can't possibly be the only who finds that rather unfair to a longtime user, disruptive though he may be.
• Simple voting is apparent just by scanning the archives, so I won't bother listing diffs. One example is the Ferrylodge ban, particularly this section. Voting is pervasive, and frequently takes the place of discussion.
• Dialogue is split up, leading to parallel discussions on the same issue. I don't think I have to explain how annoying and useless this practice is. Why can't we just let discussions finish where they started? Examples of pointlessly forked discussions: AN/I/CSN, AN/I/CSN
• And finally, many people just won't see the discussions. This page is far less widely watchlisted and even known than AN/I. Votes comprise the same users. It isn't a small amount, as there are more than a dozen regulars. But this is nevertheless tiny in comparison to the people who participate in AN/I discussions. Banning someone, particularly longtime contributors, should be a decision undertaken by consensus of the community; the community, ironically, does not frequent the "community" noticeboard.

I foresee the following arguments in favor of keep:

• Reform will work.

  No, it won't. Adjusting the page to deal with the problems has been was tried and failed. The concept of voting on bans is rotten at the core, and slicing a few brown spots off the edges does not make it better. Esperanza couldn't reform, and I'm afraid CSN won't be able to either.

• The issue is the voters and how they vote, not the page/process itself.

  The distinction is meaningless. As long as this page exists, the same small group of users is going to open discussions, participate in discussions, and close discussions. Any attempt at reform

• CSN gives the community more of a say in bans than AN/I

  The amount of users who participate in discussions is far smaller than on the incidents noticeboard. The naming is really the problem here - AN/I is widely used community process, which dozens of admins and non-admins edit every day. It is recognized as the place to report incidents and discuss how to deal with them. CSN, while nominally a "community" process, has swept discussions to ban out of sight of most of the community. AN/I, while nominally for admins, brings in a large variety of people.

• Moving discussions about bans and paroles back to AN/I will crowd it.

  There is less than one vote to ban per day. Insignificant in the scheme of things.

• It isn't a vote; it's a discussion. It even says so in the header!

  The header is inaccurate; just as people ignore the header and make irrelevant commentary on Talk:Main Page, people ignore the header and vote at CSN. There are indeed some real discussions, where consensus is formed. This is reminiscent of how bans were formulated and assented to at AN/I, and how they can be again. And then there are some "discussions" that are as far from a vote as requests for adminship is. Note the periodic Supports and Endorses (often the whole body of someone's comment). Walton, an admin who supports CSN, agrees it is a vote and makes my point for me quite well (albeit from the complete opposite side of the issue)

I do not propose reform; reform was tried and failed. I propose deletion, as the failings of this board are incapable of being rectified. CSN's positive functions can be easily reabsorbed by AN/I, where productive, extended discussion happens frequently, while the voting mentality and speedbanning can be dropped. Resuming these discussions at AN/I will also provide much wider oversight, to ensure discussions remain discussions and to ensure a small group of users do not disproportionately influence the outcome. Thank you for reading through all of that. Picaroon (t) 03:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

As a matter of clarification, I do not think the people who regularly partake in ban discussions are at fault any more than any other subsection of Misplaced Pages would be, and I attribute no ill intentions whatsoever to them. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work Durova and others put into our dispute resolution system, but simply do not think this is a successful part of the system. Picaroon (t) 04:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

• Delete. Laughingstock. ➪HiDrNick! 03:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Kill with fire and delete with prejudice. I see much more discussions about blocks and that kinda stuff on the Incidents noticeboard, and I believe there's an MfD below regarding a redirect to CSN that seems to violate meta:Voting is evil. The fate of one should be held in the hands of hundreds here, not the hands of six. -Jéské 03:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Ban - I vote to ban it. WilyD 03:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete (anyone else find it ironic that we are *voting* to delete something that is being deleted because its a vote?) It had its chance, potentially useful, potentially expandable, but practice has shown that the potential is unlikely to be realised. Viridae 03:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Merge back to AN/I, per the above cogent arguments. (I said merge because that is what really will occur, and I think the vote should reflect that we wish to reincorporate the purpose and procedure, not delete, or eliminate, the goals and purposes. ThuranX 03:58, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep. With respect for this nomination, which is articulate and presented in good faith, the arguments miss the reasons for the board's existence. The total number of registered accounts at this website has increased tenfold in the last two years and Misplaced Pages needs a scalable and rational way to manage its disruptive editors, not reversion to the ad hoc approach of scattered discussions over two extremely diffuse noticeboards. Community sanctions include remedies that make no automatic note in a block log: topic bans, article bans, revert paroles. This proposal would relegate such decisions to archives where those decisions would be quickly buried and nearly meaningless because they would remain unknown to all but the few individuals who took part in the original discussion. WP:CSN usually works, and for times when it doesn't work there's arbitration. Should something better take its place? Yes, perhaps. Retaining it now creates an archive of coherent data that we can use to plan a rational replacement. For anyone who doubts this line of thought I have a challenge: locate and link to five community ban discussions from the six months before this noticeboard got implemented. Then you're on your honor: tell how long it took you to find them. Durova 04:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • So wee keep an archive of community bans as they are enacted - a simple link to their place in the ANI archives would suffice. Viridae 04:24, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
    • But not everyone knows precisely where the discussions are located in the archives until it's too late given how often AN/I gets archived. May I suggest that we keep them in a separate archive linked from the normal noticeboard archives template so as to put them all in one centralized spot instead of scattered throughout buku amounts of archives? -Jéské 04:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Huh? There were community ban discussions periodically at AN before this board came into existence. The difference was that a ban was something imposed for good reason with wide-scale administrator support, not as a tool in a content dispute. --B 04:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually I proposed this board after quite a bit of experience with those WP:AN and WP:ANI discussions as well as some very timewasting efforts spent locating and citing those discussions afterward. It seemed that lack of organization had mired the process in a very elementary state. If there's a way to accommodate the advantages this board brings while rolling the discussions back to the administrative boards, then I'd have no objection. Durova 04:47, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Messedrocker solution, much like what happened to Esperanza and BJAODN. The nomination has summed up my reasons better than I could. east.718 at 04:02, October 6, 2007
  • I don't think Messedrockerifying is going to be helpful here. This page has had much more impact on Misplaced Pages than Esperanza or BJAODN. -Jéské 04:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Archive I was once one of the strongest supporters of this board. However, increasingly, we've seen cases brought here involving people that no admin in his or her right mind would ever consider unblocking. I'm of the mind that we're better served moving to AN and ANI. There is also far too much confusion over whether a user is banned or simply indefblocked (an outstanding example was User:Lyle123) and this board doesn't seem to help the cause. Blueboy96 04:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The process may need to be improved (though the cases I've seen so far have either achieved the correct outcome, or have been overly lenient to the subject user). But merging it in with ANI isn't the answer. Community sanctions are a serious matter and deserve focused attention rather than getting buried amidst the usual image disputes, bias accusations, and the like that bulk up ANI. Raymond Arritt 04:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or retire - it's nothing but a lynchmob. I rarely pay attention to it, but I have seen one good faith contributor get lynched there because his/her views disagreed with some of the more vocal members of a particular topic area. AN, ANI, and the arbitration committee are much better equipped to handle anything that rises above the level of sour grapes. --B 04:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Do you have a particular example? And if the decision really was wrong, was arbitration sought? Durova 04:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Ferrylodge (talk · contribs) would be one example. --B 04:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)