Requests for Comment/Abolish the Code of Conduct Commission

Brief history of the Commission:
 * Code of Conduct was enacted as policy on May 6th, 2017. There was no specific enforcement authority, much rather it was left to platform moderators/Stewards as appropriate.
 * An RfC was launched to establish a Commission to manage all violations of the Code of Conduct - this was formally adopted in October 2017 after it was deemed the Code of Conduct was 'unenforceable' by platform moderators.
 * A reform RfC was closed in July 2020 after the Commission self-recognised it was ineffective and dysfunctional in resolving Code of Conduct complaints.

In this RfC, I will outline my rationale for proposing the abolition of the Commission, reasons why the reforms in 2020 have not produced an effective Commission and why the Commission is still ineffective today. Firstly, let's discuss the 2020 reform and why the proposals did not address the problem and address some user comments on the 2020 RfC:
 * 2020 RfC: Scope (Proposal 1.1): Users that do not show previous dispute resolution methods have been attempted will be redirected to the other groups and will not be heard by the CoCC. If we consider the self-declared statistics from the Commission, 9/10 complaints to the Commission were redirected elsewhere - with no information stating that a complaint was received further about the handling by appropriate first-level moderation systems, this suggests first-level moderators have a 100% resolution rate of complaints directed to them in the first instance.
 * 2020 RfC: Transparency & Accountability (Proposal 1.7): The CoCC are required to disclose at least every 90 days the following [...], this is interesting as the Commission failed to report these statistics for the first 213 days and no satisfactory reason was provided for this delay, especially why the first 90 day report was missed - considering the Commission had no open or active cases in the first 90 days. It is important to note, that I repeatedly requested these statistics be reported by the Commission and was always given a positive response without a positive follow up. I can only postulate whether there was a lack of motivation to be transparent or whether there was a disregard for the Communities authority here. I would also like to highlight that two of the four current Commissioners supported this proposal - given the slow reaction to being transparent, this would also suggest the attitudes of the Commission as a whole are either difficult to change or not deeply rooted in the transparent manner both members voted for.
 * 2020 RfC: Comments from Proposal 2, Abolishment: Considering what I am proposing, I feel it is appropriate to respond to these comments pre-emptively:
 * Final Review Body - the information I have shared above coming from the public reporting directly from the Commission suggests there have been no appeals to any action taken.
 * Stewards not handling things correctly - Stewards are accountable to the community, any complaint regarding the effective working of Stewards or the review of a decision would be open to community scrutiny. If we have a Commission to review this, and the Commission support the Stewards (of which 50% of Commission members are), this would prevent the community scrutinising Stewards as current policy states a decision by the Commission is binding for a minimum of three months.

Let us now have a quick look back at the reason for why a Code of Conduct Commission was created in the first place - from the original RfC in 2017 it states - We really had no way to enforce the Code of Conduct. The Enforcement abilities pre RfC were:
 * System Administrators have responsibility for enforcement (context: System Administrators formed a majority of Stewards and had total moderation responsibility for Phabricator and IRC at the time)
 * IRC Operators control IRC-violations
 * Phabricator Admins control Phabricator-violations.

Post the RfC, the Commission became the sole arbitrators of all violations on all platforms. Following the 2020 RfC, initial enforcement was passed back to Platform moderators (essentially, Enforcement was reverted back to pre-Commission). If this is the case, haven't we provided a reason for having the Commission, and then three years later gone 'that was a really bad decision we made to introduce the Commission, the previous system worked'.

Finally, a comment regarding the effectiveness of the current Commission - the on-going case the Commission is dealing with was filed by myself in November 2020. Since November, I have received repeated assurances by the Commission that the case was actively being dealt with, to only find out the Commission took over a month to reach a point where it was able to begin considering the wider scope of the report. In the weeks following this, I kept receiving assurances the Commission would provide a final report within weeks, at the end of January, this changed to the Commission providing two separate reports in parts. Four months later, to my knowledge the Commission have not made any real progress since January and are instead delaying and prolonging the first real case it has had in over 4 years. As a user, I have lost confidence in the Code of Conduct Commission as I made the careful decision to escalate the case to the Commission to ensure it was given due diligent thought. As a platform moderator, I feel I have been mislead by the Commission - promising to deal with complaints 'with urgency and confidentiality'. I would like to invite the Commission to comment on the 'confidentiality' aspect as I have been passed information which suggests the Commission did not treat my complaint in a confidential manner - with one member of the Commission attempting to actively sabotage the complaint.

I hope the information I have provided above shows that the Commission is ineffective, poor and beyond all else, beyond reform. I heavily recommend that the Commission is abolished as it makes a mockery of the process. John (talk) 21:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposal 1: Abolish the Code of Conduct Commission
The Code of Conduct Commission is abolished formally when the current terms of all members ends on July 31st, 2021.

Support

 * 1) Per all of my comments above. John (talk) 21:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposal 2: Reform Initiative
There is a recognised problem with the current Code of Conduct Commission, but rather than abolish, another attempt should be made to reform the Commission. If this proposal is passed, a discussion on reform must have taken place prior to the end of the current Commission's terms ending on July 31st, 2021. If no reform RfC has taken place, the Commission is suspended until such a reform RfC has concluded.

Oppose

 * 1) Per my comments above, we can not reform a system which doesn't work at a fundamental level - we can only make it a little less broken, but that does not mean it works. John (talk) 21:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrative Point
If all proposals fail - the Commission continues to operate as-is. This is effectively the 'Status Quo', but rather than vote on the status quo, rejection of change should effectively identify the status quo as being the preferred route.