Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 152

We also desperately need an easily understandable guide to how the entire process is supposed to work. The links in the current DS alert template lead to pages and pages of vague WikiLegalese, including the

expectations section which many editors will recognize as basic requirements for all of Wikipedia. This would also provide an alternative to an unofficial DS FAQ

which some editors are attaching to the AP2 alert.

Or we could eliminate the awareness requirement. The first formal warning issued by an admin would serve the same purpose. –dlthewave ☎ 02:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

One more (tongue-in-cheek) idea: Set the bot to send all of the DS alerts to every editor once a year irregardless so that we're all on the same page. –dlthewave ☎ 00:46, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support This is an obvious solution, it should already have been implemented. A DS alert is less scary or threatening from a bot than from a person. The alert should be non-judgemental, and should not differentiate edits on the basis of being helpful, well-meaning, trivial, controversial, minor or any other characteristic. It should simply and routinely alert editors of articles that have discretionary sanctions, otherwise there is going to be selectivity and bias in this process. Bots do some tasks well so humans can get on with building an encyclopedia. Jack N. Stock (talk) 02:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support per proposer.
  As a side comment, I'm 110% behind the proposer's wise advice: "In considering the proposal, please do not get mired in minor implementation details. These would get hashed out in considering the bot for approval (e.g., perhaps excluding tiny edits that were not flagged by an editor as minor). No solution is ever going to be 100% perfect, and it need not be, just better than the status quo." I've had a comment to that effect near the top of my user page for years. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose - Such notices should only be delivered if a user is making substantial edits that are not clearly appropriate (e.g. neutral copyedits would be clearly appropriate). A purely numerical measure has been proposed; A qualitative evaluation of the edits is preferable, therefore, this is not a task particularly suitable for a bot (that is not exceptionally advanced). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:10, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @Godsy: Except this isn't the actual intent of the templates or ArbCom's creation of them. They're not user-behavior warnings. The fact that people use them as if they are and only as if they are is actually part of the problem. They're just notices that particular topic areas are covered by different rules. Why would/should an editor not be made aware of that? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • @
      Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Awareness and alerts; Why would an editor want to be made aware of anything that opens them up to a potential sanction? — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT
      ) 02:51, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
      • @
        WP:AN overturned it. I'm not terribly afraid of DS. Why is anyone else, unless they're here to start trouble? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
        😼 03:19, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
        • @SMcCandlish: Alright, I see your point; I'll move to a weak oppose. My tired mind must have added a "want" when I read your reply earlier. I cannot convert to a neutral or support, however, because I do not support editing restrictions in general (outside of blocks, though I believe they should be more restricted in regard to experienced editors because of the lasting stigma). The fewer editors eligible for an editing restriction, the fewer editors can be inappropriately restricted. Unfortunately, I do believe editing restrictions, especially those placed unilaterally, are wrong often enough to be concerned that an automated process would make more people eligible. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:38, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• Strong support. The problem runs deeper than the proposer describes. Users not only need to be aware of DS before being sanctioned; the evidence of awareness must be from within the last year, while at the same time the DS warnings page asks users not to warn those who have received a warning within the last year. This little mess means that even longstanding editors with low levels of activity may have periods of immunity. To address concerns about scaring away newbies we just need to be careful about the wording. The template already says "It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date", and we can be even more explicit; furthermore, if a user is going to be scared away by "you have done nothing wrong but you need to be aware of this", then they are probably not ready to be editing in ARBPIA areas (or wherever). Vanamonde (talk) 03:59, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support This is the best way to remove the stigma of getting a notice. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 04:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose some tooling is needed, but I don't think more automated messages is necessarily the right answer, and I don't want to endorse a
  π, ν
  ) 04:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @
    Power~enwiki: This seems to presume that there is some harm in being aware that DS apply to a topic. Someone doing GNOMEy work site-wide probably should be aware of the grand scale of DS, and edit accordingly. I know I do. I presume that DS applies everywhere, and try to be mindful to check the top of the talk page for 1RR and other special restrictions if some unconstructive changes need reverting and aren't obvious anon vandalism. An idea already floated above is that actual new editors (perhaps those not yet autoconfirmed) would be exempt from bot notices. Maybe also have a DS notice opt-out or gnomes (with presumption of awareness). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
    😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • As far as ease-of-use improvements, a separate {{
      π, ν
      ) 16:54, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

      Sure. There isn't any reason the auto-notices have to be the same as the current ones; indeed, part of this proposal is to see them changed anyway, to be less menancing, more purely informational. They just need to constitute "official notice". Or we could scrap this "must be made aware" DS condition as silly

      WP:BUREAUCRACY. It's not actually plausible that someone editing a page with a big DS editnotice and talking on its talk page which has one, too, isn't really aware of the DS. It's a strange fiction of ArbCom that we have to work around, at least for now. If the proposal just got ArbCom to obviate the "awareness" nonsense, then it was successful, just in a different way that actually implementing the notices bot. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

      😼 17:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support, but further discussion of the implementation should be widely publicized as well Automated notification will remove the stigma of receiving such notices, hence, we can notify for unproblematic edits; even if that is not desirable, the cost of one false positive is not very high. The real drawback is spamming gnomes and other passer-bys (i.e. if we get too many false positives), but the numbers in the implementation can be tweaked to eliminate this (that's where further discussion will be needed); that might set the threshold very high, but if any number of notices gets delivered with that threshold, it is still an improvement over zero. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 09:43, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Note: The way the Arbitration Committee's discretionary sanctions alerts work is up to the Arbitration Committee, not the community, and people should be aware this discussion can only be advisory. We do have a separation of powers, whether or not SMcCandlish thinks it's "wikilawyerly wrangling" to speak of it. An arbitrator,
  WP:CASTE, over which the community does have authority. Perhaps this proposal should be limited to making the alerts for those ds automatic and more user-friendly. Or to advising the committee, of course. Bishonen | talk
  09:54, 3 July 2018 (UTC).

  Arghh, that's User:BU Rob13. Very difficult name! bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 10:03, 3 July 2018 (UTC).

  My take: If ArbCom wishes to assert authority here, overriding community consensus, then that authority comes with the responsibility to make the mechanism work effectively. I've seen them discussing the known problems with these alerts, but no solutions have been forthcoming or we wouldn't be here. I would strongly disagree with any assertion that the status quo is the best we (ie they) can do. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:13, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Personally, I think the mechanism works fine. The fact that editors sometimes react poorly to it seems more a selection issue than a problem with the alert. Editors quick to anger (or who aren’t willing to consider messages from others as coming in good faith) are most likely to get the alerts. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 11:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  It doesn't work fine. Try remembering which editor has received a notice in the past 12 months (as required for DS enforcement) and reconciling that with the fact that you're not supposed to give alerts any more frequently than every 12 months. This -->

  Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Awareness_and_alerts is a bureaucratic mess. Arbcom should either fix it or let us have a bot.- MrX

  🖋 15:03, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  @Bishonen: See already-quoted material above ("The Committee ... does not exist to subvert ..."); there is no such separation of powers; community decisions, including on policy matters (this would be one), cannot be thwarted by ArbCom. And if you actually try to make any separation-of-powers argument in an ArbCom case it'll either be ignored completely or flatly denied (depending on the Arb). I've tried SoP arguments multiple times from a different angle (to end DS being applied to internal policy discussions, because our "judiciary" should not be telling our everyone's-a-legislator "legislature" how we're allowed to formulate policy; we already have community-written behavioral policies and community-operated noticeboards that cover it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Discretionary sanctions are created by ArbCom. Every sanction placed under them is an arbitration enforcement action. The entirety of the procedures to alert, etc. can be modified only by ArbCom motion. It is not a community policy. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  This has already been discussed above, BU Rob13. If ArbCom cannot thwart community consensus, it more narrowly cannot thwart community consensus about what it is doing or implementing or failing to do or implement. There isn't any magical loophole in "cannot thwart community consensus". It's a blanket statement, intentionally. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:14, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Except that the Arbitration Committee can override consensus within its scopes and responsibilities. It just cannot create policy by fiat. See

  WP:CONEXCEPT. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk

  17:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  You seem to be suggesting that the community is utterly powerless to check-and-balance ArbCom in any way, even with a strong showing of support in a site-wide RfC. I don't think anyone on WP buys that, nor that anyone at WMF does. This attitude just demonstrates exactly why this RfC is needed. See also the

  first law of holes, and the comments of many in this thread that, procedural quibbles aside, the RfC should at least be taken as advisory. The results so far show that most of those with oppose !votes are either the Arbs themselves, or simply misunderstanding one or more of: the proposal wording, what the notices are/mean, who can use them, what DS is, what bots are capable of, or something else simple and factual. Meanwhile, those who understand these things are in support of the idea, either as laid out or at least in theory/spirit. Pooh-pooh this at your own risk, and especially keep in mind that community faith in both ArbCom and in DS has been steadily decreasing over time. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

  😼 18:14, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose( I've struck my "oppose" as I still think that this is a matter for Arbcom and !voting might suggest differently - I think this is not a good idea) for a number of reasons. New editors might receive this as the first post on their talk page. For a few that might be a good idea, for most, probably not. DS alerts are signed allowing the person receiving them to ask the person adding it any questions they might have. A bot would be sending out many times the number of alerts that are sent out now, and whose going to answer any questions? We can't expect the help desk or the Tearoom to suddenly take on this workload. People would be automatically receiving alerts in areas where it seems sensible to keep sanctions but where the existing problems are infrequent, and I think that's a bad idea (User:TonyBallioni's point). We have no idea how many alerts would be sent out but I'm sure it would be far more than necessary and that inevitably it would inhibit some editors from editing in the area, or even perhaps editing at all. When all is said and done it's still bitey, and I've seen many editors thinking that a bot notice is from a real person. If the wording can be made friendlier so that no editor responds badly, that would be great but I doubt we can ensure that. I'm all for any suggestions to improve the wording of course. And yes, this area is the Committee's responsibility. I'm sure all of us would welcome more suggestions to improve the use of alerts, but I for one still think that personal alerts are far superior to anything a bot can do. Doug Weller talk 10:43, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @
    WP:AC/DS is for. If topics don't have frequent problems, remove DS from them (DS is for dealing with disruption that ANI can't handle, and ArbCom's short-sightedness about this is practically like an addiction). Why would receiving neutral automated notices inhibit someone more than definitely does the receipt of pointed ones from dispute "enemies" who usually (though wrongly) believe these notices are handy threats they can menace people with? This proposal is not BITEy since part of it is to exclude new users (if the community wants that), though this wasn't spelled out clearly when first posted. Perfect is the enemy of good. ArbCom won't actually take responsibility for it or we wouldn't be here. I've been on every sitting ArbCom's collective ass about the problems with these notices for something like 4 years now, and no action is ever taken. I want to be really clear here: The primary reason I ran for ArbCom last election was to fix DS, because you all won't. (And I got more votes than several of you; you just got fewer opposes because I edit in enough controversial material to have some people who don't like me. In a normal election system, I would be a sitting Arb right now and DS reform would have been under way since January.) If you think the personal alerts are better, it's because you're neither leaving nor receiving them, or you are but seeing this through admin glasses, where the experience of both is markedly different than for an everyday editor. "Adminsplaining"? That should be a word. >;-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
    😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Doug Weller and TonyBallioni. I’d add more (or repeat what they said) but am on a rapidly expiring cellphone. This is well intentioned but too much of a blunt instrument given the number of articles under DS and the importance of nuance in working out which edits might legitimately require a notification and which are off topic or trivial. Some human discretion is necessary here. In passing, it’s suggested that a bot notice would have less aggressive wording - mildly, if there’s a good suggestion for less aggressive wording then let’s adopt it right now. — Euryalus (talk) 11:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • There is a page for the purpose of "asking for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions":
    WP:ARCA. (Indeed, I just saw you on that page, SMcCandlish.) Might that be a better place to raise this, Doug Weller and Euryalus? People would be able to add their arguments and opinions just the same as here, and this discussion could also be linked to. Bishonen | talk
    11:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC).
    • I suppose. Probably should clarify that there's argument for this being solely in the Committee's area of responsibility to change or keep the same, but meh, I'm perfectly happy with a community debate proceeding here on this issue and us just applying the outcome. I see it as a minor procedural issue either way, and not something integral to the committee's actual Arbitration role. -- Euryalus (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Conditional support: As a concept on a limited scale, beginning only with topic areas that receives the highest traffic. I would oppose bot notifications for every DS area. Alex Shih (talk) 12:24, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• While I appreciate the idea behind this and am all for people thinking about how to make DS work better, I oppose this proposal as it stands, for several reasons:
  • Firstly, I'm not convinced it's actually solving a real problem. There is not a big problem with editors avoiding sanctions because they are not formally aware of DS. I've just looked through the last ten pages of AE archives, back to the start of March; in that time, three reports were closed because the editors were not formally aware of sanctions. Even in cases where editors do avoid sanctions for lack of awareness, either the experience has the intended effect and they change their ways, or they are back at AE pretty sharpish and sanctioned. Personally I have recently levied a mass topic-ban of ten editors; not one did not meet the awareness criteria.
  • Secondly, a large part of this is outside the community's jurisdiction. I'm not entirely convinced that the community can't establish a bot to hand out these alerts because they need to be done by a real editor (as has been argued above); nonetheless, the form of the alerts is required by arbcom before an editor is sanctioned. So even if the community took it on itself to change {{
    Ds/alert
    }}, the only effect would be to make DS more unenforceable, as anyone who had received the modified alert wouldn't count as aware under the awareness requirements. It might well be true that friendlier notifications would be a good thing (and anyone who wants to have a go should create one in their sandbox and inform the arbitration clerks about it) but changes here need to go through the committee.
  • Thirdly, I don't think the practicalities have been thought through, and the difficulties are insurmountable. DS are typically authorised for "pages and edits about <topic X>". "Pages about topic X" is reasonably easy to deal with as has been discussed above through use of talk page notices placing invisible categories. "Edits about X" is much more difficult. They could happen on literally any page anywhere on Wikipedia and be subject to DS. Some obvious cases leap to mind: People asking questions about American politics, or pseudoscientific theories, or Kashmir, or... at the reference desks are subject to DS. Someone who asks several divisive questions about one of these topics would be a prime candidate for the application of DS. In these cases, having a bot to normally distribute these alerts makes formal awareness less likely, not more (unless we're going to spam DS notifications for all possible topics to everyone who edits the WP/WT namespaces). GoldenRing (talk) 12:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

    On your first point, I hope you realize there is quite a bit of selection bias in your stats: AE-savvy editors will not report before leaving the notice. The good measure would be how many good cases of AE were not filed because of a lack of notice. And actually, even that is not the whole story - the real measure would be how many AE filings were not made or dismissed because of a lack of notice when the notice would have been made had the bot been in operation. Good luck measuring that, of course. (You might still be correct that there is no problem to fix, but your sampling does not prove anything either way.)

    On the third point, I am not sure I understand. The bot will not be able to notify in the "edit about X" scenario. So what? False positives (e.g. notifying someone who copyedits every page containing {{infobox officeholder}}) are a problem (because spamming), but false negatives are not (as long as editors can still post the notice themselves, it is equivalent to the status quo). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:37, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

    @Tigraan: You're right about selection bias, of course; nonetheless, I don't see lack of notification as a significant problem. If a user is thinking of filing an AE report and realises the editor is not aware, they send on the notification. Either this has the desired effect, or the editor continues on and is at AE a few days later, now fully aware. Regarding the third point, what I mean is that if an editor turns up at the refdesks (for instance) asking those questions, someone will pretty quickly drop the DS template on their TP because it's a process lots of editors are familiar with. Once most editors forget how DS alerts are distributed (beyond "a bot does it") it becomes less likely that the alert will be given in a timely way. The same problem crops up in article space, too; it's possible to make an edit that is covered by DS in vast swathes of articles (I'm tempted to say all articles, but I'm sure there are exceptions) where the main topic isn't obviously related to the DS; consider that any edit containing biographical information about a living person is subject to DS; how will the bot pick out editors making this type of edit?

    The main merit I see in this idea is that a bot notification lacks an obvious target for retaliation. With that thought in mind, what about a bot that delivers alerts to users who have been nominated to receive them? The bot's userpage could have a subpage where you can leave a username and a DS topic code; the bot can deliver the template. This gets around the spamming and false negative/positive problems and takes the heat out of leaving a notification on someone's TP. The bot can also automatically ignore requests that would be a repeat within twelve months. GoldenRing (talk) 15:27, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

    I'd go for that as as second choice, perhaps in a later RfC or something. It would be an improvement of one facet, but miss the overall point, that the purpose of these notices actually has nothing to do with a user's behavior, and is informative, that special rules apply to certain topics. Ultimately, all editors should know this and know what the topics are, at least if they're editing in them actively. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:25, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Question: Is there any reason not to simply expose every editor who opens a DS page to edit to a banner stating that DS applies? This would notify everybody every time they edit the page, and would be entirely impersonal and always relevant. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:14, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Certain pages under 1RR, such as Donald Trump, display such a notice. We would need a way to log which editors have been notified, since it's likely impossible to add a notice to every DS page. Gun control DS, for example, applies to any gun which has been used in a crime, but only if criminal use is actually included in the article. –dlthewave ☎ 14:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  @Dlthewave and Pbsouthwood: This would be one way to do it, but ArbCom has already rejected the idea that editnotices and article talk page notices about DS constitute "awareness". It would be an acceptable outcome of the current proposal if instead of a bot, every DS-covered page produced such an editnotice, and it was considered notice/awareness. Then we would not need to log edits; simply a diff showing an edit at such a page would prove awareness. I've proposed this solution at least twice and ArbCom ignored it or argued against it (depending on the Arb). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Correct me where I am wrong, but as I see it, Arbcom does not make policy, they are the final arbitrators, enforcers and interpreters of policy which is made by the Wikipedia community based on consensus. If this is true, then they have no special say in whether and how the community decides to notify editors that they are editing an article where DS applies, except if they consider that it conflicts with higher policy, terms of use and the like. As volunteers they can indicate their disagreement, and if it is sufficiently strong, resign. As members of the community they can argue against it, and I would expect a high level of reasoning from them, and it may be persuasive, after all they were elected for their demonstrated ability to get to the root of the matter. Nevertheless, I think that the community must make the policy, and arbcom members would be within their remit to abstain from the discussion, which in practice may be indistinguishable from ignoring requests for comment.

  To get back to the point, I think that having notices in the article which display when open to edit may be considered a reliable way of notifying everyone who edits the article. If the notice was there at the time of the edit, the editor may be deemed to have been notified.

  Regarding the identification and tagging of relevant articles: It is not necessary to tag all articles with the banner if it can be added by any autoconfirmed editor, as the same editors who are currently leaving notices on talk pages could with less overall effort, leave a banner in the article, which only needs to be done once, unlike talk page notifications, which must be done for each editor who is to be notified, and every year. Very little surprise is induced, and there is no pointyness or agression implicit in the notice which is directed equally at all editors to the article. This seems less likely to stir up ill feeling than the current or other proposed systems. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  I think that's correct, about ArbCom, as do most other editors. But ArbCom mostly don't seem to think it's correct, which is troubling. They're starting to deny that the community has any say over what they do or how, despite DS itself being the making of policy, and procedures for how and why people can/must notify others is also making policy; it's behavioral and administrative versus content policy. The committee need to re-read

  WP:AWB job.
  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

  😼 22:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Perhaps people are misinterpreting the responses of the arbcom members. I expect them to be cautious, and oppose changes which they believe to be contrary to existing policy, terms of use, and the purposes of the project. Those are things they are expected to do, and were selected to do. I do not think they would oppose a change of policy that would improve the ability of those of us here to build the encyclopaedia to do so more effectively while at the same time making it a more pleasant place to work for people of that mind. This is a testable hypothesis. I would like to test it. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:10, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose the proposal as it's written. First, like GoldenRing, I'm not convinced that lack of awareness is a significant issue. Second, adding a discretionary sanctions notice to the talk page of every registered editor and IP who has non-trivially edited a BLP? No thanks. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:40, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • However Arbcom should seriously look at dropping the notified-every-year requirement. It's bureaucratic busy-work and not having that requirement in areas covered by various general sanctions hasn't caused any issues as far as I'm aware. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • @NeilN: I sometimes think so too. But I think we do see this from an AE perspective where everyone is mind-numbingly aware of DS; a user who made a few PIA edits a couple of years ago and got this template-thingy pasted on their TP, and now gets hauled to AE for a 1RR infringement must wonder what on earth is going on and I think the alert is an important protection for these editors. GoldenRing (talk) 15:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Probably not allowed. Sounds good in theory, perhaps less good in practice once one considers the alert-spam that will ensue, but in any case my understanding of
  WP:ARCA. In my view, just doing away with the alert requirement would be better. Sandstein
  14:59, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  @

  WP:BOTPOL; they are not some independent entity. Implicit (now made explicit) in this proposal is that if implementation's legalistically invalidated, it should be taken by ArbCom as strongly advisory anyway. "Probably not allowed" can't apply against community advisory input to its own ArbCom. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

  😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose overall - I agree that the status quo isn't ideal, but notifying everyone who edits an article under DS seems like overkill and could be very confusing to newer editors making innocuous edits. That said, support giving ArbCom a clear message that the template needs to be updated and made less scary. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Suggestions for updating the template have been made, and prompts posted a couple of times asking for some response. Let's hope some progress can be made! isaacl (talk) 16:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

    And that thread is just one of the times; I and others have raised the issue at ArbCom talk, DS talk, and the DS template talk page, numerous times, with no action. Even, back in the day, getting the template wording changed to stop implying wrongdoing on the part of the recipient took two

    WP:ARCA cases and over a year; it was like pulling teeth from an allosaurus. ArbCom have been extremely resistant to individual or small-cluster community input on what's wrong with DS. And we were promised another community DS review something like two years ago; never happened. This is a community RfC for a reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

    😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  • @Ajraddatz:, please actually read the proposal. It says nothing remotely like "notifying everyone who makes any edit to an article under DS". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I have. New editors typically don't mark edits as minor, and may require multiple edits to make the changes they want. I think this is too big of a hammer for the problem. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

      @Ajraddatz: Several points of discussion have been about excluding new editors from the bot notices; this is now explicitly mentioned in the proposal. Better? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:31, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

      I still have hesitations, but I also don't know the topic area very well so I'll strike my opposition. I appreciate the work you put in to proposing this. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose I have some sympathy for the idea and my first thought was "why not", but after reading this over and thinking about it, I oppose. The "alert" model not only serves as information for the user, it serves as a double check on the admin - either the admin has to think about, 'how am I going to approach this user and warn, so the bad stuff is cut-off, and the good remains', then actually has to communicate with the editor, or the Admin has to research and think about the history of this editor including what warnings they have received, and whether the boom should be lowered, now. Admins do their best, but a little process thinking break helps. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:04, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @
    WP:AC/DS. This is not an admin template. It's explicitly intended to be left by any editor. It is also not a warning about user behavior, it's a notice that different rules apply to a topic. Nothing more. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
    😼 17:25, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I was already aware of your argument. Nonetheless, it's admin action that this circuit breaks, and it's admin action that is the teeth behind the alert, no matter how it is worded - it opens the editor to the expanded sole-discretion of another (that is the historical development of why they are called, discretionary). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

      Elmidae's !vote immediately below this basically gets at it. It doesn't matter if admins are involved somewhere; the point is editors understanding the rules, not who gets to enforce them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

      No. Neither below, nor what you said gets at it. What actually matters is that it is the predicate for expanded sole-power given to 1000s of admins over a particular person, and it functions as a pause, no matter who places it or what it says. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

      It can't actually serve that function when most DS/alerts are added by non-admins, which seems to be the case. I've only seen an actual admin leave one a few times, and they were usually doing it not as admins but as

      WP:INVOLVED participants in the discussion that triggered the desire to post the template. "Drive-by" admin Ds/alert is a rare thing. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

      😼 22:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I already went over why it serves the function of causing pause even in the case where that admin was not the one to give it in my first post. And the notice is the only built in pause before the admin action. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

It's not clear to me why you think it matters more to the admin considering action whether the template was delivered by a bot because the editor was editing in that topic area a lot, or because I dropped it off, without comment, for exactly the same reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Because when an editor does the alert, the Admin has a built in systematic prompt to investigate and think about, 'why?'. Editor interaction is key, and keyed. There is no why with a bot, the bot just did what it was programmed to do -- leading to, as others note, unthinking programmatic alert litter, and alert litter that is likely to raise alarm and turn-off, no matter how worded, except perhaps in the most experienced, and for them, they will be turned-off by, and resent the littering, itself. In short, if you have a message for me, come tell me what your message is, and we can discuss it, don't tell me I have to take meaning from a bot. The bot's telling me, 'beep, boop', which is meaningless. Either you are serious about alerting me about something you think I am unaware of, or you are not, and a bot can only suggest you're never serious, and that it has no capacity to think about what I need to know. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:15, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support in combination with making the template look less like a Final Warning Before Summary Execution. If it's made clear that this is merely a heads-up that you are editing in an area with some special rules, then I don't see any downsides. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Strong support. The template's line "It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date" is effectively a lie: that is how the template is used, and of course that's how the template will be interpreted, for naive newbies and irate experienced editors alike, and in neither situation will it calm the situation down. Having a bot neutrally place a simpler and less aggressive message automatically would be a big improvement.
  The wording of the new template and the exact parameters (number of non-trivial edits and time period) are obviously worth debating, but I am confident we would come to a consensus which would avoid the situation where a newbie makes an uncontroversial edit to a page tangentially related to a DS and gets a warning slapped on their talk page. Conditions like adding a welcome message if it's the first edit to their talk would also help this situation. Both of these have been taken into consideration in the very well-thought through proposal, so I am very happy to support it. — Bilorv_(c)(talk) 19:23, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose In the abstract I support the idea — DS are in place, this is the sort of thing that should be easy to do automatically (see Bellezzasolo's arb.js) — but in practice I'm not sure this is a good idea. For one, even as suggested via minor edits and some well-researched/well-designed limits, this will sweep up a lot of passing editors. That's not inherently a bad thing, except yes, the notice is scary. If I do a double-take whenever I see one, the average editor (new or otherwise) will likely do the same. Yes, the notice should be made less scary, and that's incorporated above, but that's putting the cart before the horse; I wouldn't want to support this until at the very least the notice was less scary. Folks who have never heard of ArbCom but listened to a podcast or caught some breaking news and want to help improve the 'pedia are likely to be most affected or turned off, and that's a problem. Alex Shih's idea of only certain, especially-contentious areas is reasonable, and might be enough to have me change my views here. There will be a lot of questions, and nobody to take responsibility for them. Fully in the realm of the Committee, and they are free to take this if they like, but completely fine if they do not. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. If anyone wants to discourage new users from editing Wikipedia, this is it. This is really a frightening message. Edit at your own risk and expect what? Consider someone who just started editing and has no idea how DS and administrative noticeboards work. Few to none users are sanctioned each year in most areas covered by DS. In other subject areas (like Eastern Europe), 95% contributors have no trouble and will hardly ever appear at WP:AE. Areas like ARBPIA or Syrian war? Yes, maybe. Try this in ABPIA and see what happens. But I strongly doubt this is going to help. My very best wishes (talk) 19:53, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. While I sympathize with the proposal, I think it can be easy for experienced editors to fail to appreciate the discouraging effect that any kind of warning can have on newcomers. Even if it is well worded, I think it is still very likely to make some editors fear they have done something wrong or are perhaps getting close to doing something wrong. And even for those who don't take it that way, it can still make them wary of editing in the affected area, and we should not be discouraging newcomers. I think the only people who need to be alerted of DS sanctions are those who appear to be in danger of breaching them. Good editors working constructively in a DS-affected area have no need to even know about them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  So why do thousands of pages and their talk pages have DS editnotices and banners? Can you show that these are driving editors away? The only reason this proposal exists is that ArbCom illogically refuses to accept those notices as "awareness", only user talk page ones. We can't have it both ways. Something has to give, in the direction of

  WP:Common sense, one way or another. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

  😼 22:23, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  I'm sure you understand perfectly well that there's a big difference between an alert on an article talk page and on a user talk page, and that we should be far more careful with the latter (which can overflow into apparent biting where the former does not). Also, I honestly don't think that badgering every opposer (while continuously banging on about an apparent grievance with ArbCom) is doing you any favours. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  It's not a difference that's easy to define, and it may have more to do with the wording of the template. People almost invariably react much more negatively to a Ds/alert than they do to other process-mandatory templates like {{Uw-3rr}}, {{ANI-notice}}, {{Socksuspectnotice}}, etc. Why is that? I've addressed your "badgering" accusation elsewhere [2]. Noting that old process hasn't been working and opening an RfC instead isn't a "grievance", it's moving past the roadblock to get stuff done. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose because it is not possible to algorithmically determine which edits are and are not a substantive interaction with the content of a page. New page patrollers, copyeditors, those who perform similar gnomish edits, and those doing admin tasks on an article (edit requests, XfD implementations, oversight, reverting vandalism, etc) will inevitably just get spammed with notices for pretty much every topic that's under DS sooner or later. These notices will just be ignored as spam, and so despite having received a notice they will not actually be aware. The separate problems of biting new users is also a showstopper - as well explained by others. This is not the first time automatic delivery has been proposed (it comes up quite regularly when arbcom discusses the DS system in any way) and these problems have been raised every time, yet there is still no evidence that anyone in favour of the proposal has even put much thought into them, let alone come up with practical and workable solutions to them that wont themselves cause other issues. Finally I'm sceptical that the problem the OP on this occasion intends to solve is actually a problem that needs solving. Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  This and most other opposes are predicated on the idea that Ds/alert is a warning for bad behavior, when ArbCom has repeatedly disavowed this interpretation and insisted they are just notices that different rules apply to the topic area in question. How is awareness of this fact a harm to the editor – new, gnoming, or deeply involved? And what biting of new users? An explicit part of the proposal is excluding new editors from the notices. It looks like you're responding to your idea of what is proposed based on memory of what someone else once proposed, rather than on what is actually proposed now. The fact that ArbCom keeps ignoring community input about DS and its problems just because it's kinda hard doesn't mean that ArbCom is right, it means they need to listen. (Especially given the frequency with which they're poised to sanction editors for not listing to the community input of other editors. There is no "I'm an Arb, ergo immune to IDHT" clause.) The raising of a technical challenge does not mean the challenge is insurmountable, nor that it must be surmounted with absolute perfection. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support variant During the last review (2013 I think) a major goal was to reduce BATTLE mentality is passing these things out. Some argued then that the only way to achieve that goal was UBIQUITY... make sure everyone gets them. Opposes here generally group into (A) false belief they are still about warning for bad behavior, (B) ignoring the skills of our bot-filter programmers some argue it would would create oceans of spam for trivial or gnomish edits, (C) some correctly point out that some articles are obviously in the topic area ("global warming" falls under
  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk
  ) 08:10, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • ANOTHER TWEAK, Create an opt-in "HandHolder" service..... for any topic area, invite editors to volunteer to be the desinated go-to editor(s) when people get a notice and have questions. Design the notice to steer them to these volunteers. Tell the bot to run only when there are volunteers to receive such inquiries. Needs a reporting system so people whos questions go unanswered have a recourse.
    NewsAndEventsGuy (talk
    ) 08:19, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    • @
      Teahouse? Folks there can explain what DS are, even if not the precise delimitations of each DS topic area. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me}
      08:37, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
      • @
        NewsAndEventsGuy (talk
        ) 10:19, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
        • @
          NewsAndEventsGuy
          : Three points.
          1. I am not convinced by
             WP:AFC instead. I do not know how much burden this added to AFC reviewers, but as a regular Teahouse respondent, I can say we are not drowning in AFC-related questions; maybe the number increased, but by no way does it swamp the TH. We are talking about 150 to 200 AfC submissions per day
             , most of those being as many unique editors. Let's say that editors notified for DS are three times as likely to go to the designated help forum than AfC submitters; a similar level of "flooding" would be reached with 50 DS notifications per day. Does that look like a realistic number? (I suspect not, though I really do not know.)
          2. Assume for the sake of the argument that there would be so large number of daily DS complaints/questions, that it could not be managed on the HD/TH (I would say the order of magnitude would be at least 20/day.) Do you really think a new process ("HandHolders") would absorb that number of queries smoothly? Said otherwise, if the established TH/HD that run relatively well cannot handle it, I doubt you can easily set up something that can. Many of Wikipedia's stalled processes would run well if only we could recruit interested topic area specialists, but the thing is that's hard.
          3. Same assumption, and let's say that above N notifications per day, the TH/HD get swamped by angry DS-notified editors. Easy solution: set up the bot to send at most N or N/2 or something notifications per day. In that case the bot will not solve the problem, but it will still be helpful: I have a very hard time believing that number would be below 100/day, and even 10/day would be well enough to justify a bot. You can tweak the numbers, but there will pretty much always be an intermediate area between "bot does nothing and is useless" and "bot sends numerous crowds to storm help forums".

        What I am trying to say here is that your argument rests on unspecified numbers and I strongly suspect your implicit assumptions on those numbers are wrong. I am ready to change my mind if you have evidence to provide, of course. Qualitative arguments could be made (e.g. that TH/HD respondents are not qualified enough to handle specific DS questions, or that notified editors would be very angry and break the TH friendly atmosphere) but the quantitative one seems dubious to me. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

        • Keeping a volunteer base engaged is a very difficult task. I think it will be easier to keep Teahouse participants involved with explaining discretionary sanctions than to keep a separate volunteer group active to just explain discretionary sanctions. isaacl (talk) 14:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

  @

  NewsAndEventsGuy: I've added both of these ideas to the list of potential implementation details in the RfC text. You have correctly divined that the inspiration for the RfC goes back to the 2013 community review of DS (and what that review did not fix, and the same community sense that these should not be handed out as threats/warnings but evenly). I just didn't want to mire the proposal in old news; wading through that material could take someone hours. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

  😼 20:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are vast topic areas that fall under the DS regime, and within them there are huge number of editord that make a large number of problematic edits, but only a fraction of those editors get dragged to
  WP:AE, and that's a good thing: this procedure is meant to be used when everything else has failed. Yes, the way they're currently issued (typically between editors who are annoyed at each other after not getting along in the discussions), the DS alerts are usually pretty hostile, but that is a side effect of them being a sort of last resort. If everyone got the alerts, then the message would get diluted. And I'm not comfortable with the idea of new editors getting exposed to the DS system from step one: raising awareness is generally not a bad thing, but here this might deter cautious editors from contributing to articles and it might encourage others to go straight for AE level litigation instead of first trying to discuss things on the talk pages. Also, the implementation issues are not minor at all: 1) how will the bot select the articles? Because the vast majority of articles under DS are not tagged in any way, the bot will be of limited use unless significant editor time gets syphoned into tagging the articles; 2) how will the bot select the editors to warn? This is not as staightforward as it seems: take reverts for example, how will the bot tell if it's the routine everyday reverting of vandalism and test edits or the persistent POV reverts without which a large portion of existing sanctions wouldn't have been imposed? – Uanfala (talk)
  19:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  @

  WP:AWB job (and should get done anyway). Even if it didn't get done, that wouldn't affect the utility of the proposal; its coverage would simply be incomplete, while it would remain better than nothing. (There are also sections, even sentences, that are technically covered by DS, in larger articles that are not as a whole, but that's too fine-grained a thing to automate, or even for most human editors to figure out. This proposal isn't meant to be some kind of year 2118 AI, ha ha. Just to work well enough for our purposes.) 2) They're not warnings, they're notices that different rules apply to the topic. Editors would receive the alerts based on frequency of editing at pages subject to DS, as mentioned in the proposal. The exact specifics of that would be determined in a later discussion. Anti-vandalism edits are typically detectable by a number of means, including tool-created edit summaries, being reverts of recent changes by anons or new accounts, and so on. And we could just exclude all small edits. Detection would not be perfect, but there is no harm in a vandal-fighting editor being simply made aware of DS at a topic, anyway. It's not like our vandalism fighters at American politics pages are the trolls over at Israel/Palestine disputes! I hope this addresses your concerns.
  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

  😼 02:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose I have not seen sufficient evidence that it is necessary, and in particular that it won't cause more harm than good, especially given the multiple concerns noted by people above. I'd note that the 'side benefits' are sometimes of limited relevance. For example, if people see the notification as coming across too harsh, it can be modified without having to implement bot notification. It's possible that bot notification given the impersonal nature will further reduce incorrect 'warning' perceptions of the notification. OTOH bots are used for plenty of minor warnings so I'm not convinced of even this. (Really a good solution would be if people deliver notifications to their own 'side'. It's rather sad if people aren't willing to do this and although we can't force them to, if it's not going to happen it does indicate why the whole thing is such a royal mess.) I do agree that the yearly notification requirement may be a bit excessive. I can understand why we don't want people who barely edit in general, and only ever edited a DS topic once 4 years ago and were notified and then edit now again to be taken as notified. But if someone has been editing almost non stop in DS areas, and is bringing DS cases and warning people themselves in the very area, it's a little silly to suggest they need a notification themselves every year. The advantage with bright lines is it avoids needless wikilawyering and disputes. The disadvantage is it creates odd situations like this. At the very least, it may be worth considering expanding it to 2 years with re-notification every 1 year considered completely acceptable i.e. it's not the case that you effectively should notify someone exactly every year to avoid being seen as badgering while ensuring someone has been notified. The requirement for personal notification itself seems reasonable, and I do not believe we should do away with it. As a final comment, I have to say I agree with others that this silly arbcom is useless or evil shtick is incredibly offputting. I believe I've successfully put it aside, but it's definitely not doing the support side any favours. Leave the politics out of it Nil Einne (talk) 07:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support Nine times out of ten the notice is given by someone who is a dispute with the editor. At worst it is an attempt to scare the other editor into submission. Often it just escalates the issue. Having a bot deliver them takes away the personal implications of the notice and puts everyone editing on a equal footing. It also ensures editors that should be aware are aware of the sanctions and we don't get the silly games of a disruptive editor escaping sanctions because somoene forgot to warn them within twelve months. This is a good step and a well thought out proposal. AIRcorn (talk) 07:40, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support. This is a good idea, and we can hammer out the details to prevent specific things that we don't want happening. No reason this shouldn't go through; hopefully it won't be shot down by people opposing on "What about this?" grounds that we've already said can be dealt with effectively. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:33, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Comment that is neither support nor opposition: SMcCandlish, if you want to do this, then you should consider doing it manually for a while. By that, I mean you should write the part of the bot that would figure out who to deliver an "alert" to, but instead of posting the templates, it should just post the list of names (ideally with the diffs that demonstrate the reason for delivering the template). Then you can review it to see whether you think it's worth delivering manually yourself. If you do that for a while, and especially if you follow up to see what's happened to those editors a month or two later, then you would have a much clearer idea of its effects. As it stands, I think that the uncertainty (How many people? What kind? Will they stop editing?) is generating a portion of the opposition. On a related point, for anyone interested in the wording of the template, please see Template talk:Ds/Archive 1. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support I agree with those above that bot delivery would make the template much less jarring and remove the implication of wrongdoing. Many of the oppose comments seem to indicate that the template should imply wrongdoing (i.e. non-problematic editors shouldn't receive it), which directly contradicts
  WP:AC/DS#Alerts. On a related note, the template should really be redesigned to make it look like it really is just an FYI. (I would like to preface this last comment by saying that it is not my intention to cast aspersions on the Arbitration Committee.) I also feel that the Committee's choice to prohibit the use of bots to deliver the notice before this discussion concluded creates the appearance that their minds are already made up on this issue. It seemed clear to me that this proposal was not going to have instantaneous effect in any case, so I don't know why the Committee didn't wait for the discussion to run its course. Gluons12 ^☢|☕
  22:47, 8 July 2018 (UTC).
• Support Alternative Note... I support a variant of the proplosal as described earlier in this thread. Today I had a new idea. Once again, the goal of the original post is (entirely? partly?) to reduce icky feelings on the part of editors who receive the template. Another way to try to do the same thing is to institutionalize the technique I have been using - before I give the templtae to someone else, I make sure its on my own talk page. If not I first "alert" myself, then the other party. Then if someone is irked I follow up with "Its just a no fault FYI, and as you can see, I posted the same dang thing to my own talk page. Its no big deal, just a "be advised" FYI thing." If we adopted this as a prerequisite to giving the notice that might reduce the false impressions of badge of shame --- and notice that it would serve this purpose for both the giver as well as the receiver.
  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk
  ) 00:53, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

  That seems reasonable, but I doubt people would comply. They already don't read the template instructions. E.g., virtually no one appears to be aware (ha ha) that delivering the notice constitutes alerting oneself (which it does). So a requirement to literally deliver oneself the same template is going to go unseen and ignored. Maybe there's a technical solution to that, like an edit filter that doesn't allow the template to be saved on a talk page without the same template having been delivered in the same year to oneself? I'm skeptical our scripting is that capable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:27, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

  Currently, our edit filters can only analyze a single edit, not series of edits by the same editor or edits to other pages. This would fall outside the technical capabilities of our edit filters. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 08:42, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

  @

  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk

  ) 11:09, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

  @

  NewsAndEventsGuy: The behavior you describe is not technically possible using the edit filter extension at this time. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk

  11:41, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

  Well, it ((is)) called "software development"..... Where there's a will, there's always a way.

  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk

  ) 17:23, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support I don't really get involved in such topics that might have sanctions, but I do feel that a bot should deliver the alert so that it is neutral and everybody knows of it. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 10:45, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support this is an elegant solution to a real problem. Having an bot deliver the template makes this come across as information rather than a threat. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 11:20, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose until the warnings are we-written. The current warning is scary and not very clear. L293D (☎ • ✎) 13:07, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

  @L293D: That's actually happening right now at Template talk:Ds, if you're interested.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support as per proposer. Waddie96 (talk) 15:22, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
• Suport — per proposal; automating discretionary sanctions notice delivery would be extremely efficient.
  Regards, SshibumXZ (Talk) (Contributions). 15:43, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support It removes the tendency to only see them issued as an extension of content dispute, also it means (and yes I have seen this) you do not get a situation where you are told "do not issue warnings on my talk page". It removes the impression (from either direction) of unfairness.Slatersteven (talk) 09:14, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support When I was a new editor I did quite a bit of work on some articles in my range of interest. Those edits have never been subject to any kind of challenge (I was reasonably summarising RS) & still stand. Then, due to something unrelated to my work on the page, I checked a new Talk Page edit & saw the Discretionary Sanctions for the first time. I haven't edited in that topic area since. Sometimes Arbitration seems so 'big' that 'everyone' must know about it. Many editors don't keep up with it. Bot messages are a very sensible way to go. (But re-wording the current message, if bot delivered under situations outlined by OP, is something I strongly agree with). AnonNep (talk) 14:04, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support the idea for sure. I fear the devil may be in the detail, but I think the idea is excellent, it would definitely de-personalise the issue to some degree. Hiding T 07:49, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. An attempt to fix a broken fix, making everything even worse. Discretionary sanctions might be OK as a rare, editor-specific, management plan. As a method of governing the project, it is overreach, turning the place into a police state. Bot delivered notices that you are being watched. Bot delivery means no discretion, no human-human interaction. So many notices means they are not a patch job, but the current state of affairs. Why not deliver to every talk page? If anyone has does anything bad, they were warned, stop wasting time with chances. Discussion? collegiality? Respect? Consensus? Arb Com, "broadly construed", delegated authority to any one week drama board to create new police state policy? No, it is the wrong way. Go back.

If discretionary sanctions are not working, learn from it. Find another solution. Other solutions include: (1) let the page quality break, and leave it for ordinary editors to fix. High power methods to fix the latest problems is robbing ordinary editors of their role in maintaining the community. (2) Pending revisions. (3) Semi protection.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support. Editors should be made aware of Wikipedia's policies when they are editing articles. This is particularly important for new editors who delve into controversial topics. If the standard message is confusing or intimidating, we should be improving the message, not withholding or hiding the information from the editors. The best way to determine how to improve the message is to implement this proposal and gather feedback from editors who would be served the alert. — Newslinger talk 22:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • That is far more intrusive and patronising and approach than requiring registration to edit, more than requiring identification such as by email or telephone number, before allowing editing. Now that I am watching Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Blockchain_and_cryptocurrencies, the section “Log of notifications” increasing looks like a shame list. And watching users usertalk pages, I am increasingly seeing “discretionary sanctions” notifications, which read as a cold cautionary slap, applied by an editing opponent when the user has become engaged in some issue. It is chilling. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:30, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration discretionary sanctions motion: community comments invited

An arbitration motion has been proposed that would clarify that editors are not permitted to use automated tools or bot accounts to issue discretionary sanctions alerts. The community is encouraged to review and comment on the motion. For the Arbitration Committee,

Discuss this at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Motion: Discretionary Sanctions

Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 19:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Read it. Has nothing to do with this RfC, only with whether an existing tool can deliver Ds/alert without human approval for each save: "alerts are expected to be manually given at this time." — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:39, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  Don't be so disingenuous, of course it's about this RFC - it says so in the very first sentence! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 04:58, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  Mentioning the RfC, and having been coughed up in response to it, doesn't mean it substantively addresses anything in the RfC, which it does not. I'm encouraged that a few Arbs so far are also taking the opportunity to make it clear that they'll take the RfC comments seriously, but the motion was a bad move, a knee-jerk reaction. It was unclearly worded, sowing more confusion than it has resolved (and which is still ongoing over there). I'm hardly the only one to say so. People who want to comment on this RfC should not be diverted from it by that motion, which is primarily of interest only to people who are already using or working on tools that use ArbCom-related templates in a semi-automated fashion, such as User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  As my personal opinion, quite possibly not shared by any of the other arbs, I think the use of DS is overextended as is, incomprehensible to newcomers, unclear and desputed even to the experienced, and sometimes likely to lead to secondary conflict. A proposal to increase or automate the warnings would make it even worse, and is going in exactly the wrong direction. Arb com has in practice I think used this as a technique for avoiding dealing directly with problems itself by letting other people do the actual dirty work. I have sometimes voted for such a remedy myself as the most practical alternative when there is need to make a decision, but I have never been happy about the need to do so. As an admin, on the other hand, I have never used DS or any other form of AE, and never intend to. DGG ( talk ) 02:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

  @DGG: Thank you for being forthright about that. It's nice to get a straight answer from the ArbCom direction. :-)— Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs)

• The motion does not affect the tool mentioned above whatsoever. It does mean any consensus here will not take immediate effect, and will instead be advisory to the Committee. As stated right in the motion, we take this feedback seriously and look forward to reviewing it. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

  That's good to hear.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• It's weird that the motion solicited community comment then was hatted during a major holiday for the largest group of editors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:36, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Update: that motion has already closed (we're told it was actually written before it was publicly opened.)
  There's renewed discussion: at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests#Further community input on suddenly closed "Motion: Discretionary Sanctions".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:10, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.