Wikidata talk:Requests for comment/User conduct policies

If this page is too long, I'd be more than willing to split it into subpages; however, I intend it as one large overhaul of the policies named so we can make them all coordinated in one place.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:59, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

let us talk

Hoi, one root cause of most of the issues I have seen is that people are free to express their "outrage" but are equally free to refuse to talk with the "opposing party". The consequence is that people are treated in a way that is not conductive to a working solution. Language is often brutally offensive.

This attempt to codify how people can be punished is in my opinion a continuation of this sad affair. I have found all too often that people do not have a clue what the other is attempting to say or do. I have observed that Wikipedia weight is given to words that are not necessarily understood as such.

Really we should be talking..but.. WE DO NOT EVEN HAVE A USER CHANNEL ON IRC for crying out loud! One channel is dedicated to development and the Admin channel is locked away because what is said is ever so sensitive.. We do not communicate and wonder why things go wrong...

This RFC starts at the wrong end. Not much good and a lot of grief will come of it. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 11:36, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I totally subscribe Gerard's words, we don't need policies that can be used as a weapon, we need guidelines for admins to guide users towards a fruitful collaboration. But above all what is needed is a place to talk, patience, and understanding. It can be the irc, it can be a page to talk about edit conflicts, for instance Wikidata talk:Item classification or Wikidata talk:Conflict arbitration (it doesn't exist yet).

Adminship is not about erecting high walls, it is about gardening the paths towards our community so that any newcomer feels welcome and accepted. Yes, sometimes a ban is needed to gain time to clarify an issue (talking) or to help to engage in more positive attitudes (more talking!), but very rarely should be used to keep anyone away as a punishment, only in extreme situations when everything else has failed.

Hatred has been never defeated with more hatred. The only way to defeat it is with non-hatred, and to treat each contributor as a valuable person. Yes, there are spammers and destructive people out there, but we already have ways to deal with them.

I  support that the admins do or talk whatever they wish as long as it leads to non-hatred, that is the clear and universal rule that all our community should follow. But this RFC starts from wrong premises and as such it cannot bear any good.--Micru (talk) 12:31, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@GerardM, Micru: Please remember that blocks are preventative and not punitive. Guidelines don't work, as you can see, because the community doesn't agree on them. Policies on the other hand, reflect what the community does agree on. Unfortunately, I did have to word this RfC in a very "legal" fashion in order to make sure the community can agree on it, because in the past, I've seen wikilawyering about our guidelines and their intents (will not name specific examples).

Communication is indeed hindered by our multitude of languages. But although we can do things to improve it, that is not the root cause here. The root cause is that experienced editors cannot agree on basic guidelines and policies and it's time that we fixed it. I will not withdraw this RfC and stand firmly behind its creation.--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:32, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

(Maybe it's just that I'm frustrated that you two don't like the massive effort I had to put into crafting this RfC, and also with repeated user conduct issues where someone asks for a block at AN. Just look through our archives)--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:38, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Right... so it is suggested that we improve on communication, "it is not the root cause". Why is it not the root cause? As an experienced editor I feel excluded a possible talk will not happen because of "your standing firm". As an experienced editor I wonder when we really talked about basic guidelines and policies. What the proposal feels like is "take it or take it anyway". It may have taken you a lot of time, but that does not make the proposal any more palatable. 17:45, 24 July 2014 (UTC) - unsigned comment added by User:GerardM (Tamawashi (talk) 05:53, 27 July 2014 (UTC))

Why? Because most of the time, language and cultural barriers have created differing guidelines among different groups of users from different wikis. This RfC, however painful it is, intends to unite the community's guidelines into one page, so we won't have complaints of being blocked unfairly, or edit warring complaints that we cannot action due to lack of policy.

Why I am standing firm? Because I strongly believe that disagreement over policies needs to be ended. However much we collaborate, we have never been able to get even an implicit agreement on the policies here. You and Micru are free to start a separate proposal for a teahouse and help IRC channel, but they will not help solve this problem, because no amount of collaboration will prevent disagreement over guidelines that are not ratified by an RfC of the entire community.--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

With this bureaucratic bulk proposal, all my hopes that we could find a cross-cultural, fine tuned minimal set of administrative rules are gone. --Succu (talk) 19:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

@Succu: Unfortunately, I do regret the format of this RfC and wish I had reformatted it. If anyone wants to be bold enough, they can split it up (but then translations become messy). It needs a lot of participation to work (at least five times the current level), and I haven't been seeing enough.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:40, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: It's a wiki, so you can stop it, because you started it. Make a poll (=RfC), not a voting, instead to learn which problems our users and contributers think needs an urgent regulation. --Succu (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@Succu: For me Jasper's answer is satisfactory enough. When back then I started the RFC about the sourcing guidelines I also followed mistakenly the same format, but it was not meant as a "vote", just as a way to know which options were more popular, where it was possible to find compromise, and what to leave out. Later on, thanks to the support/opposes/feedback gathered it was possible to create a draft that was open for amendments for a week (IIRC, there were 2 or 3 drafts), and finally the resulting guidelines were voted as a unit.--Micru (talk) 11:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

the entire community - a small subset of contributors is "the entire community"? Tamawashi (talk) 06:26, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

GerardM nailed my thoughts exactly. I spend much less time on Wikidata due to a lack of time in general, and I don't know exactly what issues led to the creation of this RfC, but I don't think this will solve anything. Legoktm (talk) 21:22, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Treating mass contributors with arbitrary blocking and thread closing

User:Jasper Deng wrote "Guidelines don't work, as you can see, because the community doesn't agree on them." ... as there is only a blocking guideline, would that mean your recent block imposed on me was not in agreement with the "community"?

User:Jasper Deng wrote "Please remember that blocks are preventative and not punitive." ... That are two dimensions. Every block is preventing something, so yes, blocks are preventative. But why can a random admin decide what he wants to prevent and then impose a block? And now the other dimension: Whether a block is punitive or not, how will one decide that? You can claim anything, but if the claim cannot be verified, one check if it is true. How would one verify whether any random block was punitive or not?

And then look at AN, some admins seem to be really happy to block.

Also see:

• Admin gives a comment and closes the discussion. [1]
• Admin runs away from a discussion by blocking the user's access to his talk page [2]

• Blocking without a policy and referring to UCS "use common sense" as reasoning - really?
• Blocking without showing WHERE the blocked user violated a rule - really?
• Blocking a user from editing his talk page to make him communicate more - really?

And then also look at the contributions: A blocked editor that made 500 000+ contributions in ~ 50 days. And at the other hand a blocking admin that did not even made 5000 edits within ~21 months.

Are admins more important than contributors? Seems so. Tamawashi (talk) 06:26, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Obviously you still have an axe to grind, and if I were not involved, I would summarily block you again for this, since content contributions do not excuse bad behavior (please read en:WP:STICK before the en:WP:BOOMERANG hits you hard). I would not have removed your talk page access if I had known that the community objected. But the community did not object when I noted it at AN (in any case, please quit asking me about the initial block, I was not the initial blocking admin). Beyond saying that your edit count is irrelevant, I will leave everything to others to explain.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:32, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: Finger pointing or holding grievances won't solve anything here. Jasper Deng is totally right that the number of contributions is irrelevant to be more right or less right. What we have to do is remove this angry talk first, and then start engaging in pleasant solutions. But of course, for that to happen first you have to let your anger go, without that, there is no use in talking.

When you are more calm, please come to the Wikidata:Lounge. Don't bring any specific problem or any grudge with you. Bring just the will to talk in general terms realizing that both Jasper Deng and you want Wikidata to become better over time. We all have the same goal, let's not forget that.--Micru (talk) 08:49, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

(@Micru: It's Jasper Deng)--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:49, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry!--Micru (talk) 08:51, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Micru - I don't have to do anything with respect to Wikidata. This is completely voluntary. User:Jasper Deng showed once again his pro-block and knock-down attitude. It's disgusting. "Finger pointing or holding grievances won't solve anything here." - Nice to know. So I name a problem, and you come up with "Finger pointing or holding grievances won't solve anything here."? How else shall I name the problem? Don't name the crime, don't name the criminal, but block the victim of abuse once again? Wao.

Well, if you come to Wikidata and you edit it, you have something to do with it, right? :)

The problem is called that admins, and non-admin users must exist and they have to find ways to understand each other. I don't know if you read the text I wrote here, but the internet is an aggressive place. You cannot see me, I cannot see you, and we are forced to guess who is on the other side and guess their intentions. You feel offended, he feels offended, and there is the need to find a way out. What I want is that you come to a neutral place, that you name the sort of crimes that you think that happen when somebody is in the position of admin, and somebody else is in the position of non-admin, so we can think of mechanisms other than blocking that could prevent the escalation. For that we don't need to point at any specific case. Does that sound reasonable?

@User Jasper - "I would not have removed your talk page access if I had known that the community objected." - THE COMMUNTIY? What is that? You and some of your admin friends? And, does it mean, as long as no one objects, you go around and beat people? In the dark, if someone is alone, you beat, because the COMMUNITY would not object?

"But the community did not object when I noted it at AN" - Ah, see, I was almost right, AN reader = COMMUNITY. You and some admins.

This is a very aggressive language. You were not beaten. You were not in the dark. And you are not alone. The admins have a job to do, and it is not an easy position either. I know it is not fair to feel in disadvantadge, but it is also not fair to make this disadvantadge a hurdle for reconciliation and for working together.

You both diverge from the topic. "Jasper Deng is totally right that the number of contributions is irrelevant to be more right or less right." - I have seen this. It doesn't matter what you do, but what matters is whether you are an admin.

I am not an admin. But I don't know see how some contributor having more edits than other contributor would make him more or less right.

Please also note that Japser Deng is right here again invoking English Wikipedia project text and throw it at a Wikidata-editor. If he likes to enforce English Wikipedia project text, he might better leave Wikidata right now and work in English Wikipedia. Disgusting. Tamawashi (talk) 14:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

He is used to the aggressivity of the English Wikipedia, and for him, under that framework, bringing those texts was the right thing to do. I don't see it as bad as you do. But your wishes for him to leave are not helpful and they don't bring less pain. What is important is to leave aside harsh vocabulary and focus on how conflictive situations emerge and work on the origin of those. If you want we can try that, so no one has to leave.--Micru (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: I 100% agree that Tamawashi's asking for another block... would you (or any other admins) object to me blocking him for say, a week? --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 19:49, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

@AmaryllisGardener: I have actually pledged to avoid further interaction with Tamawashi while he is still mad. Please let Micru's meditation try to work first. Either way, this would be best discussed at AN, not here.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:55, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Any doubts: „Status: about to leave. Just do some clean up.” --Succu (talk) 19:58, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I guess we can wait and see... --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 20:00, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Blocked by Sannita. Looks like this is the end of it. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 22:05, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's this ends nothing. I think it's only a beginning... --Succu (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Original and translated versions

I’m confused about how answers should be placed in the RFC so that they will be translated, or at least appear in the translated version. It looks like most, but not all, comments are not translatable. And it looks like not all untranslated comments appear in the translated versions.

This means when someone looks at the translated RFC they are not actually reading all the comments. I think this is a problem and this might be caused by the technicalities of where we need to place our votes/comments etc. Any pointers on what to do? (or is this something only admins can fix?)—Al12si (talk) 20:42, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

This does need to be fixed. Currently the only way is for translation administrators to constantly request new translations by remarking the page every time. If I had known better, I would've used templates instead, which can stay in one revision and still be translated.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:18, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

The bizarre thing is that there’s a comment to a comment in the RFC that’s translatable, but the original comment is not. I have no idea what might have caused this.—Al12si (talk) 02:48, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

A couple of queries

I am querying two sentences in the RFC that I find difficult to understand (and therefore translate). I’ve mentioned the first somewhere else but I think my question got lost in the sea of comments; the second is a new query.

• For “A revert on a property or item constitutes undoing a single series of edits by one user, whether done in one edit or not.” – I assume the reverse is being meant; i.e., “Undoing a single series of edits by one user, whether done in one edit or not, constitutes a revert on a property or item.” Is my understanding correct?
• For “Any discussion or edits not related to the block or the conduct of the blocked user (specifically excluding the conduct of others) that led to the block is not appropriate use of the user talk page.” – what exactly does “specifically excluding the conduct of others” mean? In other words, from what, exactly, are “the conduct of others” being excluded?
• Also, the RFC talks about “spam”. My understanding is that this refers to wiki spam (as opposed to email spam). Is my understanding correct?
• Also, when translating comments, does the translation need to be marked in any way?

Thanks for any clarifications.—Al12si (talk) 05:14, 28 July 2014 (UTC)