Wikipedia:Contentious topics/2013 review

Version 3

This indicates the start of the proposed new text to replace the existing Discretionary Sanctions remedy.

(Nutshell and preamble)

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Definitions

Y Updated: 10:20, 23 March 2014

For the purposes of arbitration enforcement:

• AE ("arbitration enforcement" noticeboard) is the forum designated by the Arbitration Committee for requesting, applying, discussing and appealing most enforcement requests. It is currently Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
• An area of conflict is the topic or group of topics specified by the Arbitration Committee when authorising discretionary sanctions.
• The committee is the Arbitration Committee.
• An editor is anyone and everyone who may edit and has edited the encyclopedia. (See Wikipedia:Editor.)
• An enforcing administrator is the administrator who places sanctions authorised in this procedure.
• A sanction includes any sanction, restriction, or other remedy placed under this procedure.
• An appeal includes any request for reconsideration, reduction, or removal of a sanction.

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Authorisation

Discretionary sanctions are authorised for an area of conflict either as part of the final decision of an arbitration case or by committee motion. Once authorised, they may only be revoked by committee motion.

When it becomes apparent that discretionary sanctions for an area of conflict are no longer necessary, the committee may be asked to rescind the authorisation of them. After authorisation is rescinded, sanctions and restrictions already in place remain in force and can be appealed in the usual ways.

A log of the areas of conflict for which discretionary sanctions have been authorised is maintained at the discretionary sanctions main page.

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Behavioural expectations

Y Updated: 10:20, 23 March 2014

Editors editing within the area of conflict are expected to:

1. adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia;
2. comply with all applicable policies and guidelines;
3. follow editorial and behavioural best practice; and
4. comply with any page restrictions in force within the area of conflict.

Failure to meet any behavioural expectation is grounds for sanctioning.

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Awareness

No sanction may be imposed on an editor unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict. An editor is aware if:

1. They:

   i.  were mentioned by name in the Final Decision of the case in which the applicable discretionary sanctions were authorised; or

   ii.  have at any time been sanctioned for their conduct for the area of conflict (and that sanction has not been successfully appealed).

2. They have, in the past twelve months:

   i.  participated in any process at arbitration requests, arbitration enforcement, or appeal at the administrators' noticeboard about the area of conflict; or

   ii.  alerted other editors, or have been alerted about discretionary sanctions for the area of conflict.

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Alerts

Any editor may notify any other editor that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict. This may only be done by placing the standard template message – currently {{Ds/alert}} – on the talk page of the editor being notified.

An alert expresses no finding of fault and is informational in nature. It cannot be rescinded or appealed and automatically expires twelve months after it was issued. The text of the standard alert template forms part of the procedure and may be modified only with the committee's consent.

No editor should receive more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Editors who issue alerts disruptively may be sanctioned.

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Role of administrators

Any enforcing administrator who, in the opinion of the committee:

1. imposes a sanction when involved;
2. imposes a disproportionate sanction, or whose actions are regularly overturned on appeal;
3. imposes a sanction idiosyncratically or out of process;
4. modifies a sanction out of process;

may be subject to any remedy, including desysopping, that the committee consider appropriate.

Enforcing administrators are accountable and must explain their enforcement actions. They may not participate in the adjudication of their own actions at any appeal.

Enforcing administrators must be uninvolved. Prior routine enforcement interactions and prior administrator participation in enforcement discussions do not constitute involvement, but participation as a party in an AE request does.

Administrative actions may be reviewed using the regular appeal processes.

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Former administrators

To act in enforcement, an administrator must at all relevant times have their access to the tools enabled. Former administrators – that is, editors who have temporarily or permanently relinquished the tools or have been desysopped – may neither act as administrators in arbitration enforcement nor reverse their previous administrative actions.

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Proportionality

Administrators are expected to exercise good judgment by responding flexibly and proportionately to the nature and frequency of given misconduct. When dealing with first or isolated instances of borderline misconduct, informal advice may be more effective in the long term than a sanction. Conversely, editors engaging in egregious or sustained misconduct should be dealt with robustly.

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Broadly construed

When considering whether edits fall within the scope of discretionary sanctions, administrators should be guided by the principles outlined in the topic ban policy.

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Imposing sanctions

Any uninvolved administrator may impose warnings, admonishments, editing restrictions, interaction bans, topic bans, and blocks of up to one year in duration, or similar measures that the imposing administrator reasonably believes are necessary for the smooth running of the project.

Prior to imposing novel or innovative interpretations or sanctions, administrators must discuss the proposal with other administrators at the AE noticeboard.

The sanctioned editor must be provided with a notice on their talk page setting out the administrator's decision. This must specify the misconduct for which they have been imposed as well as the appeal process. Sanctions must be logged.

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Page restrictions

Y Updated: 08:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict semi-protection, full protection, move protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other measures which the imposing administrator reasonably believes are necessary to prevent disruption. Such restrictions are enforceable by uninvolved administrators through the use of individual sanctions. Administrators are expected to log page restrictions, but failure to do so does not invalidate them.

It is best practice to add editnotices to restricted pages where appropriate, using the standard template ({{ds/editnotice}}).

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Logging

All sanctions and page restrictions must be recorded on the page specified in the authorising motion or decision for logging. Whenever a sanction or page restriction is appealed or modified, the administrator amending it must append a note recording the amendment to the original log entry. Failure to log a sanction or page restriction does not invalidate it, but repeated failures to log may result in sanctions for the issuing administrator.

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Appealing and modifying sanctions

This section governs the appeal of sanctions by the sanctioned editor as well as modifications to existing sanctions by administrators.

No sanction may be modified without:

1. the explicit on-wiki prior consent of the enforcing administrator; or
2. the clear and substantial consensus of either (a) uninvolved participating administrators at the AE Noticeboard or (b) uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard. If consensus is unclear, the status quo prevails.

Thereafter, the sanctioned editor may:

3. appeal to the Arbitration Committee in a request for amendment. If the editor is blocked, appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org).

If the sanction is long-term and the appeal is unsuccessful, the committee may hear another appeal six months after the unsuccessful appeal, unless the committee has specified a longer or shorter period.

Only the editor under sanction may appeal the sanction. Appeals follow the procedures in place at the time the appeal is made.

Nothing in this provision prohibits an administrator from superseding an existing sanction with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the original sanction was applied.

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Continuity

Nothing in this current version of the Discretionary Sanctions process constitutes grounds for appeal of a remedy or restriction imposed under prior versions of it.

All sanctions and restrictions imposed under earlier versions of this process remain in force. Appeals open at the time this version is adopted will be adjudicated under the old version, but this current process will thereafter govern appeals.

For the purpose of on-going enforcement, previous warnings become alerts for one year from the date of the passing of the motion authorising this procedure, then expire.

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Housekeeping

The following are amended:

• the Senkaku Islands case – the remedies in Paragraph 8A ("Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Discretionary sanctions for naming of disputed islands in East Asia") are hereby rescinded.
• Motion 2 in the Trusilver motion is hereby rescinded and superseded by the provisions above.
• the provisions in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions are rescinded as they have been incorporated into the provisions above.
• the provisions in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling#Administrators reminded are rescinded as they have been incorporated into the provisions above.

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This indicates the end of the draft v3 updated Discretionary Sanction remedy.

Older drafts

Two earlier complete drafts were proposed. These drafts continually evolved as a result of feedback on the talk page and modifications made by arbitrators and community members. The two formal drafts (v1 and v2) simply bookmark when a large number of feedback items on the talk page were implemented. The current version above is Draft v3.

The original iteration of draft version 1 can be viewed here, the final edit made to draft version 1 is here. The original draft version 2 was posted here, and the final edit made it is here. The original iteration of draft version 3 is here and it's most recent version is above.