User talk:Badger/sandbox13

Discussion moved to Talk:Warning Policy#Policy Changes. --Green Dragon 18:44, 5 December 2011 (MST)

Votes and Comments

• Support: Obviously, I wrote all this so I rather like it. However, is there anything that should be added? Anything that should be clarified? Anything that should be removed? Thoughts? --Badger 15:51, 4 September 2011 (MDT)

• Comment: I mostly support it, but there are a couple of things I think we could change (See section below). I'll change my vote when these items are discussed more. JazzMan 20:31, 4 September 2011 (MDT)
  • Update: Of my original 8 points below, I am now satisfied with 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8. I'm not sure I can support a policy that allows unappealable (7) insta-blocks (5), but as those discussions are not settled I haven't changed my vote yet.

• Support, if time restraint put on warnings (see comments):   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   22:50, 4 September 2011 (MDT)

Comments

The following bullet points are JazzMan's comments/issues:

1. Just a suggestion for the warning of block lengths. It should go something like "The ban length starts with one week at three warnings and then increases exponentially for every 3 warnings received (2 weeks after the 6th warning, 4 weeks after the 9th, 8 weeks after the 12th, etc.)". Also, I wonder if previously banned people should get less leeway? Maybe 3 bans = 1 week, 5 = 2 weeks, then every new warning increases the ban length. Then again, maybe not, because then it would be too tempting to find any one thing to be able to ban someone. But then again, then again, if someone's already got 5 bans, they probably aren't that great of a member anyway. I'm undecided on this one.

2. Civility and harassment are wishy-washy terms, and their wishy-washiness has lead to some questionable bans in the past. I'm not sure it's possible to define them in a way that's usable for our purposes, but perhaps we should have a few examples of what are not uncivil or harassing behavior. Asking for clarification of someone else's post is (usually) not uncivil. Going off-topic or responding to a topic which has been "settled" should also not be a ban-able offense.

3. Ettiquette breaches should, in most cases, not be a ban- or warn-able offense. Going by the letter of the law, you could get a warning for mis-indenting a page or for adding a new comment to the top. This should also probably be defined somewhere. I would love it if we didn't have to link to Wikipedia at all, since we have no control over the content there, and aren't notified if their policies change.

4. I like the separation of IPs from everyone else, because it basically makes no sense to warn IPs.

5. I think that there should be some sort of statute of limitations in effect, or otherwise some way to keep from being banned as Hooper recently was. I'd say any time an administrator issues a warning, all violations at the same time count as the same warning. This means if someone, say, posts rude comments on 5 different talk pages (though see below), they would count as 1 warning, since there's only 1 chance for the user to correct their behavior, not 5. Speaking of warnings, if the whole point of a warning system is corrective and not punitive, I think any user given a warning should, you know, actually be warned, say, on their talk page. The administrator giving out the warning should leave a message on that user's talk page stating exactly why they received a warning; this way the user has an immediate chance to clean up their act or clear up any miscommunications.

6. There should be some sort of exception to the rule for certain types of offenders. As written, we can't perma-block those stupid Russian drug company spammers.

7. The petition section is a little wordy, and is unclear if only the admin who did the banning is allowed to unblock.

8. Admin blocks: GD (and I think BD) are automatically exempt from being de-sysopped, so I wonder if they should be exempt from banning (though not warning) as well? I mean, they can take away the blocking power from anyone who can block them, so if they ever deserved to be blocked, what good would it do?

This is probably a little nit-picky, but with something as tumultuous and fickle and emotional as banning, I think it's better we have an absolute iron-clad policy now, then have to find all the exceptions later and risk appearing to play favorites. JazzMan 20:31, 4 September 2011 (MDT)

I've numbered them, and will reply to them by number here:

1. I think that sets of 3 warnings to a block is a good system. Suppose Hooper gets another warning in 6 months, and then another 8 months after that. Two warnings in the span of 14 months hardly seems worth a 2 week block. Plus, then every subsequent warning is a longer and longer block. (Sorry to use you as an example, Hooper, but you make such a good one).

2. I think we need some level of "wiggle room" in our terminology. The last thing I want is some trouble-making user leave bad comments and then say "yeah, but technically it's not listed under warnable offenses." I figure since only admins are giving out warnings, we can say "use some logic and reasonableness".

3. Honestly, I don't really like etiquette, but it was included like 4 times in the original system, so I left it in. I can't make a rational argument for or against it. It seems to me that again an admin could say "dude just miscounted colons, I'm not going to warn him for an etiquette violation." but it would catch people intentionally not signing comments that are offensive. (If anyone would be dumb enough to try that, still signed in).

5. I have no idea how to word it, but I want to suggest something like "you can't be warned on comments between warnings", which I know makes no sense. Let me clarify: When you're warned for a comment "c1", and then again for comment "c5". Any comments left between c1 and c5 (c2-4) can be censored to remove offending content, but don't count towards your warning level. I think a system about leaving comments on warned user's talk pages is also a good idea.

6. The way I see it, the warning policy applies almost exclusively to comments left on talk/user pages. Considering we don't warn link spammers, we just delete their pages and perma-ban them I see no need for this policy to concern them. We should probably make it more clear that this policy applies mainly to comments, and not spam/vandalism.

7. I'm not sure how to better word the petition section. I think that only the blocking admin should be allowed to revert the block, though.

8. If they are "above" banning (as it seems they are) they might as well be "above" warnings too. The only punishment for a warning is a block. Unless you mean you'd like to be able to censor offending posts. I guess that makes enough sense.

Right, so, these are my thoughts on the matter. --Badger 21:16, 4 September 2011 (MDT)

I like what you've got here. It is clear and concise. Even I can tell what I'm guilty of (my tendency to highlight others rudeness and ignore my own). My only thought is that we should consider some time of time limit. Obviously, admins can't see everything right away - especially if one user cusses another out at say midnight on a sunday. Still, there should be some clear line-in-the-sand that says unless you specifically did x (say, actually cussed out a user) you can not be officially warned if the item was not caught within the time limit.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   22:49, 4 September 2011 (MDT)

1. Fair enough. I actually had a thought that might solve a few of our problems at once. What if the warnings "timed out" after a certain period (probably no less than three but no more than 12 months). After the set time period you remove the last warning. Truly disruptive users will ramp up their warnings quickly, but someone who, say, occasionally posts something harsher than they intended won't be so severely penalized. You could even combine the two: it takes 3 warnings to get a block, then every warning after 3 also gets a block, but you remove a warning every 3 months. Or something along these lines.

2. I agree with wiggle room, I just also worry that "admin discresion" could be used to liberally as well. I don't know, maybe let's keep it how it is currently then update it if there are problems.

3. If (at least) two of us don't like the etiquette part, maybe we should think about removing it altogether from the list of warn-able offenses. I'm not even sure if anyone ever got a warning based off of etiquette before. Or again, we could leave it for now and fix it if we run into problems later.

5. What about a simpler solution: an admin can only hand out one warning at a time to a person, no matter how many offenses the admin finds at the same time. I think this says what we want to say without getting too technical.

6. Fair enough. Maybe we just need a line that says something to the effect of "vandals and spammers will be dealt with immediately, regardless of their current warning status"?

7. How about this: "A user may appeal a block by petitioning the blocking admin via email. The decision to reverse a block is entirely at the discretion of the admin. If the admin does not respond after 48 hours, a blocked user may contact another admin. If this second admin can not contact the original blocking admin, they may decide to reverse the block at their discretion.

Any user who is blocked for a period of greater than 1 month can ask for a formal appeal. The user must email all active admins their appeal, after which the admin may request additional information, or may decide as written. A user must get a 2/3's vote from all currently active admins to appeal their block. If the vote fails, they may appeal again after 6 months."

8. It's probably a moot point, but yeah, censoring was part of it. Really, though, we don't want admins to be at each other's throats, so maybe we shouldn't delve into this too far. I wonder if we should put in a clause that uncivil language directed at an admin can not be warned by that admin. In other words, a warn must always be from a third-party. Pointing out such offenses would obviously be exempt from the "pointing out offenses is an offense" rule, because administrators don't always read conversations if they know another admin is. JazzMan 08:06, 5 September 2011 (MDT)

1. I'm not sure how I feel about warnings going away after a period of time. I mean, it sounds reasonable enough, but the notion of having to go and check on warning expiration dates seems like one more thing to do, with no concrete advantage. I'm all for more work, if it's worth it. I'd also argue "if you are blocked for 3 warnings that span more than a year, you have a strong case for a petition to commute the block".

2/3. How about we keep the "admin discretion" point from comment 2, and remove etiquette from 3? I think that solution would probably do the most good, and the least expense.

5. We currently have a rule that says a single post can't create more than one warning. Want to somehow explain how that would extend to all existing comments?

6. We can (and probably should) add that line in somewhere.

7. I like your suggestion for improving the petition portion. I think we should include a bit about "pestering an admin", unless you object to that notion.

8. So maybe we say "while Bureaucrats cannot be warned, their comments can be censored just like any other post"? I like the third party idea. The only problem with that is suppose someone insults you three times, but no other admins are online for a week (which I don't think has ever happened). You should have the authority and the ability to remove these bad comments and warn the user.

Lastly, to Hooper's point: I'm not sure how I feel about "Admins didn't catch the edit within X weeks, they can't be warned". While it sounds reasonable, admins have a ton of stuff to do (here, and in the real world). I know I don't read every single update (though I skim most of them). If someone is being uncivil, they should be warned no matter how long it's been. Notice we are granting amnesty to all comments before this system is set into place, though. I think that's reasonable enough. --Badger 13:18, 5 September 2011 (MDT)

I feel that civility should be kept as well. I feel that something along the lines of "Warnings result in predetermined feelings. Warnings are not blocks. Blocks are offenses of a different magnitude. Warnings also are not petty matters. Petty matters may be corrected and may result in discretionable feelings. For example correcting indentations may result in discretionable feelings while being referenced as a contributor of low importance is a feeling which is predetermined; not discretionable."

I agree that IPs should not be included. A feature like Special:CheckUser does not exist for them.

Blocks should be done per edit (or edit within minute corrections). This is fair in all regards.

Warnings should go away after 6 months if the user is in good standing. The reasoning could include something along the lines of "If a registered user remains in good standing for six months after receiving a warning the warning will be removed. If there are any lasting feelings of receiving a predetermined feelings know that six months passed. Call some friends over and play some D&D– try to keep your mind off the predetermined feeling(s) which w/as(ere) received."

I am fine with bureaucrats being above the warning policy. Although this leaves a large hole open for problems, I can say with certainty Blue Dragon and I will not abuse the system.

I disagree with petitions to unblock. If the reasoning was not solid, then they should not be blocked. If the reasoning is solid then they should be blocked. I do not think that there should be the possibility for circumvention. --Green Dragon 22:54, 5 September 2011 (MDT)

Look good? --Green Dragon 20:36, 9 September 2011 (MDT)

I've reverted the changes for two reasons. First, all the above comments are based on what was there (and is there again), so changing that much will change how all those comments apply. Secondly, your use of some very key phrases are confusing to me (and presumably other users). For example "If there are any lasting feelings of receiving a predetermined feelings know that six months passed." is not a complete sentence, and I'm not sure what it is supposed to mean. The suggestions you've brought up are, on the whole, good ones, and should be included. However, those monumental changes are not the best way to go about implementing said changes. if you could better explain your meaning, we could work out what changes need to take place. --Badger 21:38, 9 September 2011 (MDT)

This is a sandbox which is a subsection of your userpage. If you want to revert the changes whatever. Keep in mind that one can always look at a older version of the page (based off the dates of the comments) for such a scenario.

I think that "If there are any lasting feelings of receiving a predetermined feelings know that six months passed." is a complete sentence. "If there are [bears who fish salmon] know that [they do fish salmon]." The adjective is lasting feelings and the verb is passed. However, I am no grammatical expert.

I mean what my comment above mentions. If you would like a better explanation please go through my comment above and let me know where your confusion arises from. --Green Dragon 21:46, 9 September 2011 (MDT)

I'm aware that this is a subpage, and history/comment dates would make it possible to see what exactly everyone means, but it would be easier to just make a large edit once we've resolved all our concerns, and then strike through/comment out the existing discussion.

I'm just going to go through your previous comment one line at a time, pointing out where I would like clarity. "I feel that civility should be kept as well". Got that, clear and concise. "Warnings result in predetermined feelings". I have no idea what that means. What are "pre-determined feelings", in this sense?"Warnings are not blocks. Blocks are offenses of a different magnitude. Warnings also are not petty matters." This much I understand, too. Warnings are the sorts of things that are unacceptable, but not worthy of a block. " Petty matters may be corrected and may result in discretionable feelings." Right, not sure what this means. Do you mean "Admins can correct small things, like indentation, and not warn the contributor"? That is what I think you mean by your next sentence "For example correcting indentations may result in discretionable feelings while being referenced as a contributor of low importance is a feeling which is predetermined; not discretionable." "Blocks should be done per edit (or edit within minute corrections). This is fair in all regards." is another confusing sentence, for me. Do you mean to suggest that you should be able to issue three warnings for three successive inappropriate posts, and thereby block someone, without giving them time to adjust their behaviors? I think, and others agree, that this mentality turns a warning policy into a punishment policy. I don't think that is a good rule. The rest of your post I think I understand. I'm fine with removing the petition to unblock if warnings go away 6 months after they were issued. That seems like a solid plan, to me.

Back to that one confusing sentence: if that is how you intend for your comment to be interpreted, then it is improperly punctuated; but, that's a minor detail. However, if that is your sentence, then it is a tautology that adds nothing to the policy. "If there are feelings, then there are feelings" doesn't help to describe what these feelings are, or what ramifications these feelings have. Could you better describe what you mean by "predetermined feelings"? --Badger 22:05, 9 September 2011 (MDT)

By "predetermined" I mean that when someone says something they intend a result for someone else. By "Petty matters may be corrected and may result in discretionable feelings" I mean that "You may edit" (just worded for the context).

When I mention that edits should be the base for warnings this is because blocking can be of varying length. Why can they be of varying length? They vary in length because of severity. Making warnings work with edits makes use of severity. Also, it is not fair if someone insults someone multiple times and someone else insults someone a single time and they get the same result.

Oh, everything I added are tautologies. They are there to explain the reasoning. --Green Dragon 22:51, 9 September 2011 (MDT)

The whole point of numbering was to try and keep the different points straight, but I see that's gone down the crapper. I'm going to try to summarize, then hopefully we can stay organized from here on out.

1 (Warning system logistics) It sounds like we are leaning towards an expiring warning system.

I agree with this, and I don't think it takes too much work. Really, all you have to do is check the age of the last warnings before you ban someone. If the oldest warning is less than 6 months old, then none of them have expired yet. Displaying "expired" warnings doesn't have any negative consequences, so nobody needs to rigorously patrol the page for expired warnings.

2/3 (Etiquette and Civility) I think we are going to keep it as is for now.

I agree with Badger, the language suggested by Green Dragon does not make a lot of sense to me, and I'm not sure it's necessary. For one thing, "discretionable" is not a real word. I think what you are getting at is that admins have discretion to define "civility" and "etiquette". While I don't really like this (as it leaves it open to abuse -- especially with no method of appeal), I don't see a better way around it right now.

4 (Blocking IPs) It's agreed that there's no need to block IPs.

5 (How to count blocks) There is no consensus here.

Badger mentioned the "rule" that you can't be warned more than once in one comment. This should be enumerated within the rules for it to be official. Green Dragon, your scenario is fair in one way but unfair in another. Yes, your way three warnings always equals 1 block. But one user got 2 warnings to cease his behavior before he was blocked, and the other got 0. This is unfair. I'll say it again: if the point of the block policy is to change behavior, then you must go off of the number of actual warnings (i.e. how many times the user was told "don't do that or else"). If the purpose of the warning policy is to punish people, then you must go off of the number of offenses (this would even count for multiple offenses within a single post). If we are trying to build a community, I can only support a behavior-changing policy. I also, for the same reason, think there should be a statute of limitations. While admins may be busy, we really should be checking over all edits, especially in discussions that are likely to devolve into uncivil behavior. I don't think a week is too short a time frame; most weeks you can view a week's worth of edits on the recent changes log. If we don't have a statute of limitations, there's nothing stopping an unscrupulous admin from "storing" warnings and unleashing them all when he wants to get rid of a user for a while.

6 (Exception for spammers/vandals) I think there is agreement on this point.

7 (Petitioning) Badger and Jazzman are for, and GD is against.

I really see no reason against allowing an appeal. Admins are humans, and humans make mistakes. You even say yourself, "If the reasoning was not solid, then they should not be blocked." So what if the reasoning wasn't solid, but you blocked anyway? Again, if we are going for a behavior-changing policy, we need the ability to have some leeway here.

8 (Bureaucratic Immunity) It's agreed that Bureaucrats are immune to the warning policy, but not admins. It has been suggested that a third party must intervene if an admin is involved in the uncivil behavior, but not agreed upon the details.

The whole point of rule of law (or rule of rule, in this case) sort of breaks down if you just take the Bureaucrats at their word... but that being said we don't really have any way around it, so I begrudgingly agree that they should just get blanket immunity. There's nothing we can do about it anyway. As for the case where only one admin is around, I think that it's rare enough that we shouldn't have to worry about it. If there is someone who is genuinely disruptive and no other admin responds in, say, 24 hours, the primary admin should be able to block. This is another reason to allow petitioning: if an admin is in an argument with a user, they could find a serious of excuses to block that user for 6 months. Without an appeal process, that user is screwed.

I think this is everything. If I have misrepresented anyone or any idea please let me know. JazzMan 11:29, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

I agree that the tautologies should be added elsewhere, like on the Help pages.

In accordance with number five mentioned above I would like to say that warnings are based off edits. This means that if the edit is older then six months then it (because of the time frame) would not be useable. This, then, removes the abuse of the system you mention above. Severity is also important because one does not learn through such a process. If you want to learn read Meta Pages. Editing is not learning necessarily and merging the two together is a mistake.

I don't disagree with appeals. I just don't feel that the medium is appropriate. If there is a problem they may wait out there time frame (if it is the last edit which is a problem) or if it is an intermediate edit, post on Talk:Warning Policy and discuss the problem. This is in accordance with wiki. We do not want D&D Wiki to function outside of wiki. This would undermine the very idea of wiki. --Green Dragon 12:31, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

←Reverted indentation to one colon

GD, I'm not sure you know what tautologies are. They are "using different words to say the same thing even if the repetition does not provide clarity". There is absolutely no reason to intentionally include a tautology in our policies. If I understand you correctly, the statute of limitations on warnings should be 6 months, starting the day the comment was posted, rather than the day it was found. I'm not sure I like that. I'd support a month for the SoL, but have warnings expire 6 months after they are issued, not after the original comment is left. I think the goal of this policy should be learning, not punishment. We can't honestly expect every contributor to read the entirety of the Meta Pages before posting. I don't think I got around to reading them all until after I became admin (and I'm not even sure I've read them all, they are hard to find sometimes). I think "learning by doing" is the best approach to this situation, and that means we should combine editing with teaching. Finally, your last point is dead wrong. I pulled the notion of appeals directly from Wikipedia policy (making small alterations, to better suit it to our wiki). That section of their policy can be found here. --Badger 12:53, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

As tautologies explain the same thing (just give some backing to the reasoning for clarification) they should be moved elsewhere, like on the Help pages, as I mentioned above.

The goal of the policy should not be learning. If we do not have varying severity people will use D&D Wiki contributors as vents. There is a reason that most systems of criminal conduct throughout the world have varying severity punishments. Saying that removing this is better then having this present is something which is wrong. If you kill someone and someone else crosses the street illegally a slap on the wrist for both instances is not acceptable. Most people (since they must interact with respect for various reasons) already know how to interact so the learning curve is pretty much non-existent anyway.

What is wrong with the reasoning for clarification of "If there are any lasting feelings of receiving a predetermined feelings know that six months passed."? --Green Dragon 13:12, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

For one thing, it isn't clear - negating its ability to clarify. Its obtuse almost. We need clear and concise language.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   13:21, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

Feeling not feelings is a minor grammatical mistake above. If you want to improve the language, of course, go for it.

Also, I agree that non-wiki arbitration is good to have. I created http://groups.google.com/group/dd-wiki-non-wiki-arbitration for non-wiki arbitration. Thoughts? --Green Dragon 13:45, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

Ok, where is this "severity of punishments" thing coming from? We have exactly one punishment -- banning -- and its severity is determined by the quantity, not quality, of your offenses. I simply can not, and will not, ever be in favor of a punitive system of warnings. It's not conducive to a collective-editing environment, it's harsh on new users and therefore insulating to a community that's already way to small to begin with, and it's just plain unnecessary when you consider the types of offenses we are actually dealing with here. Nobody is going to be deterred from offending by a threatening system, they will be deterred from editing. If you don't agree with this then we will have to agree to disagree because you won't convince me otherwise. JazzMan 15:10, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

Edit to add: that whole lasting feelings statement doesn't make any sense to me at all. Are you trying to say "let bygones be bygones"? If so, why do we need that in a warning policy anyway? What's the point of that arbitration thing? Is that to be used with the appeals process you think is unnecessary? JazzMan 15:12, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

A few points:

Tautologies don't really explain things. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Perhaps you instead mean "definition" or "explanation".

While the goal of most policy should not be learning, most of us feel that the goal of the warning policy should be for learning. We want to use the warning policy as a system to teach right from wrong, not just punish those who are doing wrong. If someone is persistently upsetting the community and not contributing in any way, I'm likely to just block them for a week, despite the warning policy. It is my opinion that the warning policy should be for making sure conversations stay civil, and censoring the occasional bad post from a generally good contributor.

No one is suggesting that we remove institutionalized punishments that fit the crime. To continue your metaphor, there is a reason that most systems of criminal conduct throughout the world have an appeals system. If someone is given 20 years in prison for jaywalking, they should be able to appeal to have their sentence commuted. The idea of appeals isn't to let the guilty walk free, but rather to help the unjustly punished.

I've joined that group you've created. I'm not sure if it's the best method, but I suppose it'll do for now. You should check that users are who they say they are (based on the email they use to join). In joining, I just got to choose a random username, and I could have picked "Badger" just as easily as I could have picked "Blue Dragon" or "JazzMan831".

I really want to figure out what you mean by "If there are any lasting feelings of receiving a predetermined feelings know that six months passed.". Do you mean to say "If you are still upset about a mean thing someone has said, know that they said it 6 months ago and they may no longer feel that way."? If that's not what you mean, can you try to rephrase it another way, because I am totally confused.

Given that you've created this off-wiki method for arbitration, I suppose it's safe to assume that an appeals system is something you now like?--Badger 15:22, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

I wonder if a off-site group is the right way to go for one major reason: anonymity. Yes, I am not that fond of it myself - and I may be willing to use my real name everywhere, but not everyone is. Should we force a user who doesn't wish to connect his online profile with others or his real name into signing up to a group - especially one like google where it is so easy for personal information to leak through (trust me, I'm a debt collector. Google and facebook are awesome for us when it comes to tracking)? Again, personally, I'm anti-anonymity, but I understand that others seek it out. I mean, I doubt Badger wants us to know that he may be "James T. Badger from Badgerville" (just an example) or such. Maybe this is making sense, but I feel like I'm just blabering on. Basically: TL;DR = love and feel the need for a appeals process, but is off-site the right channel? Do we have the ability to program a few pages to allow even blocked users to edit, like their own talk page or a central Admin Noticeboard?

Also, what do we do in cases like this?   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   18:47, 10 September 2011 (MDT)

If we were to remove severity and consider an aspect of learning as the base does this include everyone? If someone insults me multiple times will that annoy me more? If someone gets the same punishment as another user for a lesser offense will they even learn (I think this has been proven to be a learning barrier by the way)? If someone insults anyone multiple times will that annoy the admin more (more dealing with this learning base of work)? Why should everything relate to the abuser and not the abused? Why should those who "do their homework" (for lack of a better term) not be better off? Is that not part of learning? I just don't understand how removing severity and considering an aspect of learning as the base can be fair. If its not fair then we will have a problem with users considering the administration as biased and not compatible.

Yes, "bygones be bygones". Don't worry about all that– it will be used in the help pages.

I attempted to infer that yes, I do agree with an arbitration method. For the arbitration to have an effect (in its current state), yes, one must verify the user (email for a message or something). If we do not want to deal with this level of anonymity then does anyone know of a fitting extension for the above suggestions? --Green Dragon 13:02, 13 September 2011 (MDT)

Ok, so one thing to point out, we're all in favor of keeping the scaling block lengths. If someone repetitively insults users, they will not have a good case for arbitration. Arbitration, and commuted block lengths, will only occur when something has legitimately gone wrong. Apparently a patch to the MediaWiki software continues to prevent a blocked user from editing a wiki, but allows users to still edit their talk page. I'm not sure if we have that capability, but if we do, that'd be the best way to go about this. Users could post on their talk page, and admins could leave their opinions. --Badger 15:17, 13 September 2011 (MDT)

I don't mean commuted block lengths to have anything to do with edits though. The problem with a correlation there is that in some cases multiple things have legitimately gone wrong with only one result. Which extension MediaWiki.org were you referring to above? --Green Dragon 21:08, 13 September 2011 (MDT)

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand where your problem is. Can you give a hypothetical situation where your problem would arise? That would be immensely helpful. This extension (not actually an extension, but existing code) allows blocked users to edit their talk page. --Badger 22:34, 13 September 2011 (MDT)

For example if I edit a page and do not treat another use with civility I have completed an edit. This edit would (in your method) go into a pool until the user gets warned. The pool could have thousands of edits which are not done with civility. The admin would only see the pool and remove the pool as a single occurrence with a single warning relating to the commuted block length. I don't mean commuted block lengths to have anything to do with edits though. The commuted block length should be based of occurrences so this pool problem does not exist.

That extension is an option. I am not a fan of it. When a user is blocked they are blocked. They did something wrong, so why should they be given lieniency? I would rather do something which does not relate to wiki D&D Wiki (or a mailing list from the email user preferences). Is there an extension for such a thing? --Green Dragon 12:35, 14 September 2011 (MDT)

Well, here's the thing. The "pool" would only exist if admins aren't vigilant in their duties. The idea is that admins should stay on top of these things. Secondly, think about this: Suppose you are a user who is leaving comments. You don't think there is anything wrong with your comments. Suddenly an admin comes online and warns you three times in two minutes. Suddenly you're blocked, and you had no idea you were doing anything wrong. Does that seem fair?

I'm not sure moving things off-wiki is necessarily the best decision. We've always been adamant that we should keep everything on-site, and I don't get why this would be any different. --Badger 14:08, 14 September 2011 (MDT)

←Reverted indentation to one colon

Actually, I forgot about that extension. I think it's a good idea -- but only if it's also possible to additionally block a user from using their talk page. Everyone has the right to appeal, but not to spam the recent changes out of spite.

As for "abuser" vs. "abused", since we have agreed on a system where only an admin can hand out warnings, and pointing out offenses of others can itself be warn-able, then obviously this is biased towards the "abuser" method. And really we have good reason. If, for example, user A is in an argument with user B, he shouldn't be given the option to pick three different times in the past where he felt "abused" by user B in order to get him blocked for a week. Additionally, admins should not have to be put in a position where they have to say "well actually I don't feel that you are actually being abused, even though that's how you feel". JazzMan 17:46, 14 September 2011 (MDT)

How does the fairness of block lengths make its way into this system?

The fairness of block lengths is present if the duty relies solely on the timing of admins. Why should everything be about the timing? Do the improving, reviewing, and removing article templates make it so the timing can be used to the fullest? Why should we change the warning system to be worse then such a method?

The above example does seem fair to me. If I could not control my words I need to learn and a system which explains to me which words were appropriate, treats me the same as other people, and treats the person I was rude to the same as everyone else who was mistreated works best.

I am against something here being onsite since IP's are only posting spam on their talk pages and being blocked means one is blocked.

I don't agree with admins being the only one's able to deal with warnings. See also Warning Policy#Warnings Issued. --Green Dragon 22:50, 14 September 2011 (MDT)

I don't think it's fair to punish someone because, as an admin, I'm slacking on my job. If you make three potentially offensive edits in the span of twenty minutes, you should be given a fair chance to change your behavior. Suppose someone swears in a comment. They don't swear at anyone, they just say something like "Fighters should have the best damn BAB possible". They may not know that comments like that are a violation of policy (Hell, I'm not even sure if they are against policy). Do you think it's fair to ban someone because they leave three comments like that? On my Hooker talk page, I, an active user, ask what our policy on swearing is. You can't expect a new user to know if users (and admins) as active as Jazzman and I are don't know. Expecting every contributor to spend thirty minutes reading policy before posting is idealistic and naive. Any policy that could block someone for comments like that is completely asinine, and I can't support it. --Badger 23:12, 14 September 2011 (MDT)

Should we just do as Wikipedia does? We are basically only talking about a "level of harassment" (Wikipedia:Civility#Incivility) which is a block (the word may not can). What I am mentioning above is more kind then what Wikipedia uses and making it kinder again is a mistake. Wikipedia knows how to handle users. --Green Dragon 22:15, 15 September 2011 (MDT)

GD: which of my 8 points above do you agree with (be explicit, as in, using the actual numbers). Since we are all almost in agreement about those things, can we add them to the real policy page? It'd be nice to have some defined rules around here. JazzMan 14:59, 5 December 2011 (MST)

The idea of integrity. It's not a number above but it relates to the time frame of the system. Warnings should be applicable until a warning is given then the expiration of the warning can begin to happen. If this does not happen then we lose integrity. --Green Dragon 18:20, 5 December 2011 (MST)

Discussion moved to Talk:Warning Policy#Policy Changes. --Green Dragon 18:44, 5 December 2011 (MST)