[Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

[Scott MacDonald]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-
> bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Yaroslav M. Blanter
> Sent: 03 June 2011 18:05
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?
> 
> 
> 
> > I too would like to see the development of a process for global
> banning
> of
> > users who have created serious problems on either the global or the
> > multiple-project level.
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> 
> I see your reasoning, but I also see at least two serious deficiencies:
> 
> 1) Some projects explicitly rejected the community ban after extensive
> discussion;
> 2) Any meta-discussion of the community ban would be inevitably
> dominated
> by the English Wikipedia users (and thus may be unacceptable for those
> projects which rejected the community ban).
> 
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
> 

These should be surmountable. 

First the grounds for a global ban ought to be limited. Where users have
engaged in activity which goes beyond trolling and disruption towards
illegality, or the type of harassment that has real-life consequences, or
endangers vulnerable people, then a global hard ban should be considered -
which overrides any local agreements to the contrary. In cases where the
user has simply disrupted two or more projects then a presumptive ban would
be more appropriate - that is the user cannot participate in any further
community without specific local consent. (That stops the dumping problem.)

What you need is a mechanism so that one local community, when banning a
user who meets the criteria, can refer the case to a cross-project review
group for a global decision. This group needs to be loaded so that en.wp
cannot dominate - and that other projects can have confidence that this is
the case. It might simply be a conclave of stewards, or it could be a group
with each member nominated by a different project. 

Scott