UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Misconduct Changes

There is no major problem. Get rid of Grims little "misconduct tracker" templates, and just weigh up each case as it appears. It's entirely appropriate for sysops to "bend the rules" within the guidelines, and such actions can be ruled not misconduct due to point two in the general conduct section of the guidelines which says that "should the exact wording of the policies run contrary to a system operators' best good-faith judgment and/or the spirit of the policies, the exact wording may be ignored". Such cases should be ruled upon on a case by case basis, and seldom is anything more than a "dressing down" needed. If actions by a sysop disturb other, regular users ability to edit the wiki, without them going through the proper channels, then it is appropriate that they are ruled against on A/M, and if they make a habit of hampering other users use of the wiki by such actions, then it should be expected that the rulings against them increase in severity also -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 15:38 15 October 2008 (BST)

well, you are the sysop with access to the misconduct archives... you can remove these trackers... it would be a start already. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^talk 15:54, 15 October 2008 (BST)

Aaaargh! This is mental. Okay:

• "Users can be brought to A/VB for creating several cases of misconduct which were eventually ruled as not misconduct or frivolous." No way. That means that users can be prosecuted for bringing sysops to misconduct. That's just wrong. Users should not fear to report sysops for a perceived misconduct. Epic fail.
• The entire community input section is badly thought-out. Any 10 users can try to oust an unpopular sysop, but only once every 60 days. WTF? So, the sysop can be hounded out of office for a first offence (and let's say they're not voted out), they are then free to act like a giant tit without any comeback for the next 60 days? More epic fail.
• All the options. These are already open to any misconduct case. The sysop team discusses what they think the punishment should be already. Trying to sort it into 5 easy definitions is too restrictive of what may occur on a case by case basis. (Although boxy's recurring just let them off with a soft warning does rankle next to the official warnings doled out to regular users.) More epic fail.

Sorry to be so negative, but isn't this just a reactionary policy based on recent events? --Funt Solo ^QT 17:59, 15 October 2008 (BST)

Wooo wall of text :D

• point taken... removing
• hum... right now there is NO regulation on when community can bring a sysop to revaluation. I am giving the community a chance to ask for one. And you think this is bad ? Saying he can only be tried every two months prevents a sysop from being dragged to revaluation in a weekly basis, and is time enough for changes in his behavior to happen and for the community to form an opinion about him. And if he acts like a "giant tit" in this timeframe... well, i imagine that he will receive a rather poor feedback in his final revaluation.
• These options are open for us to choose indeed, but in the mind of the regular user and the regular sysop, its only black or white, misconduct or not. Wording the options remind us about them when stating our votes, and fixing a sort of punishment to it help the sysop define his ruling on each case.

People's Commissar Hagnat ^talk--18:25, 15 October 2008 (BST)

Back to the second bullet. Just because there's no current regulation for re-evaluating a sysop, it doesn't mean that your idea is good. Put it this way: if any 10 contributors could have forced a sysop re-evaluation back at the start of this year, then you and Karek (at the very least) would've both been ousted by the Goons, who had an unbeatable voting block on this wiki that was only shut down when Kevan intervened on a policy vote. Even then, their block vote (and that of RedRum) made the difference in the 'crat elections that followed. Re-evaluation should be about something more than weight of numbers, and I don't believe it should be linked into the Misconduct system. Leave it for another policy. --Funt Solo ^QT 01:36, 16 October 2008 (BST)

The evaluation of a sysop, as the request for promotion, is NOT a voting process. Its a call for feedback from the comunity, on which the current crats decide to approve or not. So, as you can see, the bigger treat for a user sysop status is antagonizing with plenty of active users of the wiki, and with the crat team. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^talk 01:44, 16 October 2008 (BST)

And given that to be the case, a 'crat could work with a large user base to rid themselves of sysops they didn't like. If that power had existed when Grim was 'crat, he'd have used it to get rid of Conn and Nubis (and you, if you hadn't demoted yourself). --Funt Solo ^QT 02:56, 16 October 2008 (BST)

Glad to see the bit about vandal banning taken out.

I've mixed feelings about going straight to voting and missing discussion; certainly for cases with even a little complexity there should be discussion before voting: voting polarizes people, and once they've voted they'll be very resistant to changing their mind, even if they maybe should. At the same time, sorting simple cases quickly is good.

Good to see more nuanced answers than simply misconduct or not misconduct built into the system; building them in encourages their use. --Toejam 20:01, 15 October 2008 (BST)

I see what you're getting at, but there are some problems.

• "The long discussion problem". This simply isn't much of a problem IMO. As Toejam said above, having no discussion could very well be a bigger problem.
• Frivolous Case. The distinction to Small Misconduct is diminishingly small, especially with the "Users can be brought to A/VB for creating several cases of misconduct which were eventually ruled as not misconduct or frivolous" bit gone. Anyway, instead of saying that an action that was clearly against the rules was a simple mistake, or done in perfectly good faith or whatever, you should make that action "legal" through A/PT#Protections_Scheduling_Queue, A/D/S or even A/PD, which would put a stop to your so called "Frivolous Cases". As long as it's against the rules, it should be (at least Small) Misconduct.
• Misconduct levels in general. In a way they'd probably be good a thing, but I think it'd be better to first judge the case based simply on Misconduct/Not Misconduct and decide on the punishment, then classify it as Small, regular or Grave. Also, there shouldn't be a level called just "Misconduct". "Misconduct" should be reserved as a blanket term for any kind of misconduct. Otherwise it's just going to confuse people. It'd also immediately tell whether a case was in the old or new system.
• Community Input. Having a minumum of 60 days between evaluations is pointless, as it already depends on the sysop getting a regular Misconduct verdict. If someone manages to get more than one regular Misconduct ruling in two months, then it should be possible to re-evaluate them. Also, how long would the users would have time to vote on the evaluation? A day? A couple of days? A week? --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 21:55, 15 October 2008 (BST)

No. This problem only exists because sysops are unwilling to misconduct each other for clear violations of the guidelines, for proof check out cheese's current A/A case. Yes it was minor, but for once boxy is right, cheese just needs to accept he's misconducted, take a vandal escalation and move on. Why the fuck are the sysops call split on the ruling for such a straight forward case? Because for some reason you all think misconduct is a huge deal, it's not, provided it stops happening then it's no big deal at all. Hagnat you could make this system but do you really think it'd make any difference? the sysops would still be desperate to downgrade each other's misconduct charges (hoping what goes around comes around perhaps?). If anything this makes it more of a mess because there is far more decisions to disagree about.--xoxo 04:28, 16 October 2008 (BST)

Structure

Remember the last time you saw a misconduct case like this? No. Neither do I.

Would it not be possible to create a structure, like on arbies. A user reports what they feel is misconduct, what rule(s) have been broken etc.

Than the accused can have a section to state their reasons/objections, without every other sysop and bystander chiming in.

Then sysops can debate stating points arguements, before the accused can rebut. Then a ruling. Oh and keep us bystanders on the talk page. obviously.

After that, the same old debate. frivolous cases thrown out, coups overthrown blah blah. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:22, 16 October 2008 (BST)

What is addressed with this policy is not the problem with the misconduct system. This is just another way for Hagnat to preemptively cover his ass whilst lying to you all about how he'll not do the same things again. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 11:44, 17 October 2008 (BST)

Actually... Rosslessness' idea is a good one. Currently, Misconduct is a free-for-all. Some kind of format and procedure would be a good idea... But this policy is, as funt has shown, a hodge-podgey mess that just won't make things any better... --WanYao 21:23, 18 October 2008 (BST)