UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Permaban Appeal Revisions

This is the space for discussing the proposed Permaban Appeal Account Creation policy. Specific questions I have include:

Should the account be able to create the appeal or only comment once it has been initiated by another user? I have it as the former, but I can see arguments for the latter.
Should the account be able to comment on the talk page, or only on the Appeal vote itself? Do I need to clarify archive versus main A/DE pages?
Is the mention of the lack of other privileges and/or banning the account after the vote is over clear enough?
Anything else you may want to discuss.

Have at it, y'all. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 16:48, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Just storing a prior version of the text below, in case anyone wants to comment on it. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 00:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

A banned user may create a temporary account in order to initiate the appeal and/or comment on it and its discussion. Any edits made by that account not on the De-Escalations page or its associated talk page will be considered vandalism and be a criterion for terminating the vote and escalating the ban. The account will have no other privileges, and cannot vote on its own appeal. ... In any case, once the vote has ended, any temporary account made by the vandal will be banned without being considered an escalation.

Seems workable to me.

17:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

A Different Proposal

So I think the Permaban Apeals policy could use some rephrasing, but I don't think it needs to be this. Users are banned, for the most part because they ignored or were unaware of some rules. Adding new rules about how they can use alternate accounts would cause problems, I would think. The existing vandalism policy regarding vandal alts is almost as old as the wiki itself, so it would be better to reinforce that.
I'd suggest adding something like Permabanned users may not comment on their own appeal. Use of alternate accounts during an appeal may be dealt with according to the Vandalism Policy and may result in the appeal being withdrawn.
I think we should then set up some sort of method for permabanned users to choose a representative for them if they choose. It could be similar to Arbitration; a list of users available to speak on the behalf of a permabanned user during an appeal. ~ _{17:32, 23 February 2013 (UTC)}

Are there others out there who share this preference? I'm personally of the opinion that people should be able to comment on matters that directly concern them, like their own unbanning. I also think that the behavior of such a user during the deperma vote process can be illustrative and help those voting to come to a decision, especially if they'd otherwise be voting on things which occurred entirely before they arrived on the wiki (as with myself in Izumi's case). Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 18:08, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

In addition to my reasons above, I feel that by giving banned users access to only the A/DE page, you'd be restricting them from fully discussing the terms of their appeal. Discussion may take place on other parts of the wiki (talk pages, A/VB, Misconduct and now Policy Discussion to use the Izumi example). A representative would be able to openly discuss the appeal outside of A/DE if necessary.

Having said that, I would accept that, under some circumstances, a represntative may request that a banned user be temporarily unbanned on an as-needed basis (such as to provide some information not easily conveyed by a representative). At that point, certain editing restrictions could be defined by the sysop administering the temporary unban. ~

_{20:43, 23 February 2013 (UTC)}

I kinda disagree. Giving banned users access to only the DE page has little bearing on whether or not other users can choose to advocate on that same page or elsewhere. You and I, right now, could advocate for Izumi on any talk page or related-page. We could go all super-saiyan or whatever and pull-out all the stops in convincing people that choosing not to unban Izumi is not only an affront to humanity, but also threatens the very fabric of society. There is no formal list of wiki-Matlocks on the arbitration page for representing (not arbitrating but representing) and yet people volunteer all the time to represent a side, presumably because they see merit in the case. Why is there a need to formalize that process? -MHSstaff 21:12, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The examples you've given aren't directly related to whether or not the appeal goes through, however, which is all that the banned user should care about. I can see an argument for allowing them to comment on A/VB in cases where they're about to receive a fresh escalation, since that would affect the success of their appeal, but A/M is unrelated to the success of their case, even if it may be related to the case itself, A/PD would never affect them unless they started an appeal while a policy was in mid-vote (and even then, I feel that that is out of their control and that they have no right to comment), and, at least in this case, talk pages outside of the UDWiki namespace would have had no relation if Izumi hadn't posted on them first. I'm fine with allowing them to comment on admin talk pages that are related to their case, but certainly not user talk pages. All-in-all, most of what I said can be condensed into a simple phrasing I posted below, though I'll need to consider the A/VB issue. —Aich on— 21:15, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Let me also clarify some other things. My proposal is also something I put forward to help prevent abuse while still giving banned users a voice. Let me run through a couple of scenarios.

A banned user is being appealed. The community is split on its decision and is being hotly debated. The banned user is keeping comments on the A/DE page but another line of discussion is taking place in a user's talk page. Despite there being a policy which prevents the banned user from commenting ouside of A/DE, the user adds to the discussion. This violates policy and therefore the appeal is shut down entirely for six months or longer.
A user has been banned for harrassment and is later put up for appeal. The user is allowed to comment on their appeal and uses the oppurtunity further the harrassment. Or perhaps they see that their appeal clearly has no support and they go on a harassment spree.

Both of these situations could be avoided by simply leaving the user accounts banned. My proposal just gives them the option of a voice during the appeal.

To address MHStaff's comments, I am open to different ways in which representative can be presented. It could simply be a raise of hands during the appeal, a list of potential representatives like on A/A or something else entirely. Obviously, it would need to be someone that either feels strongly about the appeal (like the person making the appeal in the first place) or some other volunteer willing to act as the mouthpiece. ~

_{21:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)}

Well, we effectively allow that already, so why regulate it? The person making the appeal can act as the representative. We don't need any special lists of users or the like, right? As for your cases, yes, those could happen, but in the case of the first I'd suggest that sidebar discussions aren't their business anyway, and in the case of the second, they'll only be able to do that once or twice before placing an appeal for that person will start to be considered a form of abuse of the system since the person placing the appeal would be aiding the act of harassment. It's not perfect, admittedly, but I think it's better than formalizing something like that. —Aich on— 21:59, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I didn't make it clear, but the banned user would need to choose the user to represent them. It's one thing to volunteer and to be accepted as a representative. Its another to do so without the approval of the banned user. I'm also fine with the status quo and have no official outside representaion, but I put it out there as a compromise. In any case, I think the potential for abuse or for technicalities causing the whole thing to be shut down should be enough not to allow banned users these limited editing permissions. ~

_{22:10, 23 February 2013 (UTC)}

To me unbanning the main account (by request) and restricting it to the DE/DE talk page seems a lot simpler. They can also request/ accept a representative then, just like with arbies. As far as abuse/technicalities with limited editing, phrase it like "this is as a privilege not a right, blah blah blah, does not have to be given, blah blah blah, and can be revoked if a sysop feels that the user is misusing / abusing this gift blah blah blah". Basically put the onus on the sysops and let them exercise their best judgement and enjoy the drama (when deciding if this is being misused/abused) while you, I and everyone else enjoys Miller Time. Either we trust them (sysops) or we don't.-MHSstaff 22:30, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Common sense

I'm new to UD wiki politics, so I don't get why you're so trigger happy about inventing new policies. Secondary accounts or messangers? Here is my suggestion for something simpler (copied from Wikipedia):

In some cases, a banned editor may be unblocked for the purpose of filing an appeal. In such cases, editing of any unrelated page or other matter is grounds for immediate re-blocking.

Let them comment on A/DE, if they step outside that block again. With some rewording this could be used as a minor revision to existing laws. --Labla 18:23, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I support this. →Son of Sin← 18:50, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

That looks to be an ancillary rule to the normal appeal process on Wikipedia. They require that a banned user use their own talk page (Wikipedia allows banned users to edit their own talk page in most cases) or email and state their case an Arbitration commitee. Unbanning users so they can state their case looks to be a special priveledge give to people under certain circumstances after the appeal process is started. ~

_{20:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)}

I rather like the idea of simply unbanning the main account with some stipulations in place, rather than having them create an additional account, since it makes things easier to track. —Aich on— 21:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Simple. Makes sense. Maybe give some leeway to sysops to deny this privilege if it banned users use it solely to flood/shit up the DE page. -MHSstaff 21:13, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Rework

Regarding the proposed text additions, I'd condense both pieces into something along these lines and place them where the first block of new text is located:

After an appeal has been filed, the banned user may request that their primary account be unbanned for the duration of the voting period so that they may comment on their case. The banned user is neither permitted to vote nor edit pages other than administration pages related to their appeal and its success. Using other accounts, editing pages other than those permitted, or engaging in any form of vandalism will result in the permaban being re-applied and the appeal being cycled immediately.

Allowing them to post their own appeal is a bad idea, since part of the original idea was that current users could be held accountable for any abuse of the system. Allowing self-appeals negates that. Also, as above, using their original account is a smart idea, since it means we have less to track and that they can use the name they're best known by. And with wording along these lines, we can condense both of the currently-proposed blocks of text into a single block that handles it all. —Aich on— 21:09, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Added the "and its success" in order to try and address issues like A/VB cases that might affect whether or not an appeal continues. —Aich on— 21:17, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

How do they request the ban lift? -MHSstaff 21:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I intentionally left that unspecified. Other than that they must make the request themselves, which was specified, I figure it's fine for them to make the request of a sysop on a forum, via IRC, e-mail, etc., and most of the sysops make an effort to be accessible in case of situations like these. The whole point is just to ensure that we're not automatically unbanning uninvolved people. —Aich on— 22:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I've changed the version to be more in line with your proposal, Aichon, which I really like. I'm very willing to compromise to allow the banned user's main account to be the one with which they can comment. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 01:05, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Kirsty's Suggestion

First, I'd prefer an addition to the existing perma appeal policy not a new policy. As for the general phrasing (the italics are to why):

A permabanned user may make an account to initiate or comment on their permaban appeal, the account is limited to using the DE page (both main and talk).If conversation occurs in another location, the user may reference that conversation and address it on DE talk.
A permabanned user may only initiate a permaban appeal 12 or more months since their banning or previous DE vote, whichever is greater. Stops them from flooding DE with requests.
Edits to other pages will revoke the right of the user to comment, resulting in the account being banned, but does not effect a vote already underway. Stops the user, but doesn't stop a community vote based on technicality.
If a permabanned user creates an account but does not declare it is the account of the permabanned user, the new account is banned and voting continues. Probably best to make sure that the vandal doesn't pretend to be someone else.
If a permabanned user is abusing this right, as determined by a minimum of 2 sysops, the new account will be warned, continued abuse will result in the account being banned but does not stop the voting. Just in case they attempt to use this allowance to harass a user, spam the wiki or simply to post hateful/offensive material.
An account created for this purpose is banned at the end of DE voting, regardless of results.

Gives them to chance to both defend or foil their appeal, limits their ability to initiate the process (but doesn't limit their ability to comment if another user initiates DE), and most importantly avoid taking away the community vote due to the those activities. It will probably speak poorly enough of the user that they violated the rules put in place to allow them the appeal. --_K 22:42, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I like some of it, but I still don't see why a secondary account is better than simply unbanning the first. Also, if they decide to go and blank an enemy group page for lulz, they should be escalated and thus ineligible for an appeal since they've demonstrated that they're not reformed, which was the whole thing that they're trying to argue for with an appeal. It's one thing if it's a silly technicality that will get their appeal cycled, as it would have been in the current case with Izumi, but if someone is acting in outright bad faith, there's no doubt in my mind that they've demonstrated conclusively that they're ineligible for an appeal. —Aich on— 23:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I prefer allowing the new account over a temporary unban, since it doesn't require the user to go through someone off wiki, but either way is fine really. As for your example of vandalism, I believe in that situation the community vote would reflect the poor decision, but by making it a rule it puts it on the sysops to not only determine vandalism but also remove the chance of users to vote. However, not all cases will be so cut and dry, what is the line between silly technicality and vandalism? I know the extremes are easy to judge, but the middle may be more judgment and less obvious. So rather than trying to define unknown variables and situations, let's make the policy so sysops can do what they feel is best without having the added weight of potentially cancelling a community vote. As for having sysops warn a user, that is intended for users who are following the other rules, but are misusing their commenting ability on DE/DE talk. --_K 23:54, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Better wording as to allowing the vote regardless: As Bob pointed out, users may be voting on vandals they have never meet. If we trust them to vote on something they didn't witness, we should trust them to recognize an unreformed vandal. --_K 00:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Kirsty, it looks like it's just you and I who support allowing the temporary account creation (as opposed to the temporary unbanning of the main account). I'm going to reword the proposal to follow what seems to be more consensus.

Also, to anyone, is there any difference in procedure between revising an existing policy and initiating a new one? I was under the impression not. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 00:55, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Temporary unbanning is cleaner. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:31, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Karek's Suggestion

Can we just not do this policy wank thing for once? Us sysops can update that banned users will be allowed to comment on their appeal via the standard way of us just adding a line to that effect in there(so we can revise it in the future as issues appear without more policy wank) and trust the sysops to be competent and aware? I mean there's so few of us now that it's not exactly a big mystery about who's doing what or clique rule. You can trust us. Well, probably not me but those other guys sure. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:34, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. And as few sysops as there are, there are even fewer permbanned users who want to be allowed back. It just doesn't come up often enough to make a policy for it, that will have to updated every bloody time it's used, because each of these cases is going to be unique. Let the sysops make a decision that works in the situation at hand, like they did this time -- boxy 05:35, 24 February 2013 (BST)

This is one of those rare instances where I agree with Karek. Policy change for sake of policy change, jeez, you guys don't have anything better to do? --Thadeous Oakley Talk 11:00, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think a policy is needed either but I also don't think you guys should go unbanning everyone that's put up for an appeal. ~

_{15:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)}

Unnecessary

Here is a list of permabanned users excluding 3 edit vandals, ban evasions and impersonations (i.e. people with zero chance of successful appeal), as well as self-requested bans (i.e. Yonnua Koponen):

Each and everyone of these had about 2 years now to appeal if they had wanted back to the wiki. How many more permaban appeals do you expect to come up? And how many of these are going to need thoughtful handling like Izumi's bumbling wiki alt entry?

This policy is at best unnecessary. At worst, it will hinder the sys-ops at using their discretion to handle special cases as the current Izumi one.

I'd just let the proposal die an inglorious death and forget about it. -- Spiderzed █ 17:16, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, no need for this policy. What happened izumi was a one-off, under very extreme circumstances. I don't like the 'do it as we call it' attitude much, in fact I never did, but I do trust the op team, particularly because most of them know the exact extent to which Izumi is a different case to anyone else. It was a rare case, policy shouldn't be knee-jerked in because of it. Too easily abused, and if anything, I'd be cementing in policy that this can't happen. A ZOMBIE ANT 22:21, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

In response to Spiderzed, DDR and others who have made similar arguments: I think a lot of the issues surrounding this whole thing stem from the fact that some wiki users (including myself and, I believe, Kirsty) think that Izumi's case is not special, and should not be treated as such. It is only "special" insofar as it involves something happening which has not happened before on the wiki (namely, a perma'd user attempting to get involved in her own de-perma vote.) The idea that "cases like this one" will never, ever happen is part of the larger belief that soon enough the wiki will go into the long, dark night of internet oblivion, something which I firmly do not believe. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 00:52, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

It has happened before. She's forced us to directly talk to her via her alts before. Once she even demanded the sysops have a vote regarding her permaban. We eventually all pitched in and denied her request to have her permaban rescinded through that vote on A/VB. I see this as a mere extension of that event, and therefore I would insist that it is something that's happened before, is a preposterously rare case, and has only happened with izumi. therefore I would call it a special case also. A ZOMBIE ANT 03:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Do 3-edit vandals get IP bans? --_K 23:25, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

All bans are IP bans in addition to account bans. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 00:18, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see 3-edit vandals as having zero chance of appeal. --_K 00:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

They don't go through the escalation process. Additionally pretty much any proposal of a legitimate 3-edit vandal falls under the last clause in the rule; i.e. Unserious proposals. As it's clearly meant as either a joke or to intentionally disrupt the wiki. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:30, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I misunderstand what a 3-edit vandal is. Isn't it someone who made 3 obvious bad faith edits without making any other contributions? Whether or not they were warned of the consequences before being banned? I was under the impression that many of them were three edits made consecutively? --_K 01:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Lesser of Two Evils

Looking at the policy on banning users, it appears that alternate accounts of banned vandals "may" be banned at the discretion of the sysops, and that discretion in Izumi/Kitakaze's case was to not ban the account. So strictly speaking this policy change is unnecessary. However, in the interest of simplicity, and of discouraging ban-skirting sock-puppetry, I think reinstating limited privileges for banned users currently undergoing appeal would be preferable to the current policy. P.F. 21:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Current policy where it exists already? Writing the same things twice on two different policy documents is not improving simplicity over it being written on one document. Writing up new rules that apply to 10 users (see above) out of the thousands that have visited the wiki in the past is not making things simple, it makes things annoying. A ZOMBIE ANT 22:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Then why even have a permaban appeal policy in the first place? It only applies to permabanned users which is a small percentage of the (ex-)community. You drafted the original policy probably knowing that it was always going to apply to like 10 people. So what's changed? Well-crafted policy should provide guidance and direction. Doesn't it bother you that your little baby has led to a misconduct case and has sown confusion among the community? And wouldn't you want to fix or address that? Also, I don't really get the idea that modifying and rewording a policy to be more clear is this monumental change. It takes literally five seconds to make the edit.-MHSstaff 23:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Because it's the logical extension of the deescalation process that banned users can recover their account should the community decide the ban length served is appropriate to the actions taken to get the ban. The only confusion around this is that it's a new process, hell even the sysop team was in complete agreement about the action we took. Do you know how rare that is? --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure but the argument that we shouldn't modify policy because it only affects 10 people is really hard to accept if the original policy basically only affects 10 people. That is my point.-MHSstaff 01:33, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

That's because it's an irrelevant point. It's also not one that was ever considered while the policy was being developed though it had prevented the policy from being added in the past. The policy exists as a review of bans implemented and in lieu of the lack of flexibility in the escalations ladder. It's a way for us to go "Is one year enough for this case? Are 3?" which is why it starts at 6 months(the old ban escalation after 1 month before it became perma-vote)--Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:44, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

This. I don't understand why people would put in so much effort to opposing a change in policy when they could simply ignore it. I'm understanding of Spiderzed, who thinks that the policy as it is presented would be harmful, but not anyone who says "we shouldn't have new policy because we shouldn't have new policy". If you don't want to deal with the policy-revision process, then ignore the policy-revision process and those of us who do care will continue with it. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 01:05, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not that we don't care, it's that you're actively making the situation worse in the future because to address policy implemented functions we're required to go through this nonsense of basically a month long vote on two lines/one paragraph of text. What we're essentially telling you is that the sysop team actually has it within their powers to add this to the rules, specifically of A/DE, without running it through policy discussion so long as there's a clear consensus of what the rule should be(which is the whole reason behind me pursing the conversation with Kirsty to get an idea of what the objections as raised might be). The objections people are voicing are against you proposing it as a policy not against the rule being added or developed, we just want to be able to address the issues that might arise from it in the future which a policy proposal specifically prevents us from being able to do without a dramatic re-interperation of the limits to our powers. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 01:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there a clear consensus as to what this rule should be yet? If there is, then I can withdraw this proposal right away. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 01:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I might have read this wrong but I think Karek is saying that the general idea of unbanning a user to let them speak about their appeal has merit, but you don't need really a policy change for that. Sysops can just do it. -MHSstaff 02:22, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think you should withdrawal the policy. If sysops expect /want the community to trust them enough to basically "just do it," then I don't think it is unreasonable for the community to also expect sysops to have enough trust in the community's ability to decide if they (the community) would be more comfortable with this being spelled out explicitly in a policy, rather than simply trusting sysops to "do the right thing." If it dies in a vote because it truly is not needed, then it dies. Let the community decide. -MHSstaff 03:02, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I've put in about as much effort as I'm willing to at this point. I'm fine with the status quo (no policy change, sysops make another judgement call in the future if necessary, blah blah). I'll vote against the policy if it stays as is. If I'm alone or in the minority, so be it. Not my problem if it causes problems down the line. ~

_{03:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)}

UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Permaban Appeal Revisions

Contents

A Different Proposal

Common sense

Rework

Kirsty's Suggestion

Karek's Suggestion

Unnecessary

Lesser of Two Evils

Navigation menu

Page actions

Page actions

Personal tools

General

Search

Resources

Wiki

Toolbox