--- On Tue, 9/16/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
From: Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com Subject: RE: [Foundation-l] Global blocking needs to be halted for now To: mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 9:48 PM --- On Tue, 9/16/08, mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm wrote:
From: mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm
Subject: RE: [Foundation-l] Global blocking needs to
be halted for now
To: birgitte_sb@yahoo.com, "'Wikimedia
Foundation Mailing List'" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 7:39 PM From: Birgitte SB [mailto:birgitte_sb@yahoo.com]
Frankly how to handle these anticipated problems
_should_ have been decided
in concert with the decision to implement of this
feature. I had thought
they had been. Obvoiusly the feature was rolled
out
without addressing the
concerns that people expressed over this during
the
intial discussion of
such a feature. That should not have happened but
here
we are.
That's actually false - the discussion regarding
global
blocking addressed these concerns explicitly and extensively, as you can
well
see for yourself: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_blocking
and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_blocking/Archive_1
Ipblock-exempt and a local whitelist on the IP are
both
options you are free to use to help legitimate users caught in global
blocks.
It is not false. How exactly were the concerns that were raised here [1], when david gerard first opened discussion on this feature addressed? I don't see the concerns that were described about the localization of block messages, notification of local wikis, etc. addressed at all in the implementation. In fact the only people who dismissed such concerns as not needing a remedy were the supporters of the blocking who were proposing blocks of a week or less. But nine months later, in practice we have one and even two month blocks without these concerns that were specifically asked to be brought forward before implementation having been addressed. What am I missing here that shows me to be so mistaken that saying this was implemented without addressing such anticipated problems as there is false? I don't explicit and extensive discussion of much outside who should get to use the new hammer.
Birgitte SB
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/038261.html
--- On Tue, 9/16/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
From: Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global blocking needs to be halted for now To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 9:50 PM --- On Tue, 9/16/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
From: Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com Subject: RE: [Foundation-l] Global blocking needs to
be halted for now
To: mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 9:48 PM --- On Tue, 9/16/08, mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm wrote:
From: mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm
Subject: RE: [Foundation-l] Global blocking needs
to
be halted for now
To: birgitte_sb@yahoo.com, "'Wikimedia
Foundation Mailing List'" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 7:39 PM From: Birgitte SB [mailto:birgitte_sb@yahoo.com]
Frankly how to handle these anticipated
problems
_should_ have been decided
in concert with the decision to implement of
this
feature. I had thought
they had been. Obvoiusly the feature was
rolled
out
without addressing the
concerns that people expressed over this
during
the
intial discussion of
such a feature. That should not have
happened but
here
we are.
That's actually false - the discussion
regarding
global
blocking addressed these concerns explicitly and extensively, as you
can
well
see for yourself:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_blocking
and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_blocking/Archive_1
Ipblock-exempt and a local whitelist on the IP
are
both
options you are free to use to help legitimate users caught in global
blocks.
It is not false. How exactly were the concerns that
were
raised here [1], when david gerard first opened
discussion
on this feature addressed? I don't see the
concerns
that were described about the localization of block messages, notification of local wikis, etc. addressed
at all
in the implementation. In fact the only people who dismissed such concerns as not needing a remedy were
the
supporters of the blocking who were proposing blocks
of a
week or less. But nine months later, in practice we
have one
and even two month blocks without these concerns that
were
specifically asked to be brought forward before implementation having been addressed. What am I
missing here
that shows me to be so mistaken that saying this was implemented without addressing such anticipated
problems as
there is false? I don't explicit and extensive discussion of much outside who should get to use the
new
hammer.
Birgitte SB
[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/038261.html
To make the reading a bit lighter here are three sample concerns (and not even from my own emails)
cocern over localization by Dan Rosenthal :
"Only thing is, I'm envisioning a scenario where a valid user with good contribs gets blocked, doesn't user meta, tries to get unblocked at his home project, but cannot because he's not locally blocked, and the user doesn't know how to get in touch with a steward (Because he doesn't know of this policy) or doesn't understand how to communicate with one. I don't think it's necessarily that big of a deal, but I think it will need a LOT of localization to be effective."
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/038271.html
In a text search of the pages where you claim concerns were explicit and extensively discussed "localization" had no hits.
concern of effe iets anders over long blocks:
"If we want to stop it for a longer time, there are more issues at stake, and that would imho require a much more complicated policy and discussion, both now and at the moment it would be blocked.
Another reason is that if we stick to one day, or something in the same order of magnitude, it is clearly something within the scope of the stewards. If we go much longer, I am not so sure about that any more. I don't say it is not, but I would have doubts about it. With one day, it is clear, as it is just an emergency measure."
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/038280.html
Couldn't do a pure text search on this one but I can't agree that the discussion of block lengths was extensive there.
Andrew Grey expands concerns on understandable logs
"So the *log entry* per se is going to be comprehensible ("X was blocked, four days") - it means there will be something there, even if we can't leave a coherent comment.
How to do the comment is, of course, a problem. What do stewards currently do *now* in this sort of situation, where they don't speak the project language but have to step in? English? A guess at what language is most likely to be understood by the local community?
The URL of a specific meta page about sitewide blocks might be a good idea - we can concentrate translations there, and it means that any particular block can run with a single comment without having to adapt for each project. And a URL as a summary is pretty clear for "go here" ;-)"
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-February/038329.html
While logging is discussed extensively on the pages you link; it is mostly the location of the logging with some discussion of expanded logs for transparency nothing about make the logged reason comprehensible to the blocked parties who may not speak english (or even if they do find "gwp" less than useful information)
All and all I must disagree with you that my assertion that this was rolled without addressing anticipated concerns was false.
Birgitte SB
Valid contributors who are blocked by a global block may be given ipblock-exempt. If your wiki doesn't have that, it can get it. We should discuss giving this to all wikis, and/or making a global ipblock-exempt group. You may also whitelist an IP or IP range locally. If you want admins to know about these options, there is no magic bullet - someone needs to tell them. Unfortunately, we have no way to tell all admins on all projects anything, but I can agree we haven't done as well as we can.
Localization is a problem, but there is no magic bullet. If you want more languages supported, we need someone to do those localizations.
I would say there has been agreement that long blocks on Grawp ranges is entirely appropriate. I should also note that these blocks are generally discussed on the CheckUser mailing list. I believe all other blocks are short-term, as you describe. For example, the latest block I saw in realtime was for 1 day to stop a cross-wiki IP vandal.
Whether the log entry is comprehensible is a legitimate issue, and I agree with you that the current examples are far less than idea. While we can't have comments in every language we have a wiki in, we can at least be descriptive, even if it's only in one language. "gwp" isn't helpful to most contributors - even I had to think for a few seconds before understanding that. The system message provided to blocked users should point them to [[m:Global blocking]] and [[m:SRG]] (not the log comment) - if that's not currently the case the system message should be changed.
In short, there are solutions, and the only way to solve the problems is to solve them. So let's get going. But halting global blocking is absolutely not the right way forward.
Mike
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 9:27 AM, mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm wrote:
Valid contributors who are blocked by a global block may be given ipblock-exempt. If your wiki doesn't have that, it can get it. We should discuss giving this to all wikis, and/or making a global ipblock-exempt group.
I don't mean to mix words, but isn't a "global ipblock-exempt" group the same as not globally blocking in the first place?
--Andrew Whitworth
No, this would allow a single user to edit all wikis regardless of global blocks. Probably it should /not/ override local IP blocks though. This is in contrast to local ipblock-exempt, which affects only a single wiki. For single-wiki blocks, single-wiki ipblock-exempt can help legitimate users. For global blocks, global ipblock-exempt can help legitimate users.
Mike
-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Whitworth [mailto:wknight8111@gmail.com] Sent: September 17, 2008 11:25 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global blocking needs to be halted for now
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 9:27 AM, mikelifeguard@fastmail.fm wrote:
Valid contributors who are blocked by a global block may be given ipblock-exempt. If your wiki doesn't have that, it can get it. We should discuss giving this to all wikis, and/or making a global ipblock-exempt group.
I don't mean to mix words, but isn't a "global ipblock-exempt" group the same as not globally blocking in the first place?
--Andrew Whitworth
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org