Requests for Comment/Global bans

As you all may be aware of, we have seen a recent influx of requests for global bans. Community global bans are something very ill-defined, they exist in a de facto state but there are no official policies governing them, only some loose conventions and practices from Wikimedia. This RfC seeks to formally clarify the procedure on them and establish a policy around them.


 * Proposal initiated by: Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Proposal co-sponsored by: Reception123 (talk) ( C ) 17:43, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 1 (Global bans)
A community-imposed global ban is a full revocation of all privileges for a user who has caused issues across multiple communities. It is a measure of last resort, reflecting broad community consensus should other measures fail. Other measures include multiple specific advisories based in policy or best practice to the user and contacting Stewards or Trust and Safety as appropriate to resolve the problem.

Support

 * 1)  Solid wording, no issues with this.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) Wording fine as expected. MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  No issues with rationale and wording provided. Thanks - BrandonWM (talk • contribs • global • rights) 01:48, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 1.1 (Global bans)
A community-imposed global ban is a last resort measure for cases where a user's global behavior is not singularly extreme enough to be locked by Stewards or Trust and Safety for policy violations, but has caused significant damage to the community environment or demonstrates an extreme inability to fit the culture of Miraheze. Examples include global delinquents which the community feels Stewards have not adequately addressed, users who create stressful environments across multiple communities they participate in, or users who demonstrate an incredible lack of competence, lack of growth and no signs of integrating well on the platform.

Support

 * 1)  If Proposal 1 fails, don't have any issues with this wording.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) Wording fine as expected. MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  Cool. Thanks - BrandonWM (talk • contribs • global • rights) 01:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 2 (Criteria for a global ban)
The following are all proposals regarding what the criteria for a global ban should be. Each proposal in this section is independent and is not reliant on any other proposal within this section.

Proposal 2.0.1
For the following sections in Proposal 2, 'Phabricator' can be counted along with 'wiki' when determining whether criteria is met. So for example, Proposal 2.1 can include disruption on Phabricator as helping towards meeting the criteria of 'disruption on various Miraheze wikis', Proposal 2.2 can count blocks on Phabricator as helping towards meeting the threshold of 'multiple wikis' where someone is banned, etc.

Support

 * 1)  Phabricator is an extension of Miraheze and counts as a project too. If a user is disrupting Phabricator, this should definitely count towards meeting any criteria.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) . Thanks - BrandonWM (talk • contribs • global • rights) 01:50, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 2.1 (Disruption of various wikis)
The following criteria must be met in order for a global ban to be requested:

The user has persistently disrupted various Miraheze wikis.

Note: This is cumulative. If any other criteria are passed, they must also be met in order to satisfy the requirements for a global ban.

Support

 * 1)  This is important to stop frivolous global ban requests from being made. "Disruptive behavior" shouldn't be hard to discern or evaluate, so I have no issue with this as all successful global ban RfCs meet this criteria.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  This should be left up to the community to decide if they meet this criteria. Thanks - BrandonWM (talk • contribs • global • rights) 01:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 2.2 (Blocked on multiple wikis)
The following criteria must be met in order for a global ban to be requested:

'''The user must have bona fide blocks on multiple (3+) Miraheze wikis (this may include Phabricator). These blocks must have been done in accordance with any local community-endorsed blocking policies (if they exist) and/or global policies.'''

Note: This is cumulative. If any other criteria are passed, they must also be met in order to satisfy the requirements for a global ban.

Support

 * 1)  This is important to stop frivolous global ban requests from being made. All successful global bans to date have met this criteria so thus I have no issues with this.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) This is grounds for abuse and doesn't really stop anything. For one, Wikimedia is currently considering removing their requirement for local blocks, on the basis that 1) most successful global bans were based on disruption on a single project, and being blocked on multiple is just a coincidence 2) You can damage multiple wikis or the project as a whole without being blocked on multiple. Also, this requirement is both number creep and incites an idea that a user should be globally banned for being blocked on 3 wikis. Reception123 is blocked on six wikis and is a steward (though I did oppose the RfS, the 6 blocks had nothing to do with that). Naleksuh (talk) 17:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding the last point about Reception123 being banned on 6 wikis, I wouldn't count those as bona fide blocks as they're all made without any valid reason backing them and thus they wouldn't count for the purposes of meeting the criteria. Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:51, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, so how will the policy determine which are "valid" and which are "invalid"? During the last RFC one of the ideas was blocks in which the user has no local edits, but that wouldn't work on its own (for people like CVT etc). Also, the block criteria is bad for other reasons as well. Naleksuh (talk) 17:55, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There can potentially be some complicated cases but usually it's quite clear if a block is "valid". It would have to either follow a local policy or otherwise clearly be done as a result of a user's inappropriate behavior as determined by local admins. The bar doesn't need to be set high (as in asking ourselves whether we would've done that block) but the 'bona fide' part is there to ensure that baseless blocks aren't included (such as ones for no reason or because the local admins have something against the user, etc.) Reception123 (talk) ( C ) 18:03, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Abstain

 * 1) I don't know because there might be cases of extreme bigotry and perversion, so I don't think x-wiki blocks matter. MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 2.3 (Conduct issues)
The following criteria must be met in order for a global ban to be requested:

The user must exhibit conduct issues and remediation attempts to address such conduct have failed.

Note: This is cumulative. If any other criteria are passed, they must also be met in order to satisfy the requirements for a global ban.

Support

 * 1)  Per my support of 2.1. This is very important in order to have a solid, valid basis for a global ban, as per Proposal 1 which mentions that this should be sought as a last resort.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.1 (Procedure)
To begin the process of requesting a global ban for a user, a Request for Comment must be filed on Miraheze Meta. Criteria, as established, must be met:

Support

 * 1)  This is already the de facto standard so I see no issue in codifying it.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.2 (Notice)
Once a Request for Comment for a global ban has been filed on Miraheze Meta, the nominator must post a notice on all wikis where the user is active informing them that a Request for Comments regarding that user has been stated. This notice should be posted in a high-visibility venue such as a central discussion forum or the talk page of the main page if none exists.

When posting the notice, the user should remain neutral in tone and should refrain from extra, unnecessary commentary on the notice.

Support

 * 1)  This is a standard on Wikimedia so I see no issues with this happening as this allows all affected communities to have a voice in the process.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.3
If the nominated user is locally blocked on Meta, they may be temporarily unblocked defend themselves. If the user begins to engage disruptive behaviors or behavior that goes against the Code of Conduct, they will be reblocked.

Support

 * 1)  This is very important so that the user can defend themselves instead of having to reply via proxy to the request or to comments. Meta admins are active enough to monitor any misbehaving users and swiftly reblock them if they disrupt Meta.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) A voice is needed. MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.4 (Accounts)
In order to file a request for a global ban, the nominator must have:
 * A Miraheze account which is at least 6 months old
 * At least 500 global edits. These edits may not consist of directly copy/pasting content from other wikis, they must be edits done by the user.

Support

 * 1)  To prevent frivolous global ban requests that will waste our time.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.4.1 (Accounts)
The last requirement mentioned in proposal 3.4 is amended to say "1,000" global edits instead of "500",

Proposal 3.5 (Duration of Global ban RfC)
Request for Comments dealing with a global ban proposals must stay opened for a minimum of seven (7) calendar days, beginning after the notification process in accordance with Proposal 3.2.

Note: This proposal is an alternative to Proposal 3.5.1

Support

 * 1)  This is important so that the accused user can have due process, so that all users can see the request and so that all sides can get their argument in to allow users to vote in an informed manner.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 17:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.5.1 (Duration of Global ban RfC)
Request for Comments dealing with a global ban proposals must stay opened for a minimum of thirty (30) calendar days, beginning after the notification process in accordance with Proposal 3.2.

Note: This proposal is an alternative to Proposal 3.5

Proposal 3.5.2 (Early closure)
A Request for Comments with a global ban proposal can be closed by a Steward before the timeframe outlined in Proposal 3.5 or 3.5.1 (depending which passes) has passed if it is malformed or if it there is overwhelming consensus against the proposal.

Note: This is dependent on proposal 3.5 or 3.5.1.

Support

 * 1)  This will allow Stewards to close frivolous requests that will only waste the community's time which will clearly fail/malformed requests.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.5.3 (Early closure)
A Request for Comments with a global ban proposal can be closed before the timeframe outlined in Proposal 3.5 or 3.5.1 (depending which passes) has passed if there is overwhelming consensus for it and the nominated user agrees to be globally banned.

Support

 * 1)  No need to drag out a process if a user agrees that they're guilty  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.6 (Quorum)
A global ban request must include (choose) accounts expressing a view (in favour, opposed, or neutral). They must meet the requirements of Requests for Comment Policy.

Support (10 accounts)

 * 1)  only if the 15 accounts proposal fails; per my support of the following proposal.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Support (15 accounts)

 * 1)  It's important for multiple users to express their views in order to ban someone and for this process to truly be a 'measure of last resort' and not just an overly blunt instrument used to kick someone off who a few users have a grudge against.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Support (20 accounts)

 * 1) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.7 (Level of consensus)
While Stewards will assess and weigh arguments and counter-arguments presented, as in the case of all RfCs and global permissions requests, the community advises that, all else being equal, the level of consensus should be 70-80%, in keeping with our global permissions requests support ratio and to ensure the level of consensus in favour is very strong. Additionally, this helps to provide a level of due process that has not always existed in past community bans.

Note: This is an alternate proposal to Proposal 3.7.1.

Support

 * 1)  As Proposal 1 says, global bans should reflect broad community consensus. A global ban with 51% support should not be considered as successful, only requests with overwhelming community support should, in order to allow for a fair and due process. If a user is truly disruptive and causing lots of issues, I'm sure that there'll be no issues in getting to that support ratio.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3.7.1 (Level of consensus)
While Stewards will assess and weigh arguments and counter-arguments presented, as in the case of all RfCs and global permissions requests, the community advises that, all else being equal, the level of consensus should be 70% to ensure the level of consensus in favour is very clear. Additionally, this helps to provide a level of due process that has not always existed in past community bans.

Note: This is an alternate proposal to Proposal 3.7.

Support

 * 1)  only if Proposal 3.7 fails; per my support of 3.7.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 4 (Enforcement)
A global ban shall be enforced on-wiki via a global lock of the master account and all other alternative accounts. All accounts created subsequently will be automatically locked upon detection. Verifiable IP addresses may be blocked globally by global functionaries as part of global ban enforcement, in the same way global locks are enforced.

Support

 * 1)  This is already the de facto standard but it doesn't hurt to codify it.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 4.1 (Applicability to Discord)
Global bans will automatically apply to Discord.

Global bans do not currently apply to Discord automatically and are decided on a case-by-case basis by local moderators.

Support

 * 1)  I don't see an issue with this. If the user is banned off the main platform for severe, irreparable issues, why not also get banned off of our ancillary platforms?  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) Also IRC Naleksuh (talk) 17:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 3) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 5 (Appeals)
An appeal may be submitted by contacting Stewards. Stewards will then forward the appeal to the community by means of another Request for Comments. Stewards, as a group, may exercise discretion in appeals and choose not to forward an appeal if they feel that they lack merit and/or are frivolous in nature.

Support

 * 1)  While the first part is already a de facto standard, the second part is very important so as to not further waste the community's time every day/month with a new appeal RfC. Can you imagine if a globally banned LTA made a new appeal every day and policy forced Steward to forward every single one of these? This proposal makes it clear too that the decision to not forward an appeal should not be taken unilaterally by one Steward but should be a majority vote within Stewards so as to allow a second pair of eyes to inspect the appeal too and to determine whether it lacks merit or not.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 5.1 (Default appeals time)
If a global ban RfC doesn't specify a minimum time before appeals may be considered, the minimum time before an appeal can be considered will be of 3 months, so as not (a) allow the user sufficient time to reflect on their behaviour, (b) establish a good-faith initial attempt to illustrate to the community they have the capacity to exercise restraint (by not engaging in illegitimate sockpuppetry), and (c) not waste the community's time with repeated and frivolous requests.

Support

 * 1)  No issues with this, this will allow users time to cool off and reflect on what they did.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 5.1.1 (Number of appeals)
Unless otherwise defined in a global ban RfC, globally banned users are limited to one appeal every 3 months. This allows for globally banned users to not waste both the community and Stewards time by submitting yet another appeal in a short amount of time where the circumstances and the community's view of the user are unlikely to have changed.

Support

 * 1)  No issue with this.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 5.1.2 (Number of appeals, layered)
One year for both, 3 months is not a long period of time, does not show much change and also gets exhausting/tired quickly enough. 1 year is also the standard appeal time for most global bans.

Support

 * 1) Naleksuh (talk) 17:49, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments

 * Ping as I edited some parts of this proposal due to not reading the previous ones correctly when setting this up. Naleksuh (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 5.2 (Applying Proposal 5.* to current global bans)
Any successful proposal passed in this section (Proposal 5, 5.1, 5.1.1, 5.*, etc., if any are passed) will apply retroactively to current global bans where possible.

Support

 * 1)  This allows for ApexAgunimou's global ban to be appealed in ~2 months or more, as defined by whichever section passes, in order to prevent baseless appeals from being forwarded to the community during this time which she has attempted, sometimes in an abusive manner, which are likely to snowball anyway.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If the idea here was to allow ApexAgunomu to appeal the global ban in 2 months, that's a problem. For one, this intentional malice had been going on for years (see the RFC itself) and two more evidence of problematic behavior arose over IRC, which led them to be banned, and then to evade that ban several times even just recently as a week ago. The global ban was intended to be permanent, there is no real reason to think there will be change ever. You don't go from intentionally starting shit for the last two years to immediately stop in two months, especially when they are continuing the behavior after being banned. I consider it "locked in" at this point, nor would any appeal be able to convince anyone otherwise, when they already got literally dozens of chances and failed all of them. There's no need to worry about them appealing. Naleksuh (talk) 17:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No, that is not the idea here. She has been rather abusive to Stewards via email and on IRC. I was just about to amend my comment to clarify what I meant as I realized that this sounded like I wanted for her to be unbanned quickly. Agent Isai  Talk to me! 17:54, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) MacacoKouhai (talk) 18:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)