On 3 July 2014 13:40, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:50 AM, Pine W
<wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Moriel and others,
Do you have a list of "realistic changes" in mind for the community?
I hear almost no one say that the typical state
of (in)civility on wiki
or on Wikimedia-l is good enough or that people are being hypersensitive,
so I get the sense that there's a lot of agreement that we have a cultural
problem. Ideas for solutions seem to be in short supply, so any "realistic
changes" that you can suggest would be good to hear, either on this list or
in IdeaLab.
The problem on en.wiki at least is that a vocal minority effectively
prevent any enforcement of the civility policy. This includes a significant
group of admins that are willing to overturn blocks for all but the most
blatant violations of the policy. And because of the wheel warring loophole
(undoing a block is allowed, but reinstating a block is wheel warring,
which is prohibited), there is nothing that anyone can do about it. ArbCom
(or the community) could close this loophole, but so far have not shown
interest in doing so. The single action that I think would be most useful
on en.wiki would be for someone to shepherd an RfC to create a policy
statement that "unilaterally overturning a block is wheel-warring". I know
this sounds very far removed from the issue of making en.wiki more civil,
but I actually think such a change is realistically possible and would go a
long way towards shifting the balance of power away from the trolls and
misogynists.
Alternately, the board or ArbCom could step up and declare that civility
is not to be treated as a second-class policy, but I doubt that would ever
happen.
You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several occasions
when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of certain
individuals to initiate a case....but nobody wanted to do that, and the
community quite correctly will not allow arbcom to initiate its own cases
absent something that is a clear and present danger, such as a sysop gone
wild (e.g., mass deletes, unblocking themselves) or someone repeatedly
violating another user's privacy, or paedophile activism. (And on the last
point, arbcom still got plenty of grief for it.)
Arbcom isn't a core part of the community - partly because when it messes
up, it REALLY messes up (historical - banning an uncivil user without
bothering to even talk to him, sort of a star chamber trial; creating a
"subcommittee" to "advise Arbcom" on content aspects of cases it
accepted). It only gets requests for 20 or so cases a year anymore, half
of which are clearly not in their scope, and accepts about 8-10 cases a
year.
Risker/Anne