Code of Conduct/Commission/Election/2020/Vote

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

• Dmehus (Doug): Elected.
• RhinosF1 (Samuel): Elected. Although some users appeared to dissent, providing valid arguments, it appears the vast majority of users supported this, with some also providing arguments. @RhinosF1: is encouraged to keep the dissenting opinions in mind.
• Reception123: Elected.
• Void: Elected.

-- Cheers, NDKilla ^{( Talk • Contribs )} 11:43, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

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Welcome to the community vote for the election of the 2020-2021 Code of Conduct Commission. Listed below are the 4 nominees from the community. There are 5 seats on the commission for the community nominees. This page will be used for voting for a members seat. For more information on the election please visit here.

Am I Eligible? You are eligible to vote if you registered your account (anywhere on the Miraheze wikis) before 17:27, 11 July 2020 (UTC). You can check the date your global account was first registered by clicking here.

Dmehus (Doug)

1. Support Reception123 (talk) (C) 06:54, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
2. Support ~ RhinosF1 - _(chat)^{· acc· c} - (on) 07:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
3. Support
   —［ Universal Omega ］［ Talk | Contributions | Guestbook  07:14, 24 July 2020 (UTC) ］ |
4. Support Rationalised and thoroughly thought out observations, analysis’ and takes into account the wider picture of both the current state and future state of Miraheze. John (talk) 07:27, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
5. Strong support They have been here for some time, and helped out a lot. They have my full support. --TFFfan (talk) 11:47, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
6. Strong support A superb user. I strongly support him as he did the wiki requests faster than before. CircleyDoesExtracter(Circley Talk | Global |Email the Cloud) 13:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
7. Support WickyHoney (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
8. Strong support This guy is a very nice guy and is why wikis get created faster PowerDagger15 (talk) 15:04, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
9.  Abstain This is another case where I feel that the user has good intentions and is generally productive and helpful, but is rushing into things a little too quickly. I would like to see a bit more tenure before I feel comfortable supporting a position as significant as this. – AmandaCath (talk) 18:12, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
10. Weak support an edge case of TOOSOON? Zppix (Meta | CVT Member | talk to me) 19:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
11.  Abstain Unfortunately, I do not know who that person is, he may be good or bad, so I am not gonnna vote (The general opinion here seems to be quite positive in his regard though). MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:11, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
12. Strong support He's a nice guy.SANICANIC -_- (Fanonpedia) 19:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
13. Strong support He’s a great user he’s always there to help and always stays positive he has my full support has my full support (; --Cocopuff2018 02:37, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
14. Support Hispano76 (talk) 14:17, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
15. Support--松•Matsu (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

RhinosF1 (Samuel)

1. Support Reception123 (talk) (C) 06:54, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
2. Strongest support
   —［ Universal Omega ］［ Talk | Contributions | Guestbook  07:14, 24 July 2020 (UTC) ］ |
3. Oppose For me, they lack vital skills for the role of an appeal commission member. I’ve experienced cases where Rhinos has demanded action be done where evidence is poor or lacking, and jumps to conclusions not supported by evidence and then insists evidence by produced contrary to his pre-existing ideas rather than conducting a rationalised assessment of the evidence being presented. Recent evidence of this is jumping to enact a Terms of Use ban on a user where no grounds existed because they chose to act first and analyse later. Personally, I do not feel they would act in the best interest in an appeal sense and would tend more to heavy handed resolutions than conflict management and aversion - an approach seen on Phabricator where they choose to admonish and threaten action as a first step than educate, assess and implement less conflict-inducing approaches. John (talk) 07:27, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
4. Strong support They have been here for a while, and they have proved themselves a lot. There is no reason not to oppose, or even a regular support! --TFFfan (talk) 11:48, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
5. Strong support Go RhinosF1 Team! CircleyDoesExtracter(Circley Talk | Global |Email the Cloud) 13:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
6. Support I though I don't think it is essential for the Code of Conduct Commission to be made entirely of non-steward and Global Sysop members, I do think, for the purposes of illustrating to the community that this is the highest order arbitration panel for mediating disputes in an impartial way, some of its members should come from outside those ranks. While I was hoping we'd have been able to attract a fifth member to the commission, Samuel is neither a steward nor a Global Sysop. He is a system administrator and would be involved in both behind-the-scenes investigations and discussions with other Miraheze staff members regarding things such as Terms of Use enforcement, but he is not in a position where he would be routinely imposing global sanctions. Having considered all of the comments in this discussion, I have also observed, many instances and particularly over at TestWiki, where Samuel is a consul, in which he has shown compassion and understanding, and in which he uses a rational, deliberative process, in the course of deciding whether to impose some sort of sanction or restriction upon a user who doesn't seem to be grasping TestWiki's few policies and frequently decides on restrictions are sanctions that are (a) as short as necessary and (b) as minimal as necessary. Having Samuel on the Commission would provide a 50/50 split between steward/Global Sysop and non-steward/Global Sysop members, so view his joining the Commission as essential. Dmehus (talk) 14:51, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
7. Strong support I would be crazy not to support in favor of him. WickyHoney (talk) 14:58, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
8. Strong support He and Dmehus are one of the best meta helpers PowerDagger15 (talk) 15:06, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
9. Strong oppose Mostly per @John:'s concerns. I perhaps have a stronger objection to this request because I have been on the receiving end of some of the concerns John raised regarding Phabricator conduct. Additionally, there is also this GitHub comment which really rubbed me the wrong way because it implied that he was accusing me of not thinking about what I was doing, which is not the case. I do think about what I do, and if there are obvious problems, I either defer the issue at hand to someone else or decline it altogether. I saw no issues with that request, and so I processed it. Regarding the ToU action in question that John mentioned, even if the lock had been valid (which it wasn't), the rationale of "Terms of Use Violation" would have been inappropriate because it implies that there is some sort of private evidence that was used in making the determination to lock. In this case, the evidence was in plain sight, and therefore the appropriate rationale would have been a lock for a username policy violation, specifically impersonation of a WMF steward. Finally, I was opposed to RhinosF1 being regranted sysadmin access, although I didn't say anything because I understand that non-sysadmins don't get a say in the appointment of new sysadmins. However, the primary reason for my opposition has since been proven and confirmed, which is that Rhinos seems to have a tendency to create private Phabricator tasks that really have no reason to be private. The most recent example of this is T5891. There is nothing security-sensitive in that ticket. Sure, traffic surges are a risk, but not a security risk. There was no reason to hide that task from public view. – AmandaCath (talk) 18:12, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

   While we're both guilty of listening to other people too much and acting based on it, it's not a good thing. The rationale had it been who I believed it to be of ToU would have been appropiate as the user behind the impersonations is ToU banned and being overly cautious regarding security issues is better than not protecting actual ones. We had issues in that task that were affecting are ability to stay online following traffic surges and they were actively leading to downtime. Stating publicly about this certainly wouldn't have helped. As soon as I got a chance to review the issues discovered with Southparkfan, we worked to resolve and make them public as soon as we could. ~ RhinosF1 - _(chat)^{· acc· c} - (on) 18:19, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

   I don't want to argue about this, but you're kind of missing the point here. The point is that if that regardless if someone is banned or not, locking an account with the reason of "TOU violation, email us for information" implies that there is some sort of private or confidential evidence/information involved. If there is no private evidence, the exact/specific reason for an action needs to be made public. Either the reason is private because it involves private evidence, or it's not. There can not be "well, the reason doesn't exactly need to be private, but we are not going to disclose it because that's how we do things". We need to make sure that the SRE team does not become an equivalent of Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety, where they won't share any details about their actions even when queried by trusted users or even when there is no private evidence. Additionally, WMF T&S doesn't permit users who have had office actions taken against them to appeal or even discuss them. That cannot happen either. – AmandaCath (talk) 16:15, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

   It's the standard text given on the locking form. The locked user is welcome to challenge or ask for clarifications regarding a ToU ban of which we will take into account or answer where we are legally able to. In the case of most ToU bans, we can't always release the information to the general public but where there is a legitimate reason to know, we will work with you and the relevant organisations to ensure you are kept informed. ~ RhinosF1 - _(chat)^{· acc· c} - (on) 17:43, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

10. Support CnocBride | Talk | Contribs 18:56, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
11.  Abstain I can neither support or oppose this. Zppix (Meta | CVT Member | talk to me) 19:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
12. Support I never had any issue with RhinosF1, so I'll choose support. I don't think he would make a bad moderator either although he jumps to conclusions too quickly according to the above comments. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:14, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
13. SupportSANICANIC -_- (Fanonpedia) 19:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
14. Support I am pleased with this users Work he’s a great user and I like working with him He has my full support and he’s always positive (: --Cocopuff2018 02:40, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
15. Support Hispano76 (talk) 14:16, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
16. Support--松•Matsu (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Reception123

1. Support--MrJaroslavik (talk) 06:56, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
2. Support ~ RhinosF1 - _(chat)^{· acc· c} - (on) 07:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
3. Strongest support
   —［ Universal Omega ］［ Talk | Contributions | Guestbook  07:14, 24 July 2020 (UTC) ］ |
4. Support Fulfilled the previous role for a few years, has shown due diligence in process along the way. John (talk) 07:27, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
5. Support Rimbao (talk) 09:56, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
6. Support --TFFfan (talk) 11:48, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
7. Support CircleyDoesExtracter(Circley Talk | Global |Email the Cloud) 13:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
8. Support WickyHoney (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
9. Support No need to oppose. He has been helping since 2015 PowerDagger15 (talk) 15:07, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
10. Support Though he is a Global Sysop, he has demonstrated, both on Discord on-wiki, independence and rational assessment of understanding the pertinent facts. I do think it's important to have non-steward and non-Global Sysop members on the Commission, but it is not essential to have a Commission completely independent of members who hold those global roles. We have a fairly strong conflict of interest policy and where he was directly involved in the imposition of a global sanction, I am confident that, in an ideal world with more Commission members, he would recuse himself, but where that's not possible, I am even more confident in his ability to provide a rationalized thought process and re-assessment of the events and circumstances surrounding the case before the Commission. Dmehus (talk) 15:13, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
11. Support No issues. – AmandaCath (talk) 18:12, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
12. Strong support CnocBride | Talk | Contribs 18:56, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
13. Strongest support Zppix (Meta | CVT Member | talk to me) 19:03, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
14. Support He would make a great moderator since he has shown calmness and rationality all throughout Miraheze. He gets my support. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:09, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
15. Strongest support He reverted vandalism on the Bad Scratch Wiki, alot, and if reverting vandalism isn't a quality, then what is. You get my seal of approval.SANICANIC -_- (Fanonpedia) 19:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

    All the nominees here do that, so what are you getting at here? Your point above is not something that he does better than someone else. So again, what gives? Please elaborate. The support should be warranted whether someone is actually doing their job correctly with integrity or if they are just not up for the task. He does a good job as a steward and he is really competent at being calm and rational, so that is why I voted to support him. However, to you, it seems he is the best choice just because he did his job of reverting vandalism as anyone else does here, which is just goofy thinking. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:11, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

16. Support Hispano76 (talk) 14:17, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
17. Support--松•Matsu (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Void

1. Support Reception123 (talk) (C) 06:54, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
2. Support ~ RhinosF1 - _(chat)^{· acc· c} - (on) 07:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
3. Support
   —［ Universal Omega ］［ Talk | Contributions | Guestbook  07:14, 24 July 2020 (UTC) ］ |
4. Support Has always shown an analytic and conflict aware approach to escalating and tough scenarios. John (talk) 07:27, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
5. Support Rimbao (talk) 09:55, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
6. Support --TFFfan (talk) 11:49, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
7. Support Nice. CircleyDoesExtracter(Circley Talk | Global |Email the Cloud) 13:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
8. Support WickyHoney (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
9. Weak support I mean, this guy is pretty inactive lately and I have been pretty fed up because my name change request hasn't been answered. But he is nice PowerDagger15 (talk) 15:08, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
10. Support Similar to my comments regarding Reception123 above, Void is, besides being very helpful, friendly, and our single most active steward, strongly concerned with not !voting in and closing discussions in which he was involved. In short, Void takes English Wikipedia's WP:INVOLVED policy very seriously, and, because of that, I have no concerns with Void's ability to be impartial at all times and to provide a rational, highly deliberative assessment or re-assessment of cases before the commission. Dmehus (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
11. Weak oppose I feel that the user is qualified and is generally helpful. However, I have one concern about transparency. The vast majority of the time, when executing CU/OS actions in his capacity as a steward, the log summary provided is anything but descriptive. Almost all of his CU actions have the same reason of "investigating possible abuse" and almost all of his OS actions have the same reason of "redacting information". I understand that there are privacy concerns with these tools, but that doesn't mean that a more explicitly clear reason for using them can't be provided. For CU, something along the lines of "suspected sock puppets of JohnDoe123, requested at SN/by email/by admins of wiki X/etc" would be mor helpful and transparent. For OS, something along the lines of "redacting IP of user who edited while logged out" (the most common reason for oversight by far) would be better. For other cases, a brief summary of what exactly is being redacted would also be helpful, without actually specifying the actual content. For example, "redacting private information (phone number/address/real name/etc)" would be sufficient. Because of these concerns, I am a bit hesitant supporting an election to such a high and significant body. – AmandaCath (talk) 18:12, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

    I would just like to give my opinion on this since I feel that the reasons for this oppose are quite odd. First of all, I find it weird that you are singling out Void for the log summaries for OS and CU since all the other Stewards follow the exact same procedure as that is how it is done. For the issue with Oversight, I don't see why it would be necessary for the public to know more about the reasoning of an Oversight since the whole purpose of said tool is to hide information that shouldn't be public. As for CheckUser, announcing who is being investigated before doing it would defeat the whole purpose of the investigation. I am sure that Stewards give all the reasoning in the private CheckUser log. Reception123 (talk) (C) 05:20, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

    I don't have the time right now to lay out a full response, but I disagree with the substance of your comment. I will however just clarify that I am not intending to "single out" Void - I agree that the issue exists amongst the vast majority if not all stewards and should be addressed; however given that this particular steward is seeking even more advanced permissions, I felt that it was necessary to raise the issue. – AmandaCath (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

12. Strong support CnocBride | Talk | Contribs 18:56, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
13. Strongest support Zppix (Meta | CVT Member | talk to me) 19:04, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
14. Support He has shown to have been a competent steward so far, even in previous elections I had no problem with Void. So, he gets my vote. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
15. Strongest support - MeMeGuY — Preceding unsigned comment added by MeMeGuY (talk • contribs) 02:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
16. Support Sorta inactive lately, but still a great, kind, and knowledgable guy. Also, from what I've read, he's ready when the chips are down. Fredmodulars (talk) 03:11, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
17. Strong support Vandalism account block, thanks.--Houyagokusai (talk) 09:07, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
18. Weak support...He's OK.SANICANIC -_- (Fanonpedia) 19:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
19. Support Hispano76 (talk) 14:16, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
20. Support--松•Matsu (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.