I see two issues here:
1. Lack of logging of autodisabled accounts means that confusions such as this may arise, but more especially, we appear to lack any way to track for false positives of accounts from new users who do mean well, who instead of going to someone to bring up the issue, simply give up at that point - this is a major issue. It sounds like this feature will be going out soon, though, so that's good.
2. What the fuck is going on with the Code of Conduct (committee)?
* How are variants of 'wtf' inherently problematic? They convey a generally very relevant meaning ('I don't get this', 'this makes no sense', 'this is just strange', etc), which, while it could be used as part of a larger attack on a contributor, by itself is something we /need/ to be able to say.
* Did anyone actually reach out to MZMcBride before blocking him with an explanation as to why the 'wtf' was a problem, or ask him to otherwise fix it or amend his behaviour? Immediate escalation to banning, unless to prevent actively ongoing disruption, is nothing but disruptive. Users need to be told why what they're doing is a problem and given a chance to fix it on their own - only if they refuse or persist doing that same thing after can that possibly become an instance actively ongoing disruption and merit a ban, which given that this appears to have come out of the blue only several days after the comment was made does not even remotely seem to be the case here.
* Transparency and actionability of CoCC actions/warnings in general seems to be very lacking. This doesn't just mean that it's an issue that the information as to why action has been taken isn't available to everyone for scrutiny (though it is - barring extremes, this is not just the wikimedia way, but also basically the only way to ensure a body doesn't wind up with effectively absolute power to do whatever with no accountability whatsoever), but that said information often isn't even available to the one being taken action against is downright counterproductive, as they thus have nothing to go on. The warnings become meaningless and unactionable (as was the case with the prior warnings MZMcBride has received for unrelated... things), the blocks just confusing (as this one is).
Ironically this also actually sort of comes back to the main issue with the lack of logging - an established user like MZMcBride has recourse to actually call out this and complain, thus bringing the issue to attention. Any newcomer who gets bitten by this, however, is almost certainly not going to... and the rest of us will never have any idea anything even happened. So this needs to be addressed, not just for his sake, but for everyone else we DON'T know about.
-I
On 08/08/18 13:01, Alex Monk wrote:
So are we supposed to be careful about using 'wtf' now?
On Wed, 8 Aug 2018, 13:53 MZMcBride, z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
I disabled the account and now I disabled it again. It's part of a CoC ban. We sent the user an email using the "Email to user" functionality from mediawiki.org the moment I enforced the ban. We rather not to discuss details of cases publicly but I feel this clarification is very much needed.
Ah, I found the e-mail:
Subject: Temporarily ban from phabricator
Hello,
We received reports about your comments in phabricator. While we encourage criticism and productive comments to improve the software, comments like "What the fuck" do not contribute to the discussion and turns the discussion from respectful criticism to folks swearing at other folks.
We asked you to stop making such comments that do not contribute to the discussion. We have no choice to issue a temporarily ban from phabricator. We hope you notice this type of behaviour is not welcome in our technical spaces.
Please read Code of conduct in depth: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
Best
This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the "Email this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your email will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email address to them.
This is re: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742.
Greg Varnum created a mess, inappropriately closed a valid bug, and removed its parent task because he didn't want to even acknowledge the bug. I expressed exasperation with his actions, particularly gaslighting volunteers (cf. <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-August/090841.html ), and Greg then removed himself as the task assignee and hasn't responded on either the task or the wikimedia-l mailing list since. And there's still German text prominently and confusingly at the top of https://wikimediafoundation.org/. Amazing.
MZMcBride
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